Calling All Dubstep Cubase 7 Users

Cubase
1

All of you who do dubstep, what do you use already packaged in Cubase 7 to create your tunes and/or what 3rd party VSTs do you use?

I am working on a project where I need to do some dubstep and I want some ideas. The cheaper the better as I am on a limited budget.

2

I know a guy who can turn a freeware filter/LFO and howling cat sample into dubstep. :smiley:

Kidding aside (or was I?), you didn’t specify what kind of “dubstep” you’re interested in, so I’ll assume American-style, Beatport-oriented a.k.a. “brostep” and not original UK dubstep / future garage / 2-step or post-dubstep.

So, “aggressive sounds” is what I’ll assume.

A good low-pass/hi-pass filter plugin (including Cubase’s) + an LFO will likely be your most used tool. That, and good sidechain / group bussing techniques (with EQ and compression, etc. on the busses).

Other favs from artists like Noisia, include:

Fxpansion Maul
Isotope Trash
Fabfilter Saturn and/or Volcano

My favorite Filter / LFO is Cytomic’s The Drop, but it’s very CPU hungry (but the circuit-modeled sound is amazing).

It’s less about the sound source and more about how you stack and group your sounds (and how you process that buss). That said, my favorite sound source is Fxpansion Synth Squad, but Cubase’s stock instruments work fine. Also, the Sylenth1 continues to amazing me with how warm and crisp it sounds. It really is an excellent synth (cliché as that sounds).

In short, my recommendation is to put your money on good insert fx plugins first, before any synths.

Music radar’s free plugin roundups:

http://www.musicradar.com/us/tuition/tech/the-27-best-free-vst-plug-ins-in-the-world-today-277953/1

The cheapest freeware synth can sound amazing if processed and stacked well – bonus, you avoid the “preset pitfall.”

Cheers.

3

There’s a lot of reasons why Cubase is great for dubstep, complextro, electro, etc… Here’s a few of my favorites:

  1. Media Bay lets you tag synth samples by key making it super easy to find the perfect little 1/4 bar synth sound for your track (not to mention all the other benefits of Media Bay).
  2. Midi Loops can be used to create and save those little 1/4 or 1/2 bar synth patterns that are so common in these respective genres. IMO these better than audio samples because you can easily transpose them to whatever note you want.
  3. Arranger Track lets you experiment with different patterns/arrangements even within a single bar.