Review: Calum Orr
Nowadays it seems like every time you turn your back, another DAW is born or upgraded to the next numerical version. Take this issue of AT as proof. While the DAW is now firmly entrenched in the world of recording, some say it’s unnecessary to keep upgrading or crossgrading from one DAW to another. Quite frankly, with the new features of the top five DAW programs becoming so numerous and enticing, and with so many new virtual instruments and plug-ins being lashed on top of these already enormous and hard to digest cakes, the classic movie line from Eat The Rich – ‘Oh alright, one last wafer’ – springs quickly to mind.
This latest version of Steinberg’s rock solid (and some would argue iconic) DAW, Cubase 6, is among the top five programs whose huge feature set is becoming more like a six-tiered wedding cake – to extend the metaphor vertically. Yet remarkably, after all the years of unifying audio and MIDI into the one program, along with Steinberg’s own inventions of ASIO and VST and all the other changes that have occurred along the way, the program is still easy as pie to navigate around. Better still, after all these additions and improvements, the program is better value than ever before.
For songwriting – and I’m going to hang it out here for a moment so get ready to lay the boots in – Steinberg’s Cubase 6 is the premier DAW for the job, equal to Apple’s Logic Pro 9 (Ooo, ouch, ow, stop it!). With that statement out of the way let’s unravel the reasons why I’m prepared to make such a call…
EIGHT INTO SIX
Steinberg’s Cubase 6 comes with no less than eight virtual instruments individually suited to various styles of music. Let’s list these first to kick things off and give a brief overview of what each one can do.
Firstly, there are the five synths introduced in previous versions of Cubase that should already be known to existing Cubase users: Embracer, a simple to use polyphonic synth that has minimal controls but is expert at producing pad sounds; Monologue, a monophonic analogue emulation synthesizer designed for lead and bass sounds; Mystic, (probably the strangest of the bunch) that derives its synthesis method from comb filtering in conjunction with feedback and is capable of a variety of tones ranging from ghostly to industrial clang; Prologue, a subtractive synthesizer with huge capabilities and seemingly endless tweakability; and Spector, which is based around a spectrum filter that enables the drawing of custom filter contours. All of these synths provide you with quality tools right from the heart of the program.
Introduced in v5 of Cubase were Steinberg’s Loop Mash and Groove Agent One instruments. Loop Mash, which is designed for electronic and dance music productions, has been updated to v2 in Cubase 6 and features some very handy – and addictive – additions.
Users can now have up to 24 scenes loaded at a time and clips or files can be easily dragged and dropped into those scenes as well as to the new Groove Agent One drum trigger instrument. Of most relevance here are the 20 new performance controllers that provide all the latest tricks at the click of a button. Make the scenes stutter, scratch, slow down, reverse etc to your heart’s content. But be warned, this will lead you, bleary eyed, into the wee hours of the morning as you try every possible combination. Although I have no desire to be a dance producer I found Loop Mash very addictive. At times, however, I must confess I was a bit bamboozled by all its flashing lights and overall bling.
Groove Agent One also got a makeover for this new release. Loosely based on the Akai MPC range of sample triggers. Groove Agent One is a pad-based sample player that comes with 66 preset kits ranging from techno to country. The Pad edit section lets you trim, tune, filter, change volume or pan the loaded samples while the pads themselves can change velocity from low to high, whether you’re hitting the pads at the bottom or the top respectively. Velocity can be set to maximum too if necessary via the V-Max button under the ‘Global’ section. The only issue here is the colour scheme – black writing on dark grey backgrounds had me peering into the GUI quite a lot.
NEED TO KNOW
ALL NEW
An entirely new instrument introduced in v6 is the very capable Halion Sonic SE. Great for songsmiths and composers, Halion Sonic SE is a stripped back version of the full-blown Halion Sonic and sports more of a preset vibe, with no control over the provided waveforms, yet plenty of options for effecting the signal within via the four aux sends and four FX slots per send. Eighteen effects are available including all the bread and butter standards such as compression, delay and reverb, alongside a legacy section of effects that give you a further 24 options, some of which are quirkier such as Talkbox, Wah Pedal and Bit Reduction. A nice option in Halion Sonic SE is the ability to choose whether to stream its samples direct from disk, load them into RAM or establish a hybrid of both via a ‘balance’ slider that’s found under the Option tab. Another great feature in Halion Sonic SE is the ability to set the key range or minimum and maximum velocities via sliders found under the MIDI tab. This makes setting key groups and layers a breeze. The sounds on offer in Halion Sonic SE are of a high quality and mostly derived from the Yamaha Motif range of workstation keyboards. My only gripe about Halion Sonic SE is that some patches fail to find their samples but I guess this will be addressed in future updates of the program.
CARROT CAKE
So from one large carrot to the biggest carrot of all… Steinberg’s VST Amp Rack. Eagerly awaited by the Cubase fraternity, I can say straight off the bat that VST Amp Rack really delivers. As a songwriting tool for guitarists or even as a post effect for mixers, the effects, amps and cabinets are all very good. Although it isn’t stated explicitly for all the usual legal reasons, Fender, Vox and Marshall amplifiers and cabinets all get a guernsey. There are eight amps and eight cabinets in total and you can mix ‘n’ match or link any amp with a matching cabinet. There are ‘pre’ and ‘post’ effects sections, the pedals of which look like ’80s Ibanez or Korg guitar pedals – a bit uninspiring and utilitarian looking perhaps, but sonically impressive.
The amp tones really get you in the ballpark and the sound can be further tweaked via the microphone position tab that lets you select between a dynamic or a condenser mic, the distance from the cab and whether or not the mic is on- or off-axis. During use I compared it to Digidesign’s Eleven, Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig and Logic Pro’s Amp Designer and Pedal Board plug-ins. While it’s arguably not as pretty as some of the others, Steinberg’s VST Amp Rack is every bit as impressive tonally, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use it (with a good quality DI of course). It’s perfect for DI’d ‘amp’ demos and less critical overdubs but I still contend you ought to use the real thing when you’re making a record, especially if you’re a guitar-based band. All up though, I thoroughly enjoyed whiling away the hours auditioning amp/cabinet/effects combinations. As far as songwriting tools go, Steinberg has really delivered with the new VST Amp Rack and Halion Sonic SE.
NUTS ‘N’ BOLTS
While the engineers in Steinberg’s creative department have been getting down to business many new workflow enhancements have also been added by the ‘nuts and bolts’ team. After listening to user feedback, Steinberg has now made it harder to accidentally delete files in the arrange page by making the removal of tracks possible only via a drop-down menu rather than the delete key. While some will praise this modification, personally I found this made deleting tracks a bit cumbersome. Maybe this could have been implemented as an either/or feature that you could switch on once you got to the mix stage…
Definitely welcome, however, is the streamlining of the quantise function and the new Tempo Detection feature. In Cubase 6 you can now drop or import an audio file into the arrange page and select ‘Tempo Detection’ from the Project Menu. Cubase 6 will then analyse the track and lay a tempo track with graph under the audio file. This, in turn, allows the user to overdub MIDI parts and keep them in sync with tracks that weren’t previously played to click or that have wild tempo fluctuations as part of the ‘style’. To test this, I imported a couple of old tracks from a band I played in during the ’90s where the tempo graph looked more like recent fluctuations in the oil price, but admirably, Cubase 6 locked to it beautifully.
A vastly streamlined feature in Cubase 6 is the Hitpoint detection. In previous versions hitpoints were calculated based on time, which invariably led to the potential for an abundance of markers being generated. Now hitpoints are detected via volume, which makes far more sense since with this feature you’re invariably working with percussive audio such as drum kits that provide easily readable transients. There’s a variable slider that acts like a threshold setting, for determining what parts of the waveform spikes become hitpoints, making the quantisation of a drum kit much faster.
Cleaning up after quantising is much easier now too. For this, Cubase has added a ‘crossfade all regions’ feature to keep the edits click free. You can also globally apply an ‘auto extend’ function to the audio segments in order to fill in the gaps created after quantisation. While I never adjusted my tempos radically while trialing this new feature, changes up to 15BPM up or down seemed undetectable. I also really liked the fact that you can tighten the drummer 100% (right on the beat) or be a bit more relaxed about it, leaving the feel intact by opting for a lesser percentage. These new features are going to save a lot of sessions from the rocks and maybe even a few drummers from getting the sack!
VERY EXPRESSIVE
A major update like this is always a great excuse to release a new ground breaking feature, and so it is that Steinberg has released the all new ‘Note Expression’ feature in v6. Before now, MIDI notes and controller functions like modulation, pitch bend and portamento etc were separate functions, and controller messages could really only be added to groups of notes that shared a common start point. Now notes in the MIDI piano roll view can have controller messages individually applied. Simply double click on a MIDI note and the Note Expression window appears. Select a parameter from the note expression tab or the inspector, grab the pencil tool and draw in your pitch bends, modulations or any other control data you wish to manipulate. Now, for example, a string ensemble can have a more realistic feel by applying modulation or pitch bend etc to individual notes. While this is still fledgling technology it marks a significant move forward for MIDI users of Cubase. Of course, only Halion Sonic SE can currently interpret these note expression messages but I’d wager once this cool function catches on, other developers will follow suit with their VSTi offerings.
Two final features I’d like to mention are the new lanes comp’ing feature, which enables easy comp’ing of tracks in the same way that Logic Pro handles the process, and the new Group Edit function that makes all tracks in the group folder behave the same way: ie, all moves, edits, mutes plus copy and paste functions apply to all tracks within the folder. This is a very welcome addition for those wanting to edit and rearrange multiple microphone overdub setups or, of course, instruments like multi-tracked drums.
There’s lots to like and very little to dislike about the new version of Cubase. There’s a swag of new stuff to digest – even for hardened Cubase users – and plenty of workflow enhancements to make it more palatable for debutants. Another wafer anyone?
