6 Awesome Google Doodles For The Music Nerd

1. Les Paul’s 96th Birthday

For the man who created musical history, Google put together an interactive guitar app that allows you to strum, record, and enjoy the wonderful sounds of a classic Les Paul. A sound that has defined guitar for the past century.

2. Robert Moog’s 78th Birthday

A tribute to Robert Moog, who brought us the electronic analog Moog Synthesizer. This, just like the Les Paul, became a staple in musical history.

This highly interactive app let’s you shape just about any sound you want and then record, playback, and share it with your friends.

3. Claude Debussy’s 151st Birthday

This Doodle plays Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The developer was able to sync this beautiful animation to a sequence of one of Debussy’s most recognized and magical pieces.

4. John Lennon’s 70th Birthday

To pay tribute to one of the most influential people of the 20th century, Google Doodler’s put together a short animation that plays Imagine synced to a psychedelic landscape of moving pictures.

5. 30th Anniversary of PAC-MAN

This one is probably more on the gamer side, but that music could never be mistaken for any other game in history. Simply click on “Insert Coin” and you’ll kill at least 5 minutes of your day reliving the most classic game created for arcade.

6. Freddie Mercury’s 65th Birthday

An incredible animation for Queen’s “Having a good time” was posted to take you on a visual anecdote in memory of rock legend Freddie Mercury. The animator cleverly incorporated themes from other famous songs like “Bicycle” as well as wardrobe that Freddie sported during his years of fame.

June 23, 2014

A New Way To Learn Synthesis – Syntorial: Z3TA+ 2 Edition

Syntorial: Z3TA+ 2 Edition – A New Way To Learn Synthesis
Syntorial is video game-like training software that will teach you how to program synth patches by ear. With almost 200 lessons, combining video demonstrations with interactive challenges, you’ll get hands on experience programming patches on a built-in soft synth and learn everything you need to know to start making your own sounds with ease.

Now comes with over 3 hours of Z3TA+ 2 video lessons!

Learn more and try it for free

May 2, 2014

Save up to 75% off Gobbler Storage through May 4th

Gobbler Spring Sale: Save up to 75% through May 4th
Spring is here and Gobbler has some sunshine for your creative world. From now until Sunday, May 4th, they’re offering deals on all plans, with savings of up to 75% off regular prices. If you’ve been thinking about starting a new collaboration or getting your projects organized and backed up to the cloud, now is a great time to make it happen.

Create more, worry less, and treat yourself to a Gobbler Spring sale deal.

Save on Gobbler Plans

8 Reasons Why Gobbler Cloud Storage is Awesome For Musicians

Learn How Gobbler is Integrated in SONAR X3

February 4, 2014

SONAR X3 Making Its Mark in the LA Scene

On the backend of the 2014 NAMM Show, we had an opportunity to take a spin around LA and drop in on a few SONAR users hard at work. From rock, to EDM and just about every genre in between, here are what some SONAR X3 users in the LA scene are up to:

Adventure Club

While we were making the rounds, we were lucky enough to find out that the Canadian duo Adventure Club was camping out in downtown LA for a while with their mobile SONAR rig. Adventure Club is defining a new wave of modern musicians and SONAR is at the forefront of their sonic assault. Originally hailing from Montreal, the duo has recently been all over the globe playing to more and more dedicated fans after seeing the success of over 1.3 million views with their single “Gold” feat. Luna. Their SONAR tracks have been streamed over a million times on Spotify, and they were noted in the 2013 Top 10 artists most consumed on SoundCloud.

AC has been touring across North America, as well as parts of Europe and Australia and has also played at various music festivals including the American Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Nevada. They also made their first appearance at the Ultra Music Festival-2013 in Miami and additionally found themselves playing at the Ultra Music Festival in Seoul, South Korea in June 2013.

The duo’s remix of “Crave You” by the Flight Facilities was featured in the episode “Restraint” of the MTV television series Teen Wolf. We got a chance to sit down with Christian and listen to some of his productions in SONAR and found it interesting to see how he gets some of his unique sounds Continue reading “SONAR X3 Making Its Mark in the LA Scene”

January 10, 2014

SONAR X3 earns Keyboard magazine's Key Buy award

SONAR X3 earns Keyboard magazine’s Key Buy award
What happens when a former Pro Tools and Cubase user puts SONAR X3 to the test? Well that’s exactly what Keyboard magazine reviewer Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy, Bootsy Collins) did, and the result was a Key Buy award for SONAR X3. In the review he concludes that “SONAR X3 is a mature, vibrant program that’s a pleasure to use. As far as I am concerned, there’s no looking back.”

Ease of use: “After working with SONAR X3 Producer since its release, I’ve become a convert. DAWs are always subjective and personal choice, but SONAR made complete sense to me — sort of like trying on shoes that don’t need breaking in.”

Workflow: “Beyond the ease of use, SONAR X3 puts the fun back into recording for me. Part of that is the stability and freedom from freezes — I didn’t have to fight the program or my computer, which helps. The workflow is painless, so the experience became all about making music.”

Comping: “What makes this special is how fast and smooth the whole process is.”

Melodyne Essential and ARA integration: “SONAR blew my mind when I found out I could drag an audio bass part into Melodyne and convert it into MIDI, creating instant doubling of bass guitar lines with synth bass Continue reading “SONAR X3 earns Keyboard magazine's Key Buy award”

January 9, 2014

Cakewalk at CES 2014 Update

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
Continue reading “Cakewalk at CES 2014 Update”

January 7, 2014

Cakewalk and SONAR X3 at 2014 International CES Convention

Things are moving fast and in a very positive direction here at Cakewalk. It’s an exciting time with our new Gibson brand alliance, and we are excited and honored to announce that for the first time we have a presence at the 2014 CES Convention in Las Vegas. CES is known as one of the premier conferences in the world where the top-tiered technology companies come together to show off new products, discuss the current and future climates of the industry, and of course… NETWORK.

Cakewalk’s Head of Artist and Public Relations Jimmy Landry along with Product Specialist Dan Gonzalez will be on location at CES and will be sharing their experiences through our Instagram account as well as our other social media outlets. They will be in the heart of CES at the Gibson tent showing off the power of SONAR X3 along with other Cakewalk products.

Follow Cakewalk on Instagram and Twitter to get real-time updates on all the CES/Cakewalk interaction.

December 16, 2013

[Closed] Enter to win SONAR X3 Producer with Gobbler inegration

NOTE: This contest is closed and the winners have been notified. Congrats to Brendon Foley, Darren Terry, Sanawman, and Jimmy Taylor!

Want to win a copy of SONAR X3 Producer ($500 value)? Take 2 minutes to enter our Instagram contest: http://instagram.com/p/hyduV8zEq1/

Hurry, this contest ends Wednesday, Dec. 18th 2013!

Here’s how to enter:
1) Go to Instagram and follow both @CakewalkINC and @GobblerHQ
2) “Regram” the contest photo (just take a screenshot of it & re-post it to your feed)
3) Add “#GOBBLERSONAR” somewhere in your caption
4) You’re done! Just wait until Fri Dec 20th, when we’ll announce the 4 winners!

*Official rules*

With SONAR X3, you can use the newly integrated Gobbler module for peace-of-mind w/ auto-backups to the cloud & collaborate by sending/receiving whole sessions, all direct from the DAW!

Get free Gobbler backup & storage.

October 11, 2013

SONAR X3 Feature Spotlight: Melodyne Essential with ARA integration

One of the most talked about features in SONAR X3 has been the new ARA integration. Every version of SONAR X3 now includes ARA Integration which allows you to use Melodyne as if it were part of SONAR X3. In addition, SONAR X3 Studio and Producer also include Melodyne Essential (retail value $99).

While including Melodyne Essential is a huge upgrade in terms of pitch correction, it’s the ARA integration that really takes it over the top. The main benefit of ARA is that it allows SONAR to integrate with plug-ins that can edit and analyze audio, such as Melodyne. ARA greatly improves the workflow when using plugins like Melodyne that do MIDI analysis and pitch and timing correction. Compatible plug-ins can exchange information about the project’s timeline data, including audio clips, tempo, pitch, rhythm and much more, which allows them to behave as if the plug-in was part of SONAR.

In a recent article on CreateDigitalMusic.com, industry expert Peter Kirn stated the obvious: “there’s no other way to say this: Celemony’s Melodyne line of products is just better than any other offering out there.” Kirn later went on to proclaim, “Cakewalk has done more with the SDK for ARA than any other host so far.”

Read the ARA integration article on CreateDigitalMusic.com

Developer Notes: SONAR X3 ARA Integration

SONAR X3 Tip: Easy Audio to MIDI Conversion

SONAR X3 Tip: Make your vocal thicker with Melodyne

SONAR X3 Tip: Drum Replacement with ARA and Addictive Drums

Upgrade to SONAR X3 Producer (includes Melodyne Essential)

May 22, 2013

Music Creator 6 Touch now available for download on Steam

Music Creator 6 Touch on Steam If there is anything the Cakewalk crew likes as much as music, it’s computer technology. So, as you might imagine, we have more than our fair share of hardcore PC gamers.

When the Cakewalk gamers found out that Steam (the enormous video game platform by Valve) was opening up to offer other computer software, we became hell-bent on being the first major music software on board. And that day has finally come!

We a VERY happy to announce that Music Creator 6 Touch is now available for download on Steam!

Music Creator 6 Touch is a great fit for Steam users and anybody looking to get started making music with fun, powerful, and inexpensive recording software. Music Creator 6 Touch makes it easy to create original music with no musical experience required. Music Creator has all the tools, loops, instruments, and FX needed to create, edit, and mix music, transforming any Windows 7 or 8 computer into a music studio. Musician’s can share music with the world by burning a CD or using SoundCloud to post music on Facebook and Twitter.

Music Creator 6 Touch was previously available as a download from Cakewalk’s store for $49.99/£39.99/€49.99, and now it makes its debut on Steam. Created by Valve, makers of best-selling game franchises like Portal and Counter-Strike, Steam has more than 50 million users around the world and offers more than 2,000 titles. And the folks at Valve could not be cooler.

They let us have a little fun recreating the song “Want you gone” from the Portal 2 video game in Music Creator for the new Music Creator 6 Touch video. Check it out!