Cubase 14: The New Drum Machine

By John Walden

Each of Drum Machine’s sound engines offers something unique. Shown here is the Kick 4 engine, with its FM‑based oscillator section.

Cubase’s Drum Machine features some good kits, but also lets you create original sounds.

Cubase 14 brought some very interesting new additions to all three of its main editions but, for Pro and Artist users, the new Drum Machine instrument is a real treat. Supplied with its own dedicated track type, it comes packed with a broad range of ready‑to‑go preset kits. While these are all aimed very much at electronic music styles, the engine provides plenty of scope for designing your own sounds too, so in this workshop I’ll explore some of those possibilities by targeting some drum‑meets‑percussive sounds that would be suitable for a more cinematic context.

Show Some Backbone

Drum Machine can, in some ways, be thought of as a cross between Steinberg’s Groove Agent and Backbone instruments. It offers the multiple 4x4 grids of virtual drum pads that will be familiar to GA users, and on these pads you can lay individual drum sounds (or create playable pitched sounds). You also get a ‘lite’ version of the layered drum synthesis/ sample‑based sound‑design tools that lie at the heart of Backbone.

Each sound in Drum Machine can be built from up to four layers. The layers can be based on any combination of the instrument’s various synthesis engines or audio samples. The former are divided into categories based on drum type (Kicks, Snares, Hihats, Toms, Claps, Cymbals and Percussion), but each category also offers multiple options in each of the synthesis engines. For example, each of the four Kicks options has a distinct feature set, going from a simple oscillator combination through to a more versatile FM‑based oscillator. Samples can simply be dropped into a layer from the MediaBay or your OS file browser.

With additional filters, distortion and envelope controls at the layer level, plus both per‑pad effects and global delay and reverb with individual sends from each pad, Drum Machine manages to pack a lot of sound‑design potential into a compact, easily navigated GUI. Indeed, there are enough options here that there are multiple ways to approach any specific sound‑design target. With that in mind, please take the examples that follow for what they are: launch pads for your own experiments.

Boom & Drop

My first cinematic target was a sort of ‘boom with a pitch drop’ sound. I deliberately confined myself to a sound based on a single layer, and the first screenshot (above) shows the settings I arrived at. This is based upon the Kick 4 synth engine and, aside from adding a dollop of Drum Machine’s own reverb, I didn’t touch any of the pad‑level effects.

Kick 4 uses an FM oscillator and offers some interesting ways to change the character of the sound. The key settings to note are that I set the Tune control to ‑12 semitones, for a little extra low‑frequency energy, and both the FM Env and FM Dec were maxed out. While you don’t get full control over all the aspects of the amplitude and modulation envelopes (Backbone gives you more on this front), the latter extends the FM modulation envelope decay time so, when triggered and sustained, the tonal character of my ‘boom’ changes over time.

The other settings to note are the Filter LP Freq (set to 100Hz to focus the overall sound in the lower frequency range) and the relatively long Pitch Decay and Amp Env Decay settings. Alongside the also maxed‑out Pitch Env Depth, the first of these generates an extended pitch drop as the sound sustains. The second lets you influence the overall length of the sound once triggered.

The end result can be heard in the audio examples on the SOS website (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0325): a nice beefy boom, with a little growl and pitch drop appearing after the initial hit, and which responds to MIDI velocity. It’s pretty effective even just using a single layer like this, but you could easily take things further by blending in additional layers to target both the initial transient/hit and the sustain portion of the sound.

Take My Pulse

My second target was a ‘pulse’ sound of the kind that might be used to underscore a tension/drama cue to give it a sense of pace. The second screenshot shows a composite of my Drum Machine settings. I used the very simple Kick 1 synth engine but hardly touched the controls, as the main sound‑shaping came thanks to the Filter and Equaliser modules in the PadFX section. A low‑pass filter was set to 150Hz (and given a little resonance), while both Low Cut (100Hz) and High Cut (1000Hz) were used to shape the low and high end, respectively. Add in just a touch of reverb and the sound – heartbeat‑like, but with a little punch to it — was good to go.

Creating my ‘pulse’ sound was as much about filtering and EQ as it was using the Kick 1 engine itself.

Again, you could add more layers to refine the sound but it could also be interesting to experiment with the combination of the oscillator’s Click settings and the filter cutoff. If you add some ‘click’ and don’t set the cutoff too low, you can create an interesting attack dimension to the overall sound that could be used to give it more emphasis. Alternatively, dial back the oscillator’s Tone control for a somewhat softer end result.

Tick Tock

My third target was a ‘ticker’ sound, something that’s often used as a high‑frequency complement to a pulse. Drum Machine offers a number of potential starting points for this, and I opted for the Closed HH 3 engine. In this case, I made two variants of the sound: a ‘tick’ (mapped to G1) and a ‘tock’ (slightly lower in pitch, and mapped to A1). You could impersonate a ticking clock with this combination, of course, but used in a more percussive role, the two variations simply provide some performance variety.

Set with very short Amp Env Decay, the Closed HH engines all provide plenty of options for ‘ticker’ style sound design.

The final screenshot shows the settings used for the ‘tick’ version. A little reverb aside, there are only three settings to note. First, the Amp Env Decay was made short, so the overall sound is shorter and less obviously cymbal‑like. For the ‘tick’, the Oscillator Tune control was slightly raised and the filter cutoff (which affects both the oscillator and the noise components of the sound) was set to about 11 o’clock. For the ‘tock’ version, the Tune control was adjusted to lower the pitch and the cutoff set to the eight o’clock position. Both these changes emphasised the lower‑frequency component of the sound. There are plenty of other options to explore. For example, if you wished to make the sound more assertive or aggressive, the Closed HH 3 engine’s Dist section or the more flexible PadFX Distortion module could be explored.

Stuck In Reverse

As mentioned earlier, Drum Machine lets you base a layer on an audio sample. I’ve not exploited that possibility in the examples above, but there are plenty of processing options, with low‑/high‑pass filtering, pitch adjustment, a full filter section and adjustment of the sample start/end points and the amplitude envelope. You can also reverse samples but, unlike Backbone, it’s not possible to control the amplitude envelope in a way that syncs to the project tempo — so, if you create a riser effect (for example), triggering it to reach its peak right on your target beat/bar position can be a bit hit‑and‑miss.

You can configure Modulators as automation sources for Drum Machine’s parameters and those can be sync’ed to the project tempo.

Eagle‑eyed Pro users may have also noted that, in its first iteration at least, Drum Machine doesn’t offer a pop‑open upper panel to access Cubase Pro 14’s new Modulators. Happily, you can configure Modulators as automation sources for Drum Machine’s parameters and those can be sync’ed to the project tempo, so you could pretty easily configure a pad’s Level control to gradually increase over the course of (for example) a bar using something like the Step Modulator.

Full Hit Kit

So, Drum Machine might have been designed primarily with electronic drum sounds in mind, but it also offers enough sound‑design features that it can be useful in other musical contexts, and if you’re currently using Elements, Drum Machine might be just another item to add to your ‘reasons to upgrade’ list. With eight banks of 16 pads in a single Drum Machine instance, you could easily build quite a comprehensive single preset containing different types and styles of cinematic hits and sound effects. Yes, there are dedicated third‑party virtual instruments that offer this kind of sound palette too, but rolling your own isn’t hard, it’s fun, and it means the sounds you use will be unique to you. 

Published March 2025

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Cubase 14: Banish Boring Pads

By John Walden

Screen 1: Spicing up our static pad with the new Modulator options by targeting parameters both in Retrologue itself and insert effects on the Retrologue channel.

Want to awaken those sleepy synth pads? Then give Cubase 14’s Modulators a try!

If existing Cubase users needed a single excuse to upgrade to Pro 14, the new Modulator options might well provide it, especially if your music makes use of synth‑based elements. While lots of modern virtual synths have modulation options on board, those only let you modulate parameters inside that instrument. In contrast, Cubase’s new Modulators have track‑wide reach — they grant you access to any parameter on the selected track, whether in the instrument itself, or in an insert effect or a parameter of the channel hosting it.

The creative sound‑design options the Modulator system offers are almost limitless but let’s start an exploration of the potential with three (from many) different options the Modulator system provides for tackling a common task: banishing the ‘boring’ from a simple synth pad.

Inside & Out

There are contexts where a static pad sound, such as the Retrologue sound I’ve started with in the audio examples (available on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0425), can be just what the musical mood requires. But if you need to add some sonic movement, parameter modulation is a great place to start. Retrologue has its own well‑featured modulation system, of course, but in this example the preset I’ve created makes no use of that. Instead, I’ve opened the new Modulators panel in the Project window’s Lower Zone and, as shown in the first screenshot, used its modulation options instead.

The new Modulator system provides six different modulator types:

• LFO
• Envelope Follower
• Shaper
• Macro Knob
• Step Modulator
• ModScripter

Any combination of these can be added in the eight available slots on the selected track/channel. To start things fairly simply, this first example just uses two instances of the LFO Modulator type and one of the Shaper. The LFO instances are both sine waves, but are set to different Note (speed) values, and with some Shape and Phase changes applied to the second instance. These target parameters in the synth’s engine, including Filter Cutoff and Osc 3 Fine pitch (LFO 1), and Filter Resonance and Osc 2 Fine pitch (LFO 2). The system for adding targets to a Modulator is beautifully implemented — in the majority of cases, you simply hit the large ‘+’ button, then click the desired target parameter.

In this example, all the Modulation Depth values are set quite modestly, so the changes to both filter and pitch are subtle, while the Note settings mean the modulation also occurs quite slowly. Even with just these two Modulators applied, the pad benefits from some nice tonal and pitch movement.

Up to this point, these modulation moves could have been created in Retrologue’s own modulation matrix. The Shaper modulator, though, demonstrates one of the key advantages of the new Modulator system, because it’s targeting parameters outside Retrologue. In this case, the targets reside in two insert effects, Destroyer and Chopper, but they could have been any parameter in the channel that’s hosting Retrologue. What you have, therefore, is an integrated, channel‑level modulation system, where individual Modulators can provide synchronised modulation of both instrument and channel/effects parameters. This can make for some very cool sound‑design possibilities!

Having added my own tweaks to Shaper’s modulation curve, the modulation is targeting Destroyer’s Drive control (changing the amount of distortion added) and Chopper’s Mix control (changing the depth of the volume ‘pulse’ Chopper is adding). Whether in the plug‑ins themselves, or in any of the three Modulators, there are already plenty of adjustments you could make to finesse the result. But the sound has gone from a static pad to something with tonal, pitch, distortion and volume modulation and, for the purposes of our demonstration at least, is sonically more interesting.

The Modulator system allows one Modulator to modulate another, so there are plenty of creative possibilities.

Up The Intensity

The Modulator system allows one Modulator to modulate another, so there are plenty of creative possibilities, but there’s one caveat. In this first iteration, at least, you can only use a Modulator in one slot to modulate the controls in the main panel of another modulation slot; the parameters in the target parameter sub‑panels, including the Modulation Depth controls, cannot themselves be selected as modulation targets, and in terms of our ‘pad enhancer’ task, that’s a bit of shame...

For instance, in our previous example, we could have added an instance of the Macro Knob in an additional slot and used this to target the Modulation Depth controls in other modulators, thereby intensifying the resulting sonic changes. Unfortunately, that’s currently not possible. Thankfully, by combining the Macro Knob modulator with another highlight of the new Modulator system, the ModScripter modulator, we can create a workaround that achieves a similar type of end result.

Screen 2: Don’t let ModScripter’s JavaScript coding possibilities put you off exploring: there’s an interesting selection of presets provided, including the Intensity option shown here.

The second screenshot shows a possible configuration. ModScripter is perhaps the least intuitive (most intimidating?) of the modulation types. As the name suggests, it includes a scripting panel that lets you code your own modulation scripts using JavaScript. Thankfully, for those of us who are here to make music rather than code, ModScripter comes with some very useful presets, accessed via the drop‑down menu located top right. There are some intriguing options amongst this selection, including the rather wonderful Apply Randomness, but for this example I selected the Intensity preset.

ModScripter’s control set includes a Modulator Input control (the slider beneath the waveform display) and this particular preset script also provides an Intensity control. In our example, Slot 1’s Step Modulator is sending its step‑based modulation pattern to ModScripter’s Modulator Input; that slider is controlled by the Step Modulator. However, the Intensity control can then be used to modify the (yup!) intensity of that modulation signal, essentially scaling it from 0 to 100 percent. This modified (modulated) modulation pattern in ModScripter is then used to target both the Filter Cutoff and Filter Resonance, but could potentially control any other parameters on the Retrologue channel.

Finally, in Slot 3, an instance of Macro Knob is configured to target the ModScripter’s Intensity control, and as I have Macro Knob linked to my MIDI controller’s mod wheel (courtesy of the MIDI Remote system), I have hands‑on control: moving the mod wheel adjusts the Macro Knob, which in turn adjusts ModScripter’s Intensity, which in turn scales the Step Modulator modulation data transmitted via ModScripter to Retrologue’s filter. Got all that? Phew! Yes, it can at first seem like data‑modulation spaghetti, but for our boring pad, it does provide a way to manually control the intensity of any modulation being applied to the sound. It’s not exactly the same result you’d get by adjusting the Modulation Depth sliders, but it’s certainly in the same ball park!

Multitimbral Modulation

Another strategy for banishing bland from pad sounds is to layer and/or blend two sound sources together. This could, of course, be combined with applying modulation to the two (or more?) individual layers. However, as the new Modulator features work at the track level, if you use two separate virtual instrument tracks for your blending, you can’t easily ‘share’ Modulators between the two layers; each requires their own Modulator configuration...

Screen 3: If you use a multitimbral instrument such as HALion Sonic, blending between pad sounds on different layers can be easily configured on a single Cubase channel.

Except that you can! In fact, there are a couple of options. One of them exploits the audio side‑chain support that’s offered by some of the Modulators — these have a whole range of applications, by the way, and I plan to explore them in more detail in another workshop. The second option is much more pragmatic: simply use a multitimbral virtual instrument! In Cubase’s HALion Sonic (and the full version of HALion), Steinberg have an excellent candidate for this. In my final example, therefore, I’ve set up two (boring!) pad presets in HALion Sonic’s first two sound slots, but have configured both slots to respond to MIDI channel 1. So whatever notes I play will trigger both sounds. I’ve then configured a couple of Modulators to spice up each of the individual pad layers, much as I did for the Retrologue example earlier.

The blending fun really begins when you use a single Modulator to target both pad layers. Slot 3, using a Macro Knob, shows this at its most simple. I’ve assigned the volume of each layer to the HS Quick Controls, and then targeted these using the Macro Knob, but with the Modulation Depth set in opposite directions for each layer. As you rotate the knob, one layer will get louder as the other gets quieter, meaning you can adjust the sound blend as required. You can also do exactly the same sort of thing with other parameter targets, and suitable candidates include pan, filter cutoff and pitch. There are all sorts of possibilities here, and to give you a feel for what you can do, I’ve provided a couple of additional options in the audio examples on the SOS website. It’s so easy to configure the modulation for all of the layers because it can be done in a single location, using the new Modulators panel.

All Mods, No Cons!

I have to say that the Modulators are a brilliant addition to Cubase Pro, and absolutely brimming with potential. I’ve barely scratched the thinnest of surfaces here in terms of what’s possible. My experiments to date suggest that the side‑chain audio input mentioned earlier is well worth further exploration, and the Envelope Follower modulator also seems to hold plenty of promise. So watch this space — this is undoubtedly a topic we will return to in a future column or three!

Published April 2025

Korg Kaoss DJ - Control Your Mix (Free Serato DJ Intro Download)

Cubase 14: Pattern Editor Arps

By John Walden

The Pattern Editor makes a great starting point for generating arpeggio‑style patterns.

Need a better arpeggiator? Cubase’s Pattern Editor can deliver the goods!

The new Drum Machine and Pattern Editor features in Pro and Artist versions of Cubase 14 are obviously designed to complement each other. However, the Pattern Editor feature set also provides some interesting possibilities for designing synth arpeggio patterns. So, if you are fond of the occasional arp, pick yourself a pluck sound, pluck up your courage, and let’s see what I’m ’arping on about...

Making Notes

Cubase has long had a number of tools for creating arpeggio patterns, including the Arpache MIDI plug‑ins and the arpeggio engine built into Retrologue. However, the Pattern Editor provides a very neat alternative because it offers some creative options. For this example (for which I’ve created accompanying audio examples on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0525), I’ll use an instance of Retrologue with a short ‘pluck’ style synth preset. The first step, though, is in the Add Track dialogue box: select the Pattern Editor option as the Event Type. When you then select this new track in the Project window (as shown in the first screenshot), the Editor tab in the Lower Zone will show you the Pattern Editor rather than the standard MIDI Editor.

When used with Drum Machine, the Pattern Editor automatically configures lanes for each of the available drum sounds linked to the correct MIDI note. That’s great for obvious reasons, but for a melodic instrument you’ll need to reconfigure this — to make pattern creation easier it makes good sense to set up lanes only for any notes that you know you’ll need. For example, in the screenshot, I’ve just set up lanes for a single octave (C3 to C4), using only notes in the C major scale. You could pick more exotic key/scale/note combinations if you wish, and use a span of notes over multiple octaves too; the choice is yours, depending on how complex you like your arpeggio patterns to get. Also, observe that I’ve assigned the notes in pitch order (lowest pitch at the bottom of the lane list). This isn’t how the Pattern Editor would do things by default, and I don’t think you can simply drag/drop lanes to reorder them — plan ahead, and you won’t have to do this twice!

Built By Hand

To keep things simple for this demonstration, I opted for a conventional 16‑step, 16th‑note grid on which to build my arpeggios, but you can adjust these settings globally (in the Pattern Editor’s topmost menu bar) or on a per‑lane basis (although, there are some quirks to how lanes with different step counts behave if more unusual rhythmic patterns are your thing).

Once dropped onto the timeline, you can easily change the pattern number or convert the patterns into standard MIDI parts.Creating your first pattern manually (by clicking on step combinations when playback is active) lets you quickly experiment with the basic structure of your arpeggio’s starting point. And although we’re using it as an arpeggiator, note that this is really a step sequencer, and that means you can add multiple notes on an individual step if you want to trigger a chord here or there as well as a melodic line.

Once you have an initial pattern (named Pattern 1 by default), hit the Duplicate button in the toolbar. This will preserve your original pattern should you need to go back, while also creating a copy (named... yup, Pattern 2) that you can begin to get a little more creative with. Patterns can be renamed, of course, and that can make it easier to keep track of multiple versions of your arpeggio as you work.

Variations On A Theme

The Pattern Editor is a super‑simple environment for hand‑crafting an arpeggio, but it really comes into its own for adding musical interest by generating variations. This is possible because of the various randomisation, probability and modulation elements in the Pattern Editor’s features set. Randomisation options are available both globally (in the toolbar) or on a per‑lane basis.

For our use case, the most appropriate options are available in the Parameter Lanes, located at the base of the Pattern Editor panel. These operate on a per‑lane/per‑step basis and allow you to set, for example, per‑step velocity for the notes in your arpeggio pattern. However, providing your synth sound is velocity sensitive, you can also add Velocity Variance and playback Probability (as in the main screenshot) to any active notes in the currently selected lane. And, as both of these elements (Velocity Variance and Probability) add their randomisation on each pass through the pattern, you can introduce some performance variation on playback. Subtlety generally works best here, but feel free to experiment.

These randomisation options work best if you avoid notes that hold the core of the pattern (such as the whole‑beat steps), because when these go ‘missing’ the rhythmic sense of the arpeggio can get lost. Applied to notes towards the end of the bar, though, such as steps 13 to 16 in our 16‑step example, they can work really well to add melodic interest/variation.

Three further things are worth noting here. First, you can add step‑based modulation of your synth’s parameters in the Parameter Lane section. Simply tap the ‘+’ icon and you can select a target parameter to add to the existing selection. Second, if you want to reset the values in any parameter lane to their original starting points, hold the Ctrl/Cmd button while clicking (or dragging) in the lane. Third, to start with at least, just build your initial patterns starting on the same root note. We’ll get on to adapting them to the chord sequence in your project shortly.

Arp Arranger

Once you have created a few pattern variations, the next step is to arrange them on your project timeline. This aspect of the Pattern Editor’s design is rather neat: you can drag and drop patterns to your track using the button next to the pattern name box. Whichever pattern you currently have selected is placed on the timeline. Like a MIDI clip, you can then drag the middle‑right handle of the dropped pattern to repeat it (for example, to create four bars of Pattern 1). You can, therefore, easily lay out your various patterns into a longer sequence. Each pattern shows its pattern number top‑right, and clicking on this opens a drop‑down menu — great if you need to change the pattern number for a particular instance. This can be seen in the topmost track of the first screen.

Rather wonderfully, these ‘rendered’ MIDI clips still include the randomisation and probability variations we configured in the Pattern Editor.

With your sequence of patterns in place, you can get those patterns to adapt to the chords used in your project. There are a number of ways to approach this, but (as in the screenshot) the simplest is to use Chord events placed on the Chord Track. In this first Pattern Editor iteration, pattern events don’t automatically follow the Chord Track, but if you select all the required pattern events and open the pattern number selection drop‑down menu again, you can choose Convert Pattern Event to MIDI Part. This does exactly what it says on the tin: it generates a standard MIDI clip. But, rather wonderfully, these ‘rendered’ MIDI clips still include the randomisation and probability variations we configured in the Pattern Editor.

Once your pattern‑based MIDI is following the Chord Track, the Chord Editing panel provides additional options for voicing of the chord notes.

If you add a Chord Track, you can sequence your project’s chord changes using Chord Events placed on that track in the usual way. With that done, in the Chords panel in the Inspector you simply set your newly converted Pattern Editor MIDI track to Follow Chord Track. There are a number of configuration options here, but the most basic Chords & Scale or Chords options should be fine as a starting point. The notes in your various patterns will then be adjusted to match the chord changes in the Chord Track. The second track in the main screenshot has been treated in this way.

This may well be all you need, but if you want to add a little extra interest then, as on the third track in the first screenshot, simply select one of the MIDI clips and, in the MIDI Editor, select the notes in that clip. You can then dip into the Chord Editing panel and start experimenting. You can actually change the chords themselves here, but simple options such as the Inversions and Drop Notes buttons can be very effective — these make it easy to voice the notes in a specific chord in different ways, including over more than a single octave.

Finally, the advantage of using the Chord Track as part of this process is that you can get multiple Pattern Editor‑inspired tracks to synchronise to the same chord changes. This is exactly what I’ve done with both an arpeggio synth and bass synth in the last of the audio examples that you can audition on the SOS website.

More Mods?

Finally, we mustn’t forget that Cubase’s new Pattern Editor is great for its primary design intention — inspiring new drum beats. But as I’ve hopefully demonstrated above, it’s also brimming with unplanned creative potential, so I’m now crossing my fingers and hoping that Steinberg continue to evolve the possibilities it offers. For example, both a pattern preset system and the option for patterns to follow the Chord Track would be great (though I’ve no idea of the technicalities of making this latter option work!). Meanwhile, playtime with patterns can be a lot of fun. Enjoy! 

Published May 2025

Korg MS-20m Monophonic Synthesizer Kit and SQ-1 Step Sequencer

Cubase 14: Using Modulators For Automatic Vocal Level Riding

By John Walden

In the first stage of our DIY vocal riding, the combination of the Envelope Follower Modulator and Volume plug‑in lets us reduce the dynamic range of the original vocal.

Cubase’s new Modulator has many superpowers —  it can even ride your vocal levels for you!

Waves Audio’s Vocal Rider plug‑in has proven enduringly popular (it was introduced some 15 years ago!) with good reason — it can automate, or semi‑automate, what was once a time‑consuming task: riding a channel fader to ensure the vocal isn’t ‘lost’ at different points in a busy and dynamic mix. In this article, I’ll take you through how you can use Cubase 14’s new Modulators to achieve similar results to Vocal Rider.

Rider Essentials

Under the hood, Vocal Rider does a number of things. First, like a combination of compression and expansion, it can be used to make the overall dynamic range of vocals, dialogue or solo instruments (despite the name, it works well on various sources) more consistent. Second, as it can accept a side‑chain signal (such as a vocal‑free backing track, or specific elements from the mix) and track that source’s dynamics, it can be used to adjust how the vocal level is balanced against that mix, so that the lyrics remain clearly audible even as the arrangement changes. Third, all of its automatic level adjustments can be written as automation data to your DAW. So you’re able to finesse the result with targeted manual edits — something that’s much harder to do with a compressor.

It’s possible in most DAWs to achieve similar ends using the built in tools, but generally speaking it can be more fiddly to set up. For instance, Mike Senior outlined one such approach in a Cubase workshop back in SOS June 2010 (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0610), shortly after Vocal Rider came out. With the introduction in Cubase 14 of the new Modulator facility, though, Cubase Pro users now have another option...

On The Level

First, we’ll use Cubase’s Envelope Follower Modulator and the new Volume plug‑in (shown in the opening screenshot) in combination to reign in the dynamic range of a spoken or sung vocal. A suitable configuration is shown in the first screenshot. Next to my main lead vocal channel is a mono Group Track set to receive a pre‑fader send from the main vocal. The processing (courtesy of the Envelope Shaper Modulator and an instance of the Volume plug‑in) is done to this Group Track, before both tracks are sent to and blended on a further Group Track.

As the name suggests, the Envelope Follower creates a control signal based on the level (amplitude) of the incoming audio signal. By adjusting the Attack, Release, Threshold and Gain knobs, you can modulate the amplitude curve displayed in the Modulator’s main panel. This curve can then be used to drive changes in any of the Modulator’s target parameters. In this case, that’s Volume’s Gain parameter. Note that the Modulation Depth has been set to a negative value (‑50%) — this way, as the incoming audio gets louder, the Modulator will turn down Volume’s Gain, thus reducing the signal level at the track’s output.

The Envelope Follower modulates the Volume control on the Vocal Ride Stage 2 track, increasing the track’s volume when the level of the backing track gets louder.

Clearly, with Attack, Release and Threshold all present, this is not a million miles away from being a regular compressor’s control set. Meanwhile, the Envelope Follower’s Gain control acts as an input level control, equivalent to pushing a compressor’s input harder. Adjusting the negative Modulation Depth then lets you control how much gain reduction is applied once the input signal passes the threshold. You can also adjust the blend of these two vocal channels (one unprocessed and one processed), which makes it easy to dial back the overall impact of the gain reduction to taste. You might also have noticed that in this example, this blend is then sent to a further Group Track that I named ‘Vocal Ride Stage 1’ — I’ll come back to this in a minute!

Before I do though, it should also be noted that Vocal Rider, while letting you reduce volume peaks in a similar fashion, also raises the levels of quieter sections. I suspect you could configure an additional Modulator stage to simulate this, but I’ve kept things simple here and, in most cases, you can achieve a perfectly adequate reduction in overall dynamic range by attacking the problem from one direction (top down, so to speak) rather than two (top down and bottom up).

A Bit On The Side

The second stage of vocal riding involves getting the overall vocal level to ride along with changes in the dynamics of the instrumental backing in which it sits. As shown in the first screenshot, the approach I’ve employed (which leans on Mike’s article that I mentioned above) requires two further mono Group Tracks, that I’ve named ‘EQed Backing’ and ‘Vocal Ride Stage 2’).

Drum elements can be amongst the loudest parts of any mix, so best not to let them drive the automatic vocal levelling too much.

The EQed Backing channel receives post‑fader sends from any of the backing instrumentation tracks you want your vocal to ride its volume against. In this case, I’ve used two such feeds. One comes from an ‘all instruments’ track, and the other, with a much lower send level, from an ‘all drums’ track. Drum elements can be amongst the loudest parts of any mix, so best not to let them drive the automatic vocal levelling too much — otherwise we can easily end up with a vocal that pumps in time with the kick and/or snare!

Two further points need noting. First, the EQed Backing track’s main output is set to No Bus, so no matter how much signal is sent here it won’t be heard in the main stereo mix. Second, this channel has a steep high‑pass filter applied, so that the kick/bass elements in the backing track can be controlled. This will let the midrange frequencies in the backing track, which are the most likely to mask our vocal frequencies, dominate the second stage of vocal riding.

The Vocal Ride Stage 2 track is set to receive a send from Vocal Ride Stage 1, and is then routed to the main vocal bus. It also has both an Envelope Follower Modulator and a Volume plug‑in inserted on it. In this case, though, the Envelope Follower uses a side‑chain input signal from the EQed Backing track, and changes in the level of this signal therefore dictate the envelope shape in the Modulator’s display. This envelope is then used as the modulation source to target the Gain control in the Volume plug‑in. But in this case, the Modulation Depth is positive so, as the level of the side‑chain signal from the EQed Backing signal increases, so too will the level of the Vocal Ride Stage 2 track.

For the second stage of the process, this instance of the Envelope Follower uses its side‑chain input to let it track the volume of key elements in the backing track.

You can set the Attack, Release (both set to act more slowly, for a smoother response), Threshold, Gain and Depth of the Envelope Follower to adjust the degree of volume control, so that the vocal signal on this track follows the dynamics of the backing track. The main vocal bus then sums this Vocal Ride Stage 2 signal with that of Vocal Ride Stage 1. Finally, you can just use these two tracks’ faders to set how the overall vocal levels ride the dynamic changes in the overall mix level and remain audible. Hey presto! Two stages of vocal riding that help to prevent your vocal getting lost.

Can’t Catch Me?

I found this approach very effective on the whole, but there’s one caveat that some might find significant. As I said above, Waves’ Vocal Rider can record its volume automation data to your DAW, and that’s useful because, as with most automated processes, although it takes a lot of the hard work out of vocal level automation, there can still be sections you wish to adjust. Unless I’ve missed something (quite possible, so please do feel free to put me right if you know something I don’t!), then it doesn’t seem possible to ‘catch’ the Modulator‑driven changes to the Volume plug‑in’s Gain control, and record them as standard automation data. That’s a shame as the option for a final ‘tweak it manually’ stage would be great to have. Of course, this is the first iteration of the Modulator feature set and I’m sure Steinberg will be keen to expand upon what is a mighty impressive start. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that a means to record Modulator‑driven automation data is on the development team’s ‘to do’ list. 

Published June 2025