Steinberg Cubase Artist 6.5 review

Cubase’s two-year update cycle is good news for its users, as it keeps upgrade costs and workflow interruptions to a minimum. This year, however, Steinberg has produced a .5 release. Upgrade pricing is suitably low at £42 inc VAT from version 6 of both Cubase Artist and the full Cubase. The best news is that nearly all the new features are available in both editions, breaking from the tradition where mid-price means Cubase minus the best new toys.

For analogue-style synthesis, Retrologue can bubble and belch with the best of them

Top billing goes to a pair of virtual instruments. Retrologue is aptly named, specialising in retro analogue synthesis. Whereas the older bundled analogue-style synths sound a little sterile, Retrologue is positively fruity. Its tone reminds us of Roland analogue synths, and it’s stuffed to the gills with multiple oscillators, a modulation matrix and authentically retro features such as oscillator sync, filter self-oscillation and the ability to use a noise source to modulate pitch. It’s perfect for creating monster synths that fill the mix with a single note.

PadShop is the inappropriately humdrum name for the other new virtual instrument. It uses granular synthesis, whereby samples are chopped into tiny snippets and scrambled into various shades of oblivion. Steinberg has done a fine job of balancing power against accessibility, and there’s a decent selection of samples included. Sadly, though, users’ own samples can’t be imported.

Granular synthesis is akin to looking at sound through a microscope – it’s sound design at its most navel-gazing. We happily whiled away the hours exploring PadShop’s controls, but failed to come up with anything that sounded like the genesis for a song. The soundtrack to a bleak art-house animation, perhaps, but not a song. The 406 preset sounds provide a vague semblance of normality, though, and Cubase is certainly more interesting for Padshop’s inclusion.

Padshop? They should have called it MangleShred

The two new effects are worth a brief mention. Morph Filter comprises a pair of filters running in parallel, with the ability to crossfade between them. DJ EQ is a simple three-band EQ with DJ-style kill switches. What they lack in precision, the effects gain in hands-on accessibility. VST Amp Rack was a highlight of version 6, and it now comes with a couple of limiter effects and extra presets.

That could easily be the lot for an interim update, but the new features extend to operational improvements, too. Audio quantising is better implemented, with the ability to extract the groove from one performance and apply it to another, all handled via the familiar Quantize panel. However, quantising multitrack recordings as one – essential for drum recordings – is reserved for the full £508 version of Cubase.

Comping involves cutting the best bits of different takes together, and it’s a technique that’s as useful as it is tedious. Cubase already handled it well but it’s now better than ever, with solo buttons for each lane and a new Comp tool that makes switching between takes as effortless as possible.

Comping multiple takes together is always a slow process, but this update makes it as painless as possible

FLAC export, uploads to SoundCloud and full 64-bit ReWire support (for running Cubase in tandem with other recording software) completes an impressive line-up of new features. Our only gripe is that the manual is less accessible than ever, with a PDF for version 6 and another for the new features in 6.5.

This is a superb update, particularly for Cubase Artist users. Cubase was already our favourite software for recording live instruments, and this cements its position. Check this comparison chart to work out which edition is right for you, but both Cubase and Cubase Artist come highly recommended.