Cubase is a MIDI, music sequencer and digital audio editing computer application (commonly known as a DAW - Digital Audio Workstation) created by the German firm Steinberg in 1989. Note names and MIDI note numbers Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is an industry-standard electronic communications protocol that defines each musical note in an electronic musical instrument such as a synthesizer, precisely and concisely, allowing electronic musical instruments and computers to exchange data, or talk, with each other. ... In the field of electronic music, a sequencer was originally any device that recorded and played back a sequence of control information for an electronic musical instrument. ... This article should be merged with Digital Audio Workstation. ... Application software is a loosely defined subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly to a task that the user wishes to perform. ... Overview A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is a system designed to record, edit, and play back digital audio. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Music workstation. ... Steinberg is a German musical equipment and software company. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Cubase started as a MIDI recording and editing tool. Later, features for recording raw audio were introduced. Cubase was originally written for the Atari ST, and has since been ported to Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. The Atari 520ST Atari 1040STF with SC1224 color monitor The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. ... In computer science, porting is the adaptation of a piece of software so that it will function in a different computing environment to that for which it was originally written. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to 512KB. The Macintosh, or Mac, line of personal computers is designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ... Microsoft Windows is a series of popular proprietary operating environments and operating systems created by Microsoft for use on personal computers and servers. ...

The original Cubase used its own operating system called MROS (MIDI Real-time Operating System) which runs on top of the computer's own operating system. MROS did not initially work well on Windows 3.0, which was not intended for real-time applications. However, modern operating systems are designed to support multimedia applications, so modern versions of Cubase no longer use MROS. An operating system is a special computer program that manages the relationship between application software, the wide variety of hardware that makes up a computer system, and the user of the system. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Real-time. ... Multimedia is the use of several different media to convey information (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and interactivity). ...

The release of Cubase in 1993 on the Atari Falcon was breakthrough in DSP software technology as realtime manipulation of audio was possible without the assistance of additional processor cards as was the case with the more costly Pro Tools and other similar systems. Pro Tools 6. ...

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 format ready to be saved on a CD. WAV (or WAVE), short for WAVEform audio format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing audio on PCs. ... Interference colors. ...

While MIDI is a fairly ubiquitous standard for representation of digital music, there is no broadly accepted standard for the interchange of complete projects containing both MIDI and audio between Cubase and other competing recording/editing software (e.g. Logic Pro, Pro Tools or Cakewalk), so while actual pure recorded audio information can be exchanged, it is hard to import a whole project (with specific edits, instrument information and automation) in its native format from Cubase to another application and vice versa. The cross-platform OMFI format (which is supported by Cubase SX) resolves this issue to some extent. Logic Pro is a MIDI sequencer and Digital Audio Workstation software application that runs on the Mac OS X platform. ... Pro Tools 6. ... Cakewalk is a company based in Boston, Massachusetts that develops music software. ... Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI) is a platform independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different applications. ...

Cubase has undergone three main incarnations - initially Cubase, which featured only MIDI, and which was available on the Atari, Macintosh and Windows. After a brief period with audio integration, the next incarnation, Cubase VST, featured fully-integrated audio recording and mixing along with effects - VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology, a standard for audio plug-ins which has led to a plethora of third-party effects, both freeware and commercial. Cubase VST was only for Macintosh and Windows - Atari support had been effectively dropped by this time, despite such hardware still being a mainstay in many studios. Despite Cubase VST offering a then-unheard-of amount of power to the home user, computer hardware took some time to catch up, and by the time it did, VST's audio editing capability was shown up to be weak compared with systems such as ProTools. To address this, a totally new version of the program called Cubase SX (which is based on Steinberg's flagship software Nuendo) was introduced, which dramatically altered the way the program ran, and featured a steep learning curve for users of older Cubase versions. However, once the new methods of working are learned, the improvements in handling of audio and automation make for a truly professional sequencer and audio editor. Categories: Stub | Audio editors | Musical software ... Nuendo is another software sequencer developed by Steinberg. ...

A notable improvement with the introduction of Cubase SX was the advanced audio editing, especially the ability to 'undo' audio edits. Early versions of Cubase VST did not have this capability. Cubase SX features real-time time-stretching and adjustment of audio tempo, much like Sonic Foundry's ground-breaking ACID. Sonic Foundry is a computer software creator noted for its quality audio and video editing programs. ... Sony ACID Pro (formerly called ACID Music) is the name of the loop-based music production software originally published by Sonic Foundry that is now owned and run by Sony. ...

There are four cost-progressive, variable-feature versions of Cubase (in pricewise ascending order): LE, SE, SL, and SX. Cubase LE is only sold as an OEM product and is included for free with various music hardware products.

The differences in features (of version 2.0) are tabled in this PDF. As of December 2005, the latest version of Cubase SX/SL software is 3.1.

Almost all versions of Cubase use dongles for copy protection. Parallel port dongles were employed as copy protection up until Cubase VST5.0. Cubase SX V1.0 introduced the use of cross-platform USB dongles. Both dongle types allow license transfer between machines. A dongle is a small hardware device that connects to a computer to authenticate some piece of software. ... Copy prevention, also known as copy protection, is any technical measure designed to prevent duplication of information. ...

VST Instruments

Cubase VST 2.0 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. It has been suggested that VST Plugin be merged into this article or section. ... A software synthesizer or virtual instrument is a computer program for digital audio generation. ... De facto is a Latin expression that means in fact or in practice. It is commonly used as opposed to de jure (meaning by law) when referring to matters of law or governance or technique (such as standards), that are found in the common experience as created or developed without... Overview A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is a system designed to record, edit, and play back digital audio. ...