Steinberg Ultimate Cubase Recording Pack w/ UR824 & Cubase Pro 8

Are you a musician looking for a great starter recording package for your PC?

You should check out the new Ultimate Cubase Recording pack from Steinberg. The pack consists of a comprehensive UR824 audio interface with 8 inputs combined with the latest version of Cubase Pro, a complete music production system for your computer.

The UR824

The Steinberg UR824 is a fantastic 1u rack USB 2.0 interface with a huge i/o flexibility including 8 in 8 out analog and 24 in 24 out total (including digital inputs and outputs). The UR824 is a UB 2.0 alternative to the popular MR816X/CSX but with improved mic pres and DSPmix software.

The UR824 is a perfect interface for a project studio offering solid and dependable use of a huge number of i/o normally only available on more expensive units. Add to that DSP mix software and direct integration with the included Cubase AI 6 and you've got a very powerful and full featured interface.

Cubase Pro 8.5

Engineered to make advanced music creation easier than ever before, Cubase Pro 8.5 offers a huge array of workflow and interface enhancements to facilitate a more creative, inspirational approach.

With a design ethos that unites technical innovation and artistic inspiration, Steinberg’s decades of experience in music software design have culminated in Cubase Pro 8.5: an awesomely powerful yet instantly accessible music production environment.

The update to version 8.5 adds VST Transit, a revolutionary cloud-based production tool, an expanded version of the Retrologue VST synth, many enhancements for mixing and automating audio, a range of MIDI editing refinements, a new Profile Manager and much more.

Built for the creative musician

Cubase 8 is the latest outing from Steinberg's wold famous music software that has for a long time now been one of the major industry giants creating the best audio production software on the market. At it's core however, Cubase has always been the ultimate compositional tool for musicians. If you're a composer or musician that is looking for a wide selection of creative tools to help get your ideas down quickly and easily. Cubase has had that right from the beginning, however it continues to build and develop to meet the growing needs of today's musicians.

The awesome new composing features added to Cubase 8 include 2 new instruments; a new VST bass amp for some quality bass amp tones, Groove Agent SE4 which gives you a world-class virtual acoustic drummer and 20 drum style patterns.

Also new to Cubase 8 are some fantastic new tools to help you get your ideas down quickly. First off is a new Midi tempo detection system that analyses your playing to determine what tempo you're at.  So if your laying down a fresh Midi performance track and need to change the pace, the new tempo detect function will reconstruct any tempo change you did and align your performance to the grid for further editing.

The other major upgrade for songwriters is the new chord pads and proximity chord assistant modes. Chord pads give you a quick and easy interface to quickly compose and jam with a selection of chords in your chosen key. Quickly create the harmonic bed for a whole song, even when you have no idea how to play the piano or guitar. Working out what appears on these chord pads is up to the Proximity chord assistant. You can select a simple circle of fifths view, or use the proximity assistant to create more complex and detailed chord progressions. The Proximity Chord Assistant Mode provides sugesstions from a defined reference chord, taking a set of harmonic rules into account. The chords are shown in an intuitive way, with relative distance and different colours showing simple to complex chord changes. The great thing is, you don't have to be a theory expert. You can just explore, try different chords and see what sounds good to you.

Developed for the Professional Producer

Cubase was originally built for the composer, but the musical landscape has since changed and many composers have also become the producer, audio mixer and mastering engineer. Cubase has responded to the growing demands of today's musician and Cubase 8 offers the latest tools and workflow that the professional engineer/producer needs to create tracks that people will love. This latest version of Cubase has been stuffed full of new and exciting features that transform the audio production process.

First off, the overall efficiency of the audio engine has been tuned to the max, allowing for more tracks, instruments and effects than ever before. The interface itself has been streamlined with a new workspace organiser, so that you wont get cluttered and sidetracked by things you don't need; providing a more effective workflow. There's also a fantastic new plug-in manager, so that you can choose your most used and useful plug-ins right where you need them, or group all of your similar instruments and effects together rather than by the manufacturer so that you can find them easier.

New tools and effects include the return of the legendary Quadrafuzz, allowing you to distort up to four bands individually and plenty of control. There's also a new multiband expander, multiband envelope shaper and an improved channel strip EQ for even more detailed control of your mixes.

Record around the world 

Now integrated directly into Cubase itself, VST Connect SE allows you to record audio and MIDI data over the internet. So you can effectively collaborate with anyone around the world. This feature has also been streamlined, so that it's quicker, easier and more intuitive than ever. You can now concentrate on the music rather than spend time faffing with connections and transfers!

All this..... and more!

UR824 Specification

• 24-bit/96 kHz USB 2.0 audio interface
• Analog 8 in and 8 out with 8 D-Pre Class-A mic preamps supporting +48 V
• 2 pairs of ADAT optical I/O (doubles as S/PDIF) provide 16 in and 16 out (S/MUX compatible, 8 in and 8 out @ 96 kHz)
• Latency-free DSP-powered monitoring with one REV-X reverb and 8 Channel Strips with any DAW by using the latest dspMixFx technology
• Native VST 3 plug-ins of REV-X and Sweet Spot Morphing Channel Strip additionally included
• 2 separate headphone buses with individual outputs
• Word clock I/O with 2 BNC connectors plus JetPLL ultra-low jitter support
• Cubase AI 6 music production software included
• Cross-platform compatibility for Mac OS X and Windows

Cubase Pro 8.5 Key Features

• State-of-the-art music production system used by countless professionals around the world
• Award-winning 32-bit floating-point Steinberg audio engine with up to 192 kHz, 5.1 surround, flexible routing and full automatic delay compensation
• Unlimited audio, instrument and MIDI tracks
• MixConsole for the ultimate mixing experience, presenting unmatched flexibility and integrated EQ/Dynamics channel strip modules for an epic, pro console sound
• Comprehensive set of 8 outstanding instruments with over 3,400 sounds, including HALion Sonic SE 2 workstation, Padshop granular synth, Retrologue 2 virtual analog synth, LoopMash 2 and Groove Agent SE 4 drum machine
• Complete suite of 73 high-end audio and 18 MIDI VST effect processors, including Quadrafuzz v2, VST Amp Rack and VST Bass Amp guitar and bass tone suites, REVerence convolution reverb, Voxengo CurveEQ and many more
• VCA faders for complex mixing and automation workflows, TrackVersions for playlists-like editing and render-in-place for simplified editing tasks
• VariAudio for MIDI-style note editing of monophonic audio tracks and automatic voicing harmonization and auto-tuning effect
• Chord track and pads for easy chord management and reharmonizing plus intelligent composing assistance for generating beautiful chord sequences
• Steinberg VST Connect SE 3 and VST Transit cloud collaboration service
• Professional music notation and score printing