Cubase 101 - Getting started with Cubase

Steinberg Cubase is a powerful and sophisticated Digital Audio Workstation. In this blog post, I'm going to demonstrate how to get started with Cubase and set up your hardware with Cubase.



I'm considering a small home setup with a PC, a USB Audio Interface, a USB Controller Keyboard and a pair of Active Studio Monitors.  First we need to add these devices to Cubase.

Getting started

First, simply connect the audio interface to computer. It's better to use a short USB cable and not to plug it into ant USB hubs, in order to avoid latency.

Then, start Cubase. In the beginning, it will show a window like this.

Now click "New project". It will show another window like this.

Select "Empty" and click OK. Then it will show another window.

Here you can set your project location and click OK. This folder is where Cubase stores every file related to your project. So it's better to create a separate folder for each project you do.

After that, it will bring you to the main project window with empty project area which looks like this. 

Now we can configure out audio devices.

Configuring Audio Interface

Go to Devices > Device Setup.

It will show the Device Setup window. 

Now click VST Audio System. It will show your audio driver details in the right side.

Now select your audio driver in the ASIO Driver selector. In my case, it is Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO, since I'm using a Steinberg CI2 USB audio interface. 

Now click Apply and OK. Now Cubase will start to use your audio interface for audio input and output activities.

Important: You must install relevant driver software for your audio interface before starting Cubase.

OK now we have configured the audio interface with Cubase. In the next post, I'm going to demonstrate how to configure audio inputs, outputs and monitors.