Saturday, March 14, 2026
Friday, March 13, 2026
Cubase 13: Optimising Loudness
Among other things, the Loudness Curve module’s settings can be customised to adjust the Duration (length of time displayed on the horizontal axis) and to show a target Reference Integrated loudness level.
Lower a mix’s integrated loudness with Squasher.
The ‘LUFS’ measurements that are used by streaming services to normalise loudness on playback, and which are now catered for by so many meters and limiters, aren’t just weighted (with an EQ curve that accounts for the sensitivity of human hearing to different frequencies) but they’re also ‘gated’: any portion of a signal where the momentary loudness falls below a defined level (‑10LU below the integrated loudness) won’t count towards the final integrated loudness.
When undertaking DIY mastering duties, the presence of this ‘floating gate’ raises two significant questions. First, for any given track, are there significant portions of time where the momentary loudness falls below the gate’s threshold? Second, if the answer is yes, might there an opportunity to raise some of those quieter sections just above the level of the gate, both to add energy or clarity, or to lower the integrated loudness — for example, to reduce the amount a track might be turned down — without negatively affecting the louder sections?
When I recently (SOS July 2024) reviewed iZotope’s RX 11, I was particularly impressed by its Loudness Optimize feature, which was conceived to address precisely those questions. As a Cubase user, that got me wondering... could I achieve something similar using only the tools that come bundled with Cubase?
Analyse This
For Cubase Pro users (v11 and above), the Loudness Curve module of the SuperVision analyser plug‑in can help with the first question. Inserted at a suitable position in your project, this provides a real‑time visual display of your audio’s loudness. The Loudness Curve module settings (first screenshot) allow you to customise the display. You can, therefore, set the time resolution of the display to suit your needs (I used a 45‑second window here) and choose which loudness parameters are shown (in this example, just the blue momentary and green integrated loudness curves are displayed).
SuperVision’s Loudness Curve module can provide very useful visual feedback on the loudness and dynamics of your audio.
As shown in the left‑hand panel of the second set of screens, these curves update in real time as the track is played. After an initial playback, the integrated curve will stabilise and give a reasonable sense of the overall loudness. You can then dip back into the Settings panel and set the Reference Integrated value to 10LU below the observed integrated loudness value. In this example, the integrated loudness is about ‑18LUFS, so I set the Reference Integrated value (it appears as a horizontal pale blue line) to ‑28LUFS. This isn’t what this parameter is really intended for (I’ll come back to that later) but it does provide you with a simple visual guide to spot sections of the track where the dynamic range may be great enough for the momentary loudness to fall more than 10LU below the integrated loudness curve.
Incidentally, for any Artist and Elements users, who won’t have SuperVision, APU Software’s Loudness Meter offers a free‑to‑download alternative to SuperVision. It provides some pretty sophisticated features that include a real‑time momentary loudness curve similar to that found in SuperVision’s Loudness Curve module.
Going Up
This visual feedback is a useful check to know if the gate might influence how streaming loudness normalisation is applied to a track, but it’s still your decision to do something about it or not. If you do, the focus needs to be on raising the level of the quieter sections of the track while leaving the louder parts unaffected, and there are a number of approaches that might be considered. One, for example, would be parallel compression. But the Squasher plug‑in, available in Cubase Pro, Artist and Elements, can apply upward compression, and this is super‑easy to experiment with.
The final screenshot shows some Squasher settings that might serve as a good starting point. For simplicity, the plug‑in has been set to operate in single‑band mode. Within that band, the Down knob has been set to 0% and the downward compression Threshold (the small downward arrowhead) has been set to 0dB. These settings should ensure that no conventional (downward) compression is applied, which would otherwise affect the louder sections; these should pass through the plug‑in with their dynamics intact.
Squasher is capable of upward compression, which allows you to manipulate the loudness dynamics of your track in some interesting ways.
In contrast, the Up knob, which controls the ratio of any upwards compression, has been set to 100%. With this set, you can then gradually raise the Up Threshold value (the small upward facing arrowhead) until you see the upward compression kick in, as indicated in real time by the pale bar at the base of the Threshold graphic.
At this stage, Squasher’s main Input and Output controls have been left at zero (no overall gain adjustment applied; I’ll come back to the Output control in a moment). In addition, the Drive control (in the Parameters panel) has been left at zero so no saturation is added, while Gate is set at its lowest available value (‑60dB), effectively bypassing Squasher’s internal gate. In this case, the Attack and Release are both on fast settings but, as with conventional downward compression, you can experiment with adjusting these based on the tempo of the track, letting your ears judge what produces the most transparent results.
Spot The Difference
From this starting point, you can adjust the two main Mix controls, the Up Ratio and the Up Threshold values to vary just how much (or how little) upward compression is applied. Again, your ears are the key here, both in terms of just how much louder the quieter sections of your track become but also in terms of how transparently any loudness change can be achieved.
However, SuperVision can also be a guide: place a second instance of the plug‑in immediately after Squasher and, if you use the same display settings as in the pre‑Squasher instance, you should easily be able to see the difference in the loudness curves pre and post upward compression.
The right‑hand side of the first screen shows an example using exactly this configuration. While the momentary loudness curves are the same in the louder parts of the audio, Squasher’s upward compression has bought up the loudness during the quieter sections. While I’ve perhaps overcooked the processing here for illustrative purposes (and could lower some combination of the Mix, Up Threshold and Up Ratio controls for a more subtle effect), Squasher’s potential to manipulate the dynamics of your audio, increasing the loudness of quieter sections while leaving louder sections untouched, is easy to see.
Target Practice?
I mentioned above that I’d return to the Loudness Module’s Reference Integrated setting and Squasher’s Output control. Almost all streaming platforms have now published the integrated loudness reference levels used by their normalisation algorithms. They’re not all the same, but they are similar and, as an example, Spotify uses ‑14LUFS‑I as its default — on playback, songs will be turned either up (as much as peak levels allow; there’s no limiting applied in the default mode), or down to ensure they’re played back at ‑14LUFS‑I.
This is an automatic process, so it’s not critical that the integrated loudness of your mastered track is ‑14LUFS — the whole point is that loudness normalisation plays it back at that level for you. But perhaps you’re working for a client who has specified delivery of files at a certain LUFS‑I. Whatever the reason, if you feel the urge to nudge your track towards a target level, you can.
First, use the Reference Integrated setting for its intended purpose, and set it to the required target value (‑14LUFS for Spotify, for example). Then you can simply use the visual reference this provides and adjust Squasher’s Output knob up or down until your track’s integrated loudness curve sits on or around the Reference Integrated target line. For the example used here, it would require a setting of about +4dB. Providing this doesn’t also raise any peaks close to clipping, on playback your final mastered track might give Spotify’s loudness normalisation algorithm very little to do.
And Finally...
There are a few caveats to keep in mind. First, it’s not all about the numbers: in raising the loudness of quieter sections of your audio, you’ll be changing the track’s overall dynamics. It’s always worth making loudness‑matched comparisons, so that you can judge whether the processed version sounds better or worse than the original!
Second, you’ll probably also be raising the level of low‑level noise in the source material. This may not be an issue if the original recordings were of decent quality, but do make the effort to listen out for unwanted side‑effects. If noise becomes an issue, you might be able to counter that by de‑noising your sound sources, whether with a spectral noise removal tool or strategic use of noise gates or expanders.
Finally, not all mixes and mastered tracks can benefit from this sort of loudness dynamics adjustment. If your initial SuperVision visuals don’t show the momentary loudness dropping 10LU below the integrated loudness curve for significant portions of time, further loudness manipulation might well be unnecessary or unfruitful. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Cubase 13: HALion Sonic’s Spectral Synth
X‑Stream’s spectral engine may offer an unconventional control set but it is very easy to experiment with. The settings shown here reflect the finished DIY example discussed within the main text.
Create a complete musical cue from just a single sample with HALion Sonic’s spectral synth engine.
Steinberg recently improved the spectral synth engine in their HALion 7 soft sampler, and all Cubase users can get a taste of it through X‑Stream, a new, free‑to‑download (using Steinberg’s Download Assistant) HALion Sonic instrument. While X‑Stream is monophonic only, it is bound to appeal to those with a liking for ambient soundscapes and textures. It offers plenty of DIY sound‑design possibilities, including the ability to drop your own samples into the engine. To explore just what this makes possible, I decided to don my experimental media composer hat, and see how close X‑Stream could get me to composing a complete musical cue using just a single sample.
Blank & Drop
Once you’ve managed to stop playing with X‑Stream’s excellent collection of presets (it might take a while), it’s a good idea to wipe the slate clean by loading in the Init X‑Stream Layer, which is easy to find if you pick Layers as the Preset Type in HS’s MediaBay panel. This includes a default sample but, usefully, it resets the synth engine parameters to a generic starting point. With the engine thus ‘blanked’, you can drag and drop (from the Project window or your file browser) your sample of choice directly into X‑Stream’s spectral display panel. Almost any sample can be a contender, but I deliberately started with something very simple: a single note played on a synth. I’ll come back to some more colourful sample choices later. By the way, you can hear some audio examples on the SOS website, at https://sosm.ag/cubase-1024.
Need For Speed
It’s worth noting that if you click on the Spectral panel header, you toggle between compact and expanded control displays. The latter provides access to the full control set, including the full pitch, spectral filter, standard filter and amplitude envelope controls. Other panels can also be expanded into focus in the same way. I couldn’t hope to cover all of X‑Stream’s many controls here, though, so I’ll focus on some highlights that will provide a solid base for experimentation.
In its expanded view, the Spectral panel offers five sub‑pages accessed via the top‑left buttons. These include the amp envelope shown here, with suitably long attack and decay times.
The Speed control sets the speed at which the spectral engine scans across the underlying sample to create sound (100 percent is the same playback speed as the original). Changing the speed doesn’t change the pitch, but X‑Stream’s underlying time‑ and pitch‑stretching algorithms are very impressive, and it’s remarkable just how extreme you can get with the Speed control (0‑800 range) while still hearing totally usable sounds. I’m attempting to create a textural sound here, and a slower Speed setting (50 percent) seems a suitable choice when seeking longer notes.
For sustained sounds, you can define a loop region within the spectral display (just drag the left/right markers), and here I’ve set the Loop Mode to Alternate. This means the playback head moves forwards until it reaches the right loop marker and then reverses direction back to the left marker. This loop cycle is repeated as long as the note is held. As my sample contains a naturally fading sound, the slow cycling back and forth through a portion of it creates a smooth rise and fall in level that works pretty well for a sustained textural soundscape.
The Spread option, once activated, shifts the playback position between the left/right channels of your sample (it works well with mono or multi‑channel samples too), and you see two playhead cursors offset from one another when you play a note. This delivers a nice spatial enhancement even when relatively low values are used.
A Blur Of Sound
Blur Time and Blur Depth create something similar to a modulation‑based effect, such as chorus. Increasing the Blur Time gradually adds a richer quality to the sound that is very much dependent on the nature of the original sample. Blur Depth can exaggerate this, with low values remaining fairly musical and higher values moving you towards something a little more unsettling.
According to X‑Stream’s PDF manual, the Purity and Inharmonicity parameters adjust the ‘spectral purity’ of the sound. No, I’m not sure I know what that actually means either! But a quick sweep of the knobs soon gives you a sense of what’s possible. Purity seems to change the tonal character of the sound, with negative values seeming brighter and more harmonically complex, while strongly positive values seem both darker and less complex. Inharmonicity also changes the harmonic complexity, and extreme positive or negative values induce something similar to a detuning effect.
Well Stacked
While X‑Stream is monophonic, the Stack feature (on the right of the Spectral panel) provides a way to add a chord‑like element to your sound. Once activated, you can create a total of five layers from your core sound, with control over the relative level and pitch of each layer. Layer pitch can be specified in semitone steps within a ±36 range. You can, therefore, build a chord by specifying the required note intervals in different layers and then triggering that chord from a single note on your MIDI keyboard. And by automating either the pitch or the level of your layers you can change the voicing of the created chord.
X‑Stream offers a great selection of modulation options including the excellent step modulator, which I used to create a pulsing effect within the example sound design.I’ve done that in my examples — see the main screenshot, in which the key settings for my final patch are shown — using layers 4 and 5. Relative to the root note (pitch = 0), these layers have pitches set to +16 (a major third, one octave above the root) and +15 (a minor third, one octave above the root). By automating the level values for these two layers, you can move (or, interestingly, morph) between a more major sounding harmony to a more minor one — I did this in my example by assigning them both to the mod wheel, mapped in opposite directions, so that as one increases, the other decreases.
Mojo Filters & Mod Magic
I’ve focused on some of the more unconventional parameter options offered by X‑Stream’s spectral synth engine, but it does, of course, offer a suite of more conventional sound‑shaping tools. These include a well‑specified filter (indeed, two filters, as there’s also a spectral filter with its own envelope and presets), a multiband EQ module, and both reverb and delay modules. All can be put to good use in your DIY sound design. There’s also an amp module, and if it’s sustained soundscape/ambient sounds you are after then this is most certainly worth a visit, even if only to add some suitably slow attack and decay elements to the amplitude envelope.
As noted above, X‑Stream’s parameters can all be automated in your DAW and/or assigned for hands‑on control using a connected hardware control surface. The engine also includes two standard LFOs, an X/Y LFO and a step modulator — these can all be used to automate parameters. Right‑clicking on any X‑Stream parameter pops open a suitable dialogue box to make these assignments.
Alternatively, you can open the Matrix panel to make and/or adjust the automation settings. This provides up to 24 slots, with a huge selection of source and destination options. I used both LFOs to provide long tempo‑based sweeps on the resonance and cutoff of the main filter. The step modulator was also used to modulate the drive control within the filter. The step modulation pattern I used creates a pulse‑like effect within the sound, and I assigned a Quick Control to adjust the level of the step modulator, allowing me to blend the pulse effect in and out as required.
X‑Stream’s modulation matrix provides plenty of options for both modulation sources and destinations.
Finally for this example, as well as the stack layer automation that I mentioned earlier, I assigned the level controls of layers 2 and 3 to Cubase’s Quick Controls, allowing me to adjust the ‑24 (two octaves below) and +19 (an octave plus a fifth above) layers’ levels, to blend in these layers to change the tonal character of the overall sound in real time.
Do check out the audio examples, which illustrate just how I developed this sound from the original sample into a fully formed X‑Stream preset. I found it an interesting enough result that it prompted me to try writing a full soundscape cue (albeit a short one) using just this one sound — a totally arbitrary target, but you can hear the result in one of the examples!
One More Drop
The whole sound‑design process used here took me rather longer to explain in words than it did to actually perform. X‑Stream’s unconventional control set is, in practice, very easy to experiment with, not least because you can drag and drop your own sample into the engine. To encourage your own explorations, the last audio example includes some randomly selected samples dropped into X‑Stream and quickly tweaked based on a similar basic approach as described above. The results can be somewhat weird and unpredictable, but if you just keep dropping samples in then eventually something magical will happen... and off you’ll go exploring a new musical idea.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Monday, March 9, 2026
Cubase 13: The VST Plug‑in Manager
The VST Plug‑in Manager, with its multi‑panel layout, lets you create custom collections of both VST Effects and VST Instruments to streamline your workflow within Cubase.
Organise your plug‑in folder with VST Plug‑in Manager.
With so many bundles, demos and tempting offers around, many of us probably have more plug‑ins than is really manageable when we go to choose one in the middle of a busy mixing session; it’s all too easy to get lost among the possibilities. Thankfully, though, Cubase makes it easy to get your plug‑in folder under control, thanks to its VST Plug‑in Manager. It offers plenty of options to customise which plug‑ins are visible and how they’re arranged when you open a plug‑in selection panel, and a little time spent here can repay itself many times over when your projects are in full swing.
Call The Manager
When you first launch it, Cubase scans your computer and creates two default plug‑in lists (Steinberg call these lists ‘collections’): one for VST Effects and another for VST Instruments. It also does a quick scan every time it is subsequently launched, so it can detect any new plug‑ins you’ve installed. By default, these collections are what’s shown to you whenever you go to select a plug‑in effect or instrument.
The Studio menu (or a key command) access the VST Plug‑in Manager, in which you can view the contents of these two default collections. In its left window, you can view three different categories of plug‑in that, between them, should include all of the plug‑ins that are installed. These are: VST Effects, VST Instruments and the Blocklist. The latter, which may well be empty, is simply a list of plug‑ins that Cubase has scanned, but thinks might have compatibility issues — if you can’t find one you’ve installed it’s worth checking here; you can force a plug‑in off the Blocklist if you are feeling brave, but I’d probably test that in a fresh project just in case! If you select an individual plug‑in in any of these three panels, the bottom‑left panel shows further useful information about it, including where on your machine it is installed.
The panel on the right shows the plug‑ins in the current ‘collection’, depending upon which tab (VST Effects or VST Instruments) is selected in the left‑side panel. These will, at first, be the Default collections (this name appears in the tab at the top of the panel). But you can move, remove, or add plug‑ins to the current collection within this panel, including reordering (almost) any folder structure. For the default collections, via the top‑right drop‑down menu, you can choose to show the plug‑ins organised by Category (eg. EQ, Dynamics etc.) or Vendor; this choice is reflected in how the plug‑ins are shown when you’re making selections in your Cubase project.
List Of Lists
The VST Plug‑in Manger also lets you create your own custom collections, and there are a number of reasons why these might prove advantageous compared with the catch‑all ‘default’ list. For example, you can compile a ‘favourites’ list — a compact selection of your current go‑to plug‑ins that make it easy to find the right effect or instrument — or to hide expired demos, duplicate versions of plug‑ins or any plug‑ins installed within a bundle to which you don’t actually have a licence.
The drop‑down menu located top right lets you create new plug‑in collections and instantly switch between any of the existing collections.
Alternatively, it could be useful to create collections with only the plug‑ins available to any collaborators you work with — a collection containing only Cubase Elements’ stock plug‑ins, for example, the more comprehensive Cubase Pro options, or a specific third‑party developer’s bundle. Another possibility is more streamlined collections designed for specific tasks, such as composing, tracking, mixing or mastering. In each case, you can customise what’s visible so that you don’t get bogged down with certain plug‑ins or plug‑in formats that you don’t currently use or need to see (for example, mono versions, VST2 versions or older trial plug‑ins).
Two points are worth emphasising. First, adding or removing a plug‑in from a particular collection doesn’t change its actual installation status on your computer, just its visibility in Cubase’s various plug‑in selection panels. Second, whether in the default collections or new custom collections, your VST Effects and VST Instruments form separate lists.
New From Old
Creating a new collection is easy. Select the VST Effects or VST Instruments tab in the VST Plug‑in Manager window, then simply choose one of the New Collection options from the drop‑down menu located top‑right. Any of the three options (Empty, Add All Plug‑ins or Copy Current Collection) can be used, but if you’re currently using the Default collection, the last one is probably the most sensible choice, as it may take less time to move or remove plug‑ins from an existing collection than to start from scratch. Collections can be named, edited or deleted, and allow you to create custom folder structures that can be populated with your chosen plug‑ins.
Let’s imagine we’re creating a ‘favourites’ VST effects collection. First, create a New Collection from the menu using the Copy Current Collection option. This will prompt us to give our collection a suitable title (you can change it later). Once done, the new collection will become the active collection; its name will appear at the top of the VST Plug‑in Manager’s right‑hand panel and the plug‑ins within it will be what we see if, for example, we try to add a plug‑in by clicking on a channel’s insert slot.
With its custom folder structure and just a few ‘go‑to’ plug‑ins within each category, a ‘favourites’ VST Effects plug‑in collection lets you quickly pick what you need and get on with your mix.By default, our new ‘favourites’ VST Effects collection will contain folders based on Vendor. I prefer to organise my go‑to plug‑in options by type, though, so a useful second step is simply to create a new folder (just click on the New Folder button located top right), name this folder ‘Vendors’, and drag and drop all the individual Vendor folders into this one. This folder will serve as a useful catch‑all category in any collection; while it hides them in a subfolder, if your current ‘favourite’ selections don’t offer you quite what you need for a specific task then you can still easily seek something out here.
At the top level of this folder structure, alongside the Vendors folder, you can now use the New Folder button as many times as required to create your own custom list of categories. For example, in my own VST Effects ‘favourites’ collection for mixing duties, I’ve got folders such as EQ, compression, limiting, saturation, amp modelling, pitch‑correction, creative, vocals, drums, bass, reverb, delay and tools.
Finally, you can find those favourite plug‑in choices and then drag and drop them into their appropriate place in the new custom folder structure. This drag and drop can be done in two ways. First, you can drag them from the catch‑all folder you created (the Vendors folder in our example) or, second, if you want a particular plug‑in to appear in multiple folders (for example, a channel strip plug‑in might appear in a dedicated channel strip folder and also within an EQ folder), then you can simply find it within the main left‑side panel and drag and drop it from there as many times as needed.
In my case, my selection of VST Effects favourites might only consist of three or four go‑to plug‑ins in each category. When subsequently adding plug‑ins to my project, this makes finding those go‑to choices in the plug‑in selection panels much faster. Creating a favourites collection for VST Instruments can be done in exactly the same fashion. And, of course, you can easily edit/update any collection as your tastes change or new plug‑ins replace older favourites.
Switch & Find
Custom plug‑in collections exist globally on your host system so, once created, they can be accessed in any Cubase project. A further neat element of these custom plug‑in collections is that you can quickly switch between them: just visit the VST Plug‑in Manager, select either the VST Effects or VST Instruments tab, drop down the menu from the top left and you can then choose the required collection. The change is applied instantly so, next time you go to select a new plug‑in instance within your current project, you will see your plug‑in choices as organised in the currently selected collection.
Finally, note that changing the collection doesn’t influence any plug‑ins already inserted into your project — a plug‑in that isn’t included in the current collection won’t suddenly disappear from your project; you simply won’t be able to ‘see’ it in the plug‑in selector panel to insert a new instance.
Pick & Mix
As soon as your plug‑in collection starts to expand beyond the stock Cubase offerings, the workflow advantages of creating custom collections via the VST Plug‑in Manager is an absolute no‑brainer. So don’t let your plug‑in addiction slow you down!