Cubase 14 offers three different versions which give users a natural creative pathway — from those taking their first steps with the powerful yet intuitive tools of Cubase Elements through intermediate-level users with Cubase Artist all the way to the comprehensive, industry-standard features of Cubase Pro, which is used on countless well-known recordings by high-profile artists. Cubase provides everything musicians and producers need, for every genre of music, skill level and budget.
The new features in Cubase 14 put creativity first, enabling users to create music which is unique and innovative while making the writing, mixing, and production processes more inspiring and intuitive than ever before.
Cubase 14 introduces six powerful, intuitive Modulators which allow users to modulate any parameter of a track or channel that contains an audio signal. With an LFO and Step Modulator among others, this is a major new feature that will help to push the creative envelope of many music productions.
A new addition to Cubase's track types, the Drum Track is an all-in-one environment for the creation of complex drum patterns and offers comprehensive features that allow users to build custom drum kits. At its core are the new Drum Machine, a versatile hybrid of drum sampler and percussion synthesizer and the Pattern Editor for programming propulsive, dynamic beats, randomizing grooves, and exploring new rhythmic worlds with just a few clicks.
The full MixConsole can now be opened in the Lower Zone of the Project window, allowing channels to be re-arranged via drag and drop for faster, more intuitive mixing.
The event volume curve editing in Cubase 14 has been enhanced so that users can optimize their audio with draw tools that are familiar from automation editing to edit fades and adjust static event volume offsets.
New effects in Cubase 14 include Shimmer, a reverb plug-in that lives up to its name. Then there is StudioDelay, a distinctive, easy-to-use delay with quick access to built-in effects like modulation, distortion, reverb, and pitch. Autofilter is a filter specially designed for modulating its cutoff frequency via the input track or sidechain signal. Cubase 14 introduces Underwater, a brand-new signal processor for building atmosphere and space for vocals or lead instruments with the well-known "party next door" effect. And to round out the new additions, a Volume effect allows control of volume independently of the MixConsole volume fader.
Cubase 14 introduces a revamped Score Editor built on technology from Dorico, the cuttingedge music notation and composition application from Steinberg. The new Score Editor provides a powerful, notation-based MIDI editor which will allow users to quickly and easily examine and edit music as notation while producing great-looking parts for live recording projects.
Customers will appreciate that Cubase 14 is a true evolution, with the many new features and enhancements to the already comprehensive feature set, making it the perfect solution for music-makers of all levels:
Reviewed By ebsynth [all]
October 11th, 2022
Version reviewed: 12 on Mac
Downloading and installing Cubase Elements 12 on MacOS requires at least 9.33 GB of disk space when including the required application and recommended libraries Halion Sonic SE 3 and Groove Agent SE 5 sample and loop libraries. Additional libraries and loops can also be downloaded if the user so wishes. All this can be easily managed using the Steinberg Download Assistant and Steinberg Activation Manager applications. The Steinberg Library Manager application allows the user to do custom installs of the libraries, samples and loops ... on an external disk for instance.
Steinberg is moving away from the USB-eLicenser system which means that you can now activate your single user license online and use it on three different computers. See https://www.steinberg.net/licensing/. Using the same MySteinberg ID that you used for downloading Cubase, you can also join Steinberg forums at https://forums.steinberg.net to discuss further software-related issues.
Being an erstwhile Logic user, one evident missing feature was not being able to use virtual instruments that only existed as their VST executables. So, it was mainly for this reason that I decided to purchase Cubase 12 Elements at a very tempting price point i.e. with a 40% discount. It turns out that the VST exclusive virtual instruments that I wanted to use were all in their 32-bit versions so they were useless anyway (read: they had to be purged from my MacBook Pro running Big Sur.) Nevertheless, I did some preliminary tests to get some idea of Cubase's workflow. This review then, is limited to the workflow in my MIDI home studio.
My first test was to integrate my MIDI hardware synths. This was very straightforward for most of my synths since Cubase Elements already contained configuration files for many classic prominent synths like the Yamaha DX7II, Korg Wavestation, Clavia Nord Lead, Roland JD-800 etc. However, in the case where a patch script (in Cubase parlance) did not exist for certain MIDI hardware, I had to search the internet for these files. For this literally hundreds of patch scripts could be found in the downloads section of rivetedstudios.com. Adding the necessary scripts to the /Applications/Cubase*/Contents//scripts/patchnames/inactive/* folder was easy enough requiring administrative permission. However, after relaunching Cubase and attempting to "Add MIDI Device" in the MIDI Device Manager, the newly added patch scripts were not recognized by my Cubase installation. I am looking into this issue in the Steinberg forums.
It was also not possible to set up an external MIDI instrument like a virtual one since the "Audio Connections" dialog box did not have an "External Instrument" tab in the Elements version.
With regards to setting up external MIDI keyboards for specific compositions, recording Sys-Ex dumps seemed impossible. Consulting the Operations Manual, this setup requires that you uncheck the SysEx boxes in the Preferences —-> MIDI —> MIDI Filter dialog box. Setting up custom patch banks was now easy.
Recording MIDI tracks using external synths was straightforward and rendering their respective sounds on to a separate audio track also went smoothly when routing audio outputs from the synth via an external sound card into the DAW.
Configuration scripts for well-known external MIDI controllers like Arturia Keylab, Korg nanoKontrol. Akai MPK and Novation Launchkey are also included in the software.
Navigating the timeline using key commands was easy enough using the "B" (back to the beginning of a segment) and "N" keys to the end of a segment. Shift-N was then required to proceed to the next segment. The "G" and "H" keys could be used to expand and contract the timeline. Without going into further details of the key commands my one complaint was proceeding backwards and forwards in bar length increments or triggering "Record" on an armed track could only be done using a numeric keypad with Num lock enabled. I was obliged to use the mouse pointer on the Transport bar for these operations since the Num Lock function does not exist on my MacBook Pro.
Creating Instrument tracks from both VST and VST3 collections was seamless. Tracking using external keyboard controllers was also a breeze.
Even though I have highlighted a couple of persistent glitches above, I considered my money well spent.
$329.99Cubase Artist 14
$149.99Notion
$99.00Bitwig Studio Essentials$399.00Bitwig Studio 5$579.99Cubase Pro 14
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