Review: Steinberg Cubase 5
We take Steinberg’s Cubase 5 for a spin, and discover that time and pitch needn’t stand still.
22 June 2009
Review: Stephan Gyory
As an avid Cubase user who’s been reluctant to upgrade a perfectly workable system for some time now, I’ve recently been nervously pondering where Steinberg and I sat in terms of future updates, upgrades, mergers, acquisitions and hostile takeovers. Thankfully, the Yamaha/Steinberg relationship seems – from the outside at least – a far more stable proposition than the one Logic users suffered when Apple first acquired Emagic – an event that upset the apple cart for many Logic users at the time.
The synergy between Yamaha and Steinberg is immediately apparent on a simple reading of the release notes for Cubase 5. The approach to this particular update seems highly integrated. From the collaborative development of virtual instruments like the new LoopMash to the use of Yamaha’s Pitch Correct technology, it’s plain to see the communication channels are wide open. This is great news for Cubase users. Any fears they might have had about the program becoming caught in a power struggle should be well and truly put to bed by now. And just as well too, since getting the most out of Cubase 5 probably involves investing in a new machine. You don’t actually need an Intel Mac necessarily (I’ll talk about PC requirements in a minute); I tested it on a Power PC G5 2GHz Duo Core and it opened and played audio without any hitches. However, unless you’re an overlord of plug-in frugality, or want to limit yourself to all but a few instances of the new REVerence convolution reverb, you’re going to come up against a processing-power wall in fairly short order.
Having said that, you can still make full use of the program on an older Mac. What might be an issue for some Apple users, however, is whether or not to upgrade to Leopard. Cubase 5 won’t run on anything less than OSX 10.5, and as someone who usually sits a generation back from OS and application updates, before installing Cubase 5, I was forced to bite the bullet. Thankfully, my G5 is now running better than it was on 10.4, and Cubase 5 (somewhat miraculously) is significantly more stable riding on the Leopard’s back.
For the PC user, the interesting twist is that Cubase offers native 64-bit support under Vista, which tantalisingly offers the opportunity to address up to a terabyte of RAM.
Platform and version issues aside, what’s new? Well, to start with you must be aware that Cubase 5 is neither a radical rethink, nor superficial makeover; it’s a chunky and well-conceived evolution, with Cubase’s mainstay features and overall aesthetic remaining almost wholly intact. Don’t be surprised when you first open it up to discover a DAW that looks exactly like the last one. Apart from a marginally slicker colour scheme you might be forgiven for thinking you were still running v4. So, what’s actually under the bonnet that makes this upgrade worthwhile?
WORKFLOW – IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS
Let’s get the boring bits out of the way first shall we? Even Steinberg sticks these changes at the end of the new feature highlights, and perhaps it doesn’t sound as exciting as whole new levels of functionality in the edit bays and sparkly new plug-ins, but strangely, other than the awesome VariAudio feature (which we’ll get to in a moment), the small tweaks lurking throughout the program are the things I find most useful.
Take the re-badged Backup Project feature in the File menu, for example. Cubase 4 users will know this as the ‘Save Project to New Folder’ command, and while the difference is slight, it’s a good example of the kind of work that’s been going on backstage. The point here is not the new name, but rather the fact that you now have the option to select which project is activated after the backup; a great little improvement on Cubase 4, which forced you into a weird file path scenario when it came to making back-ups. There are a whole slew of other workflow improvements which you can read about in the specs, but a few of the other standouts are: The ability to open a tempo track within the Project Window without having to open the Tempo Track Editor itself; a new info-line in the sample editor that gives you all the important sample, track and project info in the position you’re using – both handy if you’re working on a laptop with limited screen space; and, a batch channel export option in the Export Dialogue – Woohoo! These are all features designed to help you through the day rather than sending you down to the pub early for a calming shandy.
NEED TO KNOW
AND NOW FOR THE TOYS
From a sound design and editing point of view, the most exciting new feature by far is the VariAudio function in the sample editor – so let’s now focus on this piece of wizardry shall we?
If Cher, T-Pain, Melodyne or AutoTune mean anything to you, then you will already know something about what VariAudio can do. The surprising thing is that this pitch and note-length editing feature is fully integrated into the Sample Editor of Cubase 5. But is it any good? Yes, yes and yes. Indeed it is. I know that may sound gushy, but for someone who likes to use the pitch and time-stretch functions as much as everything else in Cubase put together, this new feature really lifts sound design possibilities to a different plane.
Obviously, not everyone has a penchant for mangling audio. Some people have more refined needs and VariAudio can handle these with aplomb, both in terms of creative and corrective editing. But if you want to take it further, the program simply asks: ‘How far?’
VariAudio is found in the inspector section of the Sample Editor. The waveform is presented on the screen in mono but remains in stereo. When you click on either the ‘Pitch & Warp’ or ‘Segment’ cursor in the VariAudio section of the inspector, Cubase automatically analyses the sample into distinct frequencies (tonal portions). These ‘segments’ are presented visually as notes on a vertical keyboard scale (see image).
Each segment contains a graphical representation of the actual pitch deviation so you can see exactly what each note in your sample is doing with respect to frequency. When you roll over a segment, a translucent keyboard appears behind it. It’s here I should mention that the two VariAudio modes – Pitch & Warp and Segment – function in very different, but complimentary, ways.
MODUS OPERANDI
It’s probably better to start with the Segment mode, because this allows you to slice, move, and delete the segment blocks without affecting pitch or timing – it’s essentially a tweak of Cubase’s original frequency analysis. To be fair, Cubase does quite a good job of this anyway, so you’ll probably only need to spend a moment here.
Once you have everything lined up exactly where you want it, Pitch & Warp then allows you to click on a segment to reveal a numerical representation of how far the note is either above or below an absolute frequency – shown in cents. When dragging the segment, this value then snaps to the nearest absolute note. From there you simply drag the segment up or down the keyboard to change its frequency in whole note steps.
You can also move the start and end points of a segment left or right to stretch or shrink notes, and thus affect timing independently of pitch. However, the segments on either side of the one being edited bind the range of movement (more on the ‘Limitations’ section in a moment). All of this is great for a quick edit but you’re certainly not bound by what Cubase considers the ‘correct’ pitch. In fact, you can adjust deviation from absolute pitch (micro-tuning) either by simply clicking and dragging on one end of the graph within each segment. You can even bend the end of the graph into following or preceding notes for a portamento effect. Thankfully, Cubase continues to display a numerical representation of how much you’ve pitched or warped the segment each and every time you highlight it, making it easy to keep track of the mayhem you’re causing. It’s all very fluid; happens in real time; can be done and undone as many times as you like; and of course, you can also flatten (render) your work if you’re happy with it, and so save on processing power.
Steinberg’s new REVerence convolution reverb offers some vivid and natural-sounding spaces. The reverb offers great control over early reflections and reverb tails in both stereo and surround, and includes over 70 impulses of some truly exceptional acoustic environments.
LIMITATIONS?
What you can’t do with VariAudio is copy and paste segments, and while this immediately sounds limiting, it’s actually a function of how the audio is being processed, and isn’t unusual behaviour within the Sample editor. It’s for this same reason that you’re bounded by the segments on either side when you’re stretching or shrinking notes. Once you get the hang of toggling between the ‘Pitch & Warp’ and ‘Segment’ functions, however, this apparent limitation poses none at all, and besides, there’s nothing stopping you from making another copy of the event and layering it on another channel in the Project Window.
In terms of the quality of the processing, for the most part, voices are preserved very well, even when moving notes up and down an entire octave. Pushing it out to three octaves, however, is where the program takes you into uncharted territory, which in itself, is not entirely a bad thing.
Not wanting to let VariAudio off too lightly, however, I threw it a couple of really dodgy warbled vocals, and I must say, here again I was truly impressed by the little function inside the inspector called ‘Straighten Pitch’. Remarkably, the maximum setting on this process totally irons out the issues in almost anything you dare feed it. The voice was, again, well preserved and in some instances, improved. No doubt this will encourage yet another horde of even less talented singers to try their luck at the recording game, but on the flipside, you can pretty much fix anything without making it sound like you’ve put it through the proverbial wringer.
If all this still isn’t enough for you, in a final bout of inspired integration you can convert your segments into a MIDI part where the micro-tuning information is exported as pitch-bend information; useful for creating an identical second voice with a MIDI instrument or printing out the notes with the Score Editor. Alternatively, port each segment over to your softsampler and play it back with the resulting MIDI information. An additional tab in the Sample Editor inspector is labelled ‘Audio Warp’ and is reminiscent of Ableton Live. This is essentially the ‘warp’ component of the Pitch & Warp section of VariAudio, but fun nonetheless, and a nice lazy way to match grooves.
THE SHOW GOES ON
There are several other new features in Cubase 5, each of them as integrated and easy to use as VariAudio, and each of them worthy of the same space devoted to that feature here. Unfortunately, we can’t take up half the mag describing each and every feature, but suffice it to say, Steinberg hasn’t been shy in emulating the best bits of other gear, or indeed other software. The Groove Agent VST instrument, for example, is an almighty nod to the legendary Akai MPC, even offering the ability to import PGM-format files. Sticking with beats, there’s the new LoopMash VST instrument, into which you can drag ’n’ drop audio files, which are then chopped up for you to mix and match. Then, for those of you still married to step sequencing, there’s the Beat Designer plug-in.
The Key and Score editors receive what is essentially a whole new layer of precision and control. Automation handling gets a boost with the inclusion of Nuendo’s Automation panel and there’s also a clever resolution for conflicts between MIDI Part and track-based automation data. Even now I’m only beginning to scratch the surface of the improvements and additions in Cubase 5…
It doesn’t actually matter which part of Cubase you use: a tiny fraction, some, or all of it. Whichever corner you inhabit, you’ll find useful improvements – Steinberg and Yamaha really have gone to town here. The best way to describe the experience is to perhaps look at it this way: Cubase 5 is not some rushed attempt to fix a poorly functioning Cubase 4, it’s a well thought out and significant upgrade to what was essentially a great program. It just required a few nips and tucks to bring it into line with the rest of the DAW world.
Now, if only they would allow key commands to function while the new virtual keyboard is activated in the Transport Bar, and shove a spectrum analyser in the EQ window, I would have absolutely no reason to complain.
RESPONSES