Since Musikmesse 2009 was quite the memorable experience for Cakewalk, it was hard to post everything we wanted to show you about the show, up at the same time. Here are a few videos on SONAR V-Studio 100 from Audiofanzine and Future Music Magazine, shot live in Frankfurt, Germany the weekend of the show. Enjoy!
Sonar Studio VS100 demo at Musikmesse from will seelig on Vimeo.
SquarElectric is a duo, consisting of Belgian drummer/producer Michael Schack and DJ/Electro wizz Steve Pittoors.
In the early 2000s, Steve and Michael met backstage at music festivals in Belgium and sometimes at an Antwerp petrol station filling up their cars. By 2005, they started exchanging musical ideas and their first demo track, “Sex & Death”, immediately turned heads on Broadjam.com.
Both being perfectionists and total music addicts, they continued composing, recording and tweaking their compositions, which resulted in a finished first “solo” album for both of them. Through their joint connections, this SquarElectric album features guest appearances by Chuck D (Public Enemy), Joseph Bowie (Defunkt), Hans Dulfer (Candy’s dad) and David “Tweeky” Ahlund (Stockholm, Sweden) among others. It even includes a Chinese traditional love chant, totally remade into a challenging high energy “Drum’nBass’nSynth” track named 1000 Years.
For more information on the Squarelectric’s new album and to hear their latest projects, check out: http://www.myspace.com/squarelectric
Although, we’re a little late in getting this up, we thought we’d share pictures and give you the skinny on our travels to this year’s SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas.
This year, was the first year Cakewalk made the trek to Austin to join in on the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Conference. We sponsored a series of live performances hosted by Music Gorilla and submitted our SONAR 8 Producer into a drawing. Here’s a few pictures from the event:
A little history on SXSW:
Established in 1987, SXSW’s original goal was to create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with, to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas. In 22 years, this music event has grown from 700 registrants to nearly 12,000 registrants.
Austin’s eclectic music scene goes back to the city’s early history (from Mexican, German and colonial origins) and encompasses a wide variety of music including country, folk, jazz, blues and rock. Central Austin boasts more original music nightclubs in a concentrated area than any other city in the world. SXSW was a way to reach out to the rest of the world, and bring them to Austin to do business. SXSW now has offices in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan who help bring SXSW registrants to Austin every March.
If you missed SXSW this year, you can catch up on the panels via podcast now until May 29 at http://sxsw.com/interactive.
T. Michael Testi, author of ‘The RAM Review’ column at BlogCritics.org, shared his thoughts about SONAR 8 in a recent software review. For those of you who are on the fence about upgrading your DAW to the latest version of SONAR, Testi lays it all out on the line. He skillfully dissects the new tools, effects, and instruments added to latest version of SONAR. Here’s a few quotes from the article we thought you might want to read:
“Keep in mind that SONAR 8 is an incredibly complete and complex software package that is aimed at the professional and the sophisticated enthusiast who wants a product that is powerful, flexible, and very configurable.”
“With all of this, SONAR 8 is a must have upgrade. If you truly want the ultimate in DAW software, then you need SONAR 8.”
Read the full SONAR 8 Producer Software Review by T. Michael Testi of BlogCritics.org.
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Created in 1995, Gbase.com was one of the first gear-dedicated web sites. Since then, Gbase.com has become the ultimate benchmark for used and vintage equipment. Visitors from around the world have purchased guitars, drums, amps, effects pedals, basses, and more from their global dealer network.
StudioTraxx provides instant access to a vast global network of musicians-for-hire that are ready to work and collaborate via the web. Launched in March 2007, StudioTraxx is focused on creating new work opportunities for studio musicians while providing competitive music production outsourcing solutions to artists, labels, and others. StudioTraxx musicians consist of some of the finest music studios, production companies, and independent musicians from around the world.
If you become a member of Studiotraxx.net or GBase.com, during the month of April, you will be entered automatically into the SONAR Home Studio 7 Giveaway Sweepstakes!
Well Day 3 came upon us quite quickly. So much has happened in the last couple of days. This was the last day of the retailer part of the show. Tomorrow is the public day, where Musikmesse is open to the public.
Remember that I mentioned our European counterparts rocked out a bit more during their product demonstrations? I found some evidence online today as I was typing this. MusicRadar shot some video on their handycam of one of their pre-demo performances in our booth. Sorry for the audio quality, but it was shot from the show floor. Edirol did some professional filming with audio from the board and we’ll get those online soon. For now, here’s a taste of ‘Rockstar’:
*Video edited on 4/8/09*
We had a second meeting with more of our new distribution partners. Brandon, Robin and I welcomed them to the Cakewalk family giving them an introduction to our product line and our marketing resources. This second group was just as enthusiastic as the first and I am very excited to have such strong representation in so many new areas of the world.
Pictured here with Greg Hendershott of Cakewalk are Kwan-Ki Min of Cosmos Corporation (Korea), David Leo of PT. Citra Intirama (Indonesia), Frank K.T. Lee of Tom Lee Music (Hong Kong), Pham Van Kim of Viet Thuong (Vietnam), Ali Sungurlu and Mehlih Aytug of Zuhal Dis Tic (Turkey), and Kittipong Techayuenyong of Theera Music (Thailand).
Later in the day, Gina Garda and I had a meeting with our new strategic marketing contact at Intel, Kimia Poursaleh. In case you missed it, Intel is currently running a big feature on Cakewalk and SONAR on their new Content Creation microsite. It was a real pleasure to finally meet Kimia in person.
As the day ended, the entire Cakewalk and Edirol crew along with some key people from Roland Japan set out for a traditional German dinner at Alt-Oberurseler Brauhaus to celebrate our successes at the show. The food and beer was amazing (maybe the beer was too amazing) but was even better, was having everyone together for a celebration. Here are a few pictures highlighting the evening’s festivities:
The taxis start to arrive and our friends gather outside the Brauhaus.
Robin, Brandon and Michael make their best attempt at a band photo.
Michael Hoover of Cakewalk and Simon Lowther of Edirol Europe.
Robin and I enjoy a couple of the Brauhaus’s finest.
Cakewalk’s Gina Garda and Roland’s Masahiro Minowa get ready to enjoy a good meal.
Despite the fact that I’m a vegetarian, I can’t miss a good photo opp.
Roland’s Managing Director Mr. Kondo gave a rousing toast. He’s flanked by Edirol Europe’s Managing Director Massimo Barbini and Cakewalk’s Founder and CEO Greg Hendershott. Phil Palmer and Dan the VJ look on.
As the night wore on, much hilarity ensued. I suppose you had to be there, but I can tell you that we got a special visit from the pretzel man!
That’s it for now, tomorrow is the BIG public day.
Gute Nacht,
Carl
Day 2 of Musikmesse started out real well. I opened up the tradeshow daily to see that we had gotten a write-up on page 2 about the fact that the V-Studio console was going to be available to SONAR 8 customers as a stand alone control surface.
I think one important point that was missing from the article, and I couldn’t expect it be written there, was that this is another example of Cakewalk listening to our customers. Some SONAR 8 users told us that they have spent quite a bit of money on their I/O and that you really only need the best control surface possible for SONAR.
We listened, and with just a little bit of work on our part, we will now be able to give them what they asked for, starting this summer. I still personally feel that if anyone had the full experienceof using the entire SONAR V-Studio 700 system together with the I/O and Fantom Synth, they would rethink their decision to only buy the console, but I guess I’m biased.
I kept reading the daily and I also found this nice photo of Ben Klempel and Massimo Barbini posing with the V-Studio 100. Massimo is the Managing Director of Edirol Europe, our distributor in Europe, and a really inspiring guy… I’m gald he’s on our side.
Brandon of course, was in his usual form, knocking out the crowds with his V-Studio 700 Demos.
There’s another good video from the show online. In this video, which should play after an ad, Sonic State interviews Julian from Edirol Europe about the V-Studio 100 and the VS 700C.
Also, the video I wrote about in the blog a couple of days ago, that Craig Anderton shot is now available online at Harmony Central.
When you get to the page, click on ‘Preview Video’ to watch Craig’s pre-show coverage. Alex, Steve, Brandon and I stage a mock argument about what’s important about the V-Studio 100 at around 4:20. You might get a laugh from it.
Signing off,
Carl Jacobson
Ok… I can’t contain myself so we’re going to have blog dessert first and jump right to the end of the day. SONAR V-Studio 700 won the MIPA award for Best Recording Hardware!
If you’re not aware of what the MIPA is or what it means to Cakewalk, just imagine that you won a Grammy award. Over 100 music products magazines worldwide come together each year to vote on what they feel are the best and most innovative products of the last year. So it is such a incredible honor that SONAR V-Studio 700 was selected for this!
Greg Hendershott, Cakewalk’s Founder and CEO and Mr. Kimitaka Kondo Managing Director of Roland Corporation were hand to accept the award.
I’ve uploaded a video clip from the event of our winning the award and Greg and Mr. Kondo’s speech:
And here are some more pictures from the night:
Greg and Mr. Kondo accept the award.
The stage was filled with many happy people, as they called up the winners of all categories.
Charly Steinberg won a Lifetime Achievement award tonight for his work over the years to move music technology forward. It was a moment of sheer transcendence for me to see Greg and Charly together. Cakewalk won a MIPA tonight in a category that beat out Steinberg’s latest offering, and Charly the founder of that same competitor was honored for his life’s work.
Despite how fiercely we have competed over the years, the two of them greeted each other like old friends and had a genuine, warm moment congratulating each other. It really reminded me that we’re all in it for the same reason… to make music and to help people make music. And maybe we shouldn’t forget that are competitors are just like us in that regard. In alot of ways, they help us make better products for you, because we have to continue to innovate to stay competitive with each other.
Anyway enough of the philosophical ramblings. Here’s another photo from the evening, it features some of my favorite people, members of the Cakewalk and Roland team.
From left to right: Masahiro Minowa, Michael Hoover, Robin Kelly, Koichi Mizumoto, Greg Hendershott, Alex Westner, Carl Jacobson (me), Steve Thomas and Brandon Ryan.
Those are genuine smiles you’re seeing in this picture. This team and many other people back in the offices of Cakewalk and Roland, put in a tremendous effort over the last couple years to make SONAR V-Studio 700. To be recognized with a MIPA for that work, really made it all worthwhile.
Well, I need to run to a meeting. Part 2 of Day 2 will be coming soon.
Signing off,
Carl Jacobson
Create Digital Music is one of the industry’s top blogs featuring the latest news, tips, product reviews, forums and articles on digital music making. Yesterday, CDM was among the first outlets to introduce SONAR V-Studio 100!
“The V-Studio 100 is set up in a way that appears to come close to what I think a whole lot of us need as laptop musicians. And despite the Cakewalk name, it’s actually aimed at users of a variety of Mac and Windows tools…”
See what else they had to say about Cakewalk’s newest product, the portable music production studio for Mac and PC.
Visit Create Digital Music Now.
Well, it was such a good first day of the show, i’m not really sure where to begin. I guess starting at the beginning of the day is a good place.
Things started to look good first thing in the morning when I received the Messe Show Daily, and saw that the editors had decided that SONAR V-Studio 100 was one of the hottest announcements at the show and it deserved front cover placement on day 1.
Alex Westner, Cakewalk’s Director of Product Management is pictured here with the Show Daily…
The show floor was humming with excitement. Our European Distributors Edirol Europe did a great job with the booth. And they take a more rock & roll approach to our produce demos than we usually do in the states.
They hired an amazing group to do SONAR V-Studio 100 product demonstrations that showed how a band would usually use the product. I thought their demos were a lot of fun. Chris is here explaining to the audience the benefits of having an audio interface, daw controller, digital mixer, and SD Wave recorder all in one compact device.
I imagine it looked something like this.
But the audience clearly enjoyed themselves.
Craig Anderton, came by and shot a very entertaining product video with Alex, Brandon Ryan, Steve Thomas, and myself about the SONAR V-Studio 100, I don’t want to give any spoilers, but keep an eye out on Harmony Central for the video.
MusicRadar.tv also came by to get the scoop on the V-Studio 100. They interviewed Alex and the video is already online. You can check it out below.
Not sure if you saw the announcement yesterday, but we have extended our distribution into a bunch of new markets. I got to meet some of the new distributors today and talk to them about our products and our marketing. They were really a great group of people and I think we’re mutually very enthusiastic about working together.
Greg, Brandon, and Robin are pictured here with our new friends Subhash Khandelwal of Rivera Digitec (Mumbai, India), Roy Viljoen of Paul Bothner Music (South Africa), Magdey El Bouhy of ADawliah (Saudi Arabia), George Triantafillou and Nikos Stamoulis of Venediktos Stollas (Greece), and Ron Nevo and Ilan Murad of Halilit (Israel).
Steve, Alex, and I then attended the Lesser Awards Ceremony put on by PPVMEDIEN, one of the biggest publishers of music magazines in Europe. Two years ago, Kinetic won the Lesser Award for Das Bestes Groove Tool and SONAR 8 was nominated for an award this year. We didn’t win but it is always an honor to be nominated and we had a good time at the event.
One change for the Award Ceremony was that the Surf Rock band was replaced this year by the Justin Nova Band. I liked what I heard and expect good things from this group.
Well, quite a bit for day wouldn’t you say? I’m looking forward to see what tomorrow brings…
Signing off,
Carl Jacobson & Alex Westner (pictured and filmed above)
