Blimey, time goes quickly. I can remember reading Sound on Sound one morning on the Tube (that’s London Underground, not YouTube) where they mentioned the name change to this forthcoming Steinberg software. Wasn’t it ICL who were using the name? Before or around the time they joined with Fujitsu? And you could go to the pictures, have fish and chips and and STILL have change from half a crown.
Interesting to hear why ‘Cubit’ was chosen in the first place.
Steve
i saw a wierd, box-shaped computer screen unit that looked like it was built out of giant dark plastic lego blocks, in the late 80s, it looked like some kinda space-age crate from a spaceship …with a keyboard and a screen cut out of it…in a huge recording studio i was doing work experience in back in the day. back then there was only Pro24 from Steinberg.
it looked like a custom-made computer…standalone thing. I remember asking the engineer what it was and he said it was a demo model of a new thing “…we call it the Cube”. and it could record audio.
it was full of hard drives and none of the engineers could use it, they said it was too complicated, and they were using tape to edit up and it just sat on the desk. A few times a guy would come in and talk to the engineers about it and how it was going…
i always assume that the name Cubase came from this prototype Cube thing i saw , that Cube became Cube-ace and Steinberg had just made the software native…
never saw anything looking like that unit again…if the name didnt come from this cube-shaped thing, i would really like to know what the hell it was. sure wasnt a Fairlight anything. Maybe it was an early Sound Designer custom unit then?
Depending on what year you are talking about, it could be AudioCube you’re referring to:
http://www.cube-tec.com/company/background.html
Luck, Arjan
Only me who remembers the downstripped version of Cubase called Cubeat? Yes, the spelling is right.
That was my first legal Steinberg software and it was back in 1991. If my memory serves me it didn’t have notation feature, no IPS etc., but indeed it had the great Drum editor, which I really liked, so the meaning of the name Cubeat was obvious to me; cue-beat, focusing on that drum editing.
The large version (Cubase) seemed to me comparingly more like a big and comprehensible music database, not focusing only on beats and drum editing, so the interpretation cue-base was logic. Especially since I had tried the not so intuitive or ‘cue-able’ Pro-24 earlier.
Naturally I couldn’t resist upgrading, but that wasn’t until Cubase Audio Falcon in -94 (was it?).
Unfortunately my memory goes back only to Cubasis when it comes to stripped-down versions. My old friend/music making partner had one and I tried to teach him how to use it. It was a lost battle from beginning … he never learned it and stuck with his old Fostex 4-track C-casette machine.