A SONAR Story with Cory Hawthorne

After seeing Vancouver’s own “Payolas” at the age of 15, singer songwriter, guitarist and sound designer Cory Hawthorne knew he wanted to become a musician. 2 weeks later he bought his first guitar, a no name Les Paul copy and it changed the rest of his life. He went on from there to get a degree in music from the University of British Columbia in 2000 and release his first solo album in 2012 under his name called The King of the Broken Hearts. In the midst of pursuing his dream to be a rock star, a guitar student Cory was teaching approached him about getting into sound design for video games, and for the last 18 years has become an expert at the craft. He has released many titles including Prototype; one of the best-selling games from Radical Entertainment along with Scarface and Simpsons Hit & Run, which went on to sell over 7 million copies . This last June, with a small team at Charm Games, Cory released his first virtual reality game titled “FORM”.

In January 2017, Six soon to be very tired people, started on what would become a new benchmark for VR games through a lot of blood, sweat, support from their families, and sacrifices.

“It’s immersive, engaging and beautiful, setting a new standard for virtual reality and visual design”
 4/5 – Hardcore Gamer

“FORM shows a command of the medium that few have grasped with such clear intention”
 8.5/10 – Road to VR

“Charm Games has created a mesmerizing experience from start to finish.”
 4/5 – VRFocus

Cory had a very limited time of 6 months to compose all the music, create all the sound FX from scratch, and record all the voice over dialog for FORM but he used this hard constraint to ground him in the project. Collaboration with his team allowed him to make decisions quickly and focus on what was most appropriate for the game.

“Working on FORM was like a sound designer’s dream. I had unlimited options but there was one thing that I knew and that was if it sounded good, so I had to trust myself all the time throughout the process. We reached the end of the line and I had to write and record 3 tracks in 3 hours because we were releasing the game in 2 days. I tried to focus on the mood and nail it and not get caught up in what scale I should use. Is this a Lydian vibe? I didn’t have time for that stuff because I had to finish a track in that hour.”

At the start of the project, Creative Director Derek Young told Cory to “Be Weird” and “Do something no one would recognize”. For Cory, that meant that everything needed to be unique and made from scratch. He utilized the Rapture Pro synth for nearly all the FX design, sometimes starting with a simple sine wave and tweaking from there. The lesser known synth company, WOK VST Plug-in’s Ghost synth was utilized for several simple lead sounds in the musical compositions. To create the voices for the game, Cory recruited local talent for many of the roles but ended up being the voice of the lead character’s computer. What originally started as a test recording from an iPod 5 microphone had just the right nuance to be the real voice so all the rest of the computer dialog was recorded on the same iPod 5 and used in the final game.

How can others get into game sound design?

“It’s a weird thing. You have to be tough and be ready to move with all the changes. Get ready for a lot of late nights. You need to go into it knowing that the industry is changing all the time and for most, the days of having your own studio is gone. It’s all contract work or not a full-time job for most people. I’m very grateful to be where I am at Charm. A great way to start though is to make your own original FX library using synthesis and your own recordings, as well as to find the students in your area who are making games or going to school for it and connect with them. Work with them for what they can afford, or even for free or on spec if they have no budget and you like the project, until you can get off the ground.”

If you could give one piece of advice to other SONAR users, what would it be?

These days you can get a mic, an audio interface, a copy of SONAR, and a laptop for almost nothing so there is no excuse to not make music but you should start now using what you have and don’t try to sound like anybody else. As Stravinsky said “The more constraint one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution”.

Cory Hawthorne

You can hear Cory’s music on Spotify, SoundCloud, and also at his webpage www.coryhawthorne.com

Follow him on Twitter: @CoryHawthorne

Charm Games

For more information, visit the Charm Games website at: www.charmgames.com

Subscribe to their YouTube channel: youtube.com/c/charmgames

Follow them on Twitter: @CharmGames

Like them on Facebook: Facebook.com/CharmGames

Play FORM Today

Oculus Rift Store: www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1491102584268860/

Get it on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/408520/FORM/

Cakewalk wants to tell your story!

Through blood, sweat and tears you’ve overcome obstacles to reach a level of success that you’re proud of. We want to hear your stories, and with your permission, we’d like to share them with our community.

We will not publish any of this information without your permission. If your story is selected, we will reach out to you via the email address you provide, and we will schedule a follow-up interview with you to learn more.

Tell us your story here!

October 2, 2017

Take Control of Your Mix with Mix Recall

Mix Recall is a powerful way to organize mixes within a project—Whether you want to have a mix without vocals or a version of the song using a different processing chain on the drums—Mix Recall is the perfect solution for these types of situations, but it can do more than that. Say you are handed a project from someone else using SONAR or you got a new plug-in you want to try out using a previously recorded song, Mix Recall can help you handle this as well by getting your project reset back to a neutral position.

Adding the Mix Recall Module

Check that you have the Mix Recall module available in the Control Bar. You can add it to the Control Bar if it’s not already there by right-clicking in a blank space and adding it from the menu.

Creating a Mix Scene

Start by creating a new Mix Scene with the current project setting using the [Save As New Scene] button. This will allow us to make a change and then come back to the original point to see the difference.

Make a change to the mix by adjusting the volume on a couple of tracks or muting a track previously un-muted.

Click the [Save As New Scene] button on the Mix Recall module again to save these changes into another mix scene. Give this mix a unique name and save it. Now you can reload your previous mix and see the changes reverted back to where we started. Selecting the second mix scene with bring us back to the present state of the mix. You can also use the [Recall Previous Scene] button to toggle back and forth between 2 mix scenes or simply go back to the last mix scene you were at.

Resetting a Mix

Using a project you want to reset, click the drop down arrow on the Mix Recall module and select “Reset Mix…” from the menu. This will remove all automation envelopes, plug-ins, and reset the ProChannel back to the default modules along with any controls in SONAR.

That’s It! Now you can get back to working on your mix instead of trying to manage multiple saved versions of the same song or trying to manually remove each plug-in or automation envelope.

Advanced Techniques

Create a save point as you begin your mix once you have basic levels and panning so you can always go back and hear your project from the start.
Create save points within your mix to go back and see how it has progressed.
Save several iterations of a mix and bounce each when sending it to a client or friend. Here are some common iterations to save as Mix Scenes.
- Vocal Up Mix (Plus 1-3dB)
- Vocal Down Mix (Minus 1-3db)
- No Vocals
- Radio Edit Mix
Time box your mix by only giving yourself an allotted amount of time and dividing that up over what you need to do. Save each stage as a Mix Scene to go back and look at your progress and how you did at each stage.

Mix Recall is available in SONAR Artist, Professional and Platinum

September 25, 2017

Creating Your Own Guitar Tone with TH3 in SONAR

TH3 Cakewalk edition allows for anybody with SONAR to have access to amazing guitar tones. It comes with loads of amps, cabinets, effects and even allows for changing the position of the mic. If you want to do stereo processing of effects to create a stereo delays or parallel processing by mixing two amps together, you can do that as well.

Where to start?

Insert TH3 on to your guitar track and make sure you are using the correct input and have the Input Echo button enabled to hear what is plugged into that input.

A good place to start after inserting TH3 on to your guitar track is to check your level into the plug-in and the tuning of your guitar.

Check your level:

Strum a big chord on your guitar to see how much signal is coming into the plug-in. There should be a healthy amount of signal coming in and no clipping in the red.

Tuning:

Play each string and adjust until you see the tuning pin is in the center for each string.

Auditioning Amps

Open the [Components] section on the right if it is not already open and select the amps category from the list. Once you have that selected, you can then drag in the first amp at the top. You’ll be asked if you want to insert a matching cab, click [YES PLEASE!].

Give it a try! To audition other amps and cabs click the up and down arrows on the top left corner of the amp head or cab. Depending on what you are going for this is where you’ll want to pick out an amp that has some of the characters you are going for.

Here is a list of the included amps in TH3 Cakewalk along with the units they are modeled after.

Bassface ’59 – Modeled after the ’59 Fender Bassman
Darkface ’65 – Modeled after the ’65 Fender Twin
Modern – Modeled after the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier
Overloud Custom Power – Overloud Custom amp
Randall T2 – Official model of the Randall T2 head
Rock ’64 – Modeled after the Marshall JTM45
Rock 900 – Modeled after the Marshall JCM900
Slo 88 – Modeled after the Soldano x88r
THD Univalve – Official model of the THD Univalve Single- Ended Class A amplifier
Top30 – Modeled after the Vox AC30
Tweed Deluxe – Modeled after the Fender Tweed Deluxe
Bass SuperTube VR – Modeled after the Ampeg SVT-VR

Spice It Up Now

I’m going for a pretty classic tone that is mostly clean with a little bit of grit on it. I picked out the Top30 type head with a matching cab and will add an overdrive going into the amp. Go to the Components section again and select overdrive category. Drag in the TUBE NINE over before the amp. Dial in a some gain to taste using the “Drive” control and give it a whirl.

There are many other effects included with the TH3 Cakewalk edition, here is a compete list of everything you get.

TUBE NINE Overdrive
FatMuff Fuzz
FUZZRACE Fuzz
CHR-2 Chorus
Digital Delay
RSS Compressor
ANALOG FLANGER
Rich Flanger
9-0′ Phaser
AQTX Spring Reverb
AmpTrem Tremelo
Auto-Wah
cry maybe Wah
Gate Expander
Volume

Mastering Space

Using spacial type effects like reverb and delay are critical in getting many of the classic guitar tones from the past. Here are some good rules to live by when getting started using reverb, delays and other spacey effects.

Use modulation type effects like Chorus, Phasers, and Flangers toward the middle of your chain after distortions & overdrives.
Use Delays after the Modulation type effects.
Place reverbs at the end of your chain.

TH3 Cakewalk edition is included in SONAR Home Studio, Artist, Professional, and Platinum.

March 13, 2017

Cakewalk Announces Simpler SONAR Prices

A decade ago, we came up with a system in good faith to give our customers the best price possible based on what Cakewalk products they already owned. But as we developed new products and updates over the years, and the number of upgrade pricing paths multiplied, our system became more confusing to customers and became less helpful.

Now it’s time to simplify! Continue reading “Cakewalk Announces Simpler SONAR Prices”

June 14, 2016

A New Era For Cakewalk (an open letter from CTO Noel Borthwick)

Why we introduced Lifetime Updates

With the introduction of Lifetime Updates for SONAR Platinum, there have been many theories as to why Cakewalk would take such a bold move. For us it’s simple—it’s better for customers, it’s better for us, and we believe this way of doing business is the future, so we’re embracing it today.

Some history: In the past (pre 2015), we followed a more traditional annual upgrade cycle where we released a single version of SONAR each year. This model was flawed on many levels, both for developers and end users. As developers, we’re under extreme pressure to finish a product by a certain date to meet a revenue goal – often regardless of whether it’s ready or not.

Adding a lot of features to a product in a short cycle can create problems even skilled QA teams and beta testers won’t find. Furthermore, end users have to try and learn a huge amount of information at once—which is much less efficient than learning features at one’s own pace over time.

Rolling Updates: So we did away with annual versions of SONAR and decided to work on one version —continuously. We can make smaller incremental changes at a faster pace without disrupting the end user’s stability and workflow, as well as react more quickly to user requests. No more waiting until the next version to get problems resolved as is the case with many other products. We call this model “Rolling Updates” and as a developer and CTO of Cakewalk, I love it!

Rolling Updates also provides benefits beyond making new features available as soon as they’re ready. If something needs fixing or improving, we can just fix it and ship it without your having to wait a whole year. For example the Mix Recall, Patch Points, and Upsampling features all benefited from this interaction with end users. And doing features incrementally, in shorter time periods, promotes better stability and performance.

Although it’s never easy to do something disruptive in an industry that’s resistant to change (remember the outcry when Netflix decided to focus on streaming instead of DVDs?), the response has been decisive and positive. We didn’t want to end up like the record companies who refused to acknowledge the emergence of MP3s and digital media as a distribution model, and became almost irrelevant in the process.

Doing Rolling Updates for the past year-and-a-half has convinced us this approach is far superior to the huge yearly update—so much so, that for a limited time, we’ve made the bold decision to offer Lifetime Updates for SONAR Platinum, giving you all future SONAR updates for free.

Lifetime Updates shake up the mix even more, and offer a better way of doing business that benefits everyone. One great side effect is you get to help us improve SONAR during this process with your feedback and suggestions, creating a partnership with a common goal: You want to use the finest software in the world, and we want to create it. That’s why we are doubling down by offering the opportunity to join us on this journey.

With SONAR Analytics now at our disposal, and a responsive feedback portal on its way, we’ll be monitoring your comments, feedback, and requests closely so we can respond quickly and ensure that your experience with SONAR is…awesome. At Cakewalk, we believe that there’s no better way to succeed than by having happy customers. It really is that simple.

OS X Compatibility Coming

What’s more, SONAR will soon be available to a brand new audience of music creators with our SONAR OS X Alpha, coming this Fall.

With Windows and Mac split almost evenly among musicians, it made no sense to ignore half the market—or ignore the numerous requests over the years from music creators who’ve wanted to experience SONAR’s superior workflow, audio quality, and tools on the Mac.

For PC users who wonder if we will keep up the same pace of Windows development, the answer is an emphatic “yes”—we will never give up our lineage as a Windows-based DAW.

Since our announcement, I’ve received many e-mail’s from industry peers showing genuine excitement about SONAR on the Mac. In fact, having more people using SONAR will benefit Cakewalk long-term and improve the product as a whole. However we are still in the early stages of the Mac development project, so please be patient 🙂

All of this may seem too good to be true, and some people wonder if there’s a catch. But we’ve put a lot of thought into how we can make changes that benefit everyone. Cakewalk has experienced a major rejuvenation, and we want nothing more than to continue what has brought us to this point. We love the new Rolling Updates model, and even many users who resisted the idea at first have become converts after experiencing the many benefits.

Welcome to a better way to produce and experience music software, and thank you for joining us on this journey of innovation and excitement. We couldn’t have gotten to where we are without you.

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Noel Borthwick
CTO, Cakewalk

[Noel Borthwick started at Cakewalk 18 years ago and has actively contributed to SONAR development since its inception. He is also a jazz guitar player and a SONAR user.]

March 14, 2016

LANDR Blind Taste-Test

UPDATE: Results are in! Here’s the answer key:

It was a very tight race, but the clear winner was Track 3 (so there is definitely still plenty of room in this world for professional mastering houses).

In 2nd place was Track 5, which was followed extremely narrowly by the LANDR masters, where Track 4 beat Track 2 by almost nothing. Track 6 was next, and Track 1 was last.

Note: These masters were intentionally not level-matched, as we believe that for a song of this style, the resultant level was part of the criteria for the quality of the masters. We will be doing another one of these tests in the future, wherein the levels will all be matched.

What do you think? Do these results surprise you?

We thought it would be fun to have a blind mastering taste-test and include LANDR. Below is a track from a project I Co-wrote/recorded/produced/mixed compliments of a great artist from Finland by the name of Peppina.

Track 1 is the actual pre-master, and then the following tracks are masters rendered by different means.

One of these tracks (the one that is actually on the record) is mastered by a prominent mastering house/engineer in NYC.

A few also may be rendered with different LANDR settings 😉

One is also mastered using all in-house Cakewalk plug-ins…

Below these tracks you will find a survey, please vote for your favorite “master” and leave any general comments.

Results will be posted in 2 weeks.

Create your own user feedback survey

January 25, 2016

5 New Features That Make SONAR Steam Edition a Great Upgrade

If you’re using Music Creator 6 or 7 on Steam, you already know how easy it is to set up and record with Cakewalk recording software. Now that you’ve gotten some experience, it’s time to take your productions to the next level with SONAR Steam Edition. A more inclusive DAW, SONAR Steam Edition combines the simple, easy-to-use layout of Music Creator with even more powerful tools and features for the ultimate recording and mixing experience.

5: Creativity Without Limits

SONAR Steam Edition follows the same mantra as any SONAR: “Creativity Without Limits.” SONAR will help you take your creations to the next level with unlimited Input/Output, Tracks, and Busses. You’ll also gain the ability to route any track anywhere with Universal Routing Technology, great for recording FX, creating submixes, and tons of other creative uses.

Feature	Music Creator 7	SONAR Steam Edition
Simultaneous I/O	8 x 8	Unlimited
Audio Tracks	32	Unlimited
Instrument Tracks	8	Unlimited
Patch Points & Aux Tracks	N/A	Unlimited

4: Audio and MIDI Engine Updates

Thanks to SONAR’s Rolling Updates, we’ve implemented dozens of fixes and enhancements — and that’s just to the Audio and MIDI engines! This means a cleaner, faster, smoother, and more efficient creative experience from start to finish.

3: More Audio FX

More FX means more creative potential, and when you want even more tools to shape your sound, SONAR has you covered. You’ll receive a whole new suite of VST FX, and a few upgrades on the FX you already have like TH2. And those Style Dials you’ve come to know and love? You get more of those, too.

2: Expanded Clip Libraries and File I/O

SONAR Steam Edition has a little something special that none of the other versions have. We added a whole toolset designed specifically for game developers — but anyone can use them! This means you get a free Sound FX library that can be used for any musical or post-production project. You can export clips directly formatted for RPG Maker. You can even import image files to create your own track icons for a speedier workflow!

1: Great New Instruments

SONAR Steam Edition boasts an incredible upgrade to your synth collection. You get:

Session Drummer 3, a more flexible and user-friendly upgrade to SI – Drum Kit.
Z3TA+, a world-renowned, legendary synth whose sounds can be heard on electronic productions the world over.
Our newest synth addition, Rapture Session, a streamlined synth that plays back all of your programs from Cakewalk Sound Center, plus includes an 11-instrument library of select sounds from our flagship synth, Rapture Pro.

Learn more about SONAR Steam Edition here.

January 19, 2016

Melodyne 4 Essential Coming Soon To SONAR Professional & Platinum

Celemony has graciously introduced a brand new Melodyne update to the world, and we’re including it in the SONAR Manchester Update free of charge for all Professional & Platinum customers with an active Rolling Updates Membership. What makes this Melodyne upgrade so great?

Edit Entire Mixes

Melodyne 4 introduces a new Universal algorithm, ideally suited to time-stretch and pitch-shift entire mixes. It also provides a more CPU-friendly way to edit polyphonic material without sacrificing any of the superior quality you expect from Melodyne.

Modern New Interface

Much like SONAR, Melodyne’s new UI has been designed to fit your workflow, adding customizable configurations and better information overviews. It’s also been optimized for compatibility and stability with all the latest 32-bit and 64-bit Operating Systems and DAWs.

Improved Tempo Detection

Melodyne 4’s new tempo algorithms detect tempos, time signatures and changes more accurately than ever before, allowing you to to match the tempo of any audio clip or loop to any other audio clip or loop more precisely.

Multi-Track Viewing (Melodyne Studio only)

SONAR users can enjoy the ability to view the data from multiple audio tracks all in one single Melodyne window, making it much faster and easier to synchronize notes on different tracks. This unprecedented new feature is useable exclusively in the current edition of SONAR.

Like what you’re reading? Upgrade or Renew today or Try SONAR for free!

For more information about Melodyne 4, please visit http://www.celemony.com/en/help/helpcenter

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January 8, 2016

SONAR Platinum vs. SONAR X3 Producer: Importing Audio

SONAR Platinum vs. SONAR X3 Producer Speed Importing Audio

A few weeks back, we released this video demonstrating the drastic speed improvement when inserting 100 blank audio tracks into the current edition of SONAR.

If you saw that video, you’ll recall that SONAR Platinum, in less than one second, accomplished what SONAR X3 took about 13 seconds to complete — a 2,600% improvement!

As we continue to make improvements to SONAR Platinum (and Artist & Professional as well) through Rolling Updates, we thought it might be fun to race SONAR Platinum against SONAR X3 Producer in their ability to import actual audio files.

The video below, complete with drag race audio, a rock n’ roll soundtrack, and a couple of millisecond-accurate stopwatches, places SONAR Platinum and SONAR X3 Producer side-by-side to see who is the real speed demon.

I’ll spoil it a little and tell you that SONAR Platinum is the winner here, but the illustrated difference in speed may truly shock you!

Note: If you liked the soundtrack, be sure to check out the Rock Guitar Anthems loop pack!

November 19, 2015

5 Major Speed Optimizations in Upcoming SONAR Kingston Update

As we work to perfect SONAR, we’ve focused not only on useful new features, but also improvements to the core program. This month, we targeted our efforts on streamlining SONAR in major ways that will help hobbyists and power users alike.

For the upcoming SONAR Kingston update, CTO Noel Borthwick ran a few benchmark tests to compare, apples-to-apples, exactly how much better SONAR is performing now versus SONAR X3. In every case, the SONAR Kingston update showed marked improvements over SONAR X3 to perform the most common tasks.

SONAR Kingston Benchmarks — *Tests performed on a Haswell Core i7 5960X with 16 GB RAM running 64-bit Windows 8.1

Want to feel the effects of this progress for yourself? Upgrade or try SONAR free today.

SONAR is officially supported on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.

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