Jun 2, 2026
Music Tech Pioneers VIII : Manfred Rürup : Steinberg : The
Early Years !
Hosted by Vin Curigliano of AAVIM Technology, I am joined by guest
co-host Pete Brown of Microsoft and special guest Manfred Rürup,
who is the Co-Founder and Ex CEO of Steinberg.
We cover Manfred's early history with music and technology , and
how that lead to a Professional Recording and Performing Career
throughout the 70's and early 80's, before crossing paths with
Charlie Steinberg in the early 80's, and founding Steinberg
Research.
We discuss Manfred's professional music career across multiple
bands and performing artists, sharing some adventures that were
encountered navigating those heady days of recording and touring
during that era, cover some of the albums and music styles explored
, gear used, etc, from early Prog Rock, Fusion, Experimental, to
German New Wave.
We cover the early pioneering days of being one of the first to
explore computer based sequencing on less than ideal computer
hardware, the evolution of the sequencing packages that paved the
way to the innovations that the team visualised and brought to the
ground breaking and game changing release of Cubase in 1989, that
became the blueprint for the way DAW workflow environments were
approached and implemented across most if not all DAW’s that
followed.
We discuss the landmark releases of Cubase, the initial adventures of introducing digital audio to
the Cubase sequencing environment, the preliminary
excursions using initially 3rd party audio hardware, then moving to
the first native version on Atari Falcon, and the eventual
evolution of VST ( Virtual Studio Technology ), which launched the
native DAW era on Mac and Windows, and created a whole new industry
around Plugins and Virtual Instruments.
We cover the development of ASIO , that although is well known to
be the industry standard and essentially default low latency driver
protocol for Windows, we discuss how it was orginally also
available on earlier Mac OS versions pre OSX, and share some
opinions and Pro's and Cons on that not being embraced on the later
platform.
We discuss the development of Nuendo and the reasoning behind the
move in that direction, the eventual merging of the codebase with
Cubase, and Manfreds exodus shortly after the initial Steinberg
sale to Pinnacle.
We also cover Manfred's creative and business endeavors after leaving Steinberg,
muse over the current state of Music Technology, sharing some great
insights and behind the scenes stories, and much, much more.
Host & Guest Links :
AAVIM Technology : www.aavimt.com.au
DAWbench : www.dawbench.com
Microsoft : www.microsoft.com
Pete Brown : https://twitter.com/Pete_Brown
Manfred Rürup : https://www.linkedin.com/in/manfred-ruerup-808250/
VO :
Andrew Peters : www.andrewpetersvo.com
Music Themes :
Original DAWbench VI Theme Music composed by Rob John : Independent
Music Productions : http://www.indmusicprods.com
DAWbench Radio Show ReMix by Erin McKimm : www.erinmckimm.com
All Rights Reserved : © AAVIMT 2026