Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Monday, May 4, 2026
Cubase 12: FX Modulator
Screen 1: A simple step on/off modulation curve to control Level within FX Modulator’s Volume module, made using the second Factory curve preset in the top row.
FX Modulator brings powerful new creative processing options to Cubase 12
Included with the Pro and Artist versions of Cubase 12, Steinberg’s FX Modulator is a multi‑effects plug‑in which takes an approach that’s reminiscent of Output’s Movement and Cable Guys’ ShaperBox. It comes with plenty of cool presets and these are well worth exploring if you want to find out what it can do, but it’s also a very approachable plug‑in that makes it pretty easy to design your own effects from scratch. This article will take you through some examples, and on the SOS website (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0822) you can find some audio clips that should bring them to life.
The Rhythm Method
FX Modulator has lots of potential uses but first we’ll look at creating rhythmic effects from a sustained sound. As my starting point, I’ve used Padshop’s somewhat anonymous‑sounding Mellow preset with the in‑built delay turned off — but the same principles could be applied to any source sound.
Screen 1 shows an instance of FX Modulator inserted on my Padshop track. Any combination of FX Modulator’s 14 individual effects modules could be modulated to create rhythmic effects, but I’ve picked the simple Volume module for this example. This module offers a single parameter for modulation: Level, as shown bottom‑left of the UI. We can create a modulation curve to control this parameter in the upper panel. Some modules offer multiple parameters: for example, the Filter module allows you to modulate both Frequency and Q (resonance), and you can create independent modulation curves for each parameter.
FX Modulator ships with a bank of Factory curve presets which you can’t overwrite, as well as three banks of empty curve preset slots for your own creations. In this example, I’ve simply selected the second Factory preset curve, which steps the Level between maximum and zero once over the timebase of the envelope. This timebase can be changed with the Time control and, in this case, I’ve selected 1/4 so, when I trigger a sound in Padshop, I get a (very!) simple quarter‑note rhythm, as FX Modulator follows the modulation curve over the selected timebase. Yay: job done!
Screen 2: More complex rhythmic patterns can easily be created by combining the Factory preset curves. In this case, the curve’s vertical range has also been compressed using the editing tools.
Curve Control
That’s the basic principle covered but we can, of course, get more creative with the modulation curves — and pretty easily too! Editing the curve follows the standard approach of double‑clicking to add/delete nodes and click‑dragging to reposition them (they snap to the grid, but you can defeat this by holding Shift). You can also create curves by dragging the line between two existing nodes; a ‘shape handle’ will appear when you do this.
Depending on the nature of your source sound, sudden switches in parameter values (as for Level in the first screenshot) can produce noticeable audio artefacts such as clicks. Setting the Smooth control into the 1‑5 % range softens the transitions around the nodes (a thinner curve is superimposed on the main curve to visualise what’s happening) and will usually take care of such artefacts. Larger Smooth settings can be used to easily transform a stepped pattern into a ramped one for a pulse‑like effect.
The tool buttons beneath the curve editing window control various useful functions and, as well as undo/redo buttons, these include the ability to flip the curve horizontally or vertically and shift the curve left or right (by one grid step in the display). However, you also get buttons to reset the curve (the ‘x’ button), generate a random curve (the dice button), ‘select all curve points’ (the little mountain range), and ‘duplicate curve’ (leftmost in the row). The last two in particular warrant further comment...
You can select multiple nodes for editing by dragging with the mouse within the display, and the ‘select all curve points’ is simply a shortcut for selecting everything. However, what’s useful is what you can then do with your selection: this includes dragging left/right or up/down and, even better, the option to scale/compress the curve’s range vertically if you hold the Alt key while dragging one of the selected nodes.
The ‘duplicate curve’ button takes the existing curve and places a copy of it next to the original. Interesting to note, however, is that this is done by time‑compressing the original curve, so if you leave the Time control unchanged your curve pattern will effectively play back at double speed. You can adjust the Time control to return the pattern to the original speed, though, and then make whatever edits you might like to your modulation curve to create additional variety to your now duplicated curve.
Curve Collector
Once you’re fluent with these editing tools, it’s incredibly easy to create custom modulation curves. In our Volume module example, this results in custom rhythmic patterns but a further editing trick can speed up this process. If you don’t have any nodes selected, and then click on any one of the curve presets displayed at the top of the display, that preset curve is copied to the editing window, replacing any existing curve, and filling the timeline. However, if you first select a range of nodes on your existing curve before clicking on one of the presets, the selected preset curve replaces only the selected nodes. This makes it trivially easy to combine the preset curves in new ways, generating more complex curve starting points for further editing.
Screen 3: Creating your own curve building blocks within the user banks makes it easy to experiment with new rhythmic patterns.
Two further things arise from this feature. First, if you design a curve you like, and might want to re‑use it in another module, a separate instance of FX Modulator, or even another project, saving it into an empty preset slot in one of the three user banks (and then saving the bank using the Load/Save button on the left) is a good move. Simply click on an empty user slot and the current modulation curve will be copied to it for later recall.
Second, and putting these ideas together, we can create some simple step on/off patterns (like that shown in the first screenshot) but each with a different number of steps. The next screenshot shows an example in which I’ve created four such presets featuring 1, 2, 3 and 4 curve cycles of on/off respectively. These can then be quickly combined in any number of ways using the option just described to replace a selected range of nodes with the current curve. This makes it super‑easy to experiment with different rhythmic patterns via our Volume module modulation and, once you have a basic rhythm you like, you can apply further manual edits to fine‑tune the end result.
To Infinity & Beyond
I’ve used a simple example here for the purposes of demonstration, but even the most complex FX Modulator presets are built from these same tools; they simply use more modules and parameters. And even if we confine ourselves to the ‘rhythmic sounds from a static pad’ aim, once you have the basics in place it’s easy to suggest a few quick ideas to try next.
For example, if you engage the Filter Bank button you can constrain the processing of the current module to just a specific frequency range (drag the two node points to adjust). So we could, for instance, apply our rhythmic volume modulation to just the low frequencies and leave the higher frequencies untouched; play with two hands and it’s almost like the sound has two layers, one rhythmic and one sustained.
Second, while you can only use a single instance of any particular effects module within FX Modulator, you can easily process your sustained pad sound through two separate FX Modulator instances, each using the Volume module to create a different rhythmic effect. If you also automate the bypass options on these two instances, you can quickly switch between different rhythms for the same sound. However, with both instances active, you can let the rhythmic effects interact and, by automating the respective Mix controls, you can change the blend between the two rhythms. The results can get really interesting if your two instances use different Time settings!
Screen 4: The Filter Bank allows you to constrain the frequency range that each effect module is applied to.
Finally, you can try adding in other effects modules. An obvious candidate to add to your volume‑based rhythmic effects is the Filter module with both Frequency and Q set to be modulated gradually over a number of bars; your rhythm then gets some classic tonal variations added to the mix.
There’s plenty of fun to be had with the Volume and Filter modules alone, but FX Modulator is capable of way more than just rhythmic effects. These further options will, however, have to wait for a future column.
While FX Modulator might not quite reach the dizzy sound‑design heights of something like Output’s Movement, it is much easier to master — so dig in, and you’ll soon by enjoying the fruits of your sound‑designing adventures.
Saturday, May 2, 2026
Friday, May 1, 2026
Prepping Vocals In Cubase
To reap the full benefits of VariAudio, make sure you enable Show All Smart Controls.
The latest iteration of VariAudio includes all the tools you need to get vocals in shape for mixing.
Cubase may not be able to guarantee a world‑class vocal performance, but it does provide all the tools you need to present recorded vocals in their best possible light. Once you’ve laid down or comped your best take and dealt with any unwanted noises, if you then bounce everything into a new audio clip, Cubase’s VariAudio is a powerful one‑stop editing shop that can be used for all the obvious level, timing and pitch adjustments that might benefit the part. We looked at this topic back in the May and June 2019 Cubase workshops, but Cubase has evolved since then and, for Pro and Artist users at least, Cubase 12 includes some further options — so let’s explore the possibilities.
One For All
We’ll start with a VariAudio refresher. When you first open VariAudio from the Sample Editor’s Inspector panel, Cubase will analyse your audio clip — it might take a few seconds for a longer clip — and then superimpose pitch Segments (rectangular ‘blobs’) over the waveform. Each Segment represents a portion of the audio that Cubase has identified as containing pitch variations that lie (mostly) within a single note (semitone) range. A continuous pitch curve indicates the pitch variation within each Segment, as well as any pitch transitions that occur as the vocal flows legato‑style between them. Segments are only created for those parts of the performance that contain definable pitch components: adjacent Segments never overlap, but there will be gaps in the display between Segments where there are non‑tonal sounds, such as breaths, consonant‑only sounds or rests. (Despite the visual gaps, the underlying audio is still there and being played back!)
Before starting work, a few settings are worth checking. First, ensure the Edit VariAudio button is active, so you can actually start editing. Second, enable the All option in the Smart Controls drop‑down menu, so you see the full set of controls. Third, note that the VariAudio tab header includes a ‘bypass’ button, so you can easily A/B compare your VariAudio edits with the unedited original.
The second screenshot (below) provides a reminder of the functions provided by each of the Smart Controls available on a Segment and, while many of these are focussed on various ways to manipulate pitch, you also have options for adjusting both volume and timing — the addition of these make VariAudio a much more efficient environment, since you can now perform most core vocal editing tasks in one place. By the way, note that while Smart Controls can be used to edit individual Segments, if you select multiple Segments for editing, adjusting a Smart Control on any of the selected Segments will apply edits to all of them.
A useful summary of the Smart Control functions.
Split Sliding Away
A good first step is to inspect the Segments Cubase has created and consider whether manual adjustments might be useful. There are a couple of things to look out for. First, if the pitch curve within a Segment seems to contain an obvious step change (as distinct from pitch vibrato), consider splitting the Segment into two for greater control when editing. Simply hover the mouse cursor towards the bottom of the Segment where you wish to make a split, and a horizontal line will appear at the base of the Segment and the cursor changes to a pair of scissors; one click, and you’re done. Segments can also be glued together, if that’s required.
Second, if the length of a Segment doesn’t encompass all of the waveform that it should, hold the Alt/Opt key, and then drag the Warp Start (mid‑left) and Warp End (mid‑right) Smart Controls. Holding down the Alt/Opt key changes these Smart Controls to adjust the Segment length rather than warping the audio, but note that you can’t extend a Segment so that it overlaps with, or re‑sizes, an adjacent one when using this modifier key.
While you’re performing these edits, you can also consider the levels. Most vocals will benefit from at least some compression or volume automation when you get to the mixing stage, but you can often make that later stage easier with a first pass using the Volume Smart Control (located bottom‑right of the Segment). Simply looping playback through short sections of your vocal while you make any adjustments on individual Segments will soon let you even out any of the more obvious inconsistencies in volume.
Manipulation Of Time
If your vocals also need some timing tweaks, you could flip to the Sample Editor’s AudioWarp panel. But in VariAudio, without the Alt/Opt key modifier, the Warp Start and Warp End Smart Controls also provide AudioWarp functionality and could be all you need. As you make these edits, you see the underlying waveform being stretched/compressed and how any transients align with the Sample Editor’s musical grid. It’s powerful stuff and, once you’re familiar with how typical changes might affect the underlying audio, it’s an extremely easy way to tighten up vocal timing where required.
The AudioWarp algorithms are pretty robust, so the Warp Start and Warp End Smart Controls can be used for rather more than minor timing correction: you can also explore changing the underlying rhythmic phrasing of a vocal line. This might include shortening or extending a sustained note, compressing a phrase to fit a specific number of beats, or separating and shortening individual words to create a staccato‑style delivery. Yes, you can obviously push things to the point where the audible artefacts become obvious, but used with care it can be a great way to get creative with new phrasing ideas, and you can always undo the changes if something doesn’t quite work. The audio examples illustrate what might (and perhaps what should not!) be done.
Scaling New Heights
The pitch‑manipulation Smart Controls combine to make VariAudio a powerful tool for corrective and creative pitch editing, particularly if you learn to make best use of the Tilt/Rotate Anchor Point and the two Set Range For Straighten Pitch Curve controls; these allow you to finesse exactly which portions of the overall pitch curve your edits will be applied to. But in Cubase 12, VariAudio has been treated to the Scale Assistant system, which was previously only available in the MIDI Key Editor.
Providing you know the key/scale of your project, the new Scale Assistant features within VariAudio – and the option to colour‑code the Segments by Scale/Chords – makes both corrective and creative pitch editing straightforward whatever your level of music theory.
The Scale Assistant won’t impact on your more detailed pitch‑curve edits, but when you’re editing the pitch of a whole Segment (manually, or via Snap or Quantize) you can now force those pitch changes to use only notes within a specific scale. You can configure this using the new Scale Assistant sub‑panel, where you can specify a scale or opt to follow the Chord Track. A couple of visual options can be enabled but perhaps the most useful is to select the Scale/Chords option in VariAudio’s Segment Colors drop‑down menu: Segments are colour‑coded (by default: grey in key, red out of key) so that anything initially lying out of key is really easy to spot. And if you enable Snap Pitch Editing in the Scale Assistant sub‑panel, when you move the pitch of any Segment only ‘in key’ notes are permitted. This combination makes pitch correcting your vocal parts quicker and, should you have a less‑than‑strong grasp of music theory, easier.
Scale Assistant isn’t useful only for pitch correction, though. It also makes it easy to experiment with creative pitch editing. For example, if you wish to re‑write the melody ‘after the fact’, you can explore moving Segments to different pitches, knowing that they’ll only snap to ‘in key’ notes. This can be a lot of fun to try and, while the results are obviously genre‑ and material‑dependent, it’s often surprising what you can get away with. Two things are worth noting. First, breaking a long Segment into multiple shorter Segments provides plenty more options for re‑working a melody. Second, I find that pitch‑shifting artefacts are often most easily noticed during the transitions between Segments. Adjustments to the pitch curve slope within the transition can improve the flow, and you can often achieve that by making slight timing changes to the Segments involved using the Warp Start and Warp End Smart Controls.
Ready, Steady, Mix
Cubase has various other options for making edits and polishing your vocal recordings, but sometimes it’s helpful to do as much as you can in one place — and VariAudio is an impressively flexible one‑stop shop for both corrective and creative editing. If this approach appeals to you, be sure to use the VariAudio Bypass button to check the edited version against your original starting point and, when you are finished, execute the Flatten Real Time option from the VariAudio panel’s Function drop‑down menu (located at the base of the panel), since this will avoid any possibility of your careful volume, timing and pitch edits getting accidentally lost. With that done, hopefully, your vocals will be ready for the typical mix processing that will make them the star of the show.
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Cubase: Creating Vocal Doubles & Harmonies
By John Walden
It’s really easy to see the minor pitch differences between the lead and double vocal Segments: the red ones are those currently being edited.
Want to generate vocal doubles or harmonies based on a lead vocal? Cubase 12 has all the tools you will need.
Doubles and harmonies can add considerable impact to your vocal parts. For the best results you should really be recording those parts, but that’s not always possible. Usefully, then, if all you have to work with is a main lead vocal, Cubase can come to the rescue. In fact, if you make use of several different elements in its feature set, including some that arrived with Cubase 12, it’s possible for Pro and Artist users to create some pretty convincing doubled or harmony vocal parts. And even for those who want to sing harmony parts in, generating them in this way can provide a useful guide track.
Doubling Up
The first step is to create a copy of the original lead vocal audio clip and convert this to a ‘real copy’ (Edit / Functions / Convert To Real Copy) — the idea is that you can make edits to this copy without impacting on the original. To fabricate a double‑tracked vocal from this copy, you need to make changes to its pitch and timing.
For a quick and easy method, two steps might be all that’s required. First, ensure that AudioWarp quantise is enabled, select the vocal double audio clip and simply apply a 1/16th or 1/32nd note quantise. Second, open the copied vocal clip in the Sample Editor and go to the VariAudio panel. After Cubase has analysed your audio, select all the pitch Segments and then apply some global pitch changes using the Correct Pitch and Straighten Curve sliders. The combination of these timing and pitch changes should be enough to simulate a fairly tight ‘second take’ of the same performance.
However, manual edits to the time and pitch of the double‑track vocal, with the powerful VariAudio Smart Controls I described in last month’s workshop, offer much more flexibility, particularly in terms of how ‘tight’ the double is(n’t) to the original. If you prefer to work this way, a few specific VariAudio panel features are worth exploring.
First, a few menu settings need checking. Within the VariAudio panel, select the Show All Clips mode in the Display Mode drop‑down menu; the Edit Active Clip option in the Clip Editing Mode drop‑down; and the Event setting in the VariAudio Segment Colors drop‑down. Also, make sure you’ve chosen different colours for the original (lead) vocal clip and the copied (double) vocal clip in the Project window. You’ll almost certainly want your pitch editing to be fairly subtle for a double‑track effect, so it’s also useful to set Pitch Snap Mode to ‘off’ and to disable Snap Pitch Editing (both settings are in the leftmost VariAudio panel).
Then, open both the lead and double clips in the Sample Editor’s VariAudio panel, and select the double‑track audio clip in the Active Clip For Editing drop‑down. As soon as you start making edits to this clip’s Segments (in the screenshot, these are coloured red), you will gradually expose the Segments in the lead vocal clip (blue) in the background. This makes it incredibly easy to visualise the pitch and timing differences you’re creating between the two clips.
For timing, you can use the Warp End Smart Controls to adjust the relative start/end of each word and this can quickly inject some more ‘human realism’. For pitch changes, experiment with combinations of small vertical shifts of individual Segments as well as small edits with both the Straighten Pitch Curve and Pitch Tilt Smart Tools. Zoom in for a more detailed view as you make these sorts of edits. To get the best result, you need to make some sort of adjustment (pitch, pitch tilt, or timing) to every Segment in the double clip. Making such small changes across the complete performance does, of course, involve a fair amount of manual effort — but it’s worth it. The results can be very convincing.
Seeking Harmony
As with creating vocal doubles, Cubase Pro and Artist offer more than one way to generate harmony parts from a lead vocal. Providing you have a suitably populated Chord Track (the chord data is used as the basis for the harmonies), the easiest approach is to use the Generate Harmony Voices command (found in the Audio menu). All the dialogue box requires is that you select how many harmony parts you want (up to four). Once done, lower the volume of the generated harmony parts a few dB, apply a little pan, and perhaps nudge each track forwards/backwards a few milliseconds. As a starting point, try ±10‑20 ms using the Track Delay controls in the Inspector panel.
Provided you have a well‑stocked Chord Track, the Generate Harmony Voices feature can make a decent stab at a four‑part vocal harmony, and all with a single click!
Ta‑da! Job done. Well, sort of. But unless your Chord Track is packed full of interesting and frequent chord changes, the harmonies generated can sound somewhat static. They might work perfectly in some musical contexts but, if you want to create something with a little more harmonic interest, it’s time to go back to VariAudio.
For this approach, a good first step is simply to create a vocal double exactly as described above so, let’s assume that’s done and that you’ve made a further duplicate of the double, to provide the basis for your harmony editing. You should then open both the original lead vocal and (soon to become) harmony vocal clips in the Sample Editor’s VariAudio panel. As before, you should be able to see the Segments for both clips already offset slightly because of the pitch and timing edits added when creating the double.
Now for the fun part; as mentioned last month, Cubase 12 added Scale Assistant functionality for audio to the VariAudio panel. There’s some powerful stuff available here, but it requires you to (a) check a couple of VariAudio settings before beginning, and (b) to use your ears to judge just how harmonious your harmony actually sounds! In the VariAudio panel’s Scale Assistant section, ensure the Use Editor Scale option is activated, and select the correct key/scale combination. It’s also sensible to start with Pitch Snap Mode set to Relative (those small pitch shifts you made when creating the vocal double are therefore preserved for extra ‘human‑ness’) and ensure that Snap Pitch Editing is enabled.
The Scale Assistant, found in the Sample Editor, makes it very easy to experiment with new vocal harmonies.
Select all the Segments in the harmony clip and drag them up or down, and the Scale Assistant will ensure they all stay ‘in key’ regardless of where you drag and drop them. In the screenshot example, I simply grabbed one of the selected Segments originally on a C note and moved it up to an E (four semitones). All the other selected Segments followed in an upwards direction. But, as they were forced to snap to the scale, they haven’t all moved four semitones because in some cases a four‑semitone shift would have resulted in an out‑of‑key note. For example, while a C generally becomes an E (a four‑semitone shift), a D may become an F (a three‑semitone shift), though note that the exact shift seems to vary according to the detail of the pitch curve within each Segment.
Cubase Pro 12 users can access the Free Warp feature when in the Project window.You can experiment with different global shifts and, for some melodies, this scale‑shifted harmony may be all you need — this is where your ears and ideas need to guide you. If you find some of the harmony notes simply don’t sound ‘right’ (for example, they might be notes that clash with the underlying chord), try shifting just those notes until you find a good fit. Indeed, feel free to get creative; harmonies that don’t always move parallel to the lead line can often be much more interesting and pleasing on the ear. Note that lowering the volume of the harmony part a dB or three can also help it sit better with the lead part. And if you notice any audio artefacts resulting from the pitch‑shifting, you can use your VariAudio skills from last month’s workshop to smooth things out with a little Smart Control pitch‑curve editing.
Having created one harmony part, simply repeat the process if you want a second or third. While the above method allows you to create harmonies at different pitches, you can add a further element of ‘human’ by making minor timing changes to each harmony line. This can be done by having all the harmony clips superimposed in the VariAudio panel and editing them one at a time, as described above. A new option exclusive to Cubase 12 Pro users is to make these timing adjustments using the Project window’s Free Warp tool. This has important applications beyond vocal editing but, as shown in the final screen, when adding small timing variations to our various harmony parts, it has the advantage of letting you see more easily what timing differences you’re creating between the various parts while you’re editing.
Hand Made By Machines
If you want to hear these approaches in action, check out the audio examples on the SOS website (https://sosm.ag/cubase-1022). OK, so the artificially generated double or harmony parts you craft using these approaches might not be on a par with those sung by a well‑trained singer. But, dropped into your arrangement in a suitably subtle fashion, they can certainly lend your productions a little more vocal impact.