Karl "Charlie" Steinberg (born 15 April 1952) is a German businessman best known for being the co-founder of
Steinberg
Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops music writing, recording, arranging, and editing software, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It als ...
Media Technologies in 1983 with Manfred Rürup. Their tools helped to make digital audio editing popular, most notably through the
Cubase
Cubase is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music and MIDI recording, arranging and editing. The first version, which was originally only a MIDI sequencer and ran on the Atari ST computer, was released in 1989. Cut-dow ...
program. Together with Manfred Rürup, they also co-founded the now-discontinued online service digitalmusician.net.
Steinberg is also a founding member of the Fun and Mercy charity. He lives in Hamburg with his wife and two children.
Musician
In 1978, Charlie Steinberg (bass), Freddy Homann (guitar and vocals) and Hölmlölm Vieth (guitar) of the band Wotan, founded the band Törner Stier Crew together with the musicians Hans-Martin Stier (vocals), Walter Stoever (bass) and Olaf Schräder (drums). Steinberg becomes keyboarder of the new band. In 1979 the band wins the 1st prize of the Deutsche Phono-Akademie, the forerunner of the
Echo Music Prize
Echo Music Prize (stylised as ECHO, ) was an accolade by the , an association of recording companies of Germany to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. The first ECHO Awards ceremony was held in 1992, and it was set up to hono ...
. 1980 followed an appearance on
WDR Rockpalast
''Rockpalast'' (''Rock Palace'') is a German music television show that broadcasts live on German television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). ''Rockpalast'' started in 1974 and continues to this day. Hundreds of rock, heavy metal and jazz ...
and many live performances. The Törner Stier Crew released a total of three studio albums until 1983.
An English solo album of Steinberg recorded in the mid-eighties remains unpublished.
Since 2007 Karl Steinberg has played as a keyboarder with the rock quintet Stier, together with two other members of the Törner Stier Crew. After various live appearances the first
EP album produced by Siggi Bemm was released in 2009.
Audio engineer
As an audio engineer and co-producer, Karl Steinberg mixed the albums of various bands of the
Neuen Deutschen Welle.
At the Wilster studio in 1984, Steinberg recorded Inga Rumpf's ''Liebe. Leiden. Leben.''. During this time, he also worked on projects with
Mau Mau,
Manfred Rürup,
Modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
and
Udo Dahmen
Udo Dahmen (born 12 July 1951 in Aachen, West Germany) is a drummer, author and CEO of the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg.
Life
Udo Dahmen studied classical percussion in Aachen and Cologne from 1971 to 1976. In Paris he was trained by Dante ...
. In 1982 Steinberg worked with Frl. Menke in 1982 in the
Studio Maschen and in the Loft Studios Brunwey together with Achim Reichel and
Boyzone
Boyzone were an Irish boy band, created in 1993 by talent manager Louis Walsh. Before even recording any material, Boyzone made an appearance on RTÉ's '' The Late Late Show''. Their most successful line-up was composed of Keith Duffy, Steph ...
.
Software developer
Steinberg Research GmbH's first product, Multitrack Recorder for the
Commodore C64, was one of the first
MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...
-
Sequencer available on the market in 1983. The MIDI protocol was presented to the public in the same year. The MIDI interfaces distributed with the Multitrack Recorder were self-soldered at the beginning. After Pro 16 for the C-64 and Pro 24 for the
Atari ST, the
music software
This is a list of software for creating, performing, learning, analyzing, researching, broadcasting and editing music. This article only includes software, not services. For streaming services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora, Prime Music, and Spotify, ...
Cubase
Cubase is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music and MIDI recording, arranging and editing. The first version, which was originally only a MIDI sequencer and ran on the Atari ST computer, was released in 1989. Cut-dow ...
appeared in 1989. In 1996, Steinberg brought the
Virtual Studio Technology
Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizers and effects units into digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional r ...
(VST) out. Today, VST is the most widely used interface in the audio sector.
Steinberg
Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops music writing, recording, arranging, and editing software, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It als ...
Media Technologies GmbH has been owned by
Yamaha Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle divi ...
since 2004.
With the ''digital musician recorder'' from digitalmusician.net Karl Steinberg and
Manfred Rürup developed a free audio recorder that allows you to record polyphonic music in real time via an internet connection. The service was closed down on 30 June 2018.
Awards
*
MIPA
Founded in 1984, the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, or MIPA, is a nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and serving 12 states. The association serves the Upper Midwest small press community through education, Busine ...
Lifetime Achievement Award 2009
* Nominated for
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award 2008
"Vom Freak zum Millionär: Charlie Steinberg – der Mann, der Cubase erfand"
Westfälische Nachrichten, Günter Benning, 25. September 2010
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steinberg, Karl
Living people
1952 births
People from Coesfeld
German keyboardists
German company founders
20th-century German businesspeople
21st-century German businesspeople