Cubase: paid DAW by Steinberg
Long-running DAW from the company that invented VST. Deep MIDI editing and scoring tools.
Opens Steinberg's own site.
Put SCRAMBLE. on your drums, 808s and vocals
One button rolls a new FX chain: glitch, stutter, tape stop, chops, reverb, delay and vocal tune. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible chains, the same count as the positions of a 3x3 cube. Save 10,000 presets a day and 1% of them would take 118 billion years, over 8x the age of the universe.
Not just loops: drum buses, 808s and bass, hats, vocals and the master bus. 3,000+ downloads so far.
Other DAWs to compare with Cubase
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FreeGarageBand
Free on every Mac. The easy way to start recording and making beats, and projects open in Logic Pro later.
FreeCakewalk
A full Windows DAW from the makers of BandLab, with a free tier.
Waveform Free
Free DAW for Mac, Windows and Linux with no track limits. Loads third-party plugins.
LMMS
Open-source beat maker for Windows, Mac and Linux with a pattern workflow.
FL Studio
The beat-making DAW behind a huge share of trap and hip-hop. Fast piano roll, pattern workflow, lifetime free updates.
Ableton Live 12
Session view for jamming ideas, arrangement view for finishing them. A favourite for electronic music and live sets.
Logic Pro
Apple's full studio DAW for Mac: a big stock instrument and plugin library for a one-time price.
Bitwig Studio
Modular-minded DAW with a huge modulation system. Popular for sound design and electronic music.
Reason
A virtual rack of synths and effects you can wire up yourself. Also runs as a plugin inside other DAWs.
REAPER
Light, fast and endlessly customisable. Low-cost licence with a long free trial.
Cubase FAQ
Is Cubase free?
No. Cubase is a paid DAW from Steinberg. Free DAWs to start with include GarageBand, Cakewalk and Waveform Free.
What is Cubase good for?
Long-running DAW from the company that invented VST. Deep MIDI editing and scoring tools.
Which plugins should I add to Cubase first?
Start with free ones that cover the basics: a synth like Vital, a reverb like Valhalla Supermassive, a dynamic EQ like TDR Nova, and a creative FX plugin like SCRAMBLE. for drums, 808s and vocals. Check each plugin's formats against what your DAW loads.