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Steinberg Cubase VST/24

This article is out of date.

Since I wrote this review Apple Computer purchased Emagic, makers of Logic Audio which had been my favored Windows Sequencer. Apple quickly discontinued development of Windows versions of Emagic Software.  I had no intention of changing my entire studio to allow wiring and support for a Mac just for a single program so I was forced to take a fresh look at Cubase. I as quite pleased with Cubase SX (now in version 2.0) and plan to replace this review with a fresh one as my attitude towards Cubase has changed quite a bit, mostly because the program has matured and become much more cohesive and consistent as well as adding a lot of new features and interface changes in the process of becoming Cubase SX.

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Steinberg Cubase VST/24 is a MIDI and Digital Audio sequencer for the PC or Mac that supports hardware capable of  up to 24 bit 96 kHz digital audio. It also has full support for the Yamaha DSP Factory (reviewed separately on this site).

Cubase VST/24 is Steinberg's flagship sequencer product and as such it has many powerful features. So many that this review will take quite a while. I will try to post it on this site in manageable pieces so check back every week or so for more information. So far my initial impressions are that this program has just about everything you could want but the interface, while very attractive and often very functional is full of many different windows that each work differently so that very little that you learn about one feature can be applied to the next. I have spoken to lots of people who are very happy with this program so I am confident that once you have explored all of this nooks and crannies you will find it a competent and powerful audio tool. As I spend more time exploring this complex program I will be editing my impressions here as I get a better picture of the whole product.

Cubase VST/24 supports the DSP Factory by adding it on top of its own software mixing as an additional mixer layer. The closest analogy is that you feed your audio into one mixer (Cubase) then have the option to feed to further to a second mixer (the DSP Factory). While this allows you to keep all of your previous functions like DirectX (and VST) plugins and use of other audio devices you gain a layer of complexity in an already very complex program. On the plus site Cubase has lots of very pretty panels for controlling all of the various functions of its internal mixer and the DSP Factory... on the minus side it has LOTS of panels. While they are attractively designed to look like a real mixing console, which helps to make it easier to understand how to use them, there are so many different consoles that it can become a full time job just finding your way around.

You can link to Steinberg's web site at http://www.Steinberg.net

(more specific links will be added soon)

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Revised: February 04, 2004.

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