#12001/12/6 16:05:19
The battle between the sequencing big boys has been getting mighty interesting of late, with both Steinberg and Emagic striving to outdo each other. Last year, the former company set a new standard with the launch of VST 2.0, but the Logic camp certainly haven't been resting on their considerable laurels. They've been hard at work on the potentially stunning EXS24 plug-in sampler, while Steinberg have been teasing us with promises of a revolutionary update to Cubase.
Well, it's finally here, the culmination of (when it comes down to it) 16 years of work by the German giant: Cubase 5.0. As you'd expect, it's available in three flavours: Cubase VST, VST Score and VST/32, which we're reviewing here.
To say that a few things have changed would be a criminal understatement; everything that was right has been left alone or enhanced, and just about everything that was wrong has been fixed. But the tweaking and general improvement side of things isn't what's going to draw the crowds - it's the enormous raft of new features and functions that comes with it. It's hard to know where to start, really - 24-bit recording in all versions, 32-bit recording in VST/32, TrueTape technology, Apogee UV22 dithering, display resolution of 15360 ppqn (pulses per quarter note), all-new VST effects, drag and drop of audio and MIDI parts to and from Cubase windows and the desktop, improved EQ, an in-built 70Mb sound module, several new tools, an insertable Dynamics section, Markers on their own Marker track, multi-function Controller editors, customisable keyboard shortcuts and floating taskbar, thousands of MIDI mixer objects (not to mention a decent MIDI mixer interface at last!), collapsible track nests, Group tracks, expandable tracks... As you can see, we've got a lot to get through here, so let's start at the very beginning.
The next generation
For those unfamiliar with Cubase, a bit of an introduction might be in order. Essentially, it's a MIDI and audio sequencer, but over the last few years that definition has come to mean a whole lot more than simply inputting MIDI notes and samples and playing them back through a software mixer. Nowadays, sequencers come with, among other things, audio effects, dynamics and EQ, and even 'virtual instruments' built in. The problem with Cubase has always been that it started life as a MIDI-only sequencer and has never really had the architectural overhaul it has needed since the VST audio engine was introduced. Until now, that is.
Cubase 5 represents the fifth generation of Steinberg's flagship software (although the version numbers got a little confused, with the last generation comprising the very similar V3.7 for PC and V4.1 for Mac), and there's no doubt that it's the biggest revision the program has had since the introduction of VST. And in a move which certainly won't please the traditionalists, for the first time, Cubase 5 sees the PC version getting released ahead of the Mac version, which won't be available until September.
Installation is a breeze, whether you're upgrading or installing from fresh. If you're upgrading, the only painful part is having to send your old dongle back and wait for Arbiter (the UK distributor) to send you a new one, but swiftness is promised, so down-time should hopefully be minimised. If you're installing the full package on a machine with an earlier version already installed, the two are kept completely separate in terms of both directory structure and registry entries, so, even if it all goes pear-shaped with Cubase 5 for some reason, you still have your old version intact. Understandably, you might be concerned for the safety of your old VST plug-ins folder too, but Cubase 5 finds it without even telling you (whether you consider that to be a good thing or a bad thing) and points itself in the right direction. You will have two VST plug-ins folders because of this, however - your old one and a new one in the Cubase 5 directory. We suffered no ill effects from simply dragging everything from the old folder to the new one and redirecting the Shared VST Plug-ins folder option in Cubase.
It was with some nervousness that we booted up and loaded in a Cubase 3.7 Song file. But we were not to be disappointed - everything was exactly as it should be, from the mixer set-up and automation right down to the Audio Pool. Things were looking good.
The next couple of days were spent flicking between the online documentation (the manual still only covers the very basics, albeit quite effectively) and Cubase, with no button or menu deemed unworthy of experimentation. As you will have noticed already, Cubase 5 is much nicer to look at than its predecessors, with everything being clearer and generally easier to work with. But the interface hasn't just been made mindlessly pretty - the way you interact with it has changed too. No longer do you have to spend ages fiddling with miniscule sliders to zoom in on the part you're working with; now you can pull the bottom of a track downwards to make it wider, or use the new Range tool to 'rubber band' and zoom in on whatever part of the Arrange window you need. Yes, these are the most immediately noticeable among several features in Cubase 5 that Emagic's Logic has had for ages, but a bit of plagiarism can sometimes be a good thing, as proven here.
Another problem solved is that of screen space. As tracks get added to your opus, you can quickly run out of real estate, meaning lots of scrolling up and down to get to the part you want. Thanks to Folder tracks (a new track class), you can now simply drag all your separate drum tracks into a collapsible 'Drums' track, all your bass tracks into a 'Bass' track, and so on. Thus, 30 tracks can easily become five or six Folder tracks.
And it doesn't end there - at last, Cubase for PC has storable window sets. Set everything up where you want it, save it as a set, bind it to a hotkey and then press said button to instantly return to that window set-up. It's interface improvements like these that make the new version an absolute joy to use.
What's the 32 for, then?
The 32 in VST/32 is a number with a lot of complicated implications. It refers to Cubase's new-found ability to record audio at 32-bit resolution, in one of two modes - 'normal' and TrueTape. It sounds impressive, but surely it's no use at all without 32-bit hardware to work with, the current soundcard standard being only 24-bit? Yes and no. While you're not going to be able record into Cubase from an external source at 32-bit resolution without a card capable of 32-bit recording (they're on the way - watch this space), for audio exports and mixdowns, 32-bit has huge benefits as long as you're using at least a 24-bit soundcard. There's more to the difference between 16, 24 and 32-bit audio files than simply different word length - 16 and 24-bit files are represented with integer numbers, while 32-bit files are floating point numbers, which means they're capable of representing seriously big numbers or absolutely tiny ones. Without getting into the maths behind this, what it means is that 32-bit files can be recorded with effectively infinite headroom, meaning your mix is pretty much overload-proof. Cubase's internal audio paths are all floating-point, so, whereas previously exporting to a 16 or 24-bit file meant leaving the 'floating-point realm' and turning everything into an integer file, resulting in possible clipping and/or an increase in distortion, now that unnecessary conversion has been avoided, increasing dynamic range immensely and doing away with clipping and distortion. It sounds too good to be true, but it really works - the difference in audio quality between a 24-bit export and a 32-bit one is stunning. And remember, as VST Instruments are totally native to the VST environment, this all holds true for their audio output too.
The other advantage of the incredible detail offered by 32-bit recording can be had by switching on TrueTape. This is Steinberg's analogue tape emulation which can be set to a level anywhere from 0dB to 24dB 'Super Saturation' using a simple slider. The results are amazing, with the sound taking on a genuinely analogue-style warmth and, of course, no matter how hard you drive the signal onto 'tape', clipping isn't an issue.
Now, obviously you're going to want to turn your glorious 32-bit master into a 16-bit file for burning to CD at some point, which is going to require some serious dithering. Dithering is the process used to overcome the distortion inevitably introduced with the data loss caused by reducing bit depth. And when you're talking about halving that bit depth, it becomes all the more important. VST and VST Score now include dithering, while VST/32 proudly boasts Apogee's UV22 - unarguably one of the best dithering algorithms in the world, the inclusion of which is a real coup for Steinberg. Needless to say, although there's always going to be a dramatic drop in quality when moving from 32 to 16-bit, you can rest assured that in this case it's minimised as well as could ever be hoped for.
And the rest...
Four pages is nowhere near enough to tell you about everything that's been packed into Cubase 5, so you'll just have to take our word for it: if you're already a Cubase user, ?9 for the upgrade is a steal. Even if you never use any of the totally new features, the increase in new-found usability of the program is worth the price alone. But beyond that, we've been absolutely blown away by all the new goodies on offer here. Ever wanted to be able to timestretch audio by just dragging the ends of a part in the Arrange window to wherever you want them? Well, now you can, with Cubase processing the audio file automatically for you. Annoyed by the time it takes to up and download audio files to Rocket Network's internet studios? Well, thanks to the Universal Sound Module, everyone can now hear the same thing as you and all you have to transmit are MIDI files (albeit in a rather General MIDI stylee). Or how about being able to show all manner of Inspector parameters in any or all track columns? Resizeable Transport bar? A full Marker track system for easy song navigation? Over 300 new scoring features? MP3 conversion on import and export? Editable MIDI commands bound to your computer keyboard? Eight new tools in the Arrange Toolbox? Improved EQ sections with directly editable EQ curves? A brace of redesigned professional effects plug-ins? Honestly, we could go on for hours...
You can probably tell where this is heading. 10 is a rare score in Computer Music, implying that the product in question significantly raises the bar for its genre and sets a new standard to be met by the competition. Cubase 5 does all that and more - the bar is raised in terms of ease of use and the sheer weight of functions, and the new standard is set with that awesome 32-bit implementation. With Logic 4.5 imminent, the all-in-one sequencer battle is about to get considerably more aggressive, which has to be a good thing for the end user. Indeed, it'll be interesting to see what the budget boys can come up with next, as the chances are that they'll be keen to take their products up a level. What tricks Emagic have up their sleeve remains to be seen, but for now, Cubase owners can rightly consider their software of choice to be the current state of the art.
