Cubase
By Steinberg
A full digital audio workstation for composing, recording, editing, mixing, mastering, and scoring.
- Cubase Pro 15: $579.99
- Cubase Artist 15: $329.00
- Cubase Elements 15: Paid; amount not captured
- Cubase 15 trial: Free trial
Compatibility notes: Cubase 15 downloads list macOS 14, 15, or 26 (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows 10 64-bit 22H2 or later, Windows 11 64-bit 24H2 or later, and Windows 11 on Arm 24H2 or later.
Researched Overview
Cubase is a broad production environment that makes sense when notation, MIDI orchestration, audio recording, and mixing need to live in one project. Pro is the relevant edition for the complete scoring feature set; Artist and Elements are narrower paid editions.
Workflow & Usage
Choose the Cubase edition against the needed scoring and MIDI features, install the matching Cubase 15 build, create separate MIDI and audio tracks for the cue, load VST or VST3 instruments, and use the same project for arrangement, recording, mix, and export.
Strengths
- •Combines composition, advanced MIDI editing, recording, mixing, and mastering.
- •The official Pro page specifically highlights orchestral composition workflows and Dolby Atmos support.
- •Steinberg's VST ecosystem gives the DAW a large plug-in and instrument selection.
Limitations
- •The product family is edition-dependent; Elements and Artist do not provide the same feature set as Pro.
- •Cubase is paid software, although Steinberg provides a separate time-limited trial.
- •Windows and macOS support is version-specific, and Arm compatibility should be checked against the current downloads page.