From fantastic new features to a multitude of hidden tweaks, Cubase 8.5 bristles with additions that have only one aim: making it easier for you to make music. Sync and collaborate on projects in the cloud with the revolutionary VST Transit; quickly pull in tracks from other projects; store and recall all your Cubase preferences on any computer. And a whole host of features have been improved to make them more creative and productive, including the acclaimed Retrologue analog synth, the MIDI editors, Transport bar, Chord Pads, MixConsole and many more — all with added functions or redesigned interfaces that smooth your creative process.

VST Transit

VST Transit is Steinberg’s new cloud collaboration service. It’s our mission to bring together musicians and producers from all over the globe and to offer all the advantages of cloud-based music production. The possibilities are endless: upload your project to cloud storage, and download it from another location/computer; continue working or recording and synchronize the changes back to the cloud. Collaborate on shared projects or make your private songs accessible anywhere. Enjoy the built-in message system, helping to find new contributors to your project, and discuss your latest ideas with your friends and band members — all directly in Cubase! VST Transit comes with up to 500 MB free storage space on secure Amazon AWS servers and 1 GB free traffic per month. With a VST Transit premium account you can bump up the capacity up to 5 GB and a whopping 20 GB traffic per month, enough even for the most demanding projects!

Retrologue 2

With many new features and improvements, Retrologue 2 has taken a big step forward without losing its remarkable warm and raw analog sound. An additional third oscillator, new polyphonic LFOs and an additional envelope are just some of the enhancements in the synth section. The highly flexible arpeggiator and five brand-new FX, with the classic three-band Resonator leading the way, open up new possibilities for over 400 fresh presets that show off what Retrologue 2 has in store for you.

A more responsive MixConsole

MixConsole is one of the most advanced digital mixing tools available anywhere. Cubase 8.5 adds two new ways of adapting MixConsole to individual approaches to mixing. The dynamic hover mode, designed to make it easier to find the parameter you’re looking for, has been refined in Cubase 8.5 thanks to feedback from the many experienced mixing professionals among Cubase customers. Yet Cubase 8.5 also caters for other approaches to mixing: if you prefer seeing all controls at once, enable the new static mode to show all inserts, EQs and Sends simultaneously. Whichever approach you favor, MixConsole in Cubase 8.5 provides a more personal mixing experience.

Import tracks from projects

Pull in tracks from other projects on the fly in seconds! You’ve spent ages tweaking that little synthetic kick drum sound into an earth-shattering boom, or meticulously building a monumental wall of guitar. Now you want to bring that into your current song — and it’s so easy and quick in Cubase 8.5. Import the entire track with all its settings and content, either as new tracks or replacing existing tracks with the same name. And Cubase will even create new TrackVersions automatically when replacing existing tracks, allowing you to change back to the original track layout with one single click!

Upgraded Key and Drum Editors

Compose more creatively in Cubase 8.5 thanks to faster, more intuitive MIDI editing in the Key and Drum Editors. Insert a note or beat, adjust its length, position or pitch without changing tools — it’s the kind of feature update that will instantly feel as though it’s always been that way. And perfect for beat programmers and beat fiends: the Drum Editor has new visualization and editing capabilities for note lengths, while a visibility agent lets you display, say, only the drum sound actually in use in your project, or other conditions that let you focus on creating your beats.

Enhanced Chord Pads

The Chord Pads composition tool to create chord structures and patterns in seconds was one of the major highlights of Cubase Pro and Artist 8. With the update to 8.5, this creative time-saver has been enhanced even further. The new “Sections” play mode gives full and intuitive control of how arpeggiation is processed. Any arpeggio note can be mapped to individual keys on a MIDI remote keyboard, letting you trigger each note individually. And we didn’t stop there: additional options give better control of overlapping chords during playback and make it easier to setup MIDI input/output routing. And in case you prefer naming a chord “Cadd9” instead of “C9”, you’ll be happy to know that chord symbols throughout.

Profile Manager*

The new Profile Manager in Cubase 8.5 lets you easily store and recall program settings and preferences, including keyboard shortcuts, color sets and much more. Switch between different settings or migrate your very own custom Cubase environment to another studio running Cubase. The Profile Manager lets you take “your” Cubase with you wherever you go.

* Cubase Pro 8.5 exclusive feature

Better transport infrastructure 

The transport panel has been restructured for easier access and visually overhauled with improved visibility for buttons and time displays that are clearer and easier to read. The Transport menu has also been restructured, with all commands and options now clearly categorized and consolidated into submenus, including commands and options previously only available in the transport panel. Each menu entry now a corresponding key command counterpart.

Dedicated punch points

Both Pro and Artist 8.5 introduce dedicated Punch In and Out points which are independent from the locator positions. Together with the Cycle mode you can now easily define a start and end position for cycle playback with dedicated positions to Punch In and Out from Record, all while staying in Cycle mode.

zPlane élastique v3

The acclaimed Audiowarp feature in Cubase has a long history, and exploits the power and fidelity of zPlane’s outstanding time- stretch/pitch-shift algorithms. Cubase Pro and Cubase Artist now feature zPlanes élastique v3 algorithm, offering virtually endlessly time-stretching and improved quality of transient processing and AudioWarp functions, even with large stretch factors.

MediaBay Racks

Locate instruments, presets, audio and MIDI files and other content even faster with the intuitive new MediaBay project rack feature. This lets you navigate through your content in an instantly accessible way by clicking through icons and images for Steinberg VST instruments and their libraries, content packs and preset categories. With its intuitive breadcrumb-navigation style, MediaBay Racks guide you visually to the sound you’re looking for, while a new “Content Set” attribute makes it even easier to find your way content sets.

Workflow enhancements

In 8.5 it’s easier for you to make music in other ways, too. Among the many enhancements designed to simplify music creation are the enhanced track creation feature, which allows outputs to be assigned when adding new tracks, improved ruler handling, free shaping and editing of tempo information, moving of consecutive automation events wherever you want, faster duplicating of events or parts using a mouse; and a vastly improved naming scheme in the Export Audio Mixdown window featuring a presets system. These and many other refinements let you produce songs and realize musical ideas with greater ease and more quickly than ever before. Simply make great music.