STEINBERG CUBASE 5 £499 RECORDING Steinberg Cubase 5 £499 Steinberg’s long-established Cubase music production software gets a major update by Trevor Curwen S ince its launch 20 years ago, Steinberg’s Cubase music production software has undergone constant development and revision with each new version offering more facilities than the previous one. This has culminated in the recent release of Cubase 5 – a major move on from Cubase 4. Cubase aims to provide a complete music production environment. What you get are audio and MIDI tools for producing, composing, recording, editing and mixing. The program comes with a collection of eight virtual instruments that you can use to construct backing tracks and 56 different effects that can be applied to any audio that you record. There is no limit to the number of audio tracks you can record for a song. There are several new features in this revised version, some perhaps aimed more at dance music producers but some that guitarists ought to find useful when making recordings. Two new tools provide intonation editing for monophonic recordings, which means that you can use them to tweak your vocals till they are perfectly in tune or even subtly edit a guitar solo where the string bending may not have been spot-on or one of the strings slipped out of tune. ‘VariAudio’ gives you the chance to manually select individual notes to change their pitch and tweak their timing, while ‘PitchCorrect’ allows you to automatically transpose a performance relative to a particular scale. New features for help in creating backing tracks are the ‘Groove Agent ONE’ drum sampler with a custom library of drum kits and ‘Beat Designer’, which can work in conjunction to create original drum patterns. Also new is the ‘LoopMash’ virtual instrument, which manipulates and blends audio loops to create beats. On the effects front you get a convolution reverb processor in Cubase for the first time – REVerence is apparently capable of emulating speakers and any natural room or hall. Also new is improved automation for more dynamic mixes, plus 64-bit operation on computers running Windows Vista 64. presets, 14 generic amps and 10 cabs – other plug-ins include standard guitar effects such as tremolo and reverb so you can construct some fully produced guitar sounds without needing any third party plug-ins. For anyone that wants to put a track together with full backing, the virtual instruments completely provide the goods. Groove Agent ONE allows you to set up intricate drum parts very easily while the HALion ONE sampler has an expanded sound library with more than 600 sample-based instruments and 58 drum kits. There are also five different software synthesisers. You don’t have to play a keyboard to create instrument performances as you can input the MIDI data into Cubase using either your mouse to draw the notes or by using the ‘Virtual Keyboard’. In Use If you wish to record your music on your computer there are several software programs available, but Cubase offers what may be the most versatile software system that is not tied to one particular computer platform or a proprietary hardware interface. The new features are certainly worth the upgrade fee for existing users, and anyone who has yet to invest in a computer-based music production system won’t go far wrong here. Cubase comes with a USB dongle as copy protection and once you have registered your serial number you will get unlimited use as long as the dongle is plugged into your computer. Registering and getting up and running is easy – after that there’s a lot to learn. The range of plug-in effects that come with Cubase 5 is quite wide and includes a nicesounding guitar amp simulator, which comes with a load of If you use a Mac then Apple’s Logic Studio (£312) offers a full music production environment with virtual instruments, effects plug-ins and a separate mastering application. Another complete music production environment is provided by Cakewalk Sonar 8 Producer Edition (£435, Windows only). Digidesign’s Pro Tools is found in studios worldwide. Available for both Mac and Windows, the affordable LE version (£various) comes as a package with a range of Digidesign audio interfaces. Verdict Bottom Line The Cubase 5 software has full production capability The Rivals We like: Instruments for creating backing tracks; good range of plug-in effects; new vocal editing tools We dislike: Dongle ties up a USB socket Guitarist says: Cubase 5 provides a classy computerbased environment with all the facilities you’ll need to produce music Steinberg Cubase 5 PRICE: £499 TYPE: Software music production system ORIGIN: Germany AUDIO TRACKS: Unlimited MIDI TRACKS: Unlimited INSTRUMENT TRACKS: Unlimited VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS: HALion ONE, Groove Agent ONE, LoopMash, Prologue, Spector, Mystic, Embracer, Monologue RANGE OPTIONS: Cubase Studio 5 £332, Cubase 5 Update from Cubase 4/SX3 £166, Cubase Studio 5 Update from Cubase Studio 4/SL3 £107 MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: See website Steinberg 0049 40 42236 115 www.steinberg.net Test results Build quality Features Sound Value for money GUITARIST RATING 130 Guitarist May 2009 GIT315.rev_cubase 130 23/3/09 4:10:50 pm
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