Cakewalk Takes the Stage at Intel Developer Forum

Hello everyone, last week was an exciting week for us with Cakewalk being featured and spotlighted by Intel in a number of ways.

By now, it shouldn’t be any secret that SONAR is the technology leading digital audio workstation. We’ve been first to support all of Microsoft’s operating systems for the last 12 years, and we’ve been first to support so many of Intel’s technological developments: hyperthreading, multiprocessor machines, multicore processing, 64-bit x64 processing and others. And our support for these technologies have not just been pioneering, both Intel and Microsoft recognize SONAR as one of the best examples of a software product supporting them. Last June, Cakewalk was the only audio company named a finalist in Microsoft’s Global ISV Partner Awards and last week, Intel honored Cakewalk by making us the only audio company featured in the launch of their new Mobile Core i7 Processor and the keynote presentations at their IDF Conference.

Renee James IDF Keynote

Renee James is the Senior VP and General Manager of Intel’s Software and Services division and her this Keynote speech, she wanted to show a handful of companies who have benefited from a long standing development relationship with Intel. They believe we are one of their best success cases for optimizing for their chipsets and technologies. We were asked to open the keynote because they felt that what we do, working with audio is one of the most exciting applications that they could show. To give you an idea of the kinds of companies we shared the stage with, she also featured Dreamworks in this keynote.

 

Brandon Ryan and I have never had to speak in front of so many people or perform on such a huge stage. And the excitement and anticipation of getting to show off the power of SONAR V-Studio 700 to this audience was almost overwhelming. I think the demonstration went really well, but you can decide for yourself. Intel has posted a video of Renee James IDF Keynote featuring SONAR V-Studio 700 that you can check out for yourself. If you want to jump ahead to the Cakewalk talk and demonstration, Brandon and I come onstage at about 5:35 (be sure to click the full screen video link).

In preparing for the keynote, I created a number of powerpoint slides that showed the parallels between the development of Intel processors and the development of SONAR. Due to time constraints we cut most of these slides from the presentation. I found seeing all of that laid out to be pretty impressive, if you’re interested in checking them out you can see the full slide deck below:

Frankly speaking SONAR V-Studio 700 totally rocked in this demo. I know I work for the company, but I am still blown away by what SONAR is capable of doing these days when paired with a powerful modern PC. We had a new SONAR project created specifically for this demo. We took Cori Yarckin’s latest single, and then had Shawn Clement add 100 tracks to make it sound like a full orchestra was backing her up. The project sounded and looked incredible.

SONAR was running:

-140 tracks
-24 simultaneous live virtual instruments
-50 simultaneous live audio effects
-64-bit audio engine enabled
-An 800 MB high def AVI video
-And Brandon played live at 2 ms of latency
-All at only 50% CPU

Isn’t that amazing? I think this is why Intel likes to feature us. Music connects with people, and because of our incredible development work on multithreading and x64 support for SONAR, we can do truly impressive things like this. If you’re interested in finding out what kind of beast SONAR needs to ride to deliver this kind of performance, here are the specs for the machine we ran during the demo:

-PC Audio Labs Custom Shop DAW
-Precision tower case
-Intel Core i7 965
-256 GB SSD primary drive
-1 TB data drive
-Vista x64
-6GB RAM
-Silent Treatment

While we’re on the subject, I’d like to give a special nod to PC Audio Labs for the machine they built us for the keynote. The support and work that PC Audio Labs provides meant that Brandon and I could be totally confident that our demo would be rock solid and stable. I can’t tell you how much that means when you have to present your product in front of 3000 people and one of the most important executives at Intel. If you are looking for a new PC for your studio, there is no higher recommendation that I could give than PC Audio Labs.

Cakewalk featured in Mobile Core i7 launch

In addition to being featured in Renee James’ keynote Cakewalk was also spotlighted the keynote by Mooly Eden, Intel’s corporate vice president and general manager of their PC Client Group. At Siggraph, Seth Perlstein and I were interviewed and asked for our perspectives on what the Core i7 Mobile processor would mean for musicians. We were thrilled to see Mr. Eden using this footage in his keynote to introduce the Core i7 Mobile Processor.

To see the video that was played at this keynote, watch the first video link “Core i7 Mobile – Redefining Mobile Computing” on the press page below: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20090923comp_sm.htm (Right below it on that same page you can see a more in depth video with Cakewalk).

As part of their launch Intel has also issued a Solution brief to the press entitled “Toppling Boundaries: Supercharged Music-Making on the Road,” in this brief they includes a history of Cakewalk, info on the V-Studio 100 and SONAR 8.5, and quotes from Cakewalk executives including Noel Borthwick, Michael Hoover, Gina Garda, and myself: http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/i7mobile/pdfs/Corei7_Cakewalk_Sonar_SolutionBrief.pdf

Intel Gulftown Media Reception 

 

Later that same day, we were asked to demonstrate SONAR V-Studio 700 and SONAR 8.5 in a Media Reception for Intel’s new Gulftown Processor. Gulftown is their upcoming 6 core processor, and Brandon was provided with an advance prototype to do the demo. In this presentation, we had Cori Yarckin perform live to backing tracks from her SONAR Projects to warm up the crowd, then Brandon did a demo where he recorded & processed her vocals, remixed her song live using the Matrix view, and then gave the audience a more in depth look at SONAR using the keynote project.

While we were setting up for the event, I did a short interview with Steve Fortner from keyboard magazine about our activities at IDF, and our perspective on the Core i7 and Gulftown processor. He posted the recording from his phone here: http://www.twitvid.com/C114A

Your Music Anytime, Anyplace Songwriting Contest

Lastly, in case you missed the announcement, Intel has given us 8 laptops to hold a contest to promote the V-Studio 100 and the Mobile Core i7. We launched this contest last week. If you are an up and coming producer or songwriter, you should definitely submit your original music to win one of these Mobile recording studios. I can’t wait to hear your music. Enter the contest here: http://www.ourstage.com/go/AnytimeAnyplace

Whew, that was quite a bit for one blog post. I guess that’s it for now. Thanks for reading.

Carl Jacobson
Vice President, Marketing
Cakewalk