Andy and Luke from KORG explore and showcase the opsix

Cubase: MIDI Mod Cons

By John Walden

If you’re not blessed with flawless piano keyboard skills, don’t worry, Cubase can help.

In my SOS November 2013 Cubase workshop, I explained how those of us with less-than-stellar piano-playing skills can play a harmonically correct MIDI chord performance using Cubase’s Chord Track. But what if you just need some melody or bass line assistance? Well, there are some unsung heroes amongst Cubase’s bundled MIDI plug-ins...

MIDI Modifier

Don’t overlook the humble MIDI plug-ins that are bundled with Cubase — MIDI Modifier in particular can be a powerful tool.Each MIDI/Instrument track’s Track Inspector has a MIDI Modifier section, which allows you to modify your MIDI data in various ways, whether the data is real-time (as you play) or played back from a MIDI clip. There are some useful options, including transpose up/down in semitones, velocity adjustment and random (but constrained) manipulation of note parameters such as pitch, position, velocity and length. Cubase Artist and Pro also include a separate MIDI Modifier plug-in, and while this offers very similar functionality to the Track Inspector, there are some differences. One feature, Transpose To Scale, is required for our ‘keyboard assistant’. It’s super-easy to use: just select the root note of the key and then one of the scale types from the list.

With your key/scale selection made, any MIDI note data will automatically be checked against the chosen key/scale combination and, if required, corrected to ‘fit’. You can now close your eyes and bash away at your MIDI keyboard — whatever notes you press, Cubase ensures everything remains harmonically correct. It won’t guarantee you a melody to die for, but there will be fewer duff notes!

More Mods?

The Transpose To Scale option comes with a huge selection of preset scale types — although no user-defined scale option is included.Another trick that might appeal is re-mapping the notes of your chosen key/scale to the white keys of your MIDI keyboard, for ease of playing. Having made your key/scale selection, simply adjust the MIDI Modifier’s Transpose setting up/down (either by trial and error or by working out the number of steps required) to settings that get the majority of the notes mapped onto white keys. As a simple example, if a song is in Bb major, the scale contains Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G and A. If we set a Transpose value of -2, Bb notes will actually be played on the C key and Eb on the F key. All the other notes are also transposed by two semitones, but they remain on white keys. This can be made to work for many common scales, including major, harmonic minor and pentatonic, although some (eg. the melodic minor) will have one or two ‘correct’ notes mapped to a black key. With Transpose To Scale active, though, the plug-in will pitch-correct for you if your fingers miss the occasional black key.

If music theory isn’t your strong suit, trial and error with the Transpose function is easy enough. But it would be brilliant if Steinberg were to add some sort of keyboard graphic to the MIDI Modifier plug-in to give a visual cue of the notes in the chosen key/scale you’ve mapped across the keyboard — and then see how they shifted as you adjusted the Transpose value. (If you agree, why not add a request for this on the Steinberg forum?)

Another neat feature is the MIDI Modifier’s Record Output To Track button (red when enabled). With this active, the MIDI notes Cubase records are the modified notes produced by the plug-in, which is useful because if you need to do any editing, the note pitches you see in the piano-roll are the ‘corrected’ ones. If you leave this inactive, the ‘raw’ notes are recorded, but the MIDI Modifier will still correct them on playback. If you choose to have this option active while recording, make sure you bypass the MIDI Modifier on playback, or its settings will be applied for a second time — which is obviously not what you want!

One-note Chords?

There are some other things that the non-specialist piano keyboard hacker might like to do but which aren’t currently possible via the MIDI Modifier plug-in. These include the creation of custom scales and control over the direction of the pitch-correction for out-of-key notes. However, if these are things you would like to be able to do, Cubase Artist and Pro have another MIDI plug-in that can help, called Chorder.

The Chorder plug-in doesn’t have to be used for chords — you can also use it to re-map notes for complex scales, or create custom scales.

I looked at the primary function of this useful little plug-in (building custom chord voicings that can be triggered via a single MIDI note) way back in SOS April 2010, so feel free to read that if you need a quick refresher. It takes a little more effort to configure than the MIDI Modifier options I’ve described above with this plug-in, but it can also be put to good use as a piano keyboard assistant for melody/bass line creation.

The screenshot shows a simple example where I wanted to play white notes (easy for my poorly trained fingers) but to get the seven scale notes of D major (D, E, F#, G, A, B and C#). Note that I’ve selected the One Octave and Single Mode settings. This means that I only have to define my required key mapping for a single octave (it’s then applied across all other octaves) and that I’m not prompted for multiple mappings for different velocity layers (useful when defining full chord voicings but not for our single-note melody application).

The task is then simple — as you select a note on the lower mini-keyboard graphic, click the Learn button, and then select the note from the upper, stripped, area that you want to ‘map’ to your selected note below (to map a chord, you’d select multiple notes in the upper zone). Once a note on the mini-keyboard zone has a mapping applied, a pale blue highlight appears above it. Repeat the process as many times as required for all the notes in your desired scale, and if it contains seven or fewer notes, you can map everything to the white keys for ease of playing. Once the mapping is complete, play away, and the Chorder plug-in will remap your white-key noodling to the programmed scale.

The above process does require you to know what notes are in your target key/scale combination, but if that’s a problem, then you can always consult Google. Two further things are also worth noting. First, when you start playing, if you happen to hit a MIDI key that you’ve not mapped, then no MIDI note will be generated (so no duff notes). Second, if you think it’s an advantage, you can choose to map these ‘empty’ keys as duplicate notes within the required scale. This is what the MIDI Modifier plug-in does, but with Chorder you get to control the mapping and whether ‘wrong’ notes are pitch-corrected up or down. The other option, which I quite like, is to map these empty notes to the root (and perhaps the fourth interval) of the scale. With this configuration, if you did hit a ‘wrong’ key, then your melody gets a root (or fourth) added — as ‘wrong’ notes go, this makes for some pretty solid melodic choices!

Transformed

If all this note re-mapping gets a little confusing, the MIDI Monitor plug-in can be a useful troubleshooting tool.This last idea is corrective, but can also be considered ‘creative’ — you can use such mappings to place emphasis on certain scale notes, no matter how random your actual keyboard playing might be. There are other tools in the Cubase MIDI plug-in suite, in particular the Density and Transformer plug-ins (the latter is a real-time version of the Logical Editor and provides an alternative means to access the Transpose To Scale feature), that can apply a creative touch to your melody/bass line construction. Indeed, these might make a good subject for a future column...

Let’s finish with a mention of the MIDI Monitor plug-in. This provides you with a simple window to monitor all MIDI data generated by a MIDI track. This includes note values, so if your attempts to map from one scale to another are leaving you scratching your head then a pair of MIDI Monitors (one instance before MIDI Modifier and one after) can be a useful troubleshooting tool.

Most of us would love to be better at playing the piano keyboard, and it’s still worth working to improve such performance skills. But in the meantime, whatever your current skill level, the suggestions above will at least allow your melodies and bass lines to stay in tune — and leave you free to focus on the creative side of things. 

Published November 2018

KORG synth evangelists Luke and Andy introduce the new KORG NAUTILUS workstation

Cubase Piano Roll: Chord Tools

By John Walden

Not all piano-roll editors are created equal — Cubase’s boasts some very handy chord-programming tools.

As explained in previous columns (in SOS November 2013, May 2015 and November 2018), Cubase offers a range of tools that enable anyone who lacks keyboard skills to create convincing MIDI chord or melody parts. The Chord Pad system is superb, but for a step-based approach to chord/melody creation, you should turn your attention to Cubase’s Key Editor — while most DAWs have such a piano-roll editor, this one is particularly well specified, and it boasts a couple of features that make creating chord sequences a breeze, namely Step Input and the Chord Editing panel.

Step To It

IThe MIDI Key Editor offers lots of useful options for creating chord sequences.f you’re able to finger the chords you want, but not good enough to play a complex sequence in real time, Step Input can be a real time-saver. It can be enabled from the Key Editor’s Toolbar, where a blue cursor appears to tell you this mode is on. (Visit the Toolbar’s Settings panel if the buttons aren’t displayed by default.) Any notes played on your MIDI keyboard appear at the cursor position, and when you release the notes the cursor moves one ‘step’ along the timeline. The step length is determined by the Quantize setting, and the note lengths by the Quantize Length setting. (If you set the latter to ‘Quantize Link’, it’s controlled by the former.)

The automatic advance of the blue cursor makes note or chord entry very efficient. You can take as much time as you wish sorting out your fingers before triggering each chord; all the notes will snap precisely to the current grid position. To leave a step empty, simply advance the blue cursor one step using the cursor/arrow keys.

Step Input places the notes played on your keyboard according to the current quantise settings.A couple of other things are worth noting. First, if you don’t want every step or chord to be the same length, change the Quantize setting — better still, assign keyboard shortcuts to frequently used Quantize values. Second, while Step Input detects note velocity data, having every chord hitting the grid exactly can still leave the performance feeling mechanical; a quick trip to the Key Editor’s Quantize panel might allow you to apply a more human groove.

Chord Recorder

The second approach uses the Chord Editing panel in the Key Editor’s Inspector, which has several useful features. For example, select a number of MIDI Notes and the Chord Type field will do it’s best to identify the chord. Not all random note collections will form a neat, simple chord, but it’s still a useful option if you’re struggling to make sense of what you’ve just played!

For actual chord entry, focus on the Triads and 4-Note Chord sections. Click on the arrowhead icon of any of the chord types in the Key Editor itself, then click at a certain pitch/time location to create instantly a chord of that type with the selected root note. As mentioned, the note lengths will default to the selected Quantize Length, but click-dragging to the right as you add a chord allows you to create notes of any length.

Usefully, if you click and drag up/down when placing a new chord, you can adjust the pitch. Alt-dragging up/down retains the root note pitch you first clicked on, but scrolls through the various three- and four-note chord types. It’s a good idea to enable the Key Editor’s Audition button (the speaker icon in the Toolbar) so you can ‘hear’ what you’re doing. It’s difficult to overestimate the time it takes to generate a four- or eight-bar chord sequence ‘sketch’ in this way! As MIDI tools go, it really is a bit of a gem.

Also note that if you want something denser than a three/four-note chord, you can click again on the same time location (an octave higher or lower, for instance) to generate a six- or eight-note version. And if you’re a regular Chord Track user (for an introduction to the Chord Track see SOS June 2013’s Cubase column), select the notes and then click the Add To Chord Track button, which does just what you’d imagine, and will create a new Chord Track if one is required.

Find Your Voice

Chord sequences created via the Chord Editing panel may need some velocity and quantise tweaks to ‘humanise’ them, but the Chord Editing panel offers other options for spicing up your ‘performance’. For example, select one or more chords in your sequence and you can drag them up/down to change their root note/pitch. You can also click on any of the Chord Editing panel’s three- and four-note chord types to change the harmonic structure of the chord.

Once chords are entered, the Key Editor lets you explore different chord voicings, using the Inversions and Drop Notes buttons.And while three- and four-note chords created via the Chord Editing panel are, by default, voiced close together (as if played by the fingers of one hand), you can experiment with different voicings using the Inversions and Drop Notes buttons, which can spread the notes out in interesting ways. This is particularly useful for string-section patches, since it allows you to voice the chord over two or more octaves, producing a result that’s more likely to reflect how real string-section parts might be scored. Note that you can select any notes in a chord or selection of chords and, via the Key Editor’s Info Line, assign them to a different MIDI channel; if you’re using a multi-timbral VST (such as Halion Sonic SE) you can then, say, play back the lowest notes on a bass/cello patch while sending the others to a violin/viola. All these MIDI changes are applied in real-time, so with playback in cycle mode you can audition your changes as you make them. It’s really very neat!

Arping On

There’s just one feature I’d love to see added to the Chord Editing panel/Key Editor combo — the ability to draw in notes from a chord as an arpeggio. Essentially, this would amount to the Key Editor ‘snapping’ note input to a pre-selected chord type/root note. While that’s not currently possible, there are some simple workarounds, and the first should be obvious — once you’ve created your chord progression, slap an Arpache 5 or Arpache SX MIDI plug-in on your track and let it handle the load. But if you prefer more control over your arpeggios, some creative use of the Key Editor’s line drawing tool and the Chord Editing panel, and some simple manual edits, can quickly create a custom arp-style note pattern.

The three stages of the arp workaround: in bar 1, the Line tool has been used to add 16th notes; in bar 2, those notes have been selected and ‘snapped’ to a C major 7th chord; and in bar 3, simple manual editing has moved ‘doubled’ notes to alternative pitches in the chord, to create a flowing arpeggio pattern.Select the Key Editor’s Line tool (use the straight-line option), and you can draw some 16th notes spanning a couple of bars/octaves. Select all these notes and apply a chord type from the Chord Editing panel, and all the notes will be forced to ‘fit’ the selected chord type, using the first note as the chord’s root. Depending on how you drew the initial line of notes, this step will probably create some ‘duplicate’ notes, with two or three notes in a row sharing the same pitch. So, as a final step, move some of these duplicates up/down to the next higher/lower note in the chord, so no consecutive notes are the same. Identifying the target pitches is trivial, since the Chord Editing panel has already snapped notes to all the obvious targets, so it’s really easy to create a sweeping arp-style pattern.

For any given four- or eight-bar loop, this process has probably taken longer to explain than it actually does to execute, but you can go as far with the manual editing stage as your creativity wants to take you.  

Published December 2018

Patch of the Week 87: Numb intro on wavestate

Cubase: Multiband Mastering Template

By John Walden

How to set up a multiband mastering project template in Cubase.

DIY mastering is a pragmatic necessity for many musicians, and while there are some great third-party software mastering products, Cubase already includes all you need to get started. What's more, any version of Cubase, from Elements to Pro, allows you to perform multiband processing — for example, separating the audio into low, low-mid, high-mid and high frequency bands, to give you greater flexibility/control. In this article, I'll show you how to do just that.

Even if you plan on mixing and mastering in Cubase, it's good practice to keep these two stages of a project separate, so try to resist the temptation to mix through your mastering-style processing. In fact, I think they're best tackled in separate Cubase projects, and certainly at different times, so that you come to the mastering with fresh ears. But in purely practical terms it's sensible too, since the format of different mastering projects is likely to be fairly consistent, so you can save time and effort by creating a mastering template.

Setting Up

While Cubase Pro includes several multiband plug-ins (eg. Quadrafuzz 2, Multiband Compressor and Multiband Envelope Shaper), Cubase Artist and Elements don't. Nonetheless, it's still easy to set up multiband processing using sends, groups and some filtering. And this approach can allow more complex processing in Pro too. You could approach this in various ways, but the main screenshot (of the MixConsole in Cubase Elements 9.5) shows a possible project setup, with seven stereo audio tracks plus the main stereo out.

DIY multiband mastering is easy to set up, even in the Elements version of Cubase.The audio from your mixdown needs to be imported onto the blue Raw Mix Stereo track. Note the settings in the Routing rack — this first track is routed (a) directly to the purple Un-Mastered Mix Group track and (b) via four unity gain sends to the four green Group tracks. High- and low-cut filters in the Pre racks of these Groups give us multiple frequency 'bands' which can be processed independently. After processing, these four bands are recombined by routing them all to the purple Mastered Mix Group track. Both purple channels (the Un-Mastered Mix and Mastered Mix) feed the main stereo out. The purple channels allow you to hear and/or export either just the unprocessed mix, just the mastered mix, or some blend of the two (ie. multiband mastering with parallel processing).

The filters in the Pre rack are used to define which frequency range each Group track will operate upon. In this example, the Low Band channel's 200Hz high-cut filter limits this channel to frequencies below that cutoff point. The Low-Mid Band channel's high- and low-cut filters are both engaged, and configured so the channel only focusses on frequencies between 200 and 2000 Hz; the other channels are set similarly. I chose crossover frequencies similar to those found in Quadrafuzz 2, the Multiband Compressor and (for example) iZotope's Ozone; they can be adjusted, but they serve as a reasonable starting point.

The other detail to note at this stage is that each active filter in the Pre rack is set with a 24dB/octave roll-off beyond the cutoff frequency. The steepness of this slope can be adjusted between 6 and 48 dB/octave, and this affects the amount of frequency overlap between the adjacent channels.

There's an interesting and complex technical discussion to be had about how these settings and the design of the low- and high-cut filters impact on the quality of our mastering process. But that's beyond the scope of this article, and I'll leave it to better brains than mine to explain. Feel free to experiment, but as a guiding principle, make sure adjacent bands share a crossover frequency, and that these filters turn over at the same frequency. For instance, having the high-cut at 200Hz on the low channel requires a low-cut filter at 200Hz on the next.

Multiband Processing

What about the processing in each band? The second screen shows my basic setup for the High-Mid channel. There are four active plug-ins, but I've also inserted an EQ (which is bypassed by default) in case some surgical intervention is required on any band. I've inserted the same processors on the other bands and, with only a few exceptions, the settings could probably be the same for each of the four bands.

For any mastering task, it's sensible to start with some fairly conservative plug-in settings.

Conservative starting points are always a good plan for mastering. For example, for the compressor, I've opted for a gentle 2:1 ratio, a 20ms attack time (to avoid totally squashing the transients), and a 500ms release (faster/slower times can suit higher/lower tempos respectively). Then, it's simply a matter of adjusting the threshold for the desired amount of compression, up to a maximum of about 2-3 dB. You can push some styles of music a little harder, but if you're doing that, then listen particularly carefully for side-effects.

I used DaTube (which comes with all versions of Cubase) for some subtle saturation/distortion, but you could use any similar plug-in (eg. Magneto II, which comes with Artist and Pro) or choose to bypass this stage altogether, depending on the sound you're aiming for. The Stereo Enhancer plug-in allows you to adjust the stereo spread of each band. This is an area where you might use different settings on different bands: keep the Low band where it is, or even try narrowing it; and try opening out the High and High‑Mid bands a little, but do check for mono compatibility when doing so. (Remember, the width of any band can also be manipulated using the relevant channel's pan pot.)

Finally, the Limiter plug-in provides a safety net, just to catch any stray peaks. I simply chose a suitably subtle preset and tweaked the output level to -0.5dBFS, to ensure I've a tiny bit of headroom before clipping might occur. You can, of course, push the input level control if you want to drive things a bit harder. The Limiter on the main Stereo Output channel is set up similarly.

With these initial filter and plug-in settings in place, it's then simply a matter of adjusting the channel faders to taste. As discussed above, the two purple faders allow you to choose to output just the 'mastered' audio or a blend of the original mix and the processed versions . There are no hard and fast rules that will always work; you just have to trust your ears and your speakers, but if using a blend make sure that the combined signal doesn't overload the Stereo Out or drive its limiter too hard.

If you want to adjust the broad EQ balance of the mix, you can obviously use some EQ on the Stereo Out, but the green channel faders also allow you some scope. Care is needed, though — if you need to do more than nudge the balance of these faders, that suggests that the overall tonality of the original mix needs revisiting.

Master Of Mastering?

I'll leave you with a final few comments, including a warning or two. First, if you're using Artist or Pro, the same setup could be created using FX tracks instead of the Groups, though I don't see any advantage in using FX tracks (in large mix projects, they can be shown/hidden en masse, and be assigned different-coloured fader caps, which can be a useful navigation aid). For some reason, in Elements you may only route FX channels to the main Stereo Out; that limitation doesn't apply to Group tracks, hence my use of the latter here.

Second, you don't have to use four frequency bands. Single-band, two-band (a low band versus the rest) or three-band (low, mid, high) setups are perfectly viable. Indeed, when taking your first DIY mastering steps, some of these might make for an easier starting point.

Third, in Elements and Artist the metering options are a little limited, so keep a close eye on the Stereo Out meter to ensure you're not making things too hot. The amount of gain reduction in the Stereo Out track's Limiter plug-in is a useful indicator. (Pro is better equipped in terms of master-bus metering.)

Fourth, with any multiband processing, there's the potential for problems where the bands overlap. I've used the MixConsole's Pre rack filters here, but you could use any EQ to create the frequency band splits, and experiment with linear- or minimum-phase filters. Whatever you use, compare the (blue) original mix and the (purple) mastered mix (but with all inserts bypassed) to check how transparent the filtering and processing is.

Finally, note that while this multiband project template constitutes a useful mastering a tool, it can't help you with the technical or creative judgements required to get that mastering process 'right'! For that, you need experience — get more mastering under your belt, and listen to good commercial tracks. Education helps too, though, so do check the free-to-access archive of articles on the SOS website to learn more about mastering. 

Published January 2019

Patch of the Week 86: Rainbow in the Dark synth line on wavestate

Steinberg Cubase 10

By John Walden

Cubase celebrates a milestone birthday with an update that \makes almost every aspect of the program slicker and easier to use.

It's amazing to think that Cubase turns 30 in 2019. With such a long career behind it, it is naturally a very mature, feature-rich application. It has also built up a huge and very loyal user base, ranging from home-based hobbyists to the upper echelons of the music‑producing world. And to support all these varied users, Steinberg continue to offer Cubase in three flavours — Elements, Artist and Pro — ensuring there is something to suit all budgets and upgrade pathways for those with growing ambitions.

As now seems to be the Steinberg norm, the end of the calendar year sees a new Cubase update and version 10 is now with us. SOS has given plenty of coverage to the core Cubase feature set over the years, both in reviews and in many Cubase workshop columns. This feature set remains intact, so I'll simply focus here on the new elements introduced in Cubase Pro 10. Steinberg's website has a handy comparison chart that outlines which of these new features are included in the more accessible Artist and Elements versions.

I Like The Way You Look

Almost every dialogue box — including the Export Audio Mixdown dialogue shown here — has been refined in Cubase 10.On first start, there are some obvious cosmetic changes in the new version. Cubase 10 now offers support for high-resolution (HiDPI) displays, so things ought to appear crisper on a Retina or 4k monitor. To exploit this, and to bring some workflow streamlining, the interface has gone through numerous detailed changes, and these are apparent whatever monitor resolution you are using. The look is slightly darker overall, with light-on-dark tool icons throughout, as typified by the main Project window toolbar.

Many windows and dialogue boxes have undergone redesigns; there are too many changes to list here, but at the same time, none of them are drastic enough to be disorientating for existing users. The Export Audio Mixdown panel is a typical example: though there are only minor changes in the actual functionality, it has been reorganised and made easier to navigate, while features you don't use regularly can easily be folded away.

Like many of the stock plug-ins, Stereo Delay has received a welcome makeover.Many of the stock plug-ins have also been given a makeover, continuing a process that has been ongoing over the last few update cycles. The results are much slicker in appearance, and also make the controls more logical in use.

Other examples of 'cosmetic but practical' improvement include, for example, the Colorize Palette and the Add Track dialogues, both of which can now be kept open as floating windows. This sounds like a minor change, but actually makes these tools much easier to use: you can now colour-code your whole project without needing to continually return to the main menus, and rapidly add all the tracks/track types required in a new project to get you started. The functionality of this second dialogue has also been enhanced so, for example, if you're creating a new audio track and you assign it to an as-yet unassigned hardware input, that input is automatically added to your Audio Connections configuration; you don't have to do this as a separate operation.

Both the Add Track and Colorize dialogues can now stay open as floating panels: a small change, but a very useful workflow enhancement.The Project window's Right Zone now includes drag and drop for VST effects selection, and options for showing image icons for third-party plug-ins.Another obvious cosmetic/practical enhancement is in the Media tab of the Project window's Right Zone. You now have the option to drag and drop VST effects as well as VST instruments into your project. In addition, you can also capture an image of the user interface of any third-party plug-in (once the plug-in is open, there is a small camera icon located next to the plug-in's preset browser) so that you see a visual representation of the plug-in within the Media tab browser. Very neat!

As indicated above, these are just examples of the sort of small-but-worthwhile changes made throughout the program that enhance both its appearance and usability. Worth noting, however, is that because of the extensive GUI changes, any user-defined colour schemes or Project and MixConsole window layouts are not carried forward into Cubase 10. These can, of course, be recreated in version 10, and although this will be irritating for some, it is at least a one-time task. Overall I think Steinberg have done good job of further refining the appearance of Cubase.

Vari Able

Audio pitch correction is now a near-universal studio tool, and for me, Celemony's Melodyne has always been unrivalled in the degree of forensic control it allows you to apply to your pitch curve. Unrivalled until now, that is — because, in VariAudio 3 within Cubase Pro 10, Steinberg have really upped the ante, both in terms of the degree of control and the ease with which the different pitch editing tools can be accessed. No, it doesn't offer Melodyne's polyphonic pitch‑correction options, but for working with monophonic melodic lines such as vocals, VariAudio 3 is a very impressive upgrade.

The comprehensive VariAudio 3 Smart Tools collection makes for super-efficient pitch-correction.Once you have enabled VariAudio on an audio clip, and Cubase has done its pitch analysis, your individual pitch segments now appear with up to 11 different 'smart' controls arranged around the currently selected segment (you can toggle on the display of all 11 using the VariAudio tab of the Inspector panel). This means that all the editing functions are now instantly available. For example, as you hover towards the base of a segment, a horizontal line or glue stick appears so that you can instantly split a segment or join two together without needing to visit the Inspector to change tools.

You can quantise the pitch, adjust the tilt of the pitch curve (from either end and with a user-defined anchor point) and straighten the pitch curve, all without moving away from the segment. However, you can also adjust the formants and (rather wonderfully) the segment's volume using the tools located bottom left and bottom right, respectively. The latter is very useful as an alternative to creating detailed volume automation for levelling an inconsistent vocal take. The left/right 'triangle' tools at the top of the segment allow you to quickly define zones at the segment's start and end where straighten edits are excluded, which is obviously useful for keeping note transitions sounding more natural. Many of these editing options can work across a selection containing multiple segments, and you also still have controls within the VariAudio tab if you wish to adjust settings there.

As before, the actual quality of the pitch correction remains very good indeed, whether you're simply nudging a few cents or rewriting a melody by a semitone or three, and many of these controls existed within the second generation of VariAudio. However, having them all instantly to hand while editing a segment makes them much, much more efficient to use. For monophonic audio, the degree of pitch control is now on a par with that found in Melodyne — and, if anything, the new workflow enabled by this expanded set of smart controls is even better. Oh, and from the VariAudio Inspector tab, you can now pick a MIDI track to overlay in the Sample Editor window as a pitch reference while editing, which can be very helpful. If you do any amount of vocal (or instrument) pitch-correction work, VariAudio 3 is going to save you a huge amount of time.

All Lined Up

For some time, Steinberg's Sample Editor has provided users with all the tools required to tighten the timing of audio recordings, using a combination of VariAudio and Hitpoints. What's missing has been some sort of automated alignment function, and version 10 finally delivers that courtesy of the Audio Alignment panel. This allows you to select a reference track as a timing 'master', and one or more target tracks. One click and these will automatically align to the reference.

The new Auto Alignment feature is a massive time saver for matching the timing of multiple takes.

For things like backing vocal parts, this really does work very well and, compared to doing the same job manually, it is a massive time-saver. The Alignment Precision setting allows you to specify just how tight (or loose) you want the alignment to get. At one level, this new process is obviously making use of the existing audio‑warping technology, but the Match Words option goes further, apparently being capable of detecting and matching phonemes and syllables in spoken and sung audio. Auto Alignment also seems to work well for tightening non-vocal sound sources such as double-tracked guitar parts, and seemed happy to work with stereo recordings as well as mono.

While Cubase might not be the obvious environment for extensive Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) for film dubbing, I did give this a brief try and, providing the live audio (your reference) isn't masked by lots of other 'on-set' noise, the Auto Alignment algorithm does a decent job. The Prefer Time Shifting (as opposed to time-stretching) option is intended for time-aligning multi-mic recordings of the same source, and could be used on, for example, top and bottom snare mics to tackle phase issues.

Of course, Audio Alignment is not completely foolproof, and the options for manually aligning audio are still available. However, one further addition to the Sample Editor makes this manual alignment somewhat easier. If you select multiple clips that overlap on the timeline, the Show All Selected Audio Events means you can visually overlay multiple waveforms within the display. As you warp edit the active clip, you can now see how its waveform shifts relative to the other displayed clips.

You can now overlay multiple audio waveforms within the Sample Editor.

Sharp Shots

The Cubase MixConsole already has a History feature — available as a tab within the Left Zone — and while this is very useful for undoing changes you decide you don't like, it is not saved within your project. You can, of course, save multiple versions of your project if you want the option of experimenting with different mixes but, in Cubase 10, you now also get a further option: MixConsole Snapshots. These are also available from a tab in the Left Zone, while a Snapshots button is available in the MixConsole Toolbar and you can also recall, delete and rename Snapshots from here. You can create up to 10 such Snapshots and these are saved with your project.

The new MixConsole Snapshots system provides a useful tool for comparing alternative mixes.A MixConsole Snapshot Recall Settings dialogue allows you to specify which settings are recalled from any of your saved Snapshots, and you also get an option just to recall settings for a selection of channels. As shown in the screenshot, this includes the contents of the various MixConsole Racks as well as volume and pan information. You could, for example, use snapshots to compare different effects processing options on tracks or your master bus, as well as simple level changes.

Two qualifiers are worth noting, though. First, any automation associated with MixConsole plug-ins is not stored within a Snapshot. This means that Snapshots might not be so useful if you like to spend ages creating automation data for your compressor or reverb, although at least Cubase can warn you before it deletes all that carefully crafted data as you recall a different Snapshot. Second, as should be obvious from the feature's name, these are MixConsole SnapShots and not 'project' Snapshots. If, for example, you experiment with different virtual instrument sounds, these changes outside the MixConsole are not preserved within the Snapshot system.

As long as you keep these points in mind, Snapshots are very useful indeed. If, like me, you regularly find yourself second-guessing mix moves in the final stages of completing a track, it is a welcome additional tool, and one that I'm already finding myself depending upon.

Clearer Channels

One of the most effective of the visual reworkings mentioned earlier is that received by the Channel Strip within the Channel Settings panel. Visually, things are much more appealing, and each section of the strip's controls now has a fetching graphic panel directly above the controls. In some cases, such as the De-Esser and Noise Gate, these include some graphical editing features.

Within the Channel Settings windows, the Channel Strip has received some very useful visual and functional refinements.

You can also now reorder the Channel Strip sections by dragging within the central pane rather than just within the Right Zone or the MixConsole itself. In addition, while the Channel Strip already allowed you to see the full EQ display as a tab within the central pane, the dynamics section now includes an 'E' button that opens the full interface of the selected dynamics plug-in. Given that dynamics and EQ are perhaps the most routinely used processing tools in any mix, this is a modest, but useful, workflow addition that helps you get the best from the stock suite of plug-ins.

Seek & Distroy

The new Distroyer plug-in offers multiple flavours of saturation.Talking of which, a new bundled plug-in is included in both Artist and Pro editions of Cubase 10. As the name suggests, Distroyer is a distortion-style effect that adds harmonics to a sound — but as the name doesn't suggest, it can actually do some quite subtle overdrives as well as obvious mayhem. The control set is quite flexible: low- and high-pass filters allow you to constrain the range of frequencies sent through the plug-in, while a Drive control changes the type of distortion rather than just the amount of gain applied and is reflected in the central graphic. The Boost control actually sets the gain, while an interesting Spatial knob changes the character of the distortion separately in the left and right channels for an enhanced stereo effect.

You can shape the tone of the processed signal using the Tone control (a low-pass filter) and a high shelving filter, but perhaps the quirkiest control is the Offset setting. This also changes the shape of the central graphic and obviously influences the harmonic structure of the distortion, but exactly how it does this is unclear, as the description of this control within the Plug-in Refence manual is a little opaque.

Anyway, what's going on under the hood is not really the important bit, and once you start to experiment beyond the supplied presets, you soon discover a remarkably flexible distortion tool that's ideal for adding character to a sound. It's easly to target a specific frequency range in your source, meaning that it can do a great job of transforming an overly polite EDM kick into a raging monster. Equally, applied to a bass, it is easy to get Distroyer to bring out some of the mid/upper-mid frequencies to add a bit of bite.

New Dimensions

With interest in MIDI Polyphonic Expression growing it's good to see that both Pro and Artist versions of Cubase 10 now include MPE support. For mainstream devices such as the ROLI Seaboard controllers, detection and setup should be pretty much automatic, and support includes easy parameter assignment within your VST Instruments. The sound libraries for both Retrologue and Padshop have been expanded to include some MPE-ready presets.

I didn't have access to an MPE controller in my own studio to experiment with this during the review period but, having used a Seaboard RISE on a couple of occasions and been impressed with the additional expressive options if can bring, this is undoubtedly a welcome addition.

Best Of The Rest

What else? Well, amongst a lot of other changes or additions, Cubase 10 also includes some new impulse responses for the Reverence reverb focused on vintage reverb styles, around 5GB of new media content including loops and samples spanning a range of genres, revisions to the audio engine that provide better performance on hosts with higher CPU core counts (as well as getting the engine ready for higher-resolution audio interfaces), enhancements to the Hitpoint detection algorithm, and some improvements for those composing to picture (in particular, editing options for placing events onto exact frame locations on the timeline, which is great for musically 'hitting' visual events).

Cubase 10 also introduces support for Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) both on import and export. Moving complex multimedia projects between systems/platforms can be a challenging process and, while Cubase Pro has had Open Media Framework (OMF) support for some time, for Steinberg, AAF has been a Nuendo-only feature up until now. For those collaborating with other musicians, or working in music-to-picture contexts, its arrival in Cubase will be an important development.

This release also sees some tools added to support those creating audio for VR applications. This is not something I was able to explore during my own testing but, given just how rapidly VR is now moving into the consumer mainstream, developers need systems capable of producing suitable content and, in particular, making audio respond to head tracking in a typical VR experience. Both Nuendo and Cubase can now offer such a platform for audio producers.

Finally, while it's not here quite yet, Steinberg have announced that support for Audio Random Access 2 (ARA 2) — a technology developed between Celemony and PreSonus — will be forthcoming as a free update. This is planned for the first quarter of 2019, and offers deep integration of Celemony's Melodyne pitch-correction software within the Cubase Project window.

The 10 Experience

As I hope is clear from the above, Cubase Pro 10 is not an update that focuses on a single big feature. Instead, there are innumerable changes and additions that affect almost every aspect of the program at least to some extent. Perhaps the best way to close, therefore, it to provide some brief comments on the overall user experience when compared to version 9.5. Having run both versions side-by-side, for me at least, the first observation to make is that the transition was a pretty smooth one. I like the visual changes but, aside from some minor changes in a menu item or dialogue box, there was only one thing that disturbed my existing practices.

In the fine line between evolution and revolution in established software products, developers tend to favour the former so as not to disrupt the practices of existing users. This often means long-standing features remain even if later updates have essentially rendered them unnecessary: someone, somewhere, uses these long-established features as a core part of their workflow. In the main, in version 10, Steinberg seem to have stayed the right side of that line, but one workflow change has caused some users to complain: namely, the behaviour of the contextual menu when you right-click on an event. This is a method of reaching commands that has become ingrained in many users over many years of working. Of course, all the same operations are available from the main menus, and many using key commands (which, you might argue, is a faster approach once you are accustomed to it), but it is a somewhat odd decision to make this kind of change with no obvious warning to users. I do wonder whether there might be enough user pressure to encourage Steinberg to think again on this specific point.

In terms of performance, I can't say I noticed a great deal of difference on my OS X test system. Having run through a range of projects, from simple to more complex, there were no significant changes in resource demands between the two versions. I also didn't experience any technical issues: on my test system, Cubase Pro 10 seemed very stable.

So, there's nothing about Cubase 10 that should put 9.5 users off from updating — but, without a massive headline addition, does it provide enough positive reasons to update? The new features it does include bring very noticeable workflow improvements with certain key tasks. Top of my personal list is the combination of the dramatically improved VariAudio environmant and the Auto Alignment feature, but even the more modest options to keep things like the Colorize and Add Track dialogues open shouldn't be underestimated, nor the option to add VST effects by drag and drop from the Right Zone, the easier side-chain configuration and the MixConsole Snapshots feature.

All the additions of this sort mean less time spent configuring or editing and more time being creative. So, if I had to offer a single phrase to summarise what Cubase Pro 10 delivers, therefore, it would be 'enhanced workflow'. In my own, somewhat unglamorous, part of the music production world, which often involves the need to create music quickly, 'enhanced workflow' is a big deal: personally, therefore, I'll happily welcome that.

If workflow is not your key priority, is there still a case for upgrading to Cubase Pro 10? Certainly, for anyone who does modern vocal production work, VariAudio 3 and Auto Alignment will be more than enough to justify the cost, and for monophonic vocals, VariAudio 3 is now a pitch-editing environment that is on a par with anything else out there. In this context, I think there will also be users of Elements or Artist, who have perhaps not yet invested in something like Auto-Tune or Melodyne, who might be very tempted to go Pro just to access VariAudio.

For others, the key features that justify an upgrade will be found among the new technologies supported in Cubase Pro 10: MPE, AAF, VR and the forthcoming ARA 2. These are all welcome additions that have never previously been supported in Cubase, and in professional contexts, where time is always money, even the availability of one of these might be enough to tip the update balance.

Of course, when a program has been around for three decades and offers a feature set as rich as that now found in Cubase Pro 10, many users will only routinely use a fraction of what's on offer. One person's highlight new feature in the latest release might be another's 'meh!' moment, and only the individual can decide on the merits of moving up — but Cubase Pro 10 is undeniably impressive. After 30 years in the business of creating premier music production software, as you might expect, Steinberg have become really rather good at it. In Cubase Pro 10, they have created a very worthwhile evolution of their flagship product.

Click to check out the SOS Tutorial video course on Cubase 10.

Groove Agent SE5

Amongst other enhancements, Groove Agent SE5 includes an impressive new acoustic drum set called The Kit.

Steinberg have recently updated their Groove Agent virtual drummer to version 5 and, as before, the SE version of this is included in Cubase 10 Pro, Artist and Elements. SOS has a full review of Groove Agent 5 in the works, so in this review, I'll just highlight the key changes to SE5. However, I'll preface that with a general comment: despite a somewhat busy user interface, I think Groove Agent is an often-overlooked gem and, even in its SE form, has plenty to offer.

In terms of what's new this time around, there are some notable changes, and some impressive new content for both the Beat Agent (GA's drum machine environment) and Acoustic Agent. For the former, this includes the new Laser Beams collection of electronic drum kits; as well as some very cool new drum sounds, these kits also include more melodic-type samples than previous kits, forming something similar to a sample library loop-based construction kit that lets you easily create complete music beds from just a single kit.

The new Acoustic Agent kit, simply called The Kit, is particularly impressive. Under the hood, Steinberg have expanded the number of velocity layers Groove Agent supports from eight to 32. I'm not sure if The Kit fully exploits this, and it might not offer the same level of realism as, for example, Toontrack's Superior Drummer 3, but The Kit is impressive in its own right and, given the mixing and effects options the Acoustic Agent offers, you can coax a wide range of acoustic drum styles from GA SE5.

One further cool new feature for the Acoustic Agent is the Export Mixer And Effects To Cubase option. This takes any settings from the GA SE5 mixer and reproduces them as channels within the Mix Console. You could previously have done this manually by activating multiple outputs and copying settings, but to have this work all done with a single click is a massive time-saver if you prefer to do all your mixing in the Mix Console. It is not supported (yet?) for Beat Agent but it would be great to see that added at some point down the line.

Other changes include an improved browser that offers better navigation and auditioning of kits, individual sounds and any of your own samples. This makes it very easy to replace drum sounds on the fly while GA SE5 is in playback. A new keyboard display option is available for easy reference and triggering of any loaded patterns, the interface can now be resized and, if you need them, you now have 32 outputs rather than 16. GA remains a fairly 'dense' instrument but, even in its SE form, this is powerful stuff with an impressive collection of content.

Compensation Payments

For many years, Cubase has automatically compensated for latency induced by plug-ins and other real-time processing. This is designed to operate behind the scenes, so that users can simply ignore the issue and get on with making music. However, if you want more information on where latency is occurring within your project, you can now enable a Channel Latency Overview feature in the MixConsole's Setup menu. This appears sandwiched between the upper racks area and the lower faders zone, and provides you with a figure for the overall latency of each channel. For more detailed information, clicking the drop-down to the right of the latency figure pops open a latency-per-plug-in display.

I have to admit that I found the information displayed a little puzzling at times. For example, some plug-ins on a channel didn't produce any data within the detailed overview. I assumed this might be because they operate at zero latency — but then some third-party plug-ins I tried did show up with a zero-latency value. I presume there is some under-arching logic, but a somewhat expanded entry in the PDF Operational Manual might be useful so users can get the most from what is a potentially useful utility.

Taking Side

Side-chaining is a very common mix technique, particularly when it involves compression, but even for experienced users, it can be a bit of a faff to configure. Steinberg have tried to simplify that initial configuration process in Cubase 10. Let's consider a typical application where a compressor on your bass guitar has a side-chain input fed from the kick drum track. Every time the kick hits, the bass gets a little bit of compression to 'duck' it slightly out of the way and ensure that the kick is always clearly heard.

Previously, configuring this required visiting both the bass track and the kick track, but now it can be done just from the bass track. Once you have inserted the compressor (or activated the compressor within the Channel Strip), if you engage its side-chain input, a drop-down becomes available that allows you to select the required audio input to feed the side-chain. Making a selection here automatically sets up the required audio send from that source track, so you no longer have to go and do that as a second stage of the configuration. This works an absolute treat, and once you see it operate in this fashion, you are left wondering why it wasn't always like this. It's an efficiency gain for everyone, and for those new to the concept of side-chaining, it is a very welcome simplification that will encourage experimentation.

Pros

• VariAudio 3 and Auto Alignment features are worth the upgrade price on their own if you do any work with vocals.
• MixConsole Snapshots are a very useful addition.
• Graphical overhaul makes for a slicker look.
• New Groove Agent SE5 acoustic kit is a star amongst the additional media content.
• Many simple, but useful, workflow enhancements.
• Some welcome technical additions including MPE, AAR, VR and ARA 2 support.

Cons

• Changes to the context-sensitive right-click menu system not welcomed by some.
• Distroyer aside, there are no shiny new effects or instrument plug-ins as an obvious selling point.

Summary

Thirty years in, Cubase Pro 10 is a powerful, sophisticated music‑production system that can meet the needs of many types of user. The latest update contains some significant workflow enhancements all round, and particularly for those who do vocal recording.

Information

Cubase Pro 10 $552; Cubase Elements 10 $99.99; Cubase Artist 10 $302; Pro upgrades from $99.99.

www.steinberg.net

Test Spec

• Steinberg Cubase Pro 10.0.5.
• Apple iMac with 3.5GHz Intel Core i7 CPU and 32GB RAM, running MacOS 10.13.6.

 

Published February 2019