Original author(s) Development status Active | Developer(s) Steinberg Written in C/C++ | |
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Initial release April 1989; 27 years ago (1989-04) Stable release 9.0 / December 7, 2016; 3 months ago (2016-12-07) | ||
Cubase is a music software product developed by German musical software and equipment company Steinberg for music recording, arranging and editing as part of a digital audio workstation. The first version, which ran on the Atari ST computer and recorded via MIDI only, was released in 1989.
Contents
In January 2003, Steinberg was acquired by U.S. firm Pinnacle Systems, within which it operated as an independent company before being sold to Yamaha Corporation in December, 2004.
Operation
Cubase creates projects, which allow the operator to edit MIDI files, raw audio tracks, and other associated information like lyrics, and to present them in a range of formats including musical scores, editing console, event lists, etc. The operator can also mix the various tracks down into a stereo .wav file ready to be burned to a compact disc (CD) in Red Book format, or .mp3 burned to CD or DVD as files, or to be published on the Web.
VST instruments
Cubase VST 3.7 in 1999 introduced a virtual instrument interface for software synthesizers known as VSTi. This made it possible for third-party software programmers to create and sell virtual instruments for Cubase. This technology has become the de facto standard for other DAW software, when integrating software based instruments on the Macintosh and Windows platforms. A new version of VST, VST3, was introduced with Steinberg's Cubase 4 which introduced sidechaining, among other features. Cubase 6 includes VSTs such as HALion Sonic SE, Groove Agent ONE, LoopMash 2 and VST Amp Rack.