Steinberg's Cubase has become one of the two industry-standard sequencing packages of today (the other being E-Magic's Creator/Notator). Cubase's standing is well deserved; it's a powerful, flexible program with a multitude of invaluable features for the MIDI musician. But Cubase's very power and complexity brings its own problems, perhaps the biggest of which is the steepness of the learning curve. Musicians aren't known for being the most patient of people, and the majority (myself included) seem to find reading the user manual for their latest synth or bit of software something of an unnecessary distraction — we want it up and running now! And when we do come across a problem, we want to be able to pick up the despised manual and have the exact area we don't understand explained simply and clearly so that we can get back to the music. This throws up another problem: no hi-tech musician can have failed to notice that many manuals fall very short on the accessibility and simplicity demanded by an impatient genius in the throes of creativity with a sequencer he doesn't actually know as well as he might. Is this, perhaps, where The Complete Cubase Handbook comes in? It is indeed.

This weighty 384-page book is devoted to explaining every aspect of Cubase 3.0 for both ST and Mac, easy bits and tricky bits alike, with the help of step-by-step examples and tutorials, illustrated copiously with screen dumps, which in turn are thoughtfully captioned to give you even more assistance in finding what you want. It's written clearly and helpfully, with no trace of the original German it's been translated from, and it's a tribute to the book's clarity and organisation that in no way do you have to read it cover to cover; you really can pick it up when you have a specific problem and have a good chance of rapid enlightenment. Of course, if you did have the patience to read it cover to cover, doing the tutorials along the way, you'd be something of a Cubase expert when you'd finished — but it's just as useful as an emergency help source. Also worthy of mention are the appendices at the end of the book, which offer general computer tips and a host of bits of MIDI information, making it a useful source of reference in its own right.

Though the user manual which comes with Cubase is by no means bad as manuals go, there is really no substitute for the practical, hands-on approach which the Cubase Handbook takes — next to having someone sitting next to you guiding your every move, Udo Weyers' excellent book has got to be the easiest way of coming to terms with the subtleties of Steinberg's powerful software.

Further Information

The Complete Cubose Handbook £32.99 plus £3.30 postage (UK), £5 airmail (Europe), £9 airmail (world).

SOS Mail Order, (Contact Details).