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ASCAP Expo 2009: Aspiring Producers & Industry Professionals Talk Trade

I guess day #2 technically starts at midnight, so I will take it from there where we were fortunate enough to land some passes to the ASCAP celebratory dinner and party at The Highlands on Hollywood Boulevard. Steve Thomas and I had a great time catching up with some CPU’s (Cakewalk Pro Users) including Vivek Maddala, Wendy Starland, Justin Lassen and Chuck Carr. 

We also got a chance to hang with our friend Jake Ottmann of EMI publishing who is overseeing our installment of the new V-100 and SONAR Producer into the EMI US Headquarters in New York City. 

ASCAP did an amazing job putting together a round of some pretty heavyweight songwriters who took turns banging out their hits in a very informal and interesting setting.  There is something so cool about hearing hit songs performed by the actual people who wrote them and not the people who you hear perform them on the radio.  It was a great night and it’s obvious that this ASCAP Expo is on its way to becoming one of the most respected music conferences in the US.

The morning came pretty quickly and just when I thought we would have a tough time matching up to the production quality of yesterday’s home studio master-class with Giovanni Lauren, in stepped Mr. Shawn Clement who scored a 30 second Land Rover spot in front of a packed house all day. 

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Cakewalk Tours A Retailer Near You

You’ve heard the news, you’ve seen the videos, now here’s your opportunity to check out SONAR V-Studio 700 and SONAR 8 in person. You’ll be able to twist the knobs, move the faders and learn about all of the incredible features this all-in-one system has to offer.

Whether you are interested in purchasing SONAR V-Studio 700, SONAR 8, or just want to see it the two products in action, Cakewalk Product Specialists will be at the stores to offer one-on-one training and clinics on the following dates below. More dates will be coming soon!

Guitar Center- Towson
1524 E. Joppa Road
Towson, MD 21286
(410) 821 5200
Clinic: Tuesday April 28 at 6:00pm

Guitar Center- North Dallas
4519 LBJ Freeway
Dallas, TX 75206
(972) 960 0011
Clinic: Tuesday April 28 at 6:00pm

Performance Audio
2456 S. West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
(801) 466 3196
Clinic: Thursday April 30 at 6:00pm

Alto Music
180 Carpenter Avenue
Middletown, NY 10940
(845) 692 6922
Clinic: Thursday April 30 at 6:00pm

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Cakewalk in LA: ASCAP 'I Create Music' Expo 2009

Hello everyone.  This is actually my first blog here on The Cakewalk Blog as the new Artist Relations Manager for the company.  I’m writing this from the The Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, CA where I am attending the ASCAP I CREATE MUSIC Expo. I’m here with my brilliant co-workers Brandon Ryan, Seth Perlstein and Mike Trujillo and we have quite a bit going on here this week.

I got into town on Monday and I spent some time with the artist Jessica Lombard who is tracking and mixing her new EP on our new V-Studio 100 (and SONAR 8 Producer) in Torrance, CA. You will be hearing more about this young artist (13 years old) soon here on the Cakewalk blog.

Tuesday, Brandon and I spent the day with the artist Dilana and her producer/band member Erik Eldénius at her home studio near Hollywood. What a great day we had creating an acoustic version of a song on her upcoming record with the new V-Studio 700. This song is still being developed but hopefully it will be available at some point when the record comes out in the near future. You might remember Dilana from the TV show “Rock Star Supernova” as the girl with the voice that can cut through metal? Anyway; we thank her and Erik for the day and wish her all the best with the new music. 

Yesterday, we arrived at ASCAP Expo and got set up for the demonstrations we have going on throughout the week. Last night, we got a chance to swing by some post ASCAP awards’ parties including the EMI Publishing party at XIV Terrace on Sunset which was fun. 

On to ASCAP…  To begin with, we have an actual recording room where we are developing a real track throughout the day, every day. Right now as I type, one of our CPUs (Cakewalk Pro User) Gionvanni Loria (Producer/Composer) who has used SONAR to work with such artists as Black Eyed Peas, Jack Johnson and Everlast is at the V-Studio 700 with Brandon Ryan creating a great track for the artist Tawny Ellis who will be coming in shortly to lay down some vocals. Also, we have a very informative demo room where Seth Perlstein is holding down the fort and giving great one-on-one advice to a room full of music creators. Later on this afternoon I am psyched to catch up with some great CPUs including Chuck Carr, Rob King, Justin Lassen, Cheese Beats, and Jorg Kohring (from the band Orbit Monkey).  

If you are in the LA area, please come out and say hello, and if you have time tomorrow I will be moderating a great panel at 3:15 in the Mount Olympus room at the Expo with the following people and topic:

When Demos Turn Into Masters: The Importance and Relevance of Project Studio Recordings

“Spider” Ron Entwistle – Producer, Songwriter, Remixer
Alex Hackford – A&R – Sony Computer Entertainment America/Playstation
Gavin Haverstick – Lead Acoustical Engineer – Auralex Acoustics
Emanuel Kiriakou – Songwriter, Producer – “Crush,” “What’s Left of Me,” “A Million Miles,” “2 in the Morning”
Ankur Malhotra – A&R, Urban/Pop – Capitol Records
Mark Needham – Mixer, Producer – The Killers, Iglu & Hartly, Metro Station

That’s it for now and we hope to see you at ASCAP. 

Thanks for reading,
Jimmy Landry

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NAB 2009: SONAR & V-Mixing System Wow Crowds

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

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Cakewalk Hosts Masterclass at ASCAP EXPO 2009

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

ASCAP EXPO 2009: Schedule of Events

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Cakewalk Sponsored Showcases At SXSW 2009

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.

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Cakewalk Prepares for Musikmesse 2009

Cakewalk is preparing for Musikmesse 2009 – Live for the Music! starting Wednesday April 1, 2009 in Frankfurt, Germany. As suspected, we have some huge announcements that are once again going to shake up the music industry. In addition, we are pleased to announce that SONAR 8 has been nominated for a MIPA (Musikmesse International Press Award) in the Recording Software category and SONAR V-Studio 700 has been nominated in the Recording Hardware category!

Cakewalk will be exhibiting at:
Edirol Booth, Hall: 5.1 Walkway: B Stand: 65
Ludwig-Erhard_Anlage 1, 60327 Frankfurt
April 1 – 4, 2009
More info on this year’s show!

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Last Chance to Register for the ASCAP New York Sessions

Join us at ASCAP’s New York Sessions on March 10, 2009 at Frederick P. Rose Hall (Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center) at Broadway and 60th Street in Manhattan. NY Sessions is a one-day career boosting event for songwriters and composers, featuring a special keynote speaker, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Rob Thomas.

Throughout the day, Cakewalk’s Product Specialists will be giving hands-on training sessions of the new SONAR V-Studio 700 music production system. Cakewalk is also sponsoring other events during the event, see below for more information:

Cakewalk Teaching Studio: A producer and engineer will develop a piece of music in a fully-functional on-location studio. SONAR V-Studio 700 will be the ‘centerpiece’ of the room.

Cakewalk Demonstration Room: Cakewalk Product Specialists will perform live SONAR V-Studio 700 and SONAR 8 demos. An experience station in the back of the room will provide an opportunity to get hands on with Cakewalk’s software.

The event is open to ASCAP members and non-members. 

Must register on ASCAP’s website to attend the event: Visit ASCAP’s Event Page for more information.

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NAMM Show 2009: Blogged by Cakewalk

Day 5: Well that’s it. The NAMM show is a wrap. Today is Sunday and while it is the last day of the show, there is definitely an air about the place that says the show is finally over and foot traffic is much lighter than it has been the whole rest of the show.

At 5pm when they finally turned the lights down, you could hear a wave of exhibitors clapping and cheering. If I were to tell you it was a quick show, I would be lying. But it was definitely a good show and we were able to reach out to a lot of people with all of our products including our new USB hardware devices and of course, our baby: The SONAR V-Studio 700.

Everyone here did a wonderful, professional job this week and I know we’re all proud of what we’ve accomplished.

As I wrap this up, I look forward to touching down at home in Boston and sleeping in my own bed. Though as much as I don’t mind the 80 degree weather in January, I think it’s the nasty winters at home that really make you appreciate the nice weather when you get it. Although, we could be another 4-5 months off from weather like this at home.

C’est la vie, thanks for reading, oh and scroll down the page to see our videos from NAMM:

Enjoy!

Ian: Out

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A Weekend at NAMM: In Pictures

As the Cakewalk team slowly settles back to earth after an epic weekend, we’ll be posting more and more footage from our weekend in Anaheim, California. Here are a few images from the conference that say it all:’Come together’ to educate and create great music!

More photos will be posted to our FlickR account in the coming days.