Cakewalk’s Director of Engineering Bob Damiano, or the artist known as Roberts Reason, was recently featured as the Center Stage artist on the Saturday Night Rocks internet radio show at Mixposure.com. Bob is a seasoned guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and engineer who has been playing in bands since he was 15 years old. When not behind the scenes at Cakewalk, Bob runs Rock Science Studios.
The program director for Saturday Night Rocks is Mike Kohlgraf, a SONAR fan and Cakewalk forum member.
Cakewalk introduces Music Creator 5, the newest version of our leading home music-making software. With its brand new look and feel, Music Creator 5 is everything you need to start making music fast – offering a host of new features and a streamlined user interface. Simple recording, editing, mixing, great-sounding instruments, and tons of effects – it’s all here in one package… all for less than the price of four CDs!
New Features Include:
•A simplified user interface that puts the controls at your fingertips. All you have to do is focus on making music
•Active Controller Technology (ACT)™ – connect a MIDI keyboard to your PC and automatically control your mix, effects or virtual instruments with its knobs and sliders
•Cakewalk Sound Center™ – an exclusive, easy-to-use tool that combines 150 different instrument sounds from our award-winning professional instruments, Rapture & Dimension Pro
•IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube X-GEAR™ – a built-in virtual guitar amp, plug directly into your computer for great sounding guitar parts
•Add your own soundtrack to your home movies and other digital video files – including .MOV, .WMV, .MPEG – before you upload it to YouTube, MySpace and Facebook
•Burn CDs with Music Creator’s integrated CD Burner and share your music online with Cakewalk Publisher
•And much more…
For More Information:
See the Music Creator 5 press release
ALSO please visit the Music Creator 5 web pages
For more than 80 years, The NAB Show, produced annually by the National Association of Broadcasters, has served as the premiere event for broadcast technology professionals. But there’s more to the show than just tv and radio broadcasting, it’s the ultimate educational experience! Technology professionals and solutions providers from every corner of the world, come to the show each year to explore every stage of the audio / visual content lifecycle, from creation to consumption.
Cakewalk is one of this year’s exhibitors showing off their state-of-the-art creations at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada from April 20 through April 23. Follow along with Robin Kelly live from the show, here on The Cakewalk Blog.
Here’s his first post:
At the Roland Systems Group booth, Zac Kenney and I were presenting the SONAR V-Studio 700 as the mixing and editing solution to the V-Mixing system. At the heart of the system, is the M-400 Digital Mixing Console from RSS by Roland. Add to that the personal monitoring system, allowing each live performer to have up to 40 individual monitor mixes and the digital snake whick allows up to 40 channels of audio over a single CAT-5 cable, and you have an extremely impressive live mixing setup.
So how does Cakewalk’s SONAR integrate into this system? You can split the signal coming down the CAT-5 cable and connect it to the network card on your PC. Using the REAC driver, you then have 40 discreet inputs going into SONAR to record each channel individually to their own track.
After the live show the VS-700 becomes the platform for mixing and editing the 40-track live performance. From live venues and houses of workship to broadcast customers, the feedback was extremely good. They were all impressed with the flexibility and depth the SONAR V-Studio System provides. Add to that the ability to harness and control all the power of SONAR via a hardware inferface, and you have a ‘perfect solution’. The Fantom VS is an added bonus as this provides the added ability to add extra synth tracks after recording. The ARX slot was also wowing the customers when the ARX-01 Drum card was added.
In Las Vegas, people seem just about willing to bet on anything, but one thing no one I spoke to today was willing to gamble on was their audio. All through the day, customers were coming up to me explaining bow they prefer to mix in SONAR because it ‘just sounds better’ than other programs. Of course, it is always nice to hear such positive compliments about our flagship DAW but in a way it is extra special to hear this coming from folks who have very high (if not limitless) budgets, allowing them to choose any audio platform they wish. Even with that they are still using SONAR because of it’s quality.
It makes sense if you think about it. SONAR has a 64-bit double precision audio engine, multiple gain stages, and 64-bit/convolution plugins to sweeten the mix.
So YES. In Vegas, people will gamble on just about anything, anything but their audio quality!
That’s it for now. Day 2 starts tomorrow!
Robin Kelly
Cakewalk’s Director of Worldwide MI Sales
Guitar World’s Gear Spotlight is a new segment about the latest and greatest gear available to guitar players, airing now on Comcast’s On Demand programming. The segment aired for the first time this past Friday, featuring Cakewalk’s new USB Audio & Midi Interfaces; UM-1G, UM-2G, UM-3G, and UA-1G! The segment will air on Comcast’s Life & Home channel until Monday May 4, 2009.
For those of you sans Comcast, see the video clip here on Guitar World’s Gear Spotlight
For more information on the products seen above, visit the Cable Products web page.
ASCAP’s Annual “I Create Music” EXPO is a three day event taking place next Thursday April 23 through Saturday April 25 at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. It is the one place where serious songwriters, composers and producers alike can connect face to face at panels, workshops, performances, exhibitor demos, one-on-one sessions and networking events.
This year, Cakewalk is hosting live demonstrations on the new SONAR V-Studio 700 given by Product Specialist Seth Perlstein and an exciting new masterclass in a fully-functional on-location studio!
Cakewalk Modern Music Creation & Demo Room
Expert producers and music creators will be using the award winning SONAR V-Studio 700 to exemplify different techniques, tips and tricks for the modern recording musician. Cutting edge technology is allowing creative people to take control of their music and turn demos into finished masters; this is the place to ask questions and learn.
The Home Studio Master ClassIn sessions taught throughout the day, pieces of music will be recorded by a producer and engineer and developed in a fully-functional on-location studio. Featured studio tools and products to include Auralex Acoustics, Behringer, Blue Microphones, Cakewalk, Gibson, iZotope, NightBird Studios, Roland, Solid State Logic and West LA Music. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to get a close-up view of the Home Recording process.
Thursday: Constructing & Recording a Unique Track that Cuts Through the Pack with Producer/Composer Gionvanni Loria
Friday: Composing & Producing for Film & TV with Producer/Composer Shawn Clement and Producer/Musician Justin Lassen
Saturday: Writing, Producing, & Recording a Contemporary Pop-Rock Song with Producers Jimmy Landry, Brandon Ryan and Jorg Kohring (from the band, Orbit Monkey) as well as Guest Artist Cori Yarckin
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.
Network! Network! NETWORK! If you want to get ahead in any industry, the key is to look for new contacts and more knowledge. Check out the following sites to meet and learn from others in the Music Industry and YOU could win a FREE SONAR Home Studio 7!
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!
