Steinberg Cubasis VST 5

Steinberg is a big name in the world of professional music-making software, and it's safe to say that a large number of the songs you hear on radio or TV have at some time passed through Cubase SX, the company's top-of-the-range production package. Naturally Steinberg realised some years ago that not everyone needs all features found in Cubase SX and so it decided to offer an affordable cut-down version that would appeal to the masses - the result was Cubasis VST.

Recently, Steinberg was bought out by Pinnacle Systems and, while Cubase SX is still marketed by Steinberg itself, Pinnacle has taken over the distribution of the more consumer-orientated Steinberg products such as Cubasis VST version 5.

Sometimes when companies trim down their professional products, the end result is an unhappy compromise between power and price. So has Cubasis been overly shorn of features or does it still look dandy after its short back and sides?

As we've seen, Cubasis is pitched as an entry-level program for those who want to record Midi and audio side by side. As long as your PC has enough power under the bonnet you can record up to 48 audio and 64 Midi tracks, however only a total combination of 64 tracks can be used at any one time. Once you've made your recordings you can then apply realtime effects to spice things up. In fact Steinberg offers 35 effects as standard, ranging from simple reverbs and delays to more complicated noise manglers like vocoders and amp simulators.

Steinberg also provides 13 virtual instruments, up from 10 in the last outing. These range from drum machines and synthesisers to a singing monk. On top of this you also get two CDs stuffed with samples and demo songs. In the past Cubasis has suffered from being tricky to get working with some sound cards. This was partly Steinberg's fault and partly down to many cards having poorly written drivers. Thankfully the company has largely addressed these problems, but if you have an old sound card you may still experience some issues.

Although Steinberg has gone to great lengths to make Cubasis as easy as possible to use, it is still a complicated program with tons of features so first-time users will have to put some time in with the CD-based manual to figure out what's what. Once you do get the hang of things though, you'll realise that Cubasis is extremely powerful.

You can quantise both Midi and audio tracks to clean up bad timing and easily edit Midi notes and controller data too. In fact there's so much on offer in Cubasis that it should suit even pretty demanding amateurs. However, there are times when you run into its limitations. You are restricted to running eight virtual instruments at any one time, which isn't such a big issue, but you can only have four realtime effects running simultaneously, which is much more debilitating. You can always record a track with its effects to another track to free up the effects slots - what professionals call bouncing tracks - but it's not ideal, especially on today's powerful PCs that can handle lots of effects at any one time.

The big downer with version 5, however, is that it's still not based on the more up-to-date SX flavour of Cubase. Usually Cubasis has only lagged one generation behind its illustrious big brother, so we would have expected version 5 to be the one that switched to the newer SX engine, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. The result is that this version isn't really an essential for those who invested in Cubasis 4.

Nevertheless, Cubasis is still a superb piece of software for newcomers, as there really is a wealth of professional-quality features crammed into this budget package. However, this does mean it takes time to master. Cubasis isn't a toy like Ejay where you can knock up a tune in a few minutes, it's geared much more toward real musicians and demands that those who want to become versed in its ways must put in some serious time learning how to use it. However, the rewards are well worth the effort as Cubasis really can produce professional results.

Contact: Pinnacle Systems 01895 442 003
www.pinnaclesys.com

System requirements:

• Windows 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP
• Intel Pentium II or AMD Duron or higher
• 128MB of Ram
• 340MB of free hard disk space
• CD-Rom drive
• SVGA graphics card (800 x 600 with 16bit colour depth)
• MME, Direct X or ASIO compatible sound card