Hello there, welcome to this video! We'll review everything you need to
know to start straight away with Steinberg Cubase 9!
Leave comments and suggestions in the video description to improve our
future video guides!
Cubase 9 is DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), a professional software used
to produce, record and edit your own music tracks by using real instruments
or digital synthesizers (or synths). In this video, we will have a look
at the very basic features, but consider that you may need further guides
and practice to go professional and advanced.
When you open Cubase 9 the steinberg hub opens, showing several ready
templates to use. To learn how to use this software, let's start with
a new project by going to Create Empty below.
The Cubase workspace opens, divided in several parts: the Inspector panel
on the left, other important panels on the right, the main Player at the
bottom, and the main Cubase project on the centre.
A Cubase project is the heart of your work: this is composed by several
Tracks called Channels, and each of these can contain several objects
called Events, placed in different instants of time, creating your overall
audio output.
Let's start with the basic audio files called samples. These are rendered
audio files ready to use, that can be played directly. You can import
audio samples by clicking and dragging these on your workspace. These are
shown as Audio Events, contained inside a new track called Audio Track.
If you need more Audio Tracks, just click on the plus button on top.
The Audio Event is shown with its audio waveform, and is placed somewhere
on the project timeline above, measured in Beats and Bars, which is the
standard measurement unit used in audio production. If you prefer using
Seconds, right-click on the timeline and choose Seconds. Then, zoom in and
out by holding CTRL down and using your mouse wheel.
Any Event can be fully edited as you like. Click and drag it to move it
in time. This snaps to each Bar or Beat, depending on what you choose as
Grid Type above. To disable snappings, just move while holding CTRL down.
Also, if you hover on an Event, you can use several nodes. Pull the top
one to regulate the Event volume; use the triangular ones on the left
and right to add volume fades; use the left and right nodes at the bottom
to stretch or shorten the Event duration; and use the right node in the
middle to loop the clip as much as you like.
Also, when you click on an Event, you will select it, and this will
become darker. At this point, you can use CTRL+X to cut (or delete) the
Event, CTRL+C to copy it, and CTRL+V to paste it.
Cubase has also other editing tools useful to work with your Events. You
can find them at the very top, or by holding your right-click. For example,
you can use Range Selection to draw a rectangular area that selects
multiple Events within it; use the Split tool to split an Event in two; or
the Draw tool to create new empty Events inside a Track.
If you make a mistake, remember to use CTRL+Z to fast undo.
At the bottom you have the main Player to playback your project content.
This plays exactly what is under the vertical pointer, that can be fixed
by clicking on the timeline above.
Also you can loop continuously a piece of your project by enabling the
Transport Cycle button, very useful especially while trying modifications
on a Channel or an Event.
If you hover over the top edge of the timeline, your pointer becomes a
small pencil. If you click and drag, you will create a violet Cycle Region
that selects a part of the project so that, when you enable the Transport
Cycle button, you will repeatedly play the selected area where the
vertical pointer enters.
If you create an inverted Cycle Region, this will be colored in orange,
indicating the part of the project that must not be played when Transport
Cycle is enabled.
Through the Player you can also fix the Tempo, measured in Beats Per
Minute, that regulates the playback speed of your project. You can click
and drag from it to regulate it, or double-click on it to type it directly.
Let's see how to edit Audio Events and Channels. When you double-click on
an Event, the Editor panel opens at the bottom, with other panels we will
review later. This panel shows the overall Event audio waveform in detail,
that you can zoom in and out by holding CTRL down and using your mouse
wheel. To play its content you can't use the main Player, since this
always references the main project. Here you can either use the Play or
the Scrub tool. With the Play tool you can play a part of the Event
waveform by clicking on it and holding on it; with the Scrub tool you
have to click and drag on the left or right.
Additionally, you can draw and personalize the audio waveform by using the
Draw tool.
If you do not need these panels anymore, you can close them by using the
cross button.
Also, you can personalize your Channels to change the audio output of
their Events. On the far left, you have several useful buttons for your
Channel audio. Use the M button to mute all its Events inside, or the S
(Solo) button to disable all the other channels except the interested one.
You can also rename the Channel by double-clicking on its name.
Additionally, if you click on Edit Channel Settings, you will open a panel
that can be used to adjust the Channel audio properties, add adjustments
and effects.
On the extreme right, you have the basic Channel volume properties, such
as the dB (deciBel) Meter, used to monitor and adjust the overall channel
volume, and the Balance Panner on top, used to distribute the volume
between the left and the right stereo channels correctly.
On top, you can fix the device properties to use to import audio (under
Stereo In), or export audio (under Stereo Out).
On the left, you have two panels: the Strip to add adjustments to the
Channel, and the Inserts to add effects.
The Strip panel lists several features to check or enhance the Channel
audio. By default, the EQ Position is enabled, showing the frequency
spectrum of the Channel output in real time. You can click on Gate to add
a Noise Gate to reduce noise; on Comp to add Audio Compression; or on Limit
to add Limiters. We won't see these adjustments in this basic tutorial.
Each of these adjustments and corrections are shown under Channel Strip,
where you can directly check and correct all Strips through their knobs.
On the left, you can enable or disable each Strip by using the Bypass
Module button, or change the Strip preset to use by using Select Preset.
Next to the Strips you have the Inserts, which are special audio effects
that may change the final Channel sound. Click on one slot, and browse
for your favorite effect to add it. Then, use its own interface to fix
the effect properties.
As seen for the Strips, use Bypass Insert to disable or enable the effect,
or the Select Insert button to switch the effect with another. Use the
e button to open the effect interface to adjust it.
By default, these effects are applied after the Strip corrections, but you
can choose to apply Insert effects first by using the button close to
Strip.
Through the Channel Settings panel you can apply several audio filters on
your Channel, acting on the lowest, mid or the highest audio frequencies,
from left to right. You can use the knobs at the bottom, or click on the
Equalizer directly.
Close the panel when you finish editing. The Inspector panel on the left
summarizes the main modifications applied on the selected Channel.
This is all that Cubase is able to do with audio samples. However, it has
several interesting features to work with MIDI Events, which are used to
compose your own music from scratch, by defining notes and instruments to
use. As instruments you can use an external one, by connecting it with
Cubase, or a digital synthesizer. In this basic video, we will see how
to work with synths only.
On the extreme right, inside the VST Instruments panel, click on Add
Track Instrument... to start composing. Choose the right synth to use
under Instrument and then go to Add Track. This opens the synth interface,
and creates a new empty track called Instrument Track. So, enable the Draw
tool, and click and drag on the Track to create a new empty MIDI Event.
Then, enable the Object Selection tool, and double-click on the Event to
open the Editor panel below.
Keeping in mind the Editor is dedicated to the samples, the MIDI Editor
panel opens a Piano Roll, with several notes on the left. With the Draw
tool above, you can drop the notes to use and define their length in time.
To remove notes, use the Erase tool instead. The easiest way to compose a
MIDI Event is to loop playback its region, by using the Cycle region and
the Transport Cycle enabled.
For each single note you can edit several properties, such as volume as
Velocity, the pitch as Pitchbend, and so on by using the same Draw tool.
All of these are collected right below the Piano Roll.
The Instrument Track created is able to collect just MIDI Events inside,
and all its own MIDI Events will use the same synth chosen as an
instrument to give sound to their notes. For this reason, these Tracks
can't welcome samples that already have a rendered sound waveform.
The way to edit and manage the Instrument Tracks is equal to what we have
seen for Audio Tracks, including Strips and Inserts. You just have an
additional button called Edit Instrument which is used to regulate the
synth audio to use.
Another amazing feature is the Sampler Control panel. This is used to
compose MIDI Events that use an audio sample as an instrument.
Through the plus button, add a new Sampler Track. This opens the Sampler
Control automatically. Then, just drag and drop a sample Event from an
Audio Track, or an audio file from your computer, and its sound waveform
will be shown completely. This may be looped by using Loop Mode, but to
make things easier, let's just choose the No Loop option.
At the bottom regulate the sample Pitch with the Coarse, Fine, and Glide
knobs, and the sample Volume with the Volume and the Pan knobs on the
right. At the bottom, you have a Piano Roll, that you can extend by moving
its markers if you need. By clicking on the piano, you will play the sample
with different notes. Finally, enable the Record button, and click on the
Piano Roll to fix the notes to use on the MIDI Event. This will use the
same notes you have recorded, and the imported sample as an instrument.
Through the Editor panel, correct and adjust its notes.
Consider that just such notes are recorded, even if other Channels are
played, since the Record Enable button is on just on the Sampler Track.
If you don't like the sample file used for the Sampler Track MIDI, you can
change it by selecting the Sampler Track, open the Sampler Control, and
dropping another audio file on it.
When your project has multiple tracks, it can be useful to balance their
volume by using the MixConsole. Check it out!
Let's now see how to quickly save and render your project. If you need to
save it to edit and adjust it in the future, just go to File and then to
Save As.... If you want to extract the final audio, you have to render it.
Select with a violet Cycle region the part of the project to render.
Make sure that there are no Record or Monitor buttons enabled on the
selected channel, and mute all the channels that you don't want to render.
Then go to File, Export, Audio Mixdown.... Select name, destination Path,
and audio format under File Format. Check all the audio settings at the
bottom, and then go to Export. If the render does not work, check
carefully your ASIO drivers used inside Cubase.
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guides for this amazing software!