Product Review - Steinberg Cubase 7
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Reviews : Software: Sequencers+DAWs
Steinberg’s DAW software has received perhaps its biggest shake-up to date, with a new mixer and some clever chord functions.
It’s been 10 years since Steinberg introduced Cubase SX to the world, and since then the program has changed a great deal. SX2 presented the Time Warp tool and saw the return of much classic Cubase functionality, while SX3 extended warping to audio and introduced the Arranger Track, Device Panels and in-place editing. Cubase 4 dropped the ‘SX’, adding VST 3 support and Media Bay, Cubase 5 gave us VariAudio and Expression Maps, and Cubase 6 took this even further with Note Expression. So what better way for Steinberg to celebrate a decade of the modern Cubase era than to release a major new version?
This time, the two most significant new features seem to go deeper into the program than any of the aforementioned developments. Firstly, there’s a redesigned mixer called, appropriately enough, MixConsole, which represents a radical departure from the virtual mixers both in previous versions of Cubase and, in some ways, other applications. Secondly, a new Chord Track enables musicians to explore harmonic progressions in different ways. And, as ever, there’s a host of smaller improvements including workflow-enhancing tools, new plug-ins, and much, much more.
The Seven Ages Of Cubase
Installing Cubase 7 is relatively easy, and, as with previous major releases, it’s possible to install Cubase 7 without disrupting an earlier 6.5 installation. One slight change is that the installer now downloads the latest Cubase build from the Web during installation, so you’ll need to make sure your computer has an Internet connection (or, alternatively, you can download this core Cubase installer from another computer and run it after the main installer has finished). This is basically a good move, since it means you’ll always install the latest version, although it could be frustrating if you ever want to install the program in a situation where you don’t have access to an Internet connection.
The first new thing you’ll see upon launching Cubase 7 is the Steinberg Hub, a full-screen view incorporating the old Project Assistant with a new ‘news and tutorials’ section that pulls content from Steinberg’s servers. This is all very helpful, except that I wonder why Steinberg felt that the Hub needs to be full-screen. Since it paints a grey gradient over every display attached to your system, opening the Hub (which happens every time you create a new Project) on a multi-display system can become quite a jarring experience. Thankfully, though, the Steinberg Hub can be disabled in General Preferences so that Cubase reverts to the older Project Assistant window.
For those who work with large track counts, Cubase 7’s handy track search function might be worth the price of the upgrade alone. As you type into the search field, the list of tracks displayed is filtered to show only those containing the search string.
Once you create or open a Project, you’ll notice that Cubase is, at least by default, a little darker and a little greyer, and you’ll have to remember that you’re not actually wearing blue-tinted glasses. I’m not sure why anyone would want to work in this out-of-the-box colour scheme (especially in the Key Editor, which has become ridiculously dark and obscure), and although you can fiddle around with the colour scheme in the Appearance Preferences, I still couldn’t quite get back to the chromatic choices I liked in Cubase 6.5.
The transport icons that have graced the program since version 2 have been replaced by Nuendo’s more conventionally styled alternatives, and the Track Control buttons now have a firmer outline with white highlights, making them stand out a little. This is helpful when you have a large number of tracks in a project, as is the new ability to search the Track List. Simply click the magnifying glass icon at the top of the Track List, and a pop-up is displayed that shows all the tracks in your project. As you type into the text field at the top of the pop-up, the list is filtered for tracks containing the search string. You can then jump to your required track either by clicking or using the cursor keys and pressing Return. Brilliant! (The icing on the cake here would be if there was a key command to open this pop-up.)
Another feature that’s handy when working in large projects is described in Cubase 7’s marketing literature as “MemZap”. This rather ugsome name actually encompasses two new zoom key commands, Zoom MEM and Zoom ZAP. If you’re editing in a particular part of the project that you’ll keep coming back to, say an audio event that’s been chopped up with some intricate editing, you can use the Zoom MEM command to store the state of the Event Display, including track heights, zoom factors and the position. Then, if you’re editing in another part of the project, perhaps with different track heights and zoom factors, you can then toggle between the stored and current states by using the Zoom ZAP command. This is actually quite a neat feature, and it can really speed up the editing process once you become accustomed to using it.
Fixing The Mix
The new MixConsole window in all its glory (or should that be gory?) in full-screen mode on a 30-inch display, playing back one of the Cubase 7 demo songs.
MixConsole replaces the old Mix window with a highly configurable interface that comprises a number of different sections, each of which can be hidden or shown alongside the core fader section, depending on the mixing controls you want to have visible. The fader section itself has been redesigned, and the mute, solo, listen and edit controls are now above the fader, while the automation and record and monitor controls are below. I think this is an improvement, since it makes the fader section look less cluttered. You can now customise the fader-cap colours (based on the channel type) in Preferences, and there are horizontal zoom in and out commands so you can adjust the width of channels with more granularity than the two options available in the old Mixer window.
Disappointingly, though, it still isn’t possible to rearrange the order of channels: as before, this has to be done by moving tracks on the Project window. You can click and drag a channel’s label, but this turns out to be a way to copy that channel’s volume and pan settings to another channel. There’s no longer a dedicated button on instrument channels to open that channel’s VST Instrument editor, and you now have to Alt/Option-click (or click and hold) the channel’s Edit button to do so. This took me a while to figure out, and now that this paradigm has been established, it would be quite useful if the Inspector and Track List’s Edit Channel Settings buttons on the Project window used it as well.
Perhaps the most useful section after the faders is the new Channel Racks section, which replaces the Extended view of the old Mixer. The Channel Racks section, as its name suggests, comprises a number of different ‘racks’, each handling a different category of mixing controls. So there’s a rack for inserts, a rack for EQ, a rack for sends, and so on. Most significantly, you can display multiple racks at the same time, which is a really big deal for Cubase users like myself who have been begging Steinberg for a way to see inserts and sends simultaneously since the very first version of Cubase SX!
Each rack consists of a header that you can click to expand or shrink the controls offered by that rack. A filled, light-blue circle indicates whether a rack’s controls are active on a given channel, and can be clicked to bypass that rack. One thing you’ll notice as you move the mouse around the racks (and, indeed, most aspects of the mixer) is that the control or set of controls over which the mouse is hovering becomes highlighted with an outline. This might seem a little distracting at first, but is actually incredibly useful, given the density of controls.
The insert and send slots have been completely redesigned, and this new look has also been incorporated in the relevant Inspector sections in the Project and the Channel Settings windows (see ‘Changing The Channel’ box). By default, not all the available slots for every channel will be visible, since Cubase (much like Logic) can now dynamically adjust the number of visible slots as needed. However, if you’d rather see all the slots all the time, a ‘fixed’ mode is also available.
Clicking on a slot brings up a pop-up just like the one that appears for searching tracks on the Project window, and your plug-in catalogue (for inserts) and routing destinations (for sends) are each represented in one hierarchical tree. This is a welcome enhancement over the previous menu-and-submenu approach, and a search field is also provided, so you can find and select a plug-in just like you would now find and select a track on the Project window, which is kind of neat.
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Cubase £488; Upgrade from Cubase 6.5 £121.70; from Cubase 6, £162; Cubase Artist £244. Prices include VAT.Cubase $599.99; Upgrade from Cubase 6.5 $149.99; from Cubase 6, $199.99; Cubase Artist $329.99. WIN Great Prizes in SOS Competitions!
Thu 20 Jun 2013
Sound On Sound : Est. 1985