Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Monday, July 13, 2026
Cubase Pro: Key Commander
The Key Editor is packed with MIDI editing features but the trick to a faster workflow is training yourself to access them as efficiently as possible.
With some DIY Smart Controls for Cubase's Key Editor, you could become a MIDI-editing ninja.
Cubase Pro 10's VariAudio Smart Controls bring all the main VariAudio functions within easy reach when you hover the cursor over a pitch segment. It saves you time, and makes you less likely to lose your musical focus. Seeing the concept applied so brilliantly in VariAudio made me hanker after a similar 'smart toolset' for the MIDI Key Editor. When editing MIDI data here, repetitive tasks include: entering and selecting notes, changing note positions or lengths, transposing notes and muting or deleting notes. The potential for streamlining things is obvious, so — in the absence of VariAudio-style Smart Controls here — just how close to hand can we bring the tools and settings required to perform these sorts of tasks?
Tool Utility Belt
The most frequently used MIDI editing tools (eg. Draw, Erase, Trim) are available in the Tool Buttons Palette of the Key Editor's toolbar. This is easy to access, but going back and forth between this Palette (to select each tool) and the notes you wish to edit means a lot of 'mouse travel', particularly if you're working in a floating Key Editor, perhaps expanded to give you more screen space in which to work (rather than the compact Lower Zone).
The Key Editor already has a more immediate option that's similar to 'smart tools' — the Toolbox pop-up menu. Right-click and hold while hovering the cursor in the MIDI note grid, and a pop-up Tool Buttons Palette will appear, allowing swift tool selections. If this is the only thing you retrain yourself to do, you'll already have saved yourself a lot of time!
Enabling the right-click pop-up Tool Buttons Palette is an instant time-saver.
This pop-up only appears when the 'Pop-up Toolbox on Right-Click' option is enabled in the Tools section of Cubase's Preferences. Otherwise, right-clicking opens a subset of the main MIDI menu. There are all sorts of useful commands here, particularly in the Functions submenu, and it can be good to have easy access to this. I prefer the Toolbox as the default right-click action, but you can have the best of both worlds: press the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) key when right-clicking and the MIDI menu will be displayed instead of the Toolbox.
Keyboard shortcuts are another option for rapid-fire tool changes. Many tools are already assigned (in the Tools section of the Key Commands panel) to the number keys. I rejigged these to put the tools I use most frequently (Object, Draw, Mute and Erase) on keys 1 to 4. With one hand on my mouse and the other hovering over these keys, I can select these tools rapidly.
Snap To It
Using the Object Selection tool to select notes doesn't require you to leave the note editing grid, but controlling subsequent movement of notes might. I find that for most note movements along the timeline I want to snap to the grid, move the note relative to the grid, or turn snap off altogether. You can change between these different modes in the Snap section of the Key Editor's Toolbar.
There are no smart-tool-style pop-up options, but there are still faster ways to move between these modes. By default, for example, you can toggle Snap on/off using the J key — or, probably better, defeat Snap temporarily by holding Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) as you move one or more MIDI notes. In the Key Command dialogue's Edit section, you can also define Key Commands for each of the Snap types. I tend to favour Grid and Grid Relative, so I've created easy-to-use key combinations for these.
Key Commands make it super-easy to flip between different quantise resolutions as you enter or move notes within the Key Editor.
Whether inserting new notes with the Draw tool or moving notes with the Object Selection tool, if you want their position to snap in some way to the grid, you'll often find yourself moving between different grid resolutions. The grid resolution can be set via the Quantize section of the Key Editor's Toolbar but, again, this involves navigating to the Toolbar, clicking and selecting the required resolution from the drop-down menu. To speed things up, the Quantize Category in the Key Commands windows comes with all the common grid divisions pre-defined, using Ctrl+number combinations. So, for example, quarter-note or 16th-note quantise settings can be selected with Ctrl+4 and Ctrl+9, respectively.
Nudge, Nudge
Two further useful Key Editor facilities are the Nudge Palette and the Transpose Palette. They aren't shown by default, but you can toggle their display on via the Settings options at the far-right of the Key Editor's Toolbar string (the cogwheel icon). Collectively, these palettes provide options to move and trim the lengths of selected notes in a speedy fashion. For example, in the Nudge Palette, you can trim the start or end of selected notes relative to the current quantise settings.
Of course, if you configure and master the appropriate Key Commands you may never need to turn on the display of the Nudge and Transpose palettes in the first place; you'll have much quicker access to the same functions. The Nudge section of the Key Commands window has options for moving notes left/right along the timeline or up/down in pitch. Some of these have keyboard shortcuts assigned by default, while others need assigning manually if you use them often enough to make a shortcut worthwhile. Nudge Left/Right are great for moving notes along the timeline but the Up/Down and Up/Down Larger Step commands are also worth considering — these transpose selected MIDI notes by a semitone or an octave, respectively, without requiring any fiddly mouse work.
Adding the Nudge Palette and Transpose Palette to the Key Editor Toolbar brings some useful editing options, but you can also access the same tools via Key Commands.
Looking at the Key Command's Nudge section, you could be forgiven for thinking that the various Trim commands aren't available for assignment. Actually, they are, but for some reason Steinberg have listed them as Start Left, Start Right, End Left and End Right. If you're unfamiliar with the MIDI note Trim options, these are well worth exploring, especially if you frequently need to tidy up less-than-stellar keyboard performances!
Work Smarter
If you do a lot of MIDI editing, committing only these few key commands and modifiers to finger-muscle memory should save you a massive amount of time in most projects. And not only can you finish projects more quickly (which is obviously great if you have clients with deadlines), but getting what are otherwise tedious editing tasks out of the way rapidly allows you to retain a sharper focus on the creative side of things.
Given just how rich Cubase's MIDI editing features are, the examples I've suggested only scratch the surface, and there are more than enough options for me to revisit the theme in a future column. Of course, if someone in Steinberg's Cubase development team is trying to work out how to bring VariAudio-style Smart Controls to the MIDI Key Editor, there'd be no need for such an article. In the meantime, if you're prepared to train your fingers to fully exploit them, there are plenty of shortcuts available.
Saturday, July 11, 2026
Friday, July 10, 2026
Cubase Distroyer Plug-in
We dish the dirt on Distroyer, the new distortion plug-in introduced in Cubase 10.
Cubase boasts several impressive distortion tools and whether you want saturation, overdrive, fuzz or lo-fi effects, there's something for the job. But Cubase 10 brought Pro and Artist users a new toy called Distroyer, so let's see (and hear — you'll find audio examples at www.soundonsound.com/cubase-distroyer-plugin-audio-examples) what it can do.
Scene Of Destruction
Distroyer's somewhat unconventional Mix control presents some interesting creative options — but note that you'll need to use the plug-in as a send effect if you want to do true parallel processing.While users of Cubase's older Distortion will instantly recognise Distroyer's heritage, Distroyer offers more controls and, like Quadrafuzz 2, makes it possible to aim the processing at a specific frequency range. Distroyer also has some design quirks, most notably in terms of the Mix control as I'll discuss below, but these also give this tool a distinct character and feel.
The first screen shows the settings required to 'zero' Distroyer's controls, so the audio sounds the same as when the plug-in is bypassed. This is a useful starting point, especially if you intend a fairly subtle effect. As explained in Cubase 10's Plug-in Reference PDF, some of the controls apply to the 'wet' signal only, and the wet/dry balance is adjusted via the Mix knob. These include the Lo/Hi Filters, which allow you to restrict the distortion effect to a specific frequency range. Incidentally, once set, if you click and hold in the blue zone that defines the frequency range, you can drag the whole range left/right to find the sweet spot. Drive adjusts the distortion character, going from a gentle overdrive to something more full-on, while the Offset control, which you can adjust via the graphic or the slider display, can tweak that character further. The Spatial control changes the left/right characteristics of the distortion and can generate some very cool stereo effects when applied to individual instruments.
Interestingly, the Boost, Shelf Freq, Shelf Gain and Tone controls operate on both the wet and the dry signals. Boost acts as a distortion gain control, while you can also adjust the frequency and gain of a high-shelf filter. Tone is actually a low-pass filter and, of course, Output sets the overall output level. As these controls come after the Mix knob, they can influence the overall sound regardless of the Mix knob setting. This somewhat unusual configuration makes for some very interesting creative options when Distroyer is used as an insert processor; if you want more conventional 'wet/dry' parallel processing, simply deploy the Distroyer as a send effect.
Kick It
With filter settings like these, Distroyer can really add some punch to your kick's low end, even when working with a pre-mixed drum loop.Because you are able to restrict the frequency range to which distortion is applied, Distroyer is a particularly useful tool for manipulating kick drum sounds, whether of the acoustic or electronic variety. It's particularly helpful if you're working with pre-mixed loops and finding the kick in need of a little 'something extra' to get it to punch through in your mix. While some focused EQ might also do the trick on occasion, adding new harmonic content with distortion can often be more effective — and in this role, Distroyer is a powerful tool.
The second screen shows some suitable settings to get you started: the Lo/Hi Filter is set to span just the 40 to 100 Hz range, and the Offset is set to neutral but the Drive to 9, to give quite a strong distortion effect. While Mix is set to 100 percent (so the full drum loop is subject to processing), the Tone (low pass) filter is set at 150Hz so that the bulk of the high-frequency content (eg. snare and cymbals) doesn't actually reach the output. Leaving Boost at zero also means that Distroyer won't colour the sound outside the frequency range bracketed by the Lo/Hi filters. And with the Shelf Gain set to zero, the high-shelf filter is also essentially bypassed.
I've used Distroyer as a send effect, so the balance between the unprocessed drum loop and this 'kick enhancement' is dictated by the send level from the drum loop's track. Distroyer's various filters mean that any distortion applied to the higher-frequency elements doesn't reach the plug-in's output, but if you want to get even more aggressive with your kick you can gradually roll up the Boost and experiment with the Offset.
If, instead of using a mixed loop, your kick has its own dedicated channel in Cubase's MixConsole, you can push Distroyer harder — and turn even an underwhelming kick into a cone-ripping monster in a way no amount of EQ could achieve alone. If it's thump enhancement you want, the settings described above will again serve as a starting point — just tweak the Boost, Offset and Drive controls to take things from subtle saturation to more daring decimation.
Distroyer is also great at enhancing the attack/beater/click element of your kick sound.As your dedicated kick channel means you don't have to worry about Distroyer destroying other drum elements, the Lo/Hi Filter settings can be used more creatively here to target the effect exactly where you want it in the frequency spectrum; this can be a great help if you need to give the kick its own dominant frequency relative to any bass sounds used in the mix.
Of course, the Lo/Hi Filter can also be used to focus Distroyer's processing on the click (beater) element of your kick too — to bring out more of its percussive attack. The third screen shows a possible send-return effect starting point for this application. The click of the beater is generally found in the 2-4 kHz range so I set the Lo/Hi Filter accordingly, dialled in plenty of Drive and Boost, and gradually increased the Mix from zero until I started to hear the effect. After that, the fine-tuning is a matter of taste.
Bass Enhancer
In SOS May 2018's Cubase workshop, I discussed band-splitting your bass sounds to apply different processing to the low, mid and high-mid frequency ranges, and one option is to distort to the mid/high-mid components — with the aim of improving the definition of the bass in the mix. I used Cubase's VST Bass Amp plug-in in that earlier workshop and Quadrafuzz 2 could also be used, but the principle works just as well with Distroyer. And Distroyer's control set offers some different and potentially useful options.
With two Distroyer instances configured as send effects, you can target processing on your bass track's low end to add girth, while treating the low/hi mids differently, to help the part cut through.The basic setup involves two sends from your bass track to separate effects channels, each with an instance of Distroyer inserted. The final screen shows some example settings. The amounts of Drive and Boost can be set to taste, but the most crucial parameters are the Hi/Lo Filter values. One instance is set to add processing only to the sound below 200Hz, essentially providing a bit of overdrive to the fundamental frequencies of the part. The other, however, is configured to operate in the 200-5000 Hz range and, depending on the Boost, Drive and Offset controls, this can add some nice sizzle to the harmonics above the fundamental frequencies, which can help the bass cut through more clearly. Then, simply balance the wet/dry mix, and the degree of low and/or low-mid/high-mid distortion, by varying the two send levels. As in the May 2018 article, you could also add an instance of Studio EQ to each effects channel prior to Distroyer, to provide even finer control over the frequencies that each instance is processing.
Don't Stop Me Now
Of course, it doesn't have to be just kicks and basses! The principles are the same for other applications — just restrict the frequency range you want to focus the processing on and set the distortion to be as subtle or as brazen as you want — but the somewhat unconventional control set always seems to help make Distroyer an interesting creative tool. While I've just about filled my allotted space for this month, I've included in the audio examples on the SOS website a couple of other potential applications for Distroyer: vocal processing and master-bus processing.
Finally, it's perhaps worth me repeating that Quadrafuzz 2 also offers frequency-specific distortion options — so it could just as easily be used as Distroyer in the above examples. I'd suggest that you experiment and see what works best for you, but whatever your thoughts, I reckon Distroyer is a very worthwhile creative addition to Cubase's plug-in suite.
Thursday, July 9, 2026
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Cubase 10: Channel Settings Workflow
The Channel Settings window provides a flexible and efficient environment for many basic mix processing tasks.
Could Cubase 10's Channel Settings window become your go-to mixing tool?
Cubase's Channel Strip has the potential to make mixing much more efficient. Indeed, the same concept has translated fairly well from its hardware origins into most modern DAWs now. But when screen space is at a premium some implementations can require considerable screen real-estate — and while the collapsible Rack system in Cubase's MixConsole is brilliant in so many respects, accessing all the controls for each channel can entail a lot of opening/closing of Racks or scrolling up/down.
A small-screen-friendly alternative is to build your workflow around the Channel Settings window. Sure, you can only display controls for one channel at once, but this window makes the complete Channel Strip's controls available in a very easy-to-use format. And with the useful refinements Steinberg made to the operation of the Channel Settings window in Cubase 10, you really should consider putting it at the heart of your mixing workflow.
Channel Guide
The Channel Settings window can be opened for the currently selected track/channel by clicking on the 'e' button in the Project window's Track List or in the MixConsole, and it gives you access to the full control set that's found in the MixConsole — but in a larger, easier to use GUI.
As in previous versions, the contents of the MixConsole's EQ and Channel Strip Racks dominate the central portion of the display, but in v10 Steinberg made some worthwhile tweaks to what's possible here. For example, the UI was improved to offer better access to the core controls of each module, the visual feedback/metering was revamped and, while the EQ section could already be viewed in an expanded form via the Equalizer tab, you can now do that for the Compression section too (via a further 'e' button). The Channel Strip tab now includes a compact version of the EQ section in situ, and you can drag and drop to change the order of the various modules in the signal flow, which makes it much easier to see and configure your preferred processing chain.
The Sound Of Beating Drums
When considering what the Channel Settings approach might offer you, there are two key questions to ask. First, are the tools provided up to the job? Second, how can they facilitate a more efficient workflow? The first is a huge question, but by way of example let's briefly consider a common mixing task: submixing a multitrack drum recording. In the example shown in the first screen there are seven mic channels, with single kick, snare and hi-hat mics joined by pairs of overheads and room (ambience) mics. For all the shiny appeal of your third-party plug-ins, the stock Cubase plug-ins in the Channel Strip and EQ sections are more than capable enough for routine mix-processing tasks like this, so the bulk of your work can easily be done in the expanded Channel Strip display.
The exact settings required for each module across the various drum channels will obviously be project-specific, but it's worth exploring some cool features in the Channel Strip plug-ins. For example, the Noise Gate features a very useful input filter, and you can activate this via the AF button. You can then engage the LST (listen) function while you adjust the Freq and Q settings of the filter to focus the action of the gate within the dominant frequency of each sound source. In this drum mix, I used this on the kick, snare and hi-hat mics, and it allowed me to maximise the spill rejection from other drums into those mics.
You can now access the full control set for your selected compressor within the Channel Settings window.It's also worth noting that all three compressor options (Standard, Tube or Vintage), which offer different characters of compression, also include Mix controls — making it possible to experiment with parallel compression on individual drum mics without leaving this window. And that, alongside the expected four-band EQ controls and an expanded display of the EQ curve, the Equalizer tab grants you access to controls from the MixConsole's Pre section. Most usefully, this includes a variable-slope low-cut filter for routine high-pass processing, and the Phase button (a polarity inverter), which is useful to optimise the phase relationships of multiple mics used on a single source. In this drum mix I used the low-cut filter to remove unwanted rumble to varying degrees on all the tracks (yes, even the kick), and set it higher for the two room mics, to prevent the kick being too ambient.
The EQ tab includes full access to the four-band EQ but also the very useful high-cut and low-cut filters from the Pre Rack section.The Tools section offers a choice of the DeEsser (useful for vocal tracks, obviously, but drums too on occasion) and EnvelopeShaper. The latter is very useful for drums and a doddle to use. In this mix I use it to enhance the attack of the kick and snare, to help them punch through more clearly. Finally, I applied a subtle amount of saturation to all the channels (you can choose between Magneto II, Tape or Tube options) and limiting (Standard Limiter, Brickwall or Maximizer) just to control any really hot peaks.
I've provided a couple of audio examples, in which I compare my raw drum tracks to the drum 'mix', with processing configured solely in the Channel Settings window on each track. To my ears, the end result is clearer and has more punch — I achieved what I set out to achieve using only these tools. So whether or not you have access to third-party, channel strip-style plug-ins, I'd say the Cubase Channel Settings toolset could take you a long way along your mixing journey. For routine mix tasks, at least, I'd answer our first question with an emphatic 'yes'.
Command & Conquer
What about ease of use? Well, like the channel strips on a hardware console, a good dollop of that ease of use comes from the consistency of the control set for every channel. As you build up experience with the common control set, your familiarity will translate to much faster operation. But the other element that contributes to workflow efficiency is how quickly you can navigate the controls within the Channel Settings window itself. If you're fortunate enough to own Steinberg's CC121 hardware controller, that navigation will be very slick. But even for the rest of us, there are options and shortcuts that can speed things up.
As a starting point, for frequent use, I'd define a keyboard shortcut for the Edit Channel Settings option (you can create/edit shortcuts in the Edit section of the Key Commands dialogue) so you can quickly open and close the Channel Settings window; I've assigned the 'E' key to this, as it matches the on-screen button.
To get the most from the Channel Settings window, defining a few key commands will greatly enhance the workflow, including the ability to swiftly move between different tracks and channels.For the fastest workflow, two further options are worth enabling, and both are accessible from the pop-up menus in the top-right of the Channel Settings window. First, from the Toolbar menu, enable 'Always On Top'. This prevents the Channel Settings window from disappearing behind other windows as you work (once open, it's always accessible). Second, from the Function menu, enable 'Follow 'e' buttons or selection changes', so that when you select a different track/channel in the Project window or MixConsole, the Channel Settings window will update to display the newly selected track/channel's settings.
Given that the Channel Settings window only displays settings for the currently selected channel/track, the other thing we must be able to do is move efficiently between tracks. There are buttons for this in the Channel Settings window itself but key commands can speed up navigation, and it's well worth defining keys for the 'Select Track: Next' and 'Select Track: Prev' commands (which are found in the Key Commands window's Project section). As you navigate with these keys, the Channel Settings window will automatically refresh to reflect the selected track/channel. It's very slick and well worth a tick in the 'ease of use' box.
For Better Or Worse
To finish, one further Channel Strip/EQ workflow tip is worth mentioning. When editing multiple channels, such as the drum kit recording in the example, I often find it useful to toggle all my Channel Strip and EQ settings off, for an A/B reality check as to whether my processing is actually making things better or worse! In practice, this can be a bit of a pain, as in the MixConsole you have to bypass both the Channel Strip and EQ Racks individually for every channel involved to do this. Now you could, I suppose, go to town and design a macro to solve that... but a simpler approach is to quickly select multiple channels and then press and hold Alt+Shift to temporarily 'Quick Link' them. Then, when you click on the bypass buttons on any of the selected EQ or Channel Strip sections, those Rack sections will be bypassed for all selected channels simultaneously.