MusicRadar

Released at the start of this year, Cubase 6 is the DAW's current incarnation.

1 of 2 » View in gallery

The story of Cubase bears a striking resemblance in parts to that of Logic. From their roots on the Commodore 64, both applications developed into highly sophisticated DAWs.

Here, we'll find out how Cubase helped Steinberg Media Technologies grow from humble beginnings to become one of the biggest music software companies of the 21st century.

Pro 16 tools?

Steinberg Research arrived on the scene in 1984, in the era when the Commodore 64 dominated a miniscule computer music scene.

The company, formed by Karl 'Charlie' Steinberg and Manfred Rürup, offered just one product: a basic 16-track MIDI sequencer package named Multitrack Recorder.

Rürup, a keyboard player, and Steinberg, a musician and studio engineer, were some of the earliest adopters of the relatively new MIDI protocol, immediately spotting its potential for computer sequencing.

"VST was the first plug-in protocol designed specifically for audio applications."

Incidentally, the company name was chosen simply because Rürup was felt to be too difficult for American customers to pronounce.

Multitrack Recorder sold fewer than 50 copies, but the concept was soon developed into the more advanced Pro-16, a 16-track MIDI sequencer for C64. With a clear single page interface and real-time recording, Pro-16 was incredibly powerful for its time.

16 plus 8

In 1986, Pro-16's successor, Pro-24, saw the company shift its focus to the exciting new Atari 520ST platform. With programmer Werner Kracht on board, Steinberg took full advantage of the ST's built-in MIDI capabilities and processing power.

As the name suggested, the Atari's larger memory and faster processor allowed Pro-24 to offer a further eight tracks of sequencing than its predecessor, but it also crucially allowed much more flexibility in terms of track recording and song arrangement.

Editing options included musical score notation (introduced in version 2.0), quantisation options and a step sequencer-style grid editor for drums. Pro-24 was also ported to the Commodore Amiga, although the lack of built-in MIDI support meant that it was never as popular as the hugely successful Atari version.

Enter Cubit

Pro-24's lifespan finally came to an end in 1989 with the announcement of a new Steinberg sequencer, Cubit. The name change signalled a major overhaul of the product, with a clear timeline interface and a much more advanced feature set.

However, before Cubit even hit the shelves its name was rapidly changed to the now-familiar Cubase following legal threats from developers of a similarly named software package.

The first version of Cubase was notable for the introduction of the clever MROS (MIDI Real-time Operating System) protocol, an early spiritual predecessor of the Steinberg/ Propellerhead ReWire system, which allowed the ST to carry out basic multitasking and transfer musical data between programs.

Around the web: