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Steinberg's Cubase is a market leader and
has a very strong featureset for the electronic musician / producer....
I have used Steinberg sequencers from the beginning - at least after I
got bored with a step sequencer on a Technics electric piano and of
course an old Yamaha keyboard.
Click here to view VST instruments and processors used in the studio.
Current hardware
I now use a Hexa core 3.33G Mac Pro (6G memory) and a MOTU 828 MK3 for
everything. This
combination has allowed a mixer-less studio. The only shortcoming that
I now find is that OSX Mavericks does not currectly support the 828 and I have to switch on the 828 last or the sound device is recreated and all the Cubase mappings are lost. Nice. This is fixed in Yosemite which I've not yet had the inclination to move to!
I rebuilt the mac to my own specifications and now its running with a pair of 1TB drives set up as a RAID pair so if one fails the system will continue to run. I also do automated Time Machine backups to an external firewire drive. Music data is important.
I also put in a USB card to get an extra 4 ports as the 3 on board would only take care of mouse and dongles!
MOTU 828 MK3
Brilliant bit of hardware!
I now use the MOTU828 MK3 as an audio interface and also as a mixer, replacing the behringer rack mixer. This is a great way of working and now all instruments connect directly into the MOTU and the audio path doesn't leave the computer until after final mixing :)
Alesis AI3
No nonsense 8 channel ADAT interface to expand the balanced I/O of the 828.
The software
CUBASE Pro (8), NI Komplete and Ableton Live 8. C7 does not import old ALL / ARR files or even some projects from C5 (!) so I won't be seeing the back of SX3 (or the PC sadly) for a few years I guess!Cubase 5
New features in C5 I particularly like are:
- Built in Side Chaining. - this works with some of the bundled VSTs and Waves plugins too. I no longer have to use DBAudio sidechain compressor specifically for this purpose, but now can just use C1 or Steinberg compressor. I do miss the pretty DBA meter though :(
- Halion-1 bundled free. This is amazing for drum sounds (and other instruments too). Of particular note are the dedicated banks Kick shop and snare shop. wonderful. This VSTi has taken over most of the drums now.
- More elastic and intuitive timestretch and pitching functionality allowing you to grab a bit of a sample and stretch the parts to taste. Drum and Bbbaaaaaassssssssssss anyone?
Massive
While on the subject of VSTis one definitely worth a mention is Native Instruments Massive. I have this as part of Komplete but you can get it separately. This is a legend and is particularly useful when I want to turn something into dubstep or I get disorientated trying to find something in the 124 thousand bass sounds in the Virus. This beast takes quite a bit of CPU power from the host application (I could probably run about 4 on the MAC) so multiple instances would require bouncedown. However do you really need more than 2 massives when the sounds are this, ermmm massive?
Click here to view VST instruments and processors used in the studio.
Novation Zero SL MK II
I use the Zero for live sets along with Ableton Live. I also have it set up in C5 using Automap software which came bundled but I never found it as intuitive as Ableton's built in support. Not much to say - its a control surface, its pretty and has a nice display which I don't use. One good feature is touch sensing so you dont have to actually press any controller to map it. Saves a bit of time.
Novation Launchpad
Great for live sets when triggering lots of sound files.
Steinberg Midex-8
Central to physical midi connectivity is the Midex-8 which I obtained from ebay. This replaces a Midex 3 which has worked solidly for years. There are some issues with the Midex-8 and I'm not sure if its the USB interface, drivers or what. Basically when working with fairly complex arrangements, usually when fowarding and rewinding whilst playing it looses the thru ability and then after that looses midi out all together. When it "fails" there is always an audible plop through the sound system so its to do with sync I guess. Weird! Anyone had this?
I've not experienced this since upgrading to a the MAC G5. Midi is used less these days as alot of what I produce uses the Virus and VSTis.
Another issue I have is when playing back system exclusive files from the JV1080, it appears events are lost and I get CRC errors on the XV5080 which is receiving them. This is the same as a problem I got on the Mx3 on PC even though I now have updated drivers, MAC Cubse 5 etc. A work-around is to play them back at very low tempo but thats still not a complete solution.
I don't bother with saving Sys-ex for new tracks. It's not fun using midi these days and so I have moved most of the drum sounds into VSTis ie Battery and Halion1.
Click here to view the historical hardware used in the studio.
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