Steinberg Cubase · VST3

Comping vocal takes faster in Cubase

How does a lyrics prompter make comping faster in Cubase?

Comping is slow when takes are fragmented and phrasing changes between them. A prompter keeps every pass complete and consistently phrased, so in Cubase you are choosing between whole lines rather than stitching around missed entries and false starts.

Look at where comping time actually goes. Very little of it is spent judging performance; most of it is spent skipping past dead air, restarts and the engineer's voice on the talkback.

Complete passes also make crossfades behave. When two takes were sung with the same phrasing, a fade at a word boundary is inaudible. When they were not, you hear the join no matter how carefully you place it.

The knock-on effect is on tuning and timing work later. Consistent phrasing means less manual correction, which is where the second half of the session usually disappears.

Step by step

  1. 1Record three or four complete passes with the prompter running.
  2. 2Build the comp in Cubase by lines, not by syllables.
  3. 3Favour the pass with the best phrasing for each section, then patch details.
  4. 4Crossfade at word boundaries.
  5. 5Keep the prompter open for punch-ins so the singer re-enters at the right emotional point.

Try it in Cubase tonight

14 days free, no card required. Install the VST3, paste a lyric sheet, and record one take start to finish before you decide.

Related questions

Does this change how I use lanes in Cubase?

Not really. You use the same lane workflow — there is just less junk in the lanes to skip past.

Should the singer see the prompter during punch-ins?

Yes. Two lines of lead-in on screen is the difference between a punch that matches and one that sounds pasted in.