Cubase 14 Explained
If you're new to Cubase 14 and are ready to start recording your own music, then this Cubase course is for you. Gary Hiebner guides you through every step of this Cubase video tutorial series, from setting up your audio interface and creating your first project to exporting your final song. Along the way, you'll learn tons of invaluable skills, from recording audio and MIDI to using buses, effects, and automation; programming drum parts; editing; navigating your session; and much more. These videos are designed for new Cubase 14 users.
Videos
• Introduction & Audio Setup (06:23) - In this video, you see how to create and set up your first project, your audio device inputs and outputs, your sample rate and buffer size, and your MIDI devices.
• Creating Track & Rack Instruments (04:31) - Learn how to create instrument tracks and load virtual instruments (VSTi) onto these tracks. You'll see how to instantiate an instrument and then how to view the presets for the instruments. Gary will also show how to choose the correct MIDI devices on an instrument track.
• Recording MIDI to Your Instrument Tracks (04:02) - First, you'll see how to set the tempo for the project and how to set up the metronome with a pre-count. Then, we'll record MIDI to the track and quantize the timing of the MIDI performance. You'll also see how to use automatically quantize when recording.
• Editing Your MIDI Parts (06:22) - Here, we'll focus on editing your MIDI parts, including zooming in and out, changing the start and end points of the MIDI part, copying and duplicating parts, transposing your parts, and editing the velocities.
• Using the Arranger Tools (05:17) - Learn all about the editing tools in the Arranger section, such as the Range, Scissors, Glue, Mute, and Color tools. Discover how to use these tools within a project.
• Using the Key Editor (05:06) - With the Key Editor window, you can edit the pitch and lengths of your MIDI notes. You also have similar tools like the arrange tools, but there are some extra specific tools that you can use in the Key Editor.
• Editing Velocities (06:40) - Here, we go into more detail on the various ways you can edit your velocities in the velocity lane, which helps give more realism to your performances.
• Using CC Controllers (05:47) - Dive deeper into MIDI editing and see how you can view different CC controller lanes and edit the data in the lane. For example, you see in this video how you can edit the modulation lane, use different draw shapes to edit the panning CC lane, and copy and move the CC data with the Range tool.
• Drum Editor (04:57) - Learn how to input notes/hits into the dedicated Drum Editor and use the tools to edit the notes. You can also set up different interval amounts on each drum lane and program different velocity amounts for added realism.
• Creating & Using a Drum Track (04:28) - Here you see the new drum track in Cubase 14 and learn how to use the new Drum Machine instrument. The Drum Track is a pattern-based editor, so this is a different way of working when programming drums in Cubase over the Drum Editor view.
• Using the Pattern Sequencer (08:03) - In this video, we explore the Pattern Sequencer in more detail, and you see the functions that allow you to build up your patterns. You'll also see how you can add some swing and randomization to the patterns. Plus, you see how you can change the step count on the beats, change the direction of the lanes, and create extra patterns.
• Different MIDI Record Modes (06:37) - Discover the different MIDI record modes you have available and how they operate. You'll see the difference between New Parts, Merge, and Replace modes and also the difference between the Cycle mode MIDI Record modes.
• Using MIDI Inserts & MIDI Modifiers (03:56) - MIDI inserts are a way to manipulate and process your MIDI parts. In this video, you'll see how to use the Arpeggiator to create an arpeggiation from some chords and how to use the Quantizer to make some MIDI drums swing. We also take a look at some of the MIDI Modifiers and see how we can freeze the actions of the MIDI Inserts and MIDI Modifiers to the track.
• Recording Audio (06:39) - Learn how to set up your audio device to record audio and hear it by making sure your track is record-armed and the monitor is enabled. We'll also cover how to monitor audio through effects while recording.
• Using the Audio Record Modes (04:18) - As with MIDI, there are also different audio record modes, and we see how each mode works here. You'll also see the difference between the Keep History, Cycle History + Replace, and the Replace modes and when you would use each.
• Importing Audio (07:01) - You can either pull in audio from the included content or import you own audio files into your project. You'll learn how you can time-stretch audio files to match up with your project settings and see how the Pool works and how you can edit your audio file tempos there. Also, we look at the new File Previewer, which locks into the tempo and allows you to preview audio files at the same tempo as your project. You can also transpose the preview files and double- or half-time the speed of the audio files in preview.
• Editing Your Audio Events (05:39) - You generally have the same editing functionality on audio parts that you do with MIDI, but there are a few differences, including fades, volume clip level, and more. Transposition can also be set on each part, which relates to the pitching algorithm being used. You also have clip volume editors, and there is the new Volume Curve Editing. See how you can draw in volume curves on your audio events and edit them.
• Audio Comping (02:57) - See how, with the Comping tool, you can build up a composite part from multiple takes/lanes that have been recorded and swipe through the different takes to choose which parts you want to add to the main composite part. You'll also see how you can fine-tune and edit the audio composite parts.
• Using VariAudio (04:36) - In this video, we take a look at VariAudio and learn how you can use it to analyze and pitch-correct your audio. You'll see how this tool analyses the audio and how you can use the editing tools on the VariAudio views to edit the pitching and timing of the audio.
• Sampler Track (05:34) - Discover how to convert an audio sample to a MIDI instrument with the Sampler. You can further process the audio in the Sampler by adding pitch modulation and envelopes, reversing the audio, and even using AudioWarp on the audio.
• Viewing the MixConsole & Channel Tab (05:19) - Here, we navigate you through the different sections of the MixConsole and see how you use them. You'll learn how to set up the section in the Mixconsole in any order, reorder your tracks, and more. / There's also the "with the Channel" tab, which is a minimal view of a Mixconsole track alongside the Arrange view.
• Adding Insert Effects (05:32) - In this video, we dive deeper into the inserts and audio effects, and you'll see how to add effects to your signal chain, make changes to the parameters on the insert effect, change the order of the effects, and move/copy inserts effects to other tracks. We'll finish off by showing you a handy shortcut to quick and easily open and close insert effects.
• Setting Up & Using Send Effects & FX Channels (06:43) - In this video, you'll see how to create an FX channel, add an effect to it, and then send your other tracks to this FX channel. Gary demonstrates this with both reverb and delay FX channels and explains how sends differ when set to pre fader vs post fader.
• Automating Parameters (06:12) - See the difference between the Read and Write automation modes and how they work. You'll also see how to create automation on a lane, edit it, remove it, and copy it.
• Groups & VCAs (06:33) - Here you see the different ways to group your tracks together. You see how to create a temporary grouping with the Q-Link, a more permeant grouping with the Group Linking, and how you can create a VCA track for your tracks. You can also create a Group track with selected tracks and then apply processing to those tracks on the Group Track.
• Using Channel Strips (03:26) - The Channel Strip is like an emulation of an analog hardware console in that you have dedicated effects on each track that you can apply. In this video, you see how to use this channel strip section to apply the dedicated effects to your tracks.
• Track Visibility, Snapshots & History Panels (04:45) - Here, we take a look at track visibility and see how you can choose to show and hide tracks in your MixConsole. With the history, you can see all the changes you've made in the mix and jump back to earlier points. Finally, you can take snapshots of your mix at different times, allowing you to compare different mix ideas quickly.
• How to use Side-chaining Effects (02:40) - Side-chaining is a technique in which you use another track as the source for the effect you're using. It's a great technique to create ducking effects on your instruments and audio, which helps make space for specific instruments and tracks in your mix. You'll see how to setup a side-chaining effect in this video and hear it in action.
• Setting Up Multi-Outputs for Instruments (04:19) - Discover how to set up a multi-output instrument, such as Groove Agent and Halion. This means you can send specific hits or instruments to their own outputs and mix and process these outputs individually.
• Using the Modulators (03:59) - In this video, you see how to set up and use the new Modulators, which allow you to change a parameter in time with a modulation effect. You'll see how to assign modulators to parameters and edit the shapes of the modulators.
• Time Signature & Tempo Tracks (04:23) - See how to add a tempo track, with which you can create tempo steps and/or ramps in your arrangement. You'll also learn how to add a time signature track for programming time signature changes in your song and even create custom click patterns for your time signatures.
• Exporting Your Song (05:07) - To finish off the series, you'll learn various ways you can export out your song, either as a single file or as multiple stems. You'll also see how you can add multiple exports to a queue, which you can run all in one go.