<font color="#00FFFF">Hello there, welcome to this tutorial dedicated to the newest Steinberg</font> <font color="#00FFFF">Cubase 11, one of the best DAW products to compose and make your own music!</font> This is available in three main versions as Cubase Elements, Artist and Pro. In this video we will show Cubase Pro but the basics explained do not change if you own another version. <font color="#FFFF00">Make sure to visit our YouTube channel and our official website to get extra</font> <font color="#FFFF00">news, articles, additional tips and participate in our exclusive giveaways!</font> When you open Cubase this starts from the steinberg hub, with official news and tips on the left and several ready templates you can pick to start recording, scoring or mastering. To see how to use Cubase let's start from a new project with the Create Empty button at the bottom. Once you set the project folder this opens on the main workspace with the main timeline on the center and several useful panels to manage and edit. The timeline is the place where you work and build your music. It is made by several rows called Tracks or Channels, each collecting several independent objects called Events, placed in different instants of time. These objects can be Audio Events - such as samples rendered with audio waveform - and MIDI Events - such as compositions made of notes that get their sound from external instruments or digital synthesizers. Let's start working with the Audio Events. To import any sample file drag and drop it from any folder into the timeline. A new Audio Track is created everytime you import files on vacant rows. You can also record from your microphone by creating a new Audio Track with the plus button above, selecting your microphone as Audio Input. At this point keep the Track armed for recording and enable the main Record button at the bottom to start recording, using Stop to finish. To check your event waveforms just click and hold on on the timeline and move your pointer vertically to zoom in and out. Whereas to get a full playback in real time use the player buttons at the bottom. This follows the main marker that you can fix by clicking on the timeline. Its placement is also shown on Time Display at the bottom. By default the timeline is measured in bars and beats. You can switch to seconds by right-clicking on it and going to Seconds. You can do the same by clicking next to Time Display. Let's see how to edit and manage events with the Object Selection tool. Click and drag any event to move it in time or on another Audio Track. This gets snapped to each bar or beat depending on the Grid Type above. You can avoid snappings by holding down the CTRL (or CMD) key. If you hover on any event you can use the top node to adjust its volume and the triangles on its corners to add fades and change the volume level smoothly in time. Whereas drag from the bottom nodes to shorten or stretch the event length, cutting part of its audio waveform if necessary. You can make fast copies of any event by dragging from it while holding down the ALT key. Whereas use the backspace key to remove it from the timeline. Use CTRL (or CMD) and Z to undo your latest actions in order. On top you have other useful tools. With Range Selection you can click and drag on any event to select limited portions to drag away from it. Whereas use the Split tool to split the event within the same Track and the Color tool to drop colors on events to recognize these better. With the Object Selection tool double-click on any audio event to open several panels at the bottom. You can close these any time with the cross button on the left. The Editor panel is used to manage and edit the audio waveform for the chosen event. For example you can select any part with Range Selection and use CTRL (or CMD) and X to cut the interested part or enable the Draw tool to modify the waveform sample per sample point by dragging on it. Now let's see how to realize compositions, drums and melodies with MIDI. When creating a new Track you can choose between a MIDI and an Instrument Track: the first one is perfect to connect external instruments with Cubase; the second one is the best option for virtual instruments called synthesizers (or VST synths) that realize sound from Cubase itself. In this tutorial we are going to see how to realize MIDI with the synthesizers only. When you create a new Instrument Track select the synthesizer to use as VST and go to Add Track. With the Draw tool enabled click and drag on such Track to create a new empty MIDI event. On these Tracks you can also import MIDI files directly but you can't with any sample file instead. All these MIDI events can be managed and edited on the timeline just like the Audio Events seen already. In addition, all MIDI events within the same Instrument Track share the same synth instrument that realizes the sound for each event note. You can go to Edit Instrument on the left to open the synth interface and tune its output audio if you need. You can also drag and drop another synth to change the instrument to be used. To compose on any MIDI event just double-click on it and open the Editor panel. On MIDI events this is a Piano Roll showing several notes and octaves on the left. So enable the Draw tool and click and drag on the correct row to drop notes with the correct length and tone. You can also enable the Record button above and use the main Record button to drop notes in real time. With Object Selection you can move and manage each note as you do with the timeline events, using the Backspace key to delete any. At the bottom you can set the properties for each note with the Draw tool, including intensity with Velocity and Pitchblend for the tone through time. While you edit these MIDI notes it can be useful to playback these in loop to hear any difference. If you click and drag on any timeline you create a violet Cycle region that will be played continuously as long as you keep the Activate Cycle enabled. If you drag on the opposite direction you will make an orange region that is bypassed instead. Pay attention to the Tempo fixed at the bottom. This sets the conversion from bars and beats into seconds, adjusting the speed rate of all the MIDI events, being these fixed in length with bars and beats. This Tempo won't affects sample files since these are already rendered in time with seconds. In Cubase you can also create the useful Sampler Track. This gives you the possibility to compose MIDI events that use rendered sample files as reference, instead of using external instruments or synthesizers. On the Sampler Control you can drag and drop the sample file, adjusting tone with Pitch, adding audio filters and adjusting audio properties with AMP. Then just switch to the Editor to drop notes as seen before. On the left side you have several options to manage all the events inside each Track. Use the M button to mute the current Track or the S button to mute all the others except the current one. You can also go to Edit Channel Settings to open the complete set of options you can apply to the chosen Track. On top set the audio input such as your Stereo In source or your microphone and the audio output, usually your speakers. Under Channel Strip you can apply the most common audio corrections or Strips, for example Noise Gate to remove background noise; Compressor to compress the signal range and Limiters to expand such range. By default the Equalizer is enabled, showing the whole audio spectrum of the channel output. Here you also have the possibility to apply up to four different audio filters. On each Strip use ByPass Module to disable and enable any. From the Inserts panel on the left you can also apply several effects. Click on any slot, browse through the list and fix the effect properties from the dedicated interface. All these effects will be applied in order from top to bottom and on each of these you can use ByPass Insert to enable or disable it and go to Select Insert to changes the effect to apply. Click on the e button to reopen the effect interface. On the right side you will find the Mute and the Solo buttons and also the volume meter, measured in deciBels (dB). Use the main slider to adjust its level and the Balance Panner above to balance the left and the right stereo outputs. Make sure not to increase the volume too much or you risk distortion. Whereas if you need to check and adjust the volume from each single channel in one place you can open the MixConsole panel. Now let's see how to save and render your final project! To save go to File, Save As. This .cpr Cubase file saves the complete projects status and properties in order to open it again later. Whereas if you want to render your project select what to export with the Cycle region and go to File, Export, Audio Mixdown... Here set name, destination folder and the complete audio properties including file format, sample rate and bit depth. On the left side you can select which channels to export. Select Stereo Out to include all the channels present on your project. To start rendering, go to Export Audio. <font color="#00FFFF">Thank you very much for watching this tutorial! Make sure to check our</font> <font color="#00FFFF">channel to discover other short and free outstanding guides!</font>
