Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH in Hamburg, Germany, announces the immediate availability of Cubase Pro Version 8.5 ($699.99 MSRP) and Cubase Artist Version 8.5 ($399.99) for mixing, arranging, recording and composing. Various downloadable updates and upgrades are exclusively available through the Steinberg Online Shop.
Customers who have activated Cubase 8 and Cubase Artist 8 since October 15, 2015, are eligible for a free, downloadable Grace Period update to the latest version.
VST Transit ushers in Steinberg’s new cloud collaboration service. Users running V. 8.5 share and synchronize joint projects and take full advantage of cloud-based music production by receiving 500 MB of cloud storage and 1 GB free traffic for Cubase projects. Upgrades to a capacity of 5GB space and 20GB traffic will be available from January 2016.
Retrologue 2 is the second iteration of Steinberg’s virtual analog synthesizer that includes enhancements to the synth section, many new presets, the highly flexible Arpeggiator and five new effects, such as the innovative three-band Resonator.
Other highlights show refinements to the MixConsole, now with an improved dynamic hover mode and the option to show all inserts, sends and EQs simultaneously. Importing tracks from other projects is now a lot easier and now includes all track settings and content. The Key and Drum Editors come with new visualization and editing capabilities; the Chord Pads feature allows for intuitive control of arpeggiated and overlapping chords plus support of custom chord symbols.
The Transport Panel has been overhauled while its menu item contains all commands and options clearly categorized in submenus. Dedicated punch points have newly been introduced, which remain independent from the locator position. Audiowarp now offers improved audio quality when time-stretching due to the élastique V. 3 algorithm by zPlane, and the new MediaBay project rack expedites the location of instruments, presets and audio and MIDI files. The new Profile Manager is exclusive to Cubase Pro V. 8.5, allowing uses to store and recall program settings and preferences. Customized profiles can then be transferred to any studio environment running Cubase.
