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. 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. 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. Steinberg has won a number of industry awards including several MIPA awards, and accolades for Cubasis and its CMC controllers amongst others.
Dorico team acquisition In 2012, Steinberg acquired the former development team behind
Sibelius, following the closure of
Avid's London office in July, to begin development on a new professional
scoring software named
Dorico. It was released on 19 October 2016. == Product history ==