This is my first time at CES, and I can confirm that it is an enormous conglomeration of amazing technical craziness. Quite larger than NAMM, CES brings out all the largest companies in the world who want to put their best foot forward by impressing show-goers with their latest and greatest; and it doesn’t disappoint. As we stated a few days ago, we have been fortunate enough to obtain a booth at CES this year through our new Gibson affiliation and things so far have been nothing short of amazing.
Cakewalk Product Specialist Dan Gonzalez and myself have been in the in the Gibson tent demonstrating the new SONAR X3 along with Z3TA+ 2 and all the ProChannels modules since Tuesday. It always fun turning heads with folks that have never seen SONAR in action and that is surely the case here. There have been many new artists stopping by who are blown away when we show them features such as Track Templates and FX Chain Presets combines with the ProChannel. I am happy to say that we are making some new friends for sure.
The Gibson Tent has “proven” to be a vibrant spot to be to say the least. After spending some time with Gibson Social Media expert Sean Dooley, he showed me some twitter reports that displayed Gibson trending on four different spots in the top 10 by day 2 of the CES Convention. The Gibson Tent is positioned perfectly outside of the main halls of CES, so it’s very visible and surely an eye-catching specimen when leaving the main location – especially when the Back to the Future DeLorean is sitting smack-dab in front
. Top that off with a visit from the one and only Christopher Lloyd and you have yourself a CES spectacle.
In the back of the tent is a large performance stage where some amazing artists have been performing. Frankie Moreno is one of those artists who I can almost guarantee you will be hearing more about soon in mainstream media soon. Somehow, Frankie fuses authentic and original styles of 50’s and 60’s music with a modern overtones. He is a true “showman” who takes over a room with nothing short of dynamic vocals and instrumentation.
Another artist who absolutely blew our minds was Xander and the Peace Pirates out of Liverpool U.K. Taking about an amazing artist with an amazing story, soulful lead singer Keith Xander has overcome the obstacle of only having one arm where he amazes crowds picking and strumming with the use of a hook. You have to see it to believe it, because the quality of his playing, singing and musicianship is absolutely top-notch. The band uses PC’s to record and will be checking out SONAR X3 in the near future – we will keep you posted.
We had the good fortune to meet some other new artists including the current lead guitarist of Guns and Roses DJ Ashba, who has been on the road with the band most recently in Australia. He was intrigued on what he had heard about SONAR X3, and Cakewalk’s Dan Gonzalez got to show him firsthand what the buzz is all about.
Outside of the Gibson tent, I was able to venture into the main floor of CES for a bit where I saw some pretty amazing things. Besides robots and refrigerators that have full LCD TV’s built in, I have to admit that I was very impressed and entertained with the new 3d TV technology. Admittedly, I acknowledge the fact that I looked pretty ridiculous wearing 3d glasses, but with that being said, the 5 minutes I spent flying through giant magic mushroom fields was well worth it 😉
More soon and as always thanks for reading! JL