Steinberg Cubase 16 — an update to the professional DAW

Steinberg has released version 16 of its digital audio workstation. The update adds more flexible MIDI options and many improvements to the built-in effects and instruments.

Photo: official website steinberg

A major addition is Instrument Stacks. This feature combines several VST instruments, sampler tracks and drum tracks into one playable instrument, with shared controls and separate MIDI filtering for each layer. The Key Editor now has a Strum tool. It shifts notes one after another to create more natural, expressive chords that imitate guitar strumming. Stretch Selection expands or compresses MIDI passages in time.

Photo: official website steinberg

The built-in Stem Separation engine can now split a finished recording into six parts: vocals, drums, bass, piano, guitar and other instruments. New Spectral AudioWarp algorithms allow extensive changes to the timing and pitch of audio material. Tempo Detection has a more accurate algorithm and a simpler workflow. The Omnivocal Basic vocal synthesizer uses the Yamaha Omnivocal NX engine and lets users edit lyrics directly beside MIDI notes.

Photo: official website steinberg

Other additions include the DrumChain drum processor, the VocalTouch vocal processing plugin, the Module library with more than 200 FM presets for HALion Sonic, five new sample packs, Ableton Link synchronisation, custom MIDI CC names, a redesigned searchable settings window and an updated Audio Pool file manager. Features vary by edition: Instrument Stacks is available in Pro and Artist, while stem separation and Spectral AudioWarp are exclusive to Pro.

Photo: official website steinberg

Steinberg Cubase 16 is available for $100 (Elements), $300 (Artist) and $600 (Pro).