Chosen Words: C is for Cubase

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and associated "facts"

Cubase is software which arranges audio for the purposes of music-making.

Cubase faced competition from Pro Tools and, more recently, Ableton and, um, Fruity Loops. There has always been enough room in the market for all of them, as long as you don't cross the streams.

Never cross the streams.

Early workstations used a lot of hardware, including an oscilloscope with its distinctive wavy lines. If your local Tandy was out of them, it was customary to nick them from intensive care units - but only if they beeped in the same key as the track you were making.

Different machines could keep time with each other with the advent of the synchronization device MIDI. Although you needed a lot of wires to use MIDI, it actually worked by magic.

After the computer boom of the 1980s, making music with computers became a bedroom hobby across the country. As a result, many young men went for months without sex.

Top five sequencing software packages:

- Ableton Live
- Cubase
- Garageband
- Green Day: Rock Band
- Pressing play simultaneously on lots of YouTube videos at once

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