Recording - June 2015 - 27

can choose patterns, intros, fills and more on the fly, along
with an interactive and automatable XY controller that
changes both the complexity of the groove and its intensity
while you move it. All of this adds up to a quick and easy
ability to add "real player" realism and detail to the drum
performance.
Chord Pads and last call catch all
Moving on to new MIDI features, the big addition in
version 8 is Chord Pads. As their name implies, these
are large dockable and assignable buttons which play
a full chord when clicked or triggered via MIDI. Chords
with different voicings can be dragged and dropped
from a circle of 5ths and Proximity Chord Assistant and
then altered, tensioned (adding 7ths and 9ths), and even
set to adaptively stay out of the way of an arrangement.
This is a great and fast compositional tool that can
be as simple or complex as you need it to be when it
comes to voicing and chordal relationships. It not only
provides chord shapes appropriate to keyboard players, but can also be set to properly voice guitar
chords, which can be tricky for a non-guitarist to do.
Before we run out of space, let me mention the sample/instrument/groove collection called Allen Morgan's
Pop-Rock Tool Box, complete with sounds, mixer settings,
and presets. There is now MIDI tempo detection based on
realtime freeform performances. This is the opposite of
hard quantize; it allows you to freely play a MIDI part
with all of the feel and breath you want and then set your
tempo grid to that performance. Finally, Cubase Pro 8 adds
some new automation features like Virgin Territories, which simply applies automation only where it is used, rather than
throughout a whole track like previous versions.

Final thoughts
Overall for me this has been a stable and most welcome update.
Several of the new features, like VST Bass Amp Rack, Quadra Fuzz v2,
and especially VCA Faders, have already become a regular part of my
workflow. Actually, though, the tangible speed boost alone is well worth
the update. I felt versions 7 and 7.5 had become a tad sluggish compared to 6.5, but Cubase Pro 8 on my machine
blows them all away!
Sure, if you take a gander at the online message
boards, you will see the usual battle of "greatest update
ever" and "wow there are bugs and they are showstoppers". I can only speak from my experiences. I have been
running Cubase Pro 8 on two Macs, a late-2011 17"
MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM and an 2014 27" iMac
with 16 GB of RAM, and I have only experienced one
notable bug: a MixConsole window which, when resizing, takes 3 to 20 tries (no exaggeration) of opening and
closing to open at the right size. Often it opens and each
channel is as wide as my monitor screen! Other than that,
I have had zero issues with third-party plug-in crashes or
any other performance issues. Since its release late last
year there have been two updates, and the current version of 8.0.10 is very stable.
Again, Cubase is, was, and will continue to be my DAW
of choice... and it just keeps getting better and better. Even
if all you want is improved speed, get version 8. You'll
come around to loving all the new features when you're
done being impressed with its great performance.
Price: Cubase Pro 8 (as reviewed), $549.99; Cubase Artist 8,
$299.99; Cubase Elements 8, $99.99
More from: Steinberg, www.steinberg.net

http://www.steinberg.net http://www.adkmic.com

Recording - June 2015

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