Cubase

Steinberg workstation with the strongest score editor of any DAW, now licensed without a USB dongle

As of 31 August 2026, Cubase starts at $99.99/one-time. The workstation Steinberg has shipped since 1989 and the application in which the VST plugin format was created. Softwr lists it under Music. Cubase is made by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, available on Windows, macOS.

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Overview

What Cubase does

Cubase is a digital audio workstation from Steinberg, a Yamaha subsidiary since 2005, sold in three editions: Elements, Artist and Pro. It handles audio recording, MIDI sequencing, mixing and scoring in one project. Distinctive parts include the Chord Track and Chord Pads, VariAudio for pitch correction inside the sample editor, the Logical Editor for rule based MIDI transformation, and expression maps, which map notation and keyswitches onto sample library articulations. The change that matters commercially is licensing. Until Cubase 11 the licence lived on a USB eLicenser dongle: you could carry it between machines, including machines that never touched the internet, and losing the stick meant buying the software again. From Cubase 12 Steinberg replaced this with Steinberg Licensing, which activates against your account on up to three computers through the Steinberg Activation Manager. That removes the dongle as a failure point, and removes the second-hand dongle market with it, but activation and deactivation are now account operations. A studio machine on an isolated network needs the offline activation path rather than simply having a stick plugged in, and anyone running an air-gapped scoring rig should test that path before buying. Buyers are media composers, orchestral template users and Yamaha hardware owners; the score editor and expression maps are why they stay and why they rarely move to Live or Logic. The trade-offs are weight and tiering. The install is large, the mixer and editor windows assume a big screen, and Elements and Artist withhold features such as full surround work and the top VariAudio tier, so the working configuration is usually Pro. Version upgrades are charged separately and arrive roughly annually.

What people use it for

Writing to picture where the deliverable includes printed parts as well as a mix, because the score comes from the same project rather than a MIDI export
Driving large orchestral sample libraries, where expression maps turn articulation switching into notation instead of hidden keyswitch lanes
Studios standardised on Steinberg or Yamaha hardware, where control surface integration is already built
Replacing a dongle based Cubase installation, where the reason to upgrade is removing the USB key as a single point of failure

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Cubase.

Steinberg Licensing ties activations to an account across up to three machines, so an isolated or air-gapped studio computer needs the offline activation procedure rather than a carried dongle, and that procedure must be repeated whenever the hardware is rebuilt.
Elements and Artist withhold features most buyers eventually need, including the top VariAudio tier and full surround work, so the realistic price is the Pro edition rather than the entry figure.
Projects saved in a newer version cannot be opened in an older one, so studios collaborating with clients on mixed versions have to standardise, and paid upgrades arrive roughly once a year.
There is no Linux build and no stated plan for one, so the platform choice is Windows or macOS only and a Linux studio is excluded outright.
The interface carries three decades of accumulated windows and dialogs spread across the Project window, MixConsole, Key Editor and Score Editor, so the learning curve is considerably longer than Live or Logic for a new user.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Cubase

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Cubasevs
Logic Pro
Logic Pro: Pick Logic Pro on macOS for a one-off purchase with free major updates and a very large bundled library, if you can live without the score editor depth.
Cubasevs
REAPER
REAPER: Pick REAPER if you need a cheap licence and heavy customisation, and you are willing to solve notation and articulation handling yourself.
Cubasevs
Ableton Live
Ableton Live: Pick Live if the work is electronic and performance oriented rather than scored, where the Session View matters more than engraving.

Pricing

What Cubase costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Cubase Elements

$99.99 /one-time

Perpetual licence
Capped audio, MIDI and instrument track counts
Reduced editing and mixing tool set

Cubase Artist

$329.99 /one-time

Perpetual licence
Higher track limits than Elements
Score editor included
No full surround work or the top VariAudio tier

Cubase Pro

$579.99 /one-time

Perpetual licence
Unlimited tracks
Full score editor, expression maps and surround
Version upgrades charged separately, roughly annually

Capabilities

Features

Score editor
Engraves and prints parts from the same MIDI data the sequencer plays, with no export step
Expression maps
Maps notation and keyswitches onto sample library articulations, so a slur in the score triggers the legato patch
VariAudio
Edits pitch and timing of monophonic audio in place inside the sample editor
Chord Track and Chord Pads
Drives harmony across tracks and lets chords be played and voiced from a pad grid
Logical Editor
Applies rule based transformations to MIDI in bulk, such as rewriting velocities across a filtered selection
Video track
Plays a reference film in the timeline for writing to picture
Steinberg Licensing
Dongle free activation on up to three machines through the Activation Manager
MixConsole
Channel strip with per-channel EQ and dynamics and a history of mixer states

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Does Cubase still need a USB dongle?

No. From Cubase 12 onwards Steinberg Licensing replaced the eLicenser. Activation runs through the Steinberg Activation Manager on up to three computers.

Can I run Cubase on a computer with no internet access?

Yes, but through the offline activation path in the Activation Manager rather than a normal sign in, and you repeat it if the machine is rebuilt. Test it before committing an isolated scoring rig.

Is Cubase a subscription?

No. Editions are bought outright and keep working. Steinberg charges separately for version upgrades, which appear roughly once a year.

Which edition do I need for scoring work?

Pro. Artist includes a score editor, but Pro is the edition with the full engraving, expression map and surround feature set that media work assumes.

Keep looking

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Cubase, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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