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Making Music On A Netbook at GDC 2010

Netbooks are quickly gaining ground as the viable computing option for everything, from checking email to recording and producing music. The folks at Netbooknews.com were on hand at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California to chat with Cakewalk’s Seth Perlstein about the forth-coming release of the SD-50 Mobile Studio Canvas and it’s netbook compatibility:

It’s USB-powered, comes with over 1000 sounds and effects, and includes it’s own DAW for Windows users, the SD-50 is a great interface for the musician on the go.

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NAMM 2010: Creative Tools for Independent Minds

NAMMJet-lagged and exhausted, the Cakewalk crew is slowly recovering from a monumental Thursday through Saturday at the NAMM Show. The weather was beautiful, the show floor was packed and the Cakewalk booth was the place to be.

Each year, the National Association of Music Merchants hosts an industry-wide tradeshow at the colossal Anaheim Convention Center.  If you’ve never been to the NAMM Show, it’s a musician’s paradise, with thousands of exhibitors, live product demos, impromptu jam sessions, and celebrity sightings galore.

The theme for our booth was ‘Creative Tools for Independent Minds.’  As our product line continues to grow from recording software to complete studio solutions, we encourage musicians on every level to take production into their own hands and have fun making music.

Cakewalk Artist Relations Manager, Jimmy Landry put together an all-star roster of artists who appeared and performed in our booth while demonstrating how they use our products on the road and in the studio.

    Cori Yarckin Acoustic Performance

One of Rolling Stone’s Top 5 Up & Coming Female Artists, Cori Yarckin, acoustically performed her hit single, Everything You Said, and recorded a vocal track in SONAR with the V-Studio 100. Cakewalk’s Brandon Ryan showed the audience how to use the VX-64 Vocal Strip to process her vocals as well as the Matrix view to creatively remix her track.

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New Products Announced At The NAMM Show 2010

NAMMThe 2010 NAMM Show is off to an exciting start as Cakewalk announces several new products to our line of fully-integrated software and hardware solutions for music creation and recording! Click the links below to learn how these products can benefit your music production needs:

New Line of Keyboard Controllers
Cakewalk introduces the new A-PRO Series, USB MIDI Controllers for Mac and PC. The A-300 Pro (32-key), A-500 Pro (49-key) and A-800 Pro (61-key) are brand new keyboard controllers developed in conjunction with Roland. The A-PRO series focuses on intuitive real-time performance and ergonomic playability, making it a must-have controller for soft-synths in a live or studio setting.  This new line gives musicians the best of both worlds: Cakewalk’s legendary ease of use and Roland’s world-class engineering and keyboard expertise.

FA-66 Firewire Audio Interface
Cakewalk introduces the FA-66, a compact and portable 6-in/6-out FireWire 400/800 audio interface designed for mobile recording and performance professionals.  This unit has two XLR/TRS combo inputs with phantom powered mic preamps, with one offering Hi-Z for recording electric guitar or bass, plus two RCA inputs — all with zero latency direct monitoring. The FA-66 package includes Cakewalk’s Production Plus Pack, featuring SONAR 8.5 LE recording software (Windows only) and 3 high quality virtual instruments for Mac & PC: Rapture LE, Cakewalk SoundCenter, and Studio Instruments Drums. The FA-66 is a must have for a wide range of applications, from recording guitar or vocals in mobile or studio settings to connecting a mixer to a computer.

New Mobile Studio Canvas
Cakewalk’s Mobile Studio Canvas for Mac and PC, and standalone performance is the first of its kind in the Cakewalk hardware family. Capable of producing over 1,000 sounds, the Mobile Studio Canvas includes the Roland SD-50 Sound Module, redesigned GM (General MIDI) 2, and Roland’s Solo Tones sounds. Fitted with a USB memory drive, the studio canvas can playback MP3, WAV, AIFF, and MIDI files without a computer. It’s a 2-in/2-out audio interface as well as a 1×1 MIDI interface that ships with SONAR 8.5 LE recording software (for Windows only), perfect for musicians looking for a multi-purpose sound source and/or playback device.

Visit the Cakewalk website to view our NAMM Press Releases