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EM Magazine Hosts SONAR 8 Masterclass On Groove Tool, Beatscape

If you haven’t seen Electronic Musician’s master-class on SONAR 8’s new loop instrument, Beatscape, this would be a great time to check it out!

Via basic, easy to follow instructions, EM takes you through the process of importing and organizing audio files into Beatscape’s library and more. A brand new feature to the SONAR platform, Beatscape offers 16 pads to load and trigger your loops or samples for sequencing your music and beats. It also includes a massive 4GB REX library with preloaded material (beats, breaks, phrases in many genres). With drag and drop capabilities, Beatscape brings a new level of entertainment to remixing tracks!

Take a look at the masterclass in full at EMusician.com

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Shawn Clement Scores 'Quantum Quest' Soundtrack

As reported by USA Today, SONAR user and award-winning composer for videogames, tv and film, Shawn Clement, will be promoting his new soundtrack at Comic-Con 2009 on Thursday, July 23 at the San Diego Convention Center.

Shawn scored the 3-D, computer generated, fully animated, feature length film, “Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey,” with an 82-piece orchestra and real NASA-discovered space sounds. Shawn will sit on a special Quantum Quest panel at the conference with film directors, Dr. Harry Kloor and Dan St.Pierre. The movie is set to release this fall.

Quantum Quest takes viewers on an atomic solar safari through the universe as Dave, a photon living on the sun, tries to save his friends from the forces of good and evil. The Core (good) is a kind being, who lives inside the suns.  His children are protons, photons, and neutrinos, which are created inside each Star, and are sent out into the universe to bring life, light, and knowledge. The Void (bad) is that which existed before the big bang, he hates everything and everyone in the universe for invading his nothingness. Dave must find his way to Cassini Space Craft and save it from the forces of the Void before his friends and the universe are lost forever.

Click here to view exclusive pictures from the Quantum Quest scoring session

For more information, visit IMDb.com and be sure to catch the launch of the movie’s website!

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Elliott & The Untouchables Serve Up Southern 'Stew'

This South Carolina blues band, Elliot and The Untouchables, spice up their vintage blues sound with the release of their latest album, Voodoo Stew (BluePoint Records).

Elliott New (vocals, guitar), Mike ‘Naz’ Nazarenko (harmonica), J.T. Anderson (bass), Sonny “D” Dickey (saxophone) and Jim Heidenreich (drums) showcase their blues fusion sound around the world, performing at various music festivals and opening for music legends such as Van Morrison at the Rhythm & Blues Festival in Ireland.

Their latest album features 12 original songs, recorded and produced in SONAR, and covers a variety of blues styles from jumpin’ swing to the gritty ‘Mississippi swamp’ blues. To incorporate the traditional bluesy sound with the new, Elliot started experimenting and building his own diddley bow, cigar-box guitars which the band uses in 4 tracks on the new CD.

Listed among the Top 5 Best Self-Produced CDs by the International Blues Challenge and Top 100 U.S. Blues Releases by Real Blues Magazine, ‘Voodoo Stew’ is the band’s 5th top-selling release under the BluePoint label. Suggested tracks include: Voodoo Stew (title track), Blues Came Callin’, A Girl Like You, and Toss n’ Turn.

To hear clips from the new album visit Elliot & The Untouchables official website

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Cakewalk Pro User Spotlight: Sparks the Rescue

In an ongoing effort to support and promote all the amazingly talented artists and producers that use our products, we are excited to announce the Cakewalk Pro User (CPU) Spotlight Series which will be posted here on a regular basis.

Right now, more than ever, aspiring artists are taking control of their music creation to capitalize on what will be known as the independent music age. These independent spirits are taking their money saved for studio time and investing in their own future by purchasing the studio tools themselves. With so many choices on the market, we salute the artists in this series who are capitalizing on SONAR’s unlimited track count, or the crystal clear sounds of Rapture, or the fat pre amps in the V-Studio 100 and the V-Studio 700, or the… well, you get the point.

Whether these CPU Spotlight artists are on a major or independent label, producing for labels, or simply doing their own thing, they all have three things in common: they’re all tremendously talented, they’re all doing their own thing and they all depend on the quality of Cakewalk products to achieve professional results.

CPU Spotlight #1: An interview with Sparks the Rescue at the famous Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey – Take one mic-swinging vocalist who throws himself to the floor, the crowd, the walls and into his band mates; add two guitarists providing vocals and an insane amount of movement; mix in a bassist with an impressive set of lungs providing screams and harmonies; and top it off with a rock-solid drummer holding it all down – this concoction renders Sparks the Rescue, a group of guys in their early 20’s from Portland, Maine.

Logging in over 200 shows throughout New England, Sparks the Rescue has shared the stage with Hawthorne Heights, Just Surrender, As Tall As Lions, Dave Melillo, Roses Are Red, A Change of Pace, Showbread, Chiodos, A Static Lullaby, Saosin, Boys Night Out, Stretch Arm Strong, Emanuel, The Static Age, Glory of This, and many others.

2007 saw the release of ‘The Secrets We Can’t Keep’ digital EP, preceding a full-length album on Fearless Records which is available now in stores and on ITunes.

Check out our first-ever Cakewalk Pro User Spotlight featuring Sparks the Rescue and stay tuned for more in the near future!

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Create & Share Your Music Fast with Music Creator 5

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

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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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SONAR 8 Featured on Intel's Gaming Microsite

As the annual Game Developers Conference gets under way in San Francisco, Intel releases a new portion of its website to coincide with their Gaming Industry magazine called Visual Adrenaline. SONAR is one of two featured products on the new site for its superior performance using multicore processors.

Intel’s new site features an article entitled “Composing Audio for Video Games – Art Enabled By Science and Cakewalk Software,” which discusses how the software is used to score and edit audio for games. There is also a solution brief on how to optimize your DAW for superior performance written by Cakewalk’s CTO Noel Borthwick and a video interview with Cakewalk’s VP of Marketing Carl Jacobson and Director of Business Development Gina Garda.

SONAR’s popularity among today’s most-acclaimed video game composers is evident as the new site also hosts interviews with award-winning, SONAR-using composers and audio engineers including Doyle Donnehoo, Shawn Clement, Justin Lassen, Rob King, and Timothy Michael Winn.

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Britain's Pub Landlord Composes Music for U.K. Tour

British Comedian Al Murray ends every show with a song and dance. On this year’s tour, he’s featuring a self-composed track, “Broken Britain Boogie” as the finale.

The track was recorded and produced using SONAR with V-Drums and legendary guitarist Brian May (Queen) makes a guest appearance. The track was recently the center of a remix contest as Murray allowed music students enrolled at Brooklands College in Surrey to concoct their own twists of the tune using SONAR LE.

Although Murray states that his composition, “sounds like a sloppy bar room band playing a sub-Oasis style,” ‘Broken Britain Boogie’ is no joke and will surely be on ITunes in the near future. We wish Al Murray the best of luck on tour in the UK.

Visit Al Murray’s website to check tour dates.

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Interview with Shawn Clement: Composing Music for Motion Pictures

Mix Magazine recently met up with SONAR user, Shawn Clement, to ask him about his career in music production. A composer for TV, film and video games, Shawn Clement, is gearing up for his next big project. He will be producing the soundtrack to Quantum Quest, a sci-fi /live animation feature length film, set to release in the fall. Shawn explains in his interview how he got his ‘big break’ and gives advice for those interested in the same career path. Go to Mix Online to see what Shawn had to say.