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hueseph 4 October 2011

Lomg & Mcaquade will be hosting a seminar featuring Greg Ondo and Cubase 6. I haven't used Cubase in years but I'm going to check it out. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post. Seminar is scheduled for October 13, at 7:00 PM.

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hueseph Mon, 10/17/2011 - 19:17

Cubase 6: Greg Ondo

So, I went to the Cubase 6 presentation this past Thursday October 13. Demonstrating the new features was Greg Ondo: Senior Product Specialist for Steinberg. Apparently this is the guy that educates the developers on how their new features work.

One thing that was apparent. He’s not a fan of the Avid camp as indicated by this paraphrase:

“wouldn’t it be great if instead of putting expensive, soon to be obsolete dsp cards into your comp, if you could just run it off your cpu?”

Here’s a basic feature list :

-Unlimited Audio/Midi
-Fully customizable.
-Sonar, Protools, Logic Key commands. That is, for familiarity’s sake, you can enable key commands from your favourite DAW to make the transition easier for you. Cool.
-Content related editing. Option click/right click mouse editing tools.
-Automation moves with edit. If you edit a clip and move it, all the automation associated with it moves as well. I don’t know if this is already implemented in any other DAW but I thought this is pretty cool.
-Unlimited levels of UNDO.
-Group editing. Grouping tracks you can edit one file and instantly have your edits applied to all files associated with the group.

Variaudio: This is Cubase’s answer to Autotune.

These are just my personal notes:

  • effects very effective but artifacting was very noticeable. I don‘t know if this was due to the fact that he was over effecting the track intentionally or not.
  • Melodyne like interface. It was blatantly obvious where the template for this came from.
  • Allows vibrato “straightening”. That is, you can flatten vibrato very effectively.
  • Drag vocal tails up or down. Allowing you to essentially draw in inflection of your choice.
  • Easily abused
  • Word stretching. (time stretching) again, nothing really new here but a tool that you should expect from a modern DAW.
  • Integrated! Unlimited levels of undo! This really is where the appeal is. You don’t have to open another plugin. It bears the capabilities(and limitations mind you) of the DAW along with it and you are not bound to the limitations of yet another plug.
  • Extract to midi. This is something that every DAW should have.
  • Quatizeable audio. AKA beat mapping. (hit points )

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Drums/Tempo Editing:

  • Cut and drag dum hits into Groove Agent. Allowing you to make samples of “good” hits to use as replacement samples for your recorded drums or simply to add to your sample library.
  • Hitpoints transient detector. (ala beat detective)
  • Group edit/slice/ quantize/crossfade. Lock to tempo. Edits effect all files within the group.
  • Tempo editing group tracks
  • Edit tempo on the fly for multiple tracks after it’s on disk. Pitch is maintained.
  • In tape mode pitch changes with tempo. Tape mode can be enabled for individual tracks.
  • Adjust metronome to audio tempo and vice versa A little too perfect.
  • Draw in accelerando.

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Amp Modeling VST AMPRACK

  • Convolution for amp cabinets.
  • Uninspiring guitarist makes this demo a bit hard to listen to.
  • Integrated, low latency.

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Halion Sonic SE

  • 1000 + base sounds
  • Mouse drag velocity edit within step editor
  • layering by key
  • Integrated. Allows you to load/edit several different instruments within the plugin.
  • Note based midi control editing. Automation editing per note. Adjust volume, pan, velocity per note rather than per channel.
  • Note expression from audio applied to midi. INFLECTION! This struck me as very cool. Basically this allows you to apply inflection played by a real instrument to be applied to a midi track.
  • Articulations drawn in to midi.

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Reverence convolution reverb

  • Allows import of wave to be used as an impulse.
  • Impulse switching on the fly

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Export:

  • Batch export Equal length audio files export of all effects as well as audio. I thought this is what OMF files were for but I suppose this would eliminate the hassles of possible glitches in the code.

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Greg also took the time to introduce some new hardware.

UR28M

  • USB2.0 8 input interface .
  • Dedicated monitor section.
  • DSP on board
  • Allows use of effects while tracking/direct monitoring. without latency
  • Monitor or print with the “morphing Channel Strip”
  • Decent mic pres if not difficult to tell on the Yorkville monitors. The demo really was a bit flawed. He played a comparison between the UR28M pres and ones on a Euphonix console that he had pre recorded. Of course, how could we possibly tell if that's what it was in the first place and even then neither the listening environment nor the monitoring system could really be trusted. These were your typical small stage monitors perfect for a small coffee shop but hardly reference monitors.

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CMC Controllers

  • Modular For Flexibility.
  • User assignable buttons.

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AI Knob “Master Section”

TP Transport Panel

PD Drum Pad.

  • Can be used as hotkeys IN CUBASE.

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QC controller.

CH Channel Strip.

  • Touch capacitance fader. NICE.

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FD Faders

  • Four Touch Capacitance faders/WHICH ARE ALSO METERS.

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Bottom Line:

Overall it was a good sales pitch. The midi and audio editing capabilities of Cubase really are impressive and seem to me to be a step beyond many DAWs. Mind you, I only know the DAWs that I use and I don't do a whole lot of midi, if I don't have to.

There was some snake oil. When he was demonstrating Halion he said "listen to the drums. Don't they sound real?". No. They didn't sound real. And, a lot of the other samples didn't sound very convincing either. Applying articulation from live performance to midi helped but it didn't make it sound any more real. It just gave better feel.

Maybe I'm jaded. The amp modelling was nothing new. Using convolution for the cabinets? I thought they all did that. How else do you do it?

That being said, a lot of the editing features were very cool. I couldn't possibly explain them the way he demonstrated them. I know that a lot of what I typed seems nonsensical here. I think Cubase 6 is definitely worth considering if you are on the hunt for a new DAW or if you intend to upgrade.

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