Steinberg Cubasis 3.7 & Iconica Sketch

Cubasis 3.7 lets you add both tempo and time signature changes into your projects.

Fancy composing a symphony on your commute? Steinberg have got you...

Mobile music technology has come a long way over the last 15 years or so. While the mobile platform has encouraged some brilliant indie developers to get involved, a number of the established ‘desktop’ players also saw the potential and have invested considerable R&D resources. Steinberg are one of the most obvious examples on that front and, since its first launch in 2013, Cubasis has provided an ever more sophisticated DAW experience as mobile hardware has itself become more advanced.

Steinberg have now released Cubasis 3.7 and, as I’ll get to in a minute, it continues the trend of features familiar on the desktop gradually transitioning to the mobile environment. Alongside the Cubasis update, Steinberg have also introduced a new virtual instrument. Well, new to the mobile platform at least... On the desktop, Iconica Sketch is Steinberg’s streamlined version of their full Iconica orchestral library. The Sketch version provides a full suite of orchestral instruments and a core set of performance articulations, while its compact size makes it ideal for use on a laptop, for example, letting you do just what its name suggests — create full orchestral sketches.

Full orchestral libraries are few and far between on iOS/Android devices so the mobile version of Iconica Sketch is something that will have broad appeal, especially as it is able to run as a standalone app, or as an AU instrument within any suitable DAW host. That said, Cubasis users who purchase Iconica Sketch do benefit from free access to an additional version of the instrument that offers enhanced integration into their favourite mobile DAW. So, what’s new in Cubasis 3.7, and just how do you squeeze a full orchestra into something as small as an iPad, iPhone or Android device?

Time To Go Fast, Faster, Slow

Every iteration of Cubasis has seen the arrival of new features ported over from the desktop world. The latest release continues that trend on three distinct fronts. First, courtesy of Steinberg’s parent company Yamaha celebrating their 50th anniversary of synth development, if you own the FM Classics IAP, you now get a free update for that with nearly 400 additional patches from the classic DX7.

Second, and perhaps technically more impressive, is that Cubasis now includes support for a tempo and time signature track, allowing you to add both time signature and tempo changes within a project. If your needs go beyond 4/4 and a fixed tempo, this is going to be quite a big deal.

This has been implemented by adding a Global Track to a project. This then provides lanes for both tempo and time signature data respectively, both of which can be activated/deactivated individually. With the...