![]() ![]() On a dual monitor display you now feel especially free in terms of workflow, but there are just as many gains to be found on smaller screens as well. The things you use much more-project window, audio and MIDI editors, VST Instruments, mixer-are now easier to manage. There are still floating windows for many tools and functions but these are the ones you use less often. The window-juggling that could threaten to become distracting is now gone thanks to the much more efficient workflow you can achieve with the new, resizeable zones. Steinberg says that Cubase 9 is the most complete DAW it has ever made and that’s certainly true. Available in all three versions of Cubase 9, this lets you play about with samples quickly and easily and although it doesn’t have the depth of a dedicated sampler instrument, it is far more accessible and will do most of what many users need in day-to-day situations. You can even send samples directly to Groove Agent or HALion from the editor if you do want more advanced tools.Įxisting plugins have been reworked for this new release. Drag any audio clip into the Sampler zone and it becomes playable as a chromatic instrument, complete with pitch, filter, amp and AudioWarp controls. There’s a brand new track type called the Sampler track and its editor lives either in the lower zone or in its own window if you prefer. This update brings Cubase much closer to being primarily a one-window application and less reliance on clicking on windows is always good news. You’ll wonder how you used to live without being able to call up the mixer or editor windows underneath the project: it’s just that useful. The zone or unified window concept is not exactly new amongst DAWs but it is a very welcome addition to Cubase, which had been getting rather window-heavy in recent years. ![]() The zoning concept also applies to the main MixConsole window and now you can show and hide the channel racks and show the multiple different kinds of loudness meters in the zone on the right. Zones also extend to MixConsole, which also has a new History function. All but the left-hand column now have resizeable borders, so it’s a breeze to quickly resize the project, any editor window or the right-hand area. The zone on the right can now show VST instruments and also MediaBay complete with search function. These exist in tabs and the Inspector panel on the left can also now show editor tools for the current editor as well as the track inspector as it did before. The biggest story here is the new Lower Zone, which can display the mixer, audio or MIDI editors, Chord Pads or the new Sampler track. The Transport panel is now fixed to the base of the window, and various menus and controls have been shuffled around. Three buttons now let you show or hide the left, right and lower areas of the window, while your timeline remains in the centre. The first major new feature is the introduction of zones in the Project window and in a slightly different way, in MixConsole. The Project window now has Zones so you can see multiple sections from a single window. ![]() There’s a ton of bundled content including loops, grooves and instrument libraries, and these can be moved to a secondary drive if preferred. The full version comes as a box, presumably because of the need to include the USB eLicenser, but upgrades are available as downloads. I’m reviewing Cubase Pro 9 but many of the new features apply to Artist, and some to Elements as well. 5 release, there’s more than enough to warrant the update from 8.5 (priced at a reasonable £80/$100) and even updating from much older, entry-level versions carries fairly tempting pricing too. As ever, the older your version the more new stuff you will get by updating, and the pricing structure generally reflects this. Such is the case with Cubase 9, which sees some important and welcome changes from version 8.5. Cubase updates tend not to be wildly revolutionary but evolutionary, improving the tool set and user experience in careful and considered ways. One of its greatest strengths, in my opinion, has been its focus on maintaining usability while adding inexorably more features, something which not many developers always get right. They more or less invented plugins, and had one of the first applications that could multitrack digital audio. Steinberg has always been a pioneering company. And that’s where we are now: light years ahead of the early 2000s in terms of what we can do but also what we expect our systems to be able to do. I stuck with it through the total rewrite that was SX1, some turbulent years as Windows and Mac OS X underwent rapid changes, and eventually into the period when the technology had essentially settled down. Not as long as some people who go back to when it was essentially one of the first MIDI sequencers in existence, but pretty far. I have been using Cubase as my primary DAW since the days of version VST5. ![]()
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