Music technology author and lecturer Stephen Bennett casts an expert eye over Steinberg’s Cubase 11…

What is it?
The latest version of Steinberg’s venerable Digital Audio Workstation

What’s great?
Useful new features, workflow improvements and bug fixes. Multi-platform availability.

What’s not?
It can appear complex for the new user.

The bottom line:
A ‘no brainer’ upgrade

The verdict
Each release of Cubase brings with it, new features and better ways of undertaking those boring administrative tasks that face all composers and engineers. The latest iteration Cubase 11 is no exception, and It comes, as usual, in three flavours to suite budget and application— Elements, Artist and the subject of this review, the full-fat Pro version.

Cubase 11 continues to bundle more features that you would have, until recently, paid good money for from a third-party company. The Imager is a fully featured stereo processor which allows you to adjust the stereo spread of your audio in four discrete, variable width, frequency bands. A Goniometer displays the effect of the processing and each band has a volume control so you can balance the various levels of each band. I used it to narrow the midrange on some stereo drum tracks, which created a decent stereo spread on the cymbals and toms whilst keeping the rest of the kit fairly mono for a punchier sound. It also worked really well on Keyboards, moving the sonic clutter out of the way of the vocals without using EQ. Speaking of meters, the new Super Supervision is a customisable, fully featured audio analyser plug-in that provides you with full visual metering of level, phase, spectral content and waveforms. I’m old enough to remember when you were lucky to get a VU meter on each channel, so this kind of thing feels like luxury to me.

The new Frequency 2 EQ is an 8-band parametric with some interesting extras lurking under its virtual hood. It has all the conventional features you’d expect from a parametric (variable Q and filter slopes, peak, notch, band, high and low pass filters) while each band can be controlled by an external sidechain. The EQ can work as a ‘normal’ or linear-phase EQ and appeared fairly transparent in action in both modes—it’s not a ‘colour’ EQ. What really makes Frequency 2 special though, is the addition of dynamic EQ. This effectivity works as a frequency-based compressor, working dynamically on the frequencies dialled in. There are familiar Ratio, Arrack and Release controls to fine-tune the processing and I find that this type of EQ is really useful when trying to reduce the effects of unwanted frequencies without changing the overall tonal balance of the audio. It’s a more surgical process than multi-band compression and Cubase 11’s version works well and doesn’t damage the audio in any way.

The Sampler track is slowly being developed into a fully-fledged slicing/loop creation tool. You can slice the audio at controllable transient points, while the Fades and Slicing by grid controls are really useful for cutting up your audio—and you can create your own transients too. Slices are spread across the MIDI keyboard for instant playback or you can drop the MIDI data directly into a Project. Slices can be played back at different ‘qualities’, which gives you plenty of sonic options with your loops. The Vintage mode attempts to emulate that grainy sound we love from old samplers and drum machines. The Legato mode supresses retriggering and, in conjunction with the Glide control, is really useful for creating monophonic TB303-type bass lines and leads. You could spend a lifetime creating music in the new Sampler track.

The creation of stems has become very important in music production and dubbing, a situation exacerbated during the pandemic-induced isolation. Bouncing stems in some competitor DAWs, such as Logic Pro X, is extremely time-consuming, so it’s good to see that Steinberg has addressed this process in Cubase 11. You can queue stems—and many more types of audio files—for batch rendering. It’s also possible to export separate cycle marker sections—which is going to be very useful for those that work in post-production.

There are so many new features in Cubase 11 that this brief review just hasn’t space to cover them all, but the ones described here are worth the price of admission alone. The Squasher compressor (think three-band ‘all buttons in’ 1176), improved Key and Score editors, a new Scale editor and the addition of a cut down Spectralayers editor demonstrates that Steinberg continue to innovate. if you’re coming from another DAW, I think you’ll be impressed at how much Cubase 11 allows you to achieve and just how easily it allows you to achieve it.

Available now – Pro: £499 ($660), Artist £284 ($376), Elements £85 ($113). Various upgrade prices from earlier versions. www.steinberg.net

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Berklee College of Music has partnered with Steinberg to integrate the company’s Cubase 10 digital audio workstation (DAW) software into its curriculum.

Beginning this fall term, Berklee’s Film Scoring Department will introduce Cubase 10 into both its on-campus course offerings using 100 licenses provided by Steinberg, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yamaha Corporation.

Faculty members spearheading the software’s introduction cited its suitability for a learning environment, along with movement in the DAW market showing Cubase trending as an increasingly influential contender, as primary drivers for selecting Steinberg.

“It’s a great piece of software, a really powerful tool,” said Sean McMahon, incoming chair of the Film Scoring Department at Berklee. “Cubase does a great job of getting out of the way and allowing a composer to be creative. Secondly, it seems the industry is moving more and more toward Cubase, and for that reason alone it’s worth switching; it’s important to be compatible with peers.”

Initially the software will be incorporated into Berklee’s student labs, studios and learning resource areas, and made available to the school’s faculty and support staff. In the next phase of integration, Cubase will be used by and taught to students in the Film Scoring Department as their principal instrument of composition. The College expects to grow the initiative’s footprint and to secure additional Cubase licenses, as well as considering a similar curriculum expansion at a later date involving the integration of Cubase with Dorico, Steinberg’s musical notation software suite.

“This is really a historic event for us, a real sea change,” McMahon added. “We’ve never made such a dramatic switch in the main tool for our students since we’ve been using DAW or sequencer software in our curriculum, so this is a big first for us.”

Nithin Cherian, product marketing manager for Yamaha Professional Audio, commented, “It’s rewarding to be part of molding the next generation of recording and composition professionals, and music education has always been a crucial component of the Steinberg mission. An institution as respected as Berklee College of Music is an ideal partner in this objective, and we’re gratified they have selected Steinberg as the DAW best suited to prepare their students for the professional world.”

https://www.berklee.edu/ 

https://www.steinberg.net/

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Stephen Bennett rounds up all the new features in the latest version of Steinberg’s renowned DAW, which turns 30 years old this year…

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2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the first version of Steinberg’s venerable Digital Audio Workstation. Cubase was the first DAW to combine MIDI and audio recording with virtual instruments and effects, and VST is a Steinberg technology which the company sensibly opened out for the use of other companies. Version 10 is the latest iteration – we seem to get a new version each year at the moment – and comes in various flavours to suit differing applications and budgets. This review covers the features of Cubase Pro 10, with Artist 10 and Elements 10 versions also available, each featuring a subset of features, with discounted updates for long-time users.

Version 10 is more of an evolution of Cubase rather than offering any radical change, though there are some important new features and workflow improvements in the update. For those wanting to dip their feet into the Cubase pond, there’s also a trial version available from the Steinberg website.

My first automated mixing system didn’t have any detailed control over level changes – the SSL 4000 E being a tad out of my budget! Instead, you could take ‘snapshots’ of the state of the mixer and recall these, one by one, using MIDI timecode information as the song progressed. Cubase 10 kind of reflects back to this idea, but in a more sophisticated form. MixConsole snapshots save the current state of the mixing console for instant recall. You can add production notes to these snapshots and decide which parts of a mix (EQ, levels, individual tracks etc.) to recall. It’s a doddle to use and makes the production and managing of different mixes easier, which is extremely important for today’s ‘just in time’ production workflow.

Currently, snapshots don’t save plug-in automation – which could limit their use if you commonly automate these functions – but I hope Steinberg add this feature soon. The channel strip has been revised both in appearance and ergonomics and there are some changes in the appearance of windows and dialogue boxes, most of which won’t faze experience Cubasists one bit. You can now drag and drop VST effects and instruments onto tracks and grab an image of your third-party software to display when selected – those supplied with Cubase already have these. The colour palletes and Add Track dialogue boxes are now ‘floating’ and so make small but important improvements in workflow, as do draggable mixer channel strips. The bundled plug-ins have received some cosmetic improvements and are now a lot nicer to use on higher-resolution displays.

The new Auto Alignment feature allows you to line up tracks to a reference in a similar fashion to automated ADR software such as VocALign. For music uses, being able to quickly align backing vocals or percussion will really speed things up. Although Cubase isn’t usually the first DAW you’d turn to for post-production – though there have been some improvements for those who are composing for film – it’s useful to have the facility and it works extremely well. The choice of Time Stretching or Shifting Alignment makes it extremely useful for lining up multi-miked instruments and correcting phase issues.

Speaking of pitch ‘n time processing, Cubase’s VariAudio has received a significant algorithm upgrade and can really compete with third-party solutions. You can change the pitch, position, formant and volume of the separate audio ‘blobs’ without recourse to menus or modifier keys. It’s extremely easy to use and the quality is right up there with Auto-Tune and Melodyne – though it lacks the latter’s polyphonic editing modes. Steinberg says that Audio Random Access 2 (ARA 2) support – which effectively allows Melodyne to work ‘natively’ in Cubase – is imminent. The programme also provides more information about how it compensates for latency, which may or may not be important depending on how you work.

There’s a nice new distortion/audio degradation plug-in, Distroyer, which has an unusual spatial setting alongside the usual filters and overdrive. There are new loops available and the bundled Groove Agent SE 5 has been improved. From the start, Cubase took rhythm programming seriously and most other DAWs still don’t provide a percussion tool as good as the program’s Drum Editor window. Groove Agent SE 5 is the ‘lite’ version of Steinberg’s answer to the likes of FXpansion’s BFD. It now supports 32 velocity layers and the new bundled acoustic samples, called ‘The Kit’, sound very good indeed, as do the new ‘Laser Beams’ electronic sounds that you’ll be using in the ‘Beat Agent’ editor.

You can also add your own samples. It’s pretty easy to create excellent sounding electronic or acoustic backings for your work, especially with the quality of the effects on offer in the Groove Agent mixer, and you can now export these settings to the Cubase main mixer. Even though I almost always replace sampled percussion with what we laughingly call ‘real drummers’, I find being able to create realistic sounding demos helps to inspire during composition and gives my drumming colleagues some idea of how I want a song to sound. For this application, Groove agent SE 5 gives me pretty much all I need.

Cubase 10 now supports MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) which is good news for those using controllers such as the ROLI seaboard: I really hope we are at the cusp of a polyphonic after-touch explosion! There has been some tweaking to the audio engine and the program felt snappier than 9.5 on my ancient Mac Pro. Cubase now supports the AAF transfer format alongside OMF, which should make collaboration with colleagues using different DAWs easier. With a nod to the future, Cubase offers tools that will be useful to virtual and augmented reality and ‘immersive audio’ producers.

This VR production suite consists of a series of plug-ins, a third-order Ambisonics bus, an HMD connector for head tracking, a tool for creating binaural audio from non-binaural sources and a VR panning device, which is included in the VST Multipanner plug-in. In all, it’s a comprehensive package, and with this particular area of audio production receiving a lot of attention right now, it’s good to see Steinberg taking this field seriously.

Most contemporary DAWs are mature products with each iteration bringing incremental improvements in ergonomics, while features and specifications are swapped between products like genes between bacteria. Sometimes, as in Cubase 10’s case, looking to the past has brought improvements in workflow. If you’re a Cubase 9.5 user, the version 10 update is, as we say, a ‘no brainer’ and will feel familiar under the mouse right away. If you’re coming to Cubase for the first time, the software continues to improve and has become a powerful cross-platform audio production and composition tool that will provide for most users all of the features necessary for whatever area of audio they work in, from electronic dance music to composition for film. It’ll be interesting to see what Steinberg do with their best-selling product as it moves into its early thirties.

Key Features

– Audio Alignment tool for syncing stacked recordings

– MixConsole snapshots for immediate store and recall

– Completely redesigned channel strip

– Includes Steinberg Virtual Reality production suite

RRP: £480

www.steinberg.net

The Reviewer

Stephen Bennett has been involved in music production for over 30 years. Based in Norwich, he splits his time between writing books and articles on music technology, recording and touring, and lecturing at the UEA.

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The March edition of Audio Media International is now available online.

In this issue, Colby Ramsey speaks to the owner of Beechpark Studios, a Dublin-based studio that is celebrating its 25th anniversary against the backdrop of AES this month.

Meanwhile, Grammy nominated singer/songwriter John Parr gives AMI the inside story about his studio Somewhere In Yorkshire, Daniel Wray talks to British punk producer, engineer and mixer Nick Launay about his 40 years in the business, and NUGEN Audio’s co-founder and now CEO gives us some insights about the company’s journey so far.

Elsewhere in the mag, Rosewood Studios’ owner Ed Scull talks us through the dos and don’ts of building a studio, and WSDG’s Dirk Noy reveals all about the company’s Acoustic Simulation Lab in Basel, Switzerland.

As usual, an assortment of interesting opinion pieces can be found towards the front of the mag, while the back pages feature a number of cracking product reviews including Genelec, HEDD, Sennheiser and Cubase 10!

Read all this and more in the latest issue of AMI online, here.

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Steinberg’s Cubase has returned with a major new release that encompasses all three Pro, Artist and Elements editions.

Cubase 10 offers a number of new features and enhancements to its studio-grade audio and MIDI tools for composing, recording, editing and mixing.

VariAudio 3 allows for increased control of audio, with more creative tools and Smart Controls to speed workflow. MixConsole Snapshots instantly recall different project mixes and settings in order to quickly compare mixes and add mix notes, while an Audio Alignment feature lets users stack and match recordings quickly, easily synchronising them to a reference track.

A redesigned Channel Strip offers better metering and functionality, while users can easily set up side-chaining to make space in mixes or create distinctive effects.

Cubase 10 also includes 5GB of high-quality sounds and loops from six highly acclaimed producers. There has been ‘radical’ improvement of plug-ins workflow, with drag and drop functionality and improved display, while a new VR production suite adds a suite of professional virtual reality audio production tools.

“This version is a milestone in the innovational history of Cubase. With nearly 30 years to look back on, Cubase Pro 10 encompasses everything required from a DAW — no matter who you are, no matter what your background, no matter what your musical experience,” said Matthias Quellmann, senior marketing manager for Cubase.

The Cubase 10 editions are available from resellers and through the Steinberg Online Shop.

Various downloadable updates and upgrades, crossgrades, and education versions are exclusively available through the Steinberg Online Shop and the Steinberg website.

Customers who have activated Cubase 9.5 editions and earlier versions since October 15, 2018, are eligible for a free, downloadable Grace Period update to the latest respective version.

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In many ways, Steinberg’s Cubase is the grand-daddy (or-mammy) of all Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and it’s hard to believe that the first iterations of this pioneering software were developed for the Atari ST in the techno-prehistory days of 1989.

Each new version brings improvements and new features and Cubase 9.5 is no exception. As usual, the programme comes in several flavours that meet various requirements and price-points.

We’re looking here at the full-fat Cubase Pro in this review.

The headline change in version 9.5 is the move to a double-precision 64-bit mixing engine. I can’t say I’ve noticed any issues with the old worn-out 32-bit Cubase, but the extra headroom available should mean that you can stop worrying about the bits and more about the whole. The number of VST insert effects that you can use has doubled and you can instance these pre- or post-fader – but you can also dynamically adjust the mix between the two settings. I’m not sure how useful this will be yet, but you can’t fault Steinberg for giving you all the possible options! Automation gets an update with some easy-to use curve facilities and a new range tool that improves automation editing workflow. I’ve been waiting for something like Direct Offline Processing for a while as it allows you to non-destructively render plug-in chains – or events – to help de-stress your CPU, something that’s sorely required on my ageing Mac Pro. There are some new Zones as well – the Right Zone features a new file browser with preview facilities and the Control Room Zone that covers cue and monitoring mixes. There’s also a useful new section that displays information about the levels and loudness of your mixes.

One of the most important parts of a DAW is one that is often overlooked or difficult to use – or even find – yet one that is especially important for those of us that write music that strays beyond the one hundred and twenty beats, four-four norms. The new metronome in Cubase is brilliant and comes with its own accent editor, making it a doddle to get useful rhythmical assistance no matter what the subject matter of your concept album. As you may expect from the inventors of the Virtual Studio Technology, some of Cubase’s VSTs have been updated in version 9.5. The Vintage compressor and Tube compressor have received visual and sonic overhauls as has the Magneto tape saturator. I haven’t used the latter for a while, but I was surprised how useful it was to help ‘glue’ elements of a mix together. The compressors are easily as good as most third-party software offerings now, and lose little sonically in comparison to my UA 1176 hardware unit. They just sound different, is all.

The bundled HALion Sonic SE synthesiser plug-in is supplemented with the FLUX wavetable library. I had quite a bit of experience with early wavetable synthesisers, especially the PPG Wave, and Yamaha’s (and Dave Smith’s) Wavestation, but the wavetables available here and the processing offered are, compared to those veritable machines, akin to what Concord is to the Wright Brother’s Kitty Hawk. If you’re a film composer or sound effects editor, the library offers rich-sonic pickings that easily stands up in quality to some libraries costing the same as the upgrade to 9.5 alone.

One of the nice things about Cubase is that in each iteration, they appear to have listened to their user base in a way other competitors sometimes do not. An example of this is the new Adapt to Zoom feature. If you are – as I am – constantly zooming in and out during a session, it’s incredibly frustrating when you have to deal with different levels of resolution when moving things around. If you zoom in you want fine movement – zoom out and you want it more grid-snappy. Happily, this all happens automatically under the hood in version 9.5, and it has improved my editing workflow to no-end. There’s a new video engine that appears to be part of an ongoing project to improve video support for the ‘music with visual’ composers amongst us and tweaks to the Sampler track that was introduced in version 9. Support for the Softube 1 console hardware controller will be added in the next maintenence update, alongside a brace of ‘production presets’ you can use as jumping off points for your own work.

As Apple appear to be approaching the ‘no wires or ports’ paradigm for their computers, the day may soon come when many of us are forced to move to the Microsoft Windows platform. To those I say “do not be a-feared”. Cubase will be awaiting you with open arms, oodles of power and a familiar workflow.For those already using Cubase, the upgrade is essential, and for those using competitor DAWs or thinking of moving platforms, the unique features of Cubase will delight you. I suspect that version 10 will appear on the 30th anniversary of the software in 2018 and I’m looking forward to the undoubted surprises that Steinberg will have in store for us.

Key Features

• 64-bit mixing engine
• Direct Offline Processing
• Updated video engine
• New Automation range tool

RRP: £459.00 ($635)

Stephen Bennett has been involved in music production for over 30 years. Based in Norwich, he splits his time between writing books and articles on music technology, recording and touring, and lecturing at the University of East Anglia.

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The January/February issue of Audio Media International is available to read online now.

Our first issue of the year features an interview with EDM superstar Steve Aoki, who tells us about his music production techniques and reveals details of the gear he uses in his futuristic studio.

Women’s Audio Mission founder Terri Winston tells us how the organisation is striving for equality in the pro audio business and Colby Ramsey hears from renowned monitor engineer Matt Napier, who was most recently on the road for the North American leg of Roger Waters’ Us + Them tour.

Elsewhere in the magazine, Tokyo-based producer and sound experimentalist Goth-Trad explains his unique mixdown and mastering process for his dubplates.

As part of this special location recording issue, Murray Stassen chats with Nicholas O’Brien, who was recently tasked with recording audio on location in Nepal for Himalayas to Ocean, a programme about climate change, while Alistair McGhee reports on the latest developments within the field recording market. We also take a look at some of the most innovative location sound product offerings in our latest End User Focus.

Also inside, we review products from Focal, PreSonus, Soundcraft and Steinberg. And don’t forget to check out our previews for two of this season’s big industry trade shows!

Click here to read the latest edition of AMI.

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Steinberg has announced that the 9.5 updates to the Pro, Artist and Elements editions of Cubase are now available.

Reportedly “earlier than anticipated,” Steinberg is releasing this year’s update this month, “seizing the opportunity to introduce the additions to customers as soon as possible,” according to the company.

The key advancement around Cubase’s mixing capabilities is its new mixing engine with 64-bit floating-point resolution. Other features include new tabs; a newly integrated file browser; a new metering section for loudness and master signal levels and Control Room, all a part of the Right Zone. Another highlight is a Metronome with customisable click and the potential to assign different patterns to adjust to signature shifts in the Signature Track.

Other new features include advanced automation editing, now featuring smooth transition curves and detailed automation lanes, including the new Range tool that marks a range on the automation lane for simplified adjustment of the selection. The 9.5 versions of Pro and Artist have also doubled their insert slots, allowing users to add up to 16 VST effects directly to each audio track. The overhauled insert section also provides a flexible means for pre-fader or post-fader positioning, while Cubase Pro 9.5 also includes Direct Offline Processing, allowing events to be processed non-destructively while keeping the CPU load to a minimum.

Available to all three 9.5 updates, the Vintage Compressor and Tube Compressor VST processors boast a new GUI, while the redesigned Magneto tape saturator is exclusively available in Cubase Pro 9.5. The new FLUX wavetable synthesiser library, on the other hand, is new to HALion Sonic SE 3 in Cubase Pro 9.5 and Cubase Artist 9.5 only.

The new video engine is compatible with the most relevant codecs and external video cards. Adapt to Zoom is the latest zooming tool, making the grid snap adjust accordingly to the degree of zoom. Sampler Track enhancements include drag and drop of MIDI parts that are immediately rendered to audio as well as the new A/B mode for comparing different settings. The support of Softube’s Console 1 is another highlight that will soon be available, allowing the hardware controller to integrate deeply into Cubase.

Suggested retail prices are $579.99 for Cubase Pro 9.5, $329.99 for Cubase Artist 9.5 and $99.99 for Cubase Elements 9.5. Customers who have activated Cubase 9 (or earlier versions) since 18 October, 2017, are eligible for a free, downloadable grace period update to the latest versions, respectively.

www.steinberg.net

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Tascam has released US-1×2, a device that it describes as the ideal USB audio interface for entry-level users.

Small and lightweight with a user-friendly design, the new model features one microphone and one line/instrument input and an RCA unbalanced stereo analogue input as well as an RCA unbalanced analogue output.

It enables users to record or stream vocals and a single instrument or stereo source to the internet, or archive a cassette tape collection at up to 96 kHz/24 bit using virtually any major DAW software or recording app under Windows, macOS or iOS.

The US-1×2 features the company’s ultra-HDDA mic preamp with very low input noise and a high gain range of 57dB for dynamic mics as well as phantom power for condenser mics. Further features include latency-free direct monitoring, a headphones output with level control, stereo/mono input monitor modes and a mute switch on the software settings panel.

The interface can be operated in standalone mode for practice sessions when used with an external power supply, while a license for Cubase LE and Cubasis LE is also included.

The microphone preamp on the US-1×2 has a very low noise level with an EIN figure of –127 dBu, making it ideal for recording with condenser microphones. Users can also plug in an electric guitar or bass directly using the line/instrument input and use plug-in effects on DAW software, or connect any instrument amplifier’s line output to the line input of the US-1×2.

http://www.tascam.eu/

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Stephen Bennett investigates how the software for producers, composers and mixing engineers has moved on since its “black-and-white glory” days.

A couple of months ago, a colleague called me over to his house as he had something that he’d inherited that he thought I might be interested in seeing. It turned out to be an immaculate Atari 1040ST computer, complete with 1MB RAM, a 720KB floppy drive and a high-resolution SM-124 monochrome monitor. He also had a box of contemporary software so, after a few minutes of dongle connecting, whirring disks and an overwhelming wave of nostalgia, the Arrange page of Steinberg’s Cubase version 1 was onscreen in all its black-and-white glory.

In today’s mature Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) market, where the software capabilities and features of different companies’ products leapfrog each other version by version, it’s hard to recall how revolutionary this first version of Cubase was, with its real-time MIDI recording and editing and that now-ubiquitous Arrange page. We are two years from the 30th anniversary of the launch of Steinberg’s sophomore DAW and, I assume, the company is planning something special in celebration. In the meantime, Steinberg has released the subject of this review, Cubase version 9. If you wonder why we’re only on such a low number after so many years, don’t worry – the numbering system (on Atari, Mac and Windows versions) has been all over the place for decades in a way that Bill Gates would approve of. If you are a Cubase novice, you may want to look at the Version 8 review in the February 2015 issue of Audio Media International for an overview of the program before you go any further.

The specific version under scrutiny here is the Pro version – there is also Cubase Artist and Cubase Elements that sport fewer features at a lower cost, so you don’t end up having to pay extra for stuff you’ll never use. Cubase 9 runs on both OSX and Windows-based platforms and uses a serial number and USB e-licenser dongle-based authorisation system, which is easy and quick to use, and makes the software easily portable between machines. Steinberg now supplies a ‘universal’ installer that unlocks the correct version of the software purchased, which should make for a seamless and concurrent upgrade path for all versions of Cubase in future. For some, the headline difference between this and earlier versions of Cubase is that the program no longer supports 32-bit plug-ins. How important this is for you depends on whether your favourite software is available in 64-bit format – most major players now are – but that’s no help if the company that developed your essential VST compressor went out of business two Cubase versions ago. Version 9 now scans all plug-ins to see if they conform fully to VST 2 or 3 standards via the sci-fi-sounding Plug-in Sentinel – although the ones that fail the test can be re-enabled at the user’s own risk. Both these features, Steinberg says, should improve the stability of the program.

Let’s look at the layout

That main window of Cubase (now called the Project window) is where the changes in version 9 are most apparent. The Transport Zone is now located at the bottom of the screen and there have been differences in the main toolbar at the top as well. Steinberg want you to think of various areas of the program as Zones, so the racks and inspector are now the Right and Left Zones. This change is not purely semantic in nature, as we shall see, but it makes for an initially confusing experience for the seasoned Cubase user – but I’m sure we’ll get used to it in time. All toolbars are toggle-able in visibility as before and the various Zones are resizable. The reason for the Zone nomenclature is the appearance of a new feature – the Lower Zone – which displays, appropriately enough, on the lower part of the screen. The resizable Lower Zone features a series of tabs – all available via key commands – that display various sections of Cubase’s interface. The upshot of this is that most of Cubase’s day-to-day editing functions can now be accessed from a single screen. The MixConsole tab can display a choice of faders, inserts and sends, while the Editor tab can show any of the Cubase editors apart from the List editor. What data is displayed here depends on what is selected in the Project window and you can still get Cubase to open separate editor windows if you prefer. It’s obvious that the introduction of Lower Zones is aimed at those working on laptops, which is probably now the majority of users.

The other two Lower Zone editing tabs cover Chord Pads, Cubase’s creative MIDI arrangement tool, and the Sampler Track – a new feature. Dragging audio to a Sampler Track creates a MIDI-controllable sample that is mapped to MIDI note numbers – shades of Logic’s much-missed Touch Tracks here. You can perform basic editing of the audio on the Sampler track and apply the audio warp feature that affects sample speed, pitch and tempo synchronisation. There are also filters and envelope generators – in fact, everything you might find in a sophisticated soft-sampler. If that’s not enough you can, with a click, transfer the sample to HALion, Steinberg’s standalone VST sampler if you have it installed. It’s quick and intuitive to use and makes incorporating sampler-type effects into your music so simple I may start using them myself. It’s going to be a godsend for sound effects people.

Above: The Sampler Track

Quick fixes

Most DAWs have sophisticated undo/redo features but not always on the mixer itself, which can be a real pain if you move a fader accidentally or want to just try out some small mix changes. Cubase’s Mixer now has its own undo/history feature – similar but separate to the main Cubase one and most of the parameters that you’d want to undo when mixing are covered including volume, pan and plug-in modifications. Cubase 9 allows you to have multiple Marker tracks, which you may find very useful if you’re swapping between time and beat-based editing or just like to have different markers set up for different tasks. The ‘Link Project and Lower Zone Editor Cursors’ command links the zoom factors and horizontal scroll position of the Lower Zone and the Project window, while VST Connect SE 4 is Steinberg’s collaboration application that allows Cubase users to work with remote partners.

Aside from these workflow differences, Cubase 9 has a couple of new plug-ins and some parameter and visual tweaks to old favourites including Autopan, which now gains extra sync modes, shapes and panorama settings. Frequency is a new EQ that can work in stereo, dual mono, or Mid/Side and features eight parametric bands that can be individually set to Linear phase mode. It’s precise in effect and sounds excellent with a useful on-screen keyboard that lines up frequencies displayed as musical notes. Maximizer does what it says on the tin – if you really want to crush the bejeezus out of your mixes this will do it just as well as most of the third-party competition, but it’s also useful for levelling out individual tracks without doing too much damage.

There have also been updates to the Score editor, including a rhythmic editor mode for creating condensed lead-sheets and some other minor tweaks and bug fixes.?

Conclusion?

Cubase has come a long way since the heady days of version 1. Often at the forefront of new DAW technology, with innovations such as native audio processing and Virtual Studio Technology (VST), the latest version is, in many ways, playing catch-up with other competitors – specifically Logic Pro, which has featured plug-in compatibility checking and single window editing for some time.

But that’s not to disparage what Steinberg has achieved here. Version 9 contains some major workflow changes and improvements while keeping long-term users’ preferences on board and, unlike Apple’s flagship DAW, you’re not limited to a single, increasingly expensive computer brand and operating system. The black-and-white Cubase-using-me is continuously amazed by the ultra-powerful colour-Cubase-using-me and version 9 does nothing to dispel that feeling.

The upgrade is a no-brainer for current Cubase users and a sensible entry choice for newcomers who need a fully featured multi-platform solution.

Key Features

• Award-winning 32-bit floating-point Steinberg audio engine with up to 192 kHz, 5.1 surround, flexible routing and full automatic delay compensation
• Unlimited audio, instrument and MIDI tracks and up to 256 physical inputs and outputs
• Complete suite of more than 90 high-end audio and MIDI VST effect processors
• Compositional tools like Chord Track, Chord Pads and advanced Chord Assistant
• Comprehensive set of over eight instruments with 3,000-plus sounds, including HALion Sonic SE 2 and Groove Agent SE 4.?

RRP: €579

Stephen Bennett has been involved in music production for over 30 years. Based in Norwich he splits his time between writing books and articles on music technology, recording and touring, and lecturing at the University of East Anglia.

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