As a company Steinberg are synonymous with melding technology and creativity and their ethos is to help musicians hone their craft in ways that prioritise creativity. To date, affordable technology has put them at the forefront of the music industry. Their flagship digital audio workstation Cubase has consistently ticked both of those boxes. Recently launched at NAMM, Steinberg’s Cubase 6 replaces Cubase 5 and promises to be even more successful, but does it really deliver for musicians.

Steinberg’s tries to make Cubase the first stop for recording, editing, mixing and producing quality, professional music. New features and enhancements include an advanced multi-track editing tool, a new take-comping system and VST Expression 2. The refined interface gives faster access and more intuitive control, whilst new and improved effects and instruments include HALion Sonic SE with over 900 sounds, VST Amp Rack virtual guitar amplifier, LoopMash2 for remixing loops and Groove Agent ONE drum machine.

The main appeal of Cubase 6 is in its user-friendly versatility, coupled to detailed control where it’s required. Judging by our first impressions, musicians from rock bands to DJs and composers to singers will find the tools, effects and ease of use of great appeal. For the beginner there is a Project Assistant with templates to get them started and also two hours of in-depth high definition video tutorials. More advanced users and professionals will be more than happy with the huge range of possibilities that Cubase 6 offers, of course with Steinberg’s famous cross-platform flexibility for Mac or PC users.

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One of the biggest challenges facing electronic music is the ability to recreate the natural expression that is an intrinsic part of any human performance. From the guitarist who strums certain notes harder than the others to the flute-player who sustains some notes whilst shortening the rest, it is this human element that contributes to the beauty of music and prevents it from becoming monotonous and dull. So how can an electronic music producer inject this human element into the computer hardware, software & synthesizers that they are using? The answer is MIDI.

MIDI (or Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a communications protocol which allows devices such as synthesizers to be connected to and controlled by a sequencer. Think of it as a series of instructions that can tell an end device how to behave. By carefully programming and automating MIDI control change (CC) messages, a producer can recreate the subtle nuances of a human performance in their digital instruments.

MIDI can be used to control how hard a note is played, how much pitch modulation should be applied, and even how much brightness a note should have. MIDI is also very useful for controlling rack mounted synths, as their external interface may not contain any physical real-time controllers.

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Which leads to something I call “option anxiety”. More is not always better. Some of the best electronica productions were produced with a limited range of tools. All of Brian Eno’s early works come to mind. Or William Orbit’s Strange Cargo series which was produced before anyone was sequencing on a computer.

Part of what made that music great was the limitations the tools imposed. There were a limited number of synthesizers, with a limited number of sounds. Sometimes less IS more.

Today there are half a dozen major electronic music production platforms (Ableton Live, Reason, Logic and Cubase to name the most popular) and each one of these suffers from option overload. If you don’t know what kind of sound you want to create, you can waste away hours and hours tweaking with synths, effects, chaining and a variety of other ear candy before ever completing a track.

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