Steinberg Cubase Essential 4

Cubase Essential 4 offers the perfect entry-level ticket into the powerful world of Cubase. Incorporating the same user interface and audio engine as the flagship Cubase 4, Cubase Essential 4 provides audio quality and intuitive handling rivaling that of its bigger brothers. Features such Arranger Track accelerate your creative process with linear and pattern-style arranging seamlessly integrated. AudioWarp offers realtime time stretching and pitch shifting, making working with loops and tempo-based audio easier than ever. Take control of your music-making experience with Cubase Essential 4.

Features

New Plug-in Set - VST3
Cubase Essential 4 includes a completely new set of audio effect plug-ins! VST3 offers major new features both for plug-in developers and users. A silence detection function makes sure that a plug-in only processes audio when there's actually a signal present. This helps to reduce overall CPU load. VST3 plug-ins natively support Intel-based Macs. In Cubase Essential 4, there more than 20 all-new audio plug-ins. In addition, some of the previous plug-ins have been reworked and updated for this version, pushing the total number of plug-ins to 31!

As part of the new VST3 plug-in set in Cubase Essential, the Amp Simulator deserves special attention. With a total of 14 different amp and 10 speaker cabinet emulations, there are thousands of exciting sound possibilities. The new graphical user interface and a complete set of great-sounding presets make this plug-in fun and easy-to-use. The Amp Simulator becomes even more powerful when combined with other effects, such as the Tone Booster, or VST Dynamics. Complete effect combinations and EQ settings can be saved into Track Presets and quickly recalled in any project. To check out the outstanding sound quality of these effects, check out the included guitar Track Presets!

HALion One sampling instrument
HALion One is a special player version of HALion and comes with a complete set of ready-to-use instruments derived from Yamaha Motif waveforms. These sounds have been optimized for low memory usage extremely fast loading. Cubase Essential 4 users have access to a complete General-MIDI Sound-Set. With Cubase Essential 4, Standard MIDI Files can be imported and played directly using HALionOne. Dragging a MIDI File into Cubase will automatically set up instrument tracks with HALionOne and select the correct GM sound. Users may now edit or exchange sounds and add effects.

AudioWarp
Cubase Essential 4 now includes powerful realtime time-stretching and pitch-shifting functions - AudioWarp. Audio files can now follow the projects tempo or a tempo track without the need for offline processing. Loops can match a projects tempo and even be transposed in realtime. Cubase Essential 4 uses a custom-designed realtime algorithm, which offers high audio quality combined with low CPU load. In order to maintain the best sound quality possible, AudioWarp offers different playback modes for specific instrument groups (Drums, Plucked, Pads, Vocals, Mix, Solo) and a special advanced mode for custom settings. These can be set independently for each audio event. For realtime pitch shifting of solo audio material (like lead vocals), a special playback Solo algorithm preserves formants for natural-sounding transposition. AudioWarp is fully compatible with ACID files for instant compatibility with hundreds of loop libraries available.

Arranger Track
Cubase Essential 4 offers a unified concept for both linear and pattern-style arranging. Thanks to the new Arranger Track, any linear arrangement can be easily divided into musical sections (Arranger Parts) and transformed into a new playback order. Up to 16 different arrangements can be saved within a single project without touching any tracks or parts in the project window.

The Arranger Track offers some exciting special features for more experienced users: Arranger parts can be triggered live to experiment with different arrangements and to audition transitions. Special playback modes allow for more flexible arranger chains: Normal, Repeat Forever, and Pause After Repeats. Various "Flatten" options are available in the Arranger Track edit window. One, multiple or all Chains can be flattened with a single command; the Arranger Track can be kept after flattening.

Specification

Audio and MIDI Recording and Mixing

VST3Plug-In Set(including HALion One and Guitar Amp Simulator)

Professional Technology (32-bit Audio Engine, 24-bit/96-kHz Recording)

Powerful Editors for MIDI and Audio Processing

Media Bay database for sound management

AudioWarp realtime time stretching/pitch shifting

Cross-Platform: Windows and Mac OS X Universal Binary

Apple Remote Support

Advanced QuickTime 7 Support

Redesigned Sample Editor

Full latency-compensated audio engine with dynamic multiprocessing

Instrument Tracks

Drag & Drop for Insert FX

Track Freeze Function