Posted on

MusicTech Focus Dedicates Latest Issue to SONAR

SONAR 8 FocusEverything you ever wanted to know about SONAR is now encased in a 132-page full-color guidebook! From cover to cover, this exclusive magazine is the most comprehensive guide to SONAR in print (besides SONAR 8! Power) – a must have whether you’re a SONAR user, or thinking of becoming one!

Packed with 100% SONAR content, this magazine features exclusive interviews with A-list SONAR users – from Shawn Clement to the world famous Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee – highlighting how they using SONAR 8.5 everyday for work. From tracking to mastering, this magazine is teeming with tips and tricks on SONAR’s expansive set of features including 17 SONAR workshops on Beatscape, Step Sequencer 2.0, Session Drummer 3, Z3TA+, Media Browser, Using ACT with your favorite controllers, Film Scoring, Recording Vocals and more! There’s also a FREE DVD packed full of video tutorials, loops, demos and tutorials. 

Don’t miss out on this exclusive help guide!

Posted on

Last Minute Shopping? Grab a Cakewalk Gift Card!

MC5_GiftCardAttention Last Minute Shoppers: Cakewalk’s Download Gift Card are perfect last minute gifts or stocking stuffers for the up-and-coming rock star and guitar hero in your life! Simply, purchase a Download Gift Card from the Cakewalk e-store. Print it out or email it to your favorite musician.

Geared for novice recording musicians, these products make creating music on the PC more fun! Just point and click and you’re making music. Music Creator 5 guides you through the initial set-up, making it easy for you to plug in your instrument or microphone and immediately start recording. Get professional sounding results using Music Creator’s powerful tools, instruments and effects. Can’t play bass, drums, piano, or violin? Let Cakewalk’s Studio Instruments be your band! It has a full suite of instruments for you to play with and includes hundreds of pre-recorded patterns (played by ace session musicians) so you can build sections for your songs, practice, or just have fun jamming along!

Stop by the Cakewalk e-store to purchase a Cakewalk Download Gift Card. There’s no better gift than sharing the love of music this holiday season.

Posted on

First Impressions of V-Studio 700: Danny Klein

Just a few weeks ago, Cakewalk’s Zac Kenney met up with Boston-based bassist Danny Klein at Guitar Center-Boston to pick up his SONAR V-Studio 700. A Cakewalk pro-user since the Pro Audio days, Danny was looking for a new controller to use in his SONAR-outfitted studio. After many years producing his music with the Roland JP-1000 and then with an Alesis Mixer, Klein started to seek other alternatives. Since it’s a controller dedicated to SONAR and would speed up his workflow without the aid of a mouse, Danny knew he just had to get the SONAR V-Studio 700!

“I use SONAR V-Studio 700 because of the quality of the system (and the quality and reliability of Cakewalk / Roland products), the many features at a reasonable price, the ease of setting up and using the system and the seamless integration with my SONAR 8 Producer, making this system all I need to make professional recordings in my home studio.”

Danny Klein grew up in New Jersey and came to Massachusetts to study at Worcester Polytechnical Institute in the 1960’s. While attending WPI, he befriended J. Geils and Magic Dick, who taught Klein how to play a washtub bass. The trio formed the ‘J Geils Blues Band’. Eventually they hooked up with ex-Hallucinations percussionist Stephen Jo Bladd and his vocalist, Peter Wolf, as well as keyboardist / songwriter Seth Justman… thus setting the stage for 17 successful years touring as the ‘J. Geils Band’ from Boston.

The group recorded 17 albums and toured with the Rolling Stones, releasing such hits as ‘Centerfold’ and ‘Freeze Frame’. In February 2009, J. Geils Band reunited for the grand opening of the House of Blues-Boston and played two sold out shows at the Fillmore Theater in Detroit. Currently, the band is leaving the door open to new opportunities, hoping to play together again, soon.

In 1994, Danny founded the blues band ‘Stone Crazy’ (produced by J. Geils). The group released its first 14-track, self-entitled album in 2005 and performed its ‘bluesy grooves’ at select clubs throughout New England.

Danny’s latest project, ‘Danny Klein’s Full House Band,’ is a group of Boston’s well known and most talented musicians who come together to celebrate the music of the J.Geils band. Danny Klein’s Full House Band performs at many charitable events throughout the Boston area.

We congratulate Danny on all of his accomplishments and hope he enjoys working in studio with the new SONAR V-Studio 700!

Posted on

Play Along Jazz Contest Gets Your Music Heard By Jazz Pros

Take the next step in your musical journey this summer at PlayAlongJazz.com. Devoted to giving Jazz musicians the tools they need to succeed, Play Along Jazz gives you the chance to play with some of today’s finest musicians, to learn from their live playing, and to combine your musical voice with theirs.

How does it work? At Play Along Jazz, you will find a list of Jazz standards from which to select: you have the option to choose your tracks (stereo drum track, mono bass track, stereo guitar track etc) and mix the session yourself (what we call “Mix Your Own”) or download a stereo file that has one of the tracks omitted: drums silent for the student drummer; guitar silent for the student guitarist, etc. Downloads are priced for students and each month you will have the chance to play along with a new stream for free. There’s also an email request link so that you can suggest the addition of tunes that interest you.

Through August 31, 2009, when you purchase 15 downloads at Play Along Jazz.com, you will have the chance to submit one of your Play Along songs for review by some of today’s top jazz professionals. This acclaimed panel will select one special song from one aspiring artist that shows the greatest potential in creatively improvising in the play along environment. The winner will also receive a complimentary copy of Cakewalk’s most intuitive digital audio workstation, SONAR 8 Producer!

Posted on

Hard Rocker Andrew W.K. Produced Albums With SONAR

Did you know that the Party Animal / Rock Star Andrew W.K. is a SONAR user?  With the exception of his 2006 release ‘Close Calls With Brick Walls,’ W.K. has recorded all of his albums using SONAR.  As told to EQ, “I really liked working with SONAR because I could have multiple regions of audio in one track and overlap them to make this collage of waveforms’.

‘Brick Walls’ proved to be a change from the usual for W.K. as he literally stepped outside the ‘walls’ of his software to collaborate in real time with the legendary Rastafarian Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. ‘He is the first person I have met who truly uses magic in the studio,’ states W.K. The pair jammed out a whole album with the help a few mics and a small group of session musicians to play the backing tracks. Without the help of a computer, the instruments were mixed naturally in the air.

Read the whole article on Andrew W.K. at EQMag.com

Posted on

Tani Diakite's New Reggae / R&B Track Featured At Kicksville

Tani Diakite of Mali, was recently featured in the first edition of Kicksville’s The Singles with a new project entitled Kalamaya or ‘it’s not good to fight’.

Kalamaya was built around an ‘incredibly haunting’ melody and a kamale ngoni (an African harp) with reggae and R&B influences. The track was recorded and produced using SONAR.

Kicksville is a ‘political movement, a virtual community and a musical collective.’ Everything is created from scratch by Kicksville’s citizens, a team of musicians, artists, and technology wizards who commute to Kicksville from twelve different cities on three continents and who’ve worked with a dizzying range of other artists ranging from Laurie Anderson to Van Halen and dozens of others, including Queen, BB King, King Crimson and members of the Grateful Dead.

Posted on

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

Posted on

April Is SONAR Home Studio 7 Month!

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!

Posted on

Christopher Ave: A Passion for Music & Media

A career journalist and lifelong musician, Christopher Ave tells stories with sound and text. He has united both his passions into a business, Music for Media Productions, in which he created a wide variety of custom music for web, video and commercial projects. He also writes and records original pop music and blogs about creating and using music in multimedia projects.

Christopher uses SONAR Producer Edition, Dimension Pro and Rapture in just about every project. He states, “With Cakewalk’s tools I have thousands of sounds at my fingertips, I really appreciate how much value they pack into their softsynths – and I wouldn’t dare record without SONAR.”

Christopher recently finished an original soundtrack for video. He’s currently scoring a photo slideshow for  a photographer and writing/recording an original song for a music video.