Cuestra is a composition workstation built around the orchestra itself. Every section has its place on the stage, its own track and its own bus, so you can start writing instead of building a template.
Your libraries load as VST3ASIO audioScores to picture
Orchestra view, the way Cuestra opens. Pick a section, play, record.
The stage
Write from the podium, not from a track list.
The Orchestra view draws your ensemble as a seating plan. Click a section and it is armed: whatever you play goes to that instrument. The whole orchestra is there from the first bar.
109Orchestra tracks
10Flex tracks
10SFX tracks
Strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, harps, piano, celesta and choir, as sections and as individual players, each where you would expect it.
Every section has its own bus. Flex and SFX tracks get a bus of their own too.
Record several parts one after another without leaving the stage.
StringsWoodwindsBrassPercussion
Electric Guitar
Synth Pad
Flex 3
Oud
Flex 5
Vocal Demo
Flex 7
Flex 8
Flex 9
Flex 10
Illustration: Flex tracks renamed for one project.
Flex tracks
Ten places for everything else.
Not every score fits the standard orchestra. Flex tracks are ten open slots, in their own group with their own bus, for the instrument you did not plan on.
Name them what they hold. Right-click a Flex track to rename it, and the name follows it through the arrangement and the panels.
Put them in your order. Drag the Flex headers to rearrange them. They reorder among themselves and leave the orchestra where it is.
Load anything. Any VST3 instrument works: a guitar, a synth, a solo folk instrument, a vocal sketch.
Imports find them. When you open a MIDI, MusicXML or DAWproject file, up to ten parts that match no orchestra track land on free Flex tracks, named after the part.
Arrange and edit
An arrangement that reads like a score.
Tracks are grouped by section, so a page of strings looks like a page of strings. Edit the notes in a piano roll docked right under the arrangement.
Piano roll and arrangement stay in step: switch on cursor sync and the two playheads line up.
Tempo, time signature and section markers, including mixed meters such as 4/4 into 3/4 into 6/8.
Split, mute, erase, loop and duplicate events with the arrangement tools.
Articulation maps for keyswitch libraries, with maps for BBC Symphony Orchestra included and Studio One articulations importable.
What is in the beta
Everything a sketch needs, nothing it does not.
Cuestra is for scoring, not for recording audio. It hosts your sample libraries, keeps the mix tidy by section and gets the result out.
Libraries
Your instruments, your sounds
Assign any VST3 instrument to a track. A preset browser lists your instrument presets and instrument sets, so loading a section is a drag and drop.
Mixing
A bus for every section
Each family has its own bus with effect inserts, mute and solo, and its own colour. A shared reverb return keeps the room consistent across the stage.
Recording
Play it in
Record from a MIDI keyboard with count-in and metronome, in overdub or replace mode. Select an instrument and it is the one that records.
Import
Bring in what you have
Open MIDI files, MusicXML scores and DAWproject files and carry on in Cuestra.
Export
Mixdown when you are done
Render the mix to WAV, FLAC, AIFF or MP3, or join it to your picture as a finished video.
Engine
Built on a real audio engine
Playback, plug-in hosting and mixing run on the Tracktion Engine, with ASIO output and plug-in scanning isolated so a bad plug-in cannot take the app down.
New in this beta
Score to picture.
Open a film, watch it in its own window and write against the frames. Drop in sound effects where the picture needs them.
Drag a video onto the window. It follows the transport, and you can move it to a second monitor.
A video lane shows the film's sound as a waveform, with a start point and picture delay you control.
Ten SFX tracks take WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG, MP3 and more. Move, trim and split sounds, and audition them from your own sound-effects folder before you place them.
Export the video with your mix. The picture is copied, not re-encoded.
Video
Film audio
SFX 1
Door slam
Rain, steady
SFX 2
Footsteps
Thunder
Strings
Violins I · Theme
Violins I · Rise
Brass
French Horns · Answer
Illustration of how the lanes share one timeline.
Preset browser and master channel.
The piano roll docks under any view, with the transport below.
Inside the app
Warm, dark and quiet on purpose.
Long sessions deserve an interface that stays out of the way. The panel on the right follows whatever you select, and the controls you reach for are where you expect them.
One browser for instrument presets, audio effects and sound effects.
A master channel with inserts, a reverb return, a fader and a meter you can read from across the room.
Live readouts for memory, audio load and peak core use in the transport bar.
Join the beta
Help shape it while it is still soft.
The beta is private and growing. Features and file formats are still changing, so the most useful testers are people who write for orchestra and will tell us what gets in their way.
You need
A Windows PC with an ASIO audio device or driver.
You bring
Your own VST3 orchestral libraries. Cuestra hosts them, it does not include them.
We ask
Try it on a real piece, tell us what you notice, and keep the build to yourself while it is private.
Request an invitation
Ask for a Discord invitation.
Email us to request an invite to the Cuestra beta Discord. That is where testers get the build, report problems and share ideas.
