The problem of controlling the vibration of a transversely excited cantilever beam with tip mass is analyzed within the framework of the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. A sinusoidally varying transverse excitation is applied at the left end of the cantilever beam, while a payload is attached to the free end of the beam. An active control of the transverse vibration based on cubic velocity is studied. Here, cubic velocity feedback law is proposed as a devise to suppress the vibration of the system subjected to primary and subharmonic resonance conditions. Method of multiple scales as one of the perturbation technique is used to reduce the second-order temporal equation into a set of two first-order differential equations that govern the time variation of the amplitude and phase of the response. Then the stability and bifurcation of the system is investigated. Frequency-response curves are obtained numerically for primary and subharmonic resonance conditions for different values of controller gain. The numerical results portrayed that a significant amount of vibration reduction can be obtained actively by using a suitable value of controller gain. The response obtained using method of multiple scales is compared with those obtained by numerically solving the temporal equation of motion and are found to be in good agreement. Numerical simulation for amplitude is also obtained by integrating the equation of motion in the frequency range between 1 and 3. The developed results can be extensively used to suppress the vibration of a transversely excited cantilever beam with tip mass or similar systems actively. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.