The Score Editor was enhanced with lots of great additions and improvements. The new
Properties tab lets you instantly access the options and settings for specific elements that
you select in your notation, and with the Note Editing Overlay, you can edit notes as
conveniently as in the Key Editor. There are more workflow improvements, and the Score
Editor now also supports the SMuFL font format, which brings Dorico’s beautiful Bravura
and Petaluma fonts to Cubase. See Score Layout and Printing.
Imager
This new plug-in helps you to get a better, cleaner mix. You can place audio tracks in the
stereo field independently in up to four bands, allowing you to expand or reduce the stereo
width of your sound. The individual scope and correlation displays help you to get your
panning absolutely perfect. The plug-in is described in the separate document Plug-in
Reference. See Imager.
Squasher
This dynamic plug-in combines up and down compression for up to three bands. Use it to
help your lead sounds cut through the mix, tame aggressive bass lines, or enhance subtle,
spacey reverberation. The plug-in is described in the separate document Plug-in
Reference. See Squasher.
Frequency 2
The Frequency 2 equalizer provides eight bands, each of which can be individually set to
dynamic filtering for a more dynamic mix. You can also find mid/side channel support and
Linear Phase mode for each band, Auto Listen to hear the adjustments you have made, a
spectrum display and even a musical keyboard to help you find the right tone. The plug-in
is described in the separate document Plug-in Reference. See Frequency 2.
SpectraLayers One
This compact version of the acclaimed visual audio editing tool allows you to visualize and
accurately clean up your audio. Thanks to the state-of-the-art source separation engine,
you can separate the vocal part from any kinds of audio tracks. Its advanced ARA
technology allows a spectrogram view of audio tracks with the ideal balance of selection,
editing, and display tools for surgical editing tasks like improving dialogue and location
sounds straight from a field recorder, with no need for any third-party application. The tool
is described in the separate document SpectraLayers One.
Sampler Track Improvements
The sampler track comes with a number of great new features. The new slicing mode chops
up your loops so they’re ready-to-play with just a click. There are now two global LFOs
available to add motion and interesting effects. You can go for a vintage feel or the highest fidelity with the sample engine’s new quality modes. And the new mono legato glide is
perfect for typical 808 basslines and more. See Sampler Tracks.
Pitchbend and Controller Editing Improvements
You can select whether you want ramps or steps as the default type for new controller
events. See Controller Lane Setup Menu.
You can copy all of your CC edits to another track. See Controller Lane Context Menu.
You can set your pitchbend steps to semitones to always be perfectly in tune. See Pitchbend Controller Lanes.
You can create ramps and curves in the CC and pitchbend lanes, just like you are used to
with automation. See Creating Smooth Transitions between Continuous Controller Events.
You can delete MIDI notes with a simple, fast double-click.
Global Tracks in the Key Editor
Staying in sync with tempo changes or markers is crucial when composing any kind of
music. Cubase makes your life easier with Global Tracks that can now be displayed in the
Key Editor. With no need to leave the Key Editor anymore, this great visual reference will
keep your compositions moving along quickly and creatively. See Global Tracks in the Key Editor.
Scale Assistant in the Key Editor
The Scale Assistant is a superb addition to your songwriting toolkit. You can set your
song’s scale in the Key Editor and follow its lead, quantize a solo to scale or play live in
perfect tune. You can change the view to only see the notes of the set scale. You can even
let the Scale Assistant analyze your MIDI recording and suggest the right scale. Now there
are no more excuses for wrong notes.
Job Queue Management
In most DAWs, exporting multiple files is a repetitive and time-consuming task. Cubase
makes this job much faster, less prone to errors, and way more convenient. Sync your
export selection to the selection in your project and export the full signal path, including
master bus effects, to truly replicate the mix. See Channel Selection.
Cubase lets you collect your export jobs to export the whole job queue in one go while you
grab a coffee.
File Format Presets
Create and restore file format presets from your favorite or most used file format settings.
Variable DPI on Windows 10
Cubase now supports more scaling settings for Windows 10, such as 125 %, 150 %, and
250 %. Even plug-ins that do not support HiDPI can now be scaled based on the scaling
factor of Windows.
MultiTap Delay Multi-Channel Support
Now supporting up to 5.1 surround sound, the MultiTap Delay plug-in has all the creative
options you need to create otherworldly and spatial atmospheres. You can quickly and
easily create up to eight delay taps, harness the sound of digital delays or vintage echo
units, and add effects to the complete output, the delay loop, or even each individual tap.
This plug-in is described in the separate document Plug-in Reference. See MultiTap Delay.
SuperVision
This plug-in is a fully customizable multimeter audio analyzer for professional productions.
SuperVision lets you choose from several different modules for signal, spectral, phase,
spatial, and waveform analysis. This plug-in suite allows you to create your own custom
layout with up to nine module slots with individual display settings for each module to give you a supremely accurate visual picture of your sound. It is described in the separate
document Plug-in Reference. See SuperVision.
Range Editing Improvements for Combine Selection Tools mode
If Combine Selection Tools is activated and you split a selection range, the newly created
events are automatically selected.
Marker Lines
You can activate/deactivate the display of vertical marker lines to indicate marker positions
on all tracks throughout the entire project. You can decide if marker lines are shown for the
active marker track only or for all marker tracks.
Enhanced Direct Offline Processing
The Direct Offline Processing window now allows you to pin processes, which eases the
usage of plug-ins with a learning function.
Revised ARA 2.0 Support
A bounce is no longer needed when committing an audio event to the selected ARA
extension.
Keyboard Focus Indication for Divided Track Lists
When working with the Divide Track List feature, it is now clearly indicated which of the
track lists has the keyboard focus.
Show Version Name in Track List
The version name of a track version can be shown/hidden in the track list. See Track
Version Names. Details View for Maximizer Channel Strip Module
The Maximizer channel strip module now offers a details view in the Channel Settings
window. See Maximizer – Details View.
Support of Multiple Side-Chain Inputs
For plug-ins that support multiple side-chain inputs, for example, Frequency 2 and
Squasher, you can now set up an individual side-chain routing for any of these inputs. This
allows you to control each plug-in side-chain input with a different side-chain source.
Poly Pressure Lane Handling Improvements
Selecting and editing poly pressure events on the controller lane is much more intuitive
now.
Define the Visible Pitches in the Key Editor
You can define which pitches are visible in the event display and the piano keyboard display
of the Key Editor.
Search for Notes in Chords
The new context variables in the Logical Editor allow you to search for the highest or
lowest note in a progression of chords (Highest in Chord from at Least n Notes and
Lowest in Chord from at Least n Notes), and to operate on those notes.
For Composition, the Score Editor features and MIDI Automation are in touch competition
On the audio side, since I do some Music Design for Gymnasts and Figure Skaters, the ability to separate the voice track out (and use only the instrumental) is going to be a God send. Sometimes the vocals make coming up with decent edits a lot harder, and you wish you had just the instrumental. If SpectraLayers One works as good as demonstrated, that will get some heavy use from me…
But I’m still going to wait at least a week, because I don’t want to end up having to join the support queue of people who had failed upgrades that wiped their 10.5/10 licenses off of their eLicensers.
I kind of prefer being able to get work done over a few shiny feature additions…
That’s because, unfortunately, they only look at it from the perspective of music production. Fortunately, people use DAWs for more than just that.
I think people think it’s minor because they think the only people who will want that are those who want to sample the vocals or create karaoke tracks. Not quite the case, though.
Haven’t upgraded yet, but what I’m looking forward to using, and know that I will be using on a daily basis:
-Imager
-Squasher
-Sampler Track Improvements
-Pitchbend and Controller Editing Improvements
-Revised ARA 2.0 Support
-Define the Visible Pitches in the Key Editor
-Job Queue Management
-and maybe Scale Assistant in the Key Editor
I’ll probably check out Frequency 2, but I feel I already have everything I need in the eq/dynamic-eq area.
I mainly did the update from a budget planning POV. I will anyway update one day (if I won’t leave Cubase forever). So I usally take the pain of an update I may not really require.
SamplerTrack V2 is quite nice. But I am more looking for fixed bugs:
meter display can be customized (broken in 10.5)
2 lines in mixer console text (like Mac had it already)
HiDPI support (yet not sure if they really made it for Windows)
Input/Output display in project window not showing (needs an activation of “Write” once time)
incorrect display of routing in the inserts slots (GUI issue since slots are too big and scrolling is cumbersome)
useless send blank space in the output channel
overall buggy fonts
coloring not consitant / too limited
missing worklfow enhancements (like a rectangle tool to select tracks either in mixer or project track view with assignable funcktions, i.e. solo/mute etc.)
scrolling of tracks in each zone (by today only the middle zone allows scrolling)
more flexible mixer configurations between the 3 existing
Samplertrack samples to be stored in the new folder when backing up a project
several minor annoying things.
Quite obvious almost nothing of this was addressed in this major release…
I was actually quite shocked with Spectral layers one… at first glance it looks like its limited functionality is just for remixers or karaoke wannabes…
but after giving it a run today over some multitrack live gigs… it gets rid of the spill in the vocal mics way better than any gate or process i’ve come across before…
Supervision is also an amazing addition (even though i usually do most my mastering in wavelab, its still useful to have an overview while mixing…
Imager is as good as ozones (if not better) I just wish i could run it in wavelab
I will admit that I was really hoping for more, but I completely understand that adding any feature at all takes a huge amount of development time on a product this complex, so I’m still very grateful to Steinberg for continuing to improve my favourite DAW.
The features I am most excited about (that I will definitely use are):
Slicing in the sampler track
Proper curves in MIDI CC lanes
Features I am still hanging out for:
Ability to layer instruments and create macros to control knobs on multiple synths at once (similar to S1 and Ableton Live)
Effect racks where you can create parallel chains .etc (similar to S1 and Ableton Live)
A better inspector which allows you to see more things at once (similar to S1)
Ability to easily have a group channel for a folder and have tracks automatically assigned to it when dragged into folder (similar to S1)
Improved stability and more bug fixes (e.g. the sampler file path bug that Steve Helstrip has brought up for years)
Cubase is pretty close to perfect for me now, but just am craving these features for EDM production.
Quite disapointed from the slicing in SamplerTrack v2
Simple vocal recording has either a ridicolus amount of slices or nearly none…it seems to use the hitpoint detection function which is still not not very accurate since v10
When I saw the leaked feature list, my first thought was ‘none of this interests me… but i’ll be happy with HiDPI…’
turns out HiDpi isn’t great at all… so i’ll stick with 100%…
However 3 features are really great…
Sampler track, being able to use loops is really nice, I have been using that a lot already and getting some great results.
Pitch bend in Midi parts! yay
Export to ‘mixdown folder’… have wanted this for a LONG time,
and last but not least… (which isn’t really a cubase feature… but still…) SpectraLayers … which just blew me away with it’s vocal extract feature!, it’s like actual magic!..
Number one
I’ve been wanting the Global Tracks in Key Ed forever. Just a few days ago being able to see the Chords in the Editor would have saved me a bunch of confusion over a repeating with slight variation chord progression.
Runner ups
The dynamic EQ
Presets for file exports
real curves for cc
Supervision - hey a bit of Wavelab cross pollination
Honorable Mention
Breaking apart the content downloads
The MIDI Key Editor improvements are HUGE… things I’ve wanted for years.
Now… is it worth $100? No. I mean, I don’t think I should have to pay $100 for that.
But I gotta say. That alone will save me so much time that I’m thrilled.
The Export Queue is nice.
But most everything else, just seems like fluff borrowed from WL or SL… which is fine I guess. But frankly, I’d rather they focus more on improvements to the core program—like the Key Editor stuff. (THANK YOU!)
Not that much. I was hoping for general workflow improvements and updates on external instruments and FX handling and so on.
I couldn’t care less for fluff like more plugins and Scale Assistant. None of that will improve my workflow.
The Key editor update looks promising - but is it worth paying €100 for?
I might still update if these bugs are squashed:
The ARA clicks & pops issues and ability to use Melodyne in comping like Studio One and Logic.
Thanks.