Cubase 12 released

Steinberg's flagship music-production platform has just received a major update. As we reported last year, this new version of Cubase will be the first piece of Steinberg software to abandon physical copy protection in favour of a soft-licensing system, but there are many other improvements to its name.

New to Cubase 12 are:

• A new MIDI Remote system that helps to map hardware controllers to Cubase functionality;
• The addition of a Scale Assistant to VariAudio, to aid in automatic pitch correction;
• A new Audio To MIDI chords function, which can extract chord information from polyphonic audio;
• A new multi-effects processor called FX Modulator, which allows you to modulate its parameters using custom LFOs, audio side-chain signals and more;
• Improvements to the AudioWarp time-stretching algorithm, plus the ability to stretch audio directly within your project timeline;
• Improvements to the audio editing workflow, including the addition of new keyboard shortcuts, improved navigation and new slip and nudge edit modes;
• A new dynamics processor called Raiser, which promises extra-fast attack times and ultra-transparent limiting;
• Sample-accurate volume automation;
• New tools for importing tempo and signature tracks from other Cubase projects;
• Compatibility with Bluetooth MIDI (on Windows machines);
• The ability to export channels and stems in isolation while applying correct side-chain processing;
• Improvements to the Logical Editor;
• A new felt piano instrument called Verve;
• Native support for Apple Silicon architecture;
• Smoother waveform drawing.

As well as all the above, Steinberg are also trailing, in a future update to Cubase 12, a suite of Dolby Atmos tools that will let you produce immersive audio entirely within Cubase Pro (chiefly, this means Cubase 12 will eventually get its own integral Atmos Renderer).

For a quick look at Cubase's new features, check out the video below.