Greetings from the 127th Annual AES (Audio Engineering Society) Convention in New York City at the Javitz Center! We are on the last leg of the final day here at AES and it has been a whirlwind. We got here on Thursday to set up for the show and have been working hard at exemplifying all the killer new features in SONAR 8.5 as well as the work-horses V-Studio 700 and V-Studio 100.
Our East Coast Product Specialist Rich Curtis along with our Midwest Product Specialist Mike Trujillo (two of the hardest working guys in show biz) barely have their voices left after all the demoing and dialogue needed for the foot traffic. It looks like the buzz on the street is SONAR 8.5 because we literally had every walk of life (mostly other DAW users) stopping in to check out the new 8.5 as well as the new hardware.
Kick off day was Friday and we were joined by Carl Jacobson and Steve Thomas, both part of Cakewalk’s marketing team. The traffic was a bit light at first but started picking up as the day moved along. Blake Morgan who is the owner of the NYC based Engine Company Records stopped in to say hello and check out SONAR 8.5. It was interesting to see his positive reactions to all the features in 8.5 because he is a multi-instrumentalist as well as a producer and has accomplished a lot musically.
Friday night we were lucky enough to get invited to a party hosted by Esquire Magazine at The Esquire SOHO Bachelor Pad. It’s an apartment that Esquire Magazine builds out in a different city every year for promotional purposes. Our friends at Blue Microphones had some microphones placed in the recording studio room of the apartment, so they had us up to check out the scene.
What a scene it was! First of all, an acoustic performance by Bell X1 isn’t too shabby, but combine that with a wrap-around terrace overlooking The Empire State Building along with some of the most high-end furnishings from around the world and you have yourself a place that one could easily get used to. The rest of the acoustic performances were great and coincidently the next acoustic performance was by Zee Avi who is managed by my old friend Matt Pollack who also manages the White Stripes. It was great catching up with him and hopefully Zee will be using SONAR 8.5 in the near future.
Saturday and Sunday were great but it seems like the economy has dug into the convention scene a bit as we have literally been the only company here who makes a DAW, but that hasn’t stopped the spirit of the people walking around checking out all the new gear. Speaking of “spirit”, among the many artists stopping by to say hello was Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, formerly of the legendary Run DMC. He’s using SONAR on his new record and came by the booth to say hello along with another legend Johnny Juice who is part of The Bomb Squad and Public Enemy. It was also a great pleasure to meet Cut Master DC who stopped by as well to let us know that he is switching over to SONAR from another DAW and we appreciate having him on board as well.
The rest of the weekend was a bit slower but I got a chance to meet up with some great people from other companies such as Steven Slate and former Cakewalk employee (but still a current SONAR user) Nick Dika who does marketing for Izotope. I would like to thank all the great people who stopped by to say hello, as well as all the people who were forced to come over by their own will, after hearing the power of Session Drummer 🙂
Thanks for reading,
Jimmy Landry
Cakewalk Artist Relations Manager