Cakewalk’s Robin Kelly has put together a series of tech tips for SONAR users in a section we are calling Robin’s Riffs. Each week, we will include a new tip.
This week, Robin Kelly shows you how to achieve a layered synth sound in SONAR. In this example, Robin shows you how to create a simple layer using two instances of Dimension LE. You can use any instrument to recreate this layered sound. This technique will work with SONAR 8 and SONAR Home Studio 7.
The folks at Harmony Central were on hand at Musikmesse 2010 to film the debut of Cakewalk’s V-Studio 20, the portable recording studio for guitarists and singer-songwriters. Their video captures a live demo by Robin Kelly and accomplished guitar player, Gundy Keller, exploring the interface’s included DAW, Effects Editor and it’s many incredible tones:
For more information on the V-Studio 20, visit our website.
At last year’s AES Conference, Cakewalk’s Robin Kelly gave a presentation on using SONAR 8 for creating a soundtrack to a video. Watch Robin’s tutorial to learn how to use SONAR’s included instruments – Dimension Pro, Session Drummer 2 and Z3TA+ – to create great sounding music tracks for your home movies. Robin also shows you how to export your final project so that you can share it with friends or publish it to your favorite video-sharing site.
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
Ok… I can’t contain myself so we’re going to have blog dessert first and jump right to the end of the day. SONAR V-Studio 700 won the MIPA award for Best Recording Hardware!
If you’re not aware of what the MIPA is or what it means to Cakewalk, just imagine that you won a Grammy award. Over 100 music products magazines worldwide come together each year to vote on what they feel are the best and most innovative products of the last year. So it is such a incredible honor that SONAR V-Studio 700 was selected for this!
Greg Hendershott, Cakewalk’s Founder and CEO and Mr. Kimitaka Kondo Managing Director of Roland Corporation were hand to accept the award.
I’ve uploaded a video clip from the event of our winning the award and Greg and Mr. Kondo’s speech:
And here are some more pictures from the night:
Greg and Mr. Kondo accept the award.
The stage was filled with many happy people, as they called up the winners of all categories.
Charly Steinberg won a Lifetime Achievement award tonight for his work over the years to move music technology forward. It was a moment of sheer transcendence for me to see Greg and Charly together. Cakewalk won a MIPA tonight in a category that beat out Steinberg’s latest offering, and Charly the founder of that same competitor was honored for his life’s work.
Despite how fiercely we have competed over the years, the two of them greeted each other like old friends and had a genuine, warm moment congratulating each other. It really reminded me that we’re all in it for the same reason… to make music and to help people make music. And maybe we shouldn’t forget that are competitors are just like us in that regard. In alot of ways, they help us make better products for you, because we have to continue to innovate to stay competitive with each other.
Anyway enough of the philosophical ramblings. Here’s another photo from the evening, it features some of my favorite people, members of the Cakewalk and Roland team.
From left to right: Masahiro Minowa, Michael Hoover, Robin Kelly, Koichi Mizumoto, Greg Hendershott, Alex Westner, Carl Jacobson (me), Steve Thomas and Brandon Ryan.
Those are genuine smiles you’re seeing in this picture. This team and many other people back in the offices of Cakewalk and Roland, put in a tremendous effort over the last couple years to make SONAR V-Studio 700. To be recognized with a MIPA for that work, really made it all worthwhile.
Well, I need to run to a meeting. Part 2 of Day 2 will be coming soon.
Signing off,
Carl Jacobson
