I’d advise anyone to take a close look at Cubase IC Pro, before investing in a second monitor. Granted, the added screen real estate has speeded up my workflow. However, I find that IC Pro has had a much bigger impact. The way I see it, is has four huge benefits:
Transport Controls
It’s much easier to control Cubase with buttons, than with the alpha-numerical keyboard.
Accessing all manner of features in Cubase
It’s much faster to be able to access various features by pushing a (virtual) button, than using menus and the mouse or memorizing hundreds of Key Commands.
Moving faders
I’m deffinetly not a fan of virtual faders but IC Pro can do something that otherwise only physical Control Panels can. Move multiple faders simultaneously.
Remote control Cubase
If I want to lay down some (say) vocals myself, and don’t have a spare engineer loitering around, I can take my iPad (or Android tablet) with me and control Cubase from the studio. No more running back and forth between the Studio and the Control Room. This is a huge time-saver.
Also if you’ve already got a tablet (there is a phone version available aswell) it’s quite cheap.
And NO! I don’t work for Steinberg. I just find it a very useful investment.