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Steinberg

Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg; pronounced [ˈʃtaɪnbɛʁk]) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops software for writing, recording, arranging and editing music, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It also designs audio and MIDI hardware interfaces, controllers, and iOS/Android music apps including Cubasis. Steinberg created several industry standard music technologies including the Virtual Studio Technology (VST) format for plug-ins and the ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) protocol. Steinberg has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha since 2005.

The company was founded in 1984 by Karl Steinberg, Manfred Rürup and Rürups wife Nicole, in Rürups apartment in Hamburg. Karl Steinberg was a musician and audio engineer and Manfred Rürup was a musician playing at the time with Inga Rumpf. The developers got acquainted with the recently released MIDI specification in 1982, as Rürup was working part time in the keyboard shop Amptown Hamburg. The very first product from Steinberg was MIDI Multitrack Sequencer created in 1984, and this was used in tandem with their own-designed electronic MIDI interface Steinberg Research Interface for the Commodore 64. In total, around 50 such packages were sold.

In 1985 they created Pro-16, another MIDI sequencing application for the Commodore 64. Both programs were written more or less by Karl Steinberg himself. Pro-16 could use the older Steinberg Research Interface but a new electronic MIDI interface for the Commodore 64 called CARD 32 was also developed, featuring one MIDI in, three MIDI out, tape sync, and an EPROM version of Pro-16 that would start immediately on power-on. The name Pro-16 came from the ambition to be similar to a 16-channel tape recorder, but for MIDI data.

In 1985 Steinberg hired Werner Kracht who throughout 1986 developed Pro-24 for the Atari ST platform pretty much on his own as Steinberg was busy creating different OEM products based on Pro-16. Again the program mimicked a tape recorder, but now a tape recorder with 24 channels. The ST had built-in MIDI ports which helped to quickly increase interest in the new technology across the music world.

In 1989, Steinberg released Cubase for Atari, and versions for the Mac and Windows platforms would follow soon afterwards. Cubase was visualized by Wolfgang Kundrus, and implemented by a team including Werner Kracht, Stefan Scheffler, Michael Michaelis and Karl Steinberg who mainly contributed the run-time system M-ROS. It became a very popular MIDI sequencer, used in studios around the globe.

Steinberg Media Technologies AG had a revenue of 25 million DM in 1999. It had 180 employees in 2000. A planned entry on the Neuer Markt (New Market, NEMAX50) of the Deutsche Börse failed. The company had a revenue of 20 million Euros in 2001 and 130 employees in 2002.

In 2003, Steinberg was acquired by Pinnacle Systems and shortly after that, by Yamaha in 2004. With its new mother company Yamaha, Steinberg expanded design and production of its own hardware, and since 2008, it has created a range of audio and MIDI interface hardware including the UR, MR816, CC and CI series.

In 2012, Steinberg launched its first iOS sequencer, Cubasis, which has seen regular updates since then. The Steinberg satellite office in London was also opened in 2012.

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