Steinberg Cubase Review | PCMag

Steinberg Cubase has a long and storied history. It first appeared in 1989 on the Atari ST before migrating to Macs and PCs. In 1996, Cubase also introduced the world to the VST virtual instrument standard. Decades later, Cubase Pro 13 (the version of Cubase reviewed here) remains a powerful, ultra-flexible recording and production environment. It’s particularly well suited for MIDI composition with virtual synthesizers—and is, in our opinion, the best of the major digital audio workstations (DAWs) at this. It’s also a capable audio editing and post-production tool. Thanks to its exceptional, redesigned MixConsole and even more flexible editing facilities, Cubase Pro is our Editors’ Choice winner for digital audio workstations on PCs. Apple Logic Pro retains the crown on the Mac side, while Avid Pro Tools is our Editors’ Choice for professional mix engineers and producers in larger studios.

How Much Does Cubase Cost?

Cubase comes in three versions. The stripped-down Elements 13 ($99.99) offers 64 MIDI tracks, 48 audio tracks, and 24 instrument tracks of recording. It comes with Halion Sonic, Iconica Sketch, and Groove Agent SE 5, three instruments that together offer 1,000 sounds, plus 45 mix and effects plug-ins.

Artist 13 ($329.99) upgrades the track counts to unlimited and adds VariAudio pitch correction and track comping. It also adds Retrologue 2 and Padshop 2, and it brings the total to 2,600 sounds and 62 effects plug-ins. Artist also adds some audio and MIDI editing features. Pro 13 ($579.99), which is the full app and the version I tested, adds 256 VCA tracks, Dolby Atmos support with native integration of the Atmos renderer, Control Room for more flexible monitoring, a more advanced score editor, and plenty of mixing and mastering upgrades such as the ability to measure loudness and export stems. Pro—the version I review here—also comes with 3,400 sounds for the instruments and 87 effects plug-ins.

Can My PC Run Cubase Pro?

Cubase requires either a 64-bit Windows 10 Version 22H2 or 11 22H2 PC or a Mac running macOS version 12 (Monterey) or above. PCs need at least a 4th Gen Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen CPU, 8GB RAM, 1,440-by-900 resolution, and up to 75GB free space for the Pro version; Macs also need an Intel Core i5 or any Apple silicon. For this review, I tested Cubase Pro 13.0.24 on two machines: an Acer Nitro 5 laptop with a 17.3-inch display, a Core i5-12500U processor, 32GB RAM, a 2TB SSD, and Windows 11, and a MacBook Pro 16-inch (Late 2021, M1 Pro) with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD running macOS Sonoma 14.4.1.

Interface, Recording, and Editing

As soon as you boot up the program, Cubase Pro’s strong MIDI roots are evident. The Project Window gives you an overview of the arrangement and can be configured to show VST instruments, the Key Editor (piano roll), and more. The Key Editor is simply wonderful; you can do just about anything during playback, including switching editing tools, deleting notes, and adjusting other notes. The Inspector offers transpose, quantize, length, and other useful tools that are easier to access here than in competing sequencers. A lane across the bottom makes editing edit volume or other MIDI control data virtually instantaneous. The floating Transport Bar is fully customizable; it’s easy to pop in or out individual modules as needed.

(Steinberg)

The Lower Zone lets you lock the Piano Roll editor, Mix console, or anything else you want below the arrange window. By switching between cursor tools using the number keys and using Cubase’s various shortcuts that speed up workflow, I find it easier to play in, lay down, edit, and arrange MIDI clips with Cubase than with any other DAW. Dedicated buttons let you turn scrolling during playback on and off and even whether you want the view to stop scrolling when you start editing.

New for version 13, the Range tool now works in the Key Editor and Drum Editor. Editing multiple parts in the Key and Drum Editors is much easier now, too; you can highlight different tracks in the same window with the Visibility tab while the Track display shows an overview simultaneously. A new Channel Tab in the Project window lets you access the channel you’re currently editing without switching away, like what Logic Pro has had for years. And new Chord Pads help you find chord progressions you like, with presets that serve as starting points.

Steinberg really went all in on the workflow enhancements this time around. To wit: You can modify step note lengths on the fly and add voices with a new polyphonic note input feature. MIDI CCs can be recorded in ramps to make editing easier later. Starting playback is now possible from the cycle marker, last position, or selection. You can tap along to set the project tempo on the transport bar. Cubase 13 lets you zoom in and out vertically with the mouse wheel to either the transport or the current selection. MIDI plug-ins got a fresh coat of paint, and speaking of MIDI, Cubase 13 is already ready for MIDI 2.0 when it arrives with support for high-resolution velocity, CC, aftertouch, pitch bend, and polypressure data.

Recording and Editing Audio

For recording audio, the 64-bit audio engine supports 5.1 surround sound and 32-bit, 192KHz recording—still overkill for just about everyone—and has no instrument, MIDI, or audio track limitations, unlike Avid Pro Tools. It’s simple to quantize audio material, and you can distribute sound to different musicians with Control Room. Version 12 offers smoother waveform drawing, and the crossfade editor gets an upgrade, with more options for smoothing over edits and transitions. And as always, Cubase’s audio engine is lightning fast and rock-solid; you can start, stop, loop, adjust instruments, and more without so much as a single hiccup.

VariAudio makes quick work of manipulating the pitch and time of audio. It lets you edit at a micro-pitch level for more precise control of a vocalist’s drifts and transitions, and you can adjust the format shift to adjust the timbre of a voice after the fact. I find VariAudio good enough for patching up off-key vocal lines, at least via the Sample Editor, if not in real-time (like Pitch Correct), which is more accurate anyway. You still can’t manipulate polyphonic arrangements this way; for building complex vocal harmonies, the Audio Alignment feature helps you sync them all together to a reference track, not just for the start of the audio but for the timing of each phrase. If you find fault with its choices, you can still make manual adjustments.

For comping an audio track, Steinberg includes a dedicated, drag-and-drop-based Comp Tool, which speeds up assembling takes and lets you create new tracks on the fly. Combine this with Cubase’s group editing, and you can quickly execute backing vocal edits or even multitracked drums. There are separate track and lane solo functions, plus a Cleanup-lanes command to eliminate event overlaps in one shot. Recording automation moves is equally smooth, with its easily triggered read, touch, write, and latch modes, and volume automation is sample-accurate. PreSonus Studio One is also pretty sweet for fast audio editing workflow, although my preference here will always remain Pro Tools (despite needing additional steps for some tasks).

Cubase Pro’s Score Editor includes enough notation tools that many people won’t need separate notation software. In addition to comprehensive symbol support, it also supports lyrics, drum notes, guitar tabs, and lead sheets, and it can import and export XML files. The Drum Editor and List Editor make quick work of editing rhythm and MIDI events, respectively, though the main Key Editor is so good that I rarely find myself opening these windows.

Video support also receives a serious boost in version 13. You can now export a soundtrack into an original MP4 file without re-rendering the video, a huge time-saver. The video track now supports versioning. Steinberg says Cubase 13 now features Windows-compliant multi-window handling. It also includes new Windows video engine improvements with support for GPU hardware decoding for H264, although I didn’t test this portion.

Instruments

Halion Sonic SE 3, Steinberg’s bundled workstation synth plug-in, is packed with acoustic instrument samples, fat basses, smooth pads, and useful leads. It’s a decent do-it-all sample playback plug-in for anyone who needs something to get started with. Groove Agent SE 5 offers flexible acoustic and electronic drum programming, with enough sounds and tweakable features (such as mic bleed for the acoustic kits) that you may not need another plug-in. New for all versions of 13 is Iconica Sketch, which lets composers create orchestral scores using 34 sampled instruments totaling 5GB and comprising 140 articulations from within Halion Sonic. Steinberg also bundles new sample packs from Beat Butcha, Sharooz, 91Vocals, and Touch Loops.

(Credit: Steinberg)

The real fire starts as you go up the ladder to the Artist and Pro versions. In Artist, Retrologue 2 is a classic subtractive analog synthesizer that has three oscillators, 24 filter types, eight voices, a sub and noise oscillator, and a modulation matrix and basic effects section. There are 700 presets, with plenty of thick pads, five distortion modes, analog-style detuning, and fat bass and lead sounds. “Replicant Pad” is straight out of Blade Runner-era Vangelis, while “Warming Fireplace” has smooth, gradual attacks and decays for a thick layer of analog. Padshop 2 is a 400-preset granular synth dedicated to atmospheric and evolving pad sounds, with two layers of up to eight grain streams each, plus built-in distortion, modulation, and decay.

The built-in delay in “Contemplate” lets you create instant Sasha textures with the right chords, while “Assault” sounds like several 1970-era analog oscillators are exploding in your speakers with each keypress. Loopmash comes with a library of presliced loops and lets you fiddle with the random and intensity slider, in addition to the usual loop editing and slicing. This is a lot of fun right out of the box, and—unlike with some other tone generators—you can just set this one, trigger it, and forget it.

Cubase Pro Verve (Credit: Steinberg)

Verve is a dynamic and atmospheric felt piano recorded at Yamaha Studios in LA. It can serve as a fine regular sampled piano, but its primary purpose is letting you add textures, colors, and effects for dreamy soundscapes and gritty, off-kilter melodies and chords. It’s nothing you couldn’t do on another piano with extensive use of delay, overdrive, fuzz, and other effects plug-ins and tweaks, but it’s fun to have it all in one place with all the controls laid out like this. The FX Modulator offers ducking, rhythmic patterns, and custom-shaped LFOs that you can trigger via MIDI or via side-chain inputs. It comes with many different presets, so you can get started with some wild effects right away.

Mixing and Effects

The MixConsole has been redesigned with clearly delineated sections and even more visible metering. The console pops up zoomed-in windows as you move the cursor around to help you work more quickly. It lets you click a parameter and then click away, making the pop-out window disappear. This means you can tweak settings without having to scroll through lists of effects and open up plug-in windows individually. A little drop-down arrow on the right side of a plug-in entry lets you change a key parameter, such as the type of compressor. Steinberg also duplicated the channel names further up, so you can still see them when you’re working on the inserts and sends. A button on the top right lets you configure the section layout, or you can right-click on a section and click Setup Sections to configure what’s visible by dragging it to different positions in the list. A button below the fader lets you change a channel from mono to stereo and back with one click.

(Credit: Steinberg)

Some new plug-ins are also available in Cubase 13. VocalChain gives you dedicated modules for each step of vocal processing. New EQ-P1A and EQ-M5 equalizer plug-ins add color options to your tracks. New VoxComp is a vocal compressor plug-in. The Sampler Track gets a Spectral Warp mode for creating envelopes and more manipulation than before. The new Black Valve tube compressor adds warmth and character, and the new Vocoder returns with up to 24 filter bands, a side-chain input, and lots of dials.

Cubase Pro’s MixConsole features VCA faders and its flexible Control Link Groups setup for larger projects. The revamped channel strip offers improved metering and can handle just about any EQ or compression task right from the console. dle just about any EQ or compression task right from the console. There’s a noise gate, a compressor with standard, vintage, and tube modes, a 4-band EQ with a spectrum analyzer, a transient shaper for percussive material, tube drive, and tape saturation, and a brick wall limiter and level maximizer. It comes with 150 track presets set up by Allen Morgan, who has produced Taylor Swift and Nine Inch Nails. Voxengo’s CurveEQ is also on board for matching spectrum plots with other tracks.

A pop-out EQ window directly from MixConsole (Credit: Steinberg)

More than 80 plug-in effects come with Cubase Pro, with plenty of other reverb, compression, EQ, delay, and mastering tools. A DJ-EQ plug-in offers three bands with kill switches for breaks and twists, while MorphFilter models low and high-pass resonant filters and morphs between them—throw this one on a weak synth preset and watch the fireworks. Guitar players may love VST Amp Rack, which includes dozens of presets across the board, plus Maximizer and Limiter stompbox effects for adding punch and definition, complete with oversized input and output level meters. All told Cubase’s plug-ins are at least up to snuff for serious composition and mixing work. Even the built-in mixer channel compression sounds smooth and punchy as you turn up the ratio and pull down the threshold. On another test project, I was able to achieve a nice mix glue across the master bus with the ratio set to 1.4 and the threshold low enough to grab everything (roughly -35dB).

Thanks to the console’s impressive tabbed interface, you can create Snapshots for alternate mixes and compare them within moments. You can’t save automation data within effects this way, but you can mix up effects plug-ins and settings and generally try out different mixes without having to branch the project off into different alternative files. Finally, the whole program just feels faster to me than it used to, in opening instruments, when working on the MixConsole, or even just when shutting down a session.

Cubase Unleashed

It’s easy to see why Cubase has such a loyal fan base after all these years. With the latest round of shrewd upgrades, Cubase Pro is our Editors’ Choice for PC-based recording software, and it’s also great on Macs. Pro Tools, our Editors’ Choice for larger studios, is more expensive over time than Cubase Pro because of its subscription pricing. But it features the smoothest digital audio recording, mixing, and post-production in the business, and it scales to the largest of professional studios with Avid’s integrated hardware and service and support policies. Apple Logic Pro, our Editors’ Choice on the Mac side, remains a terrific value at just $199.99. Still, Cubase Pro is compelling in its own right, particularly for MIDI recording and composing with virtual instruments. It’s always been a powerhouse digital audio workstation, even before the latest round of improvements.