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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.

Continue reading “NAMM 2010: Creative Tools for Independent Minds”

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CES 2010: Music Creator Shines During Intel's Core Processor Launch

Music Creator at 2010 CES Intel Booth Pic 2Cakewalk’s Gina Garda recently traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to take part in the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). “Although the taxi lines were longer and the halls more crowded than last year,” remarked Gina, “the bustle of this year’s CES is a sure sign that 2010 will be a phenomenal year for the consumer electronics industry.”

From the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Intel launched their new 2010 Intel® Core™ Processor Family. As part of that launch, Intel featured Cakewalk’s Music Creator 5 running on a new Core i5 laptop.

In addition to the Music Creator software, the setup also included Cakewalk’s MA-15D speakers and UA-1G audio interface, a PCR-300 MIDI Keyboard, a Blue Microphone as well as a Les Paul guitar. The Cakewalk space was consistently full of musicians and non-musicians alike wanting to learn more about recording on the newest computers. Guitar players were particularly interested in Cakewalk’s Studio Instruments Drums and IK Multimedia’s Amplitube X-Gear software. These tools are part of the Music Creator 5 package making it easier for the solo performer to boost their sound and add a backing band to their project in just a few clicks.

Visit Cakewalk’s Flickr to see more photos from the event.

Click here to learn more about CES 2010.

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AudioMidi.com Likes the Sound of the V-Studio 100

audiomidiAudioMIDI.com’s Dee Davis gave the V-Studio 100 a workout recently and came away very pleased with the results.

Dee hooked up the VS-100 to a PC running Windows XP Professional, with 4 GB RAM and two 1 TB Hard drives, all powered by an AMD Phenom X4 Quad processor. After installing SONAR 8.5, Dee pulled up some recent SONAR-produced projects and found them to sound terrific , “perfect” in fact.

After checking out projects in higher sample rates and getting positive results, Dee recorded some vocals using the mic pres and was also “pleasantly surprised with the sound quality.” But the true test came when s/he recorded his/her Musicman StingRay Bass with the VS-100. Initially skeptical — “I am very hard of audio interfaces, as I feel they never truly get the real tone” — Dee was delighted when the resulting sound turned out to be “the best I have ever heard on any recording system!” S/he also went on to highlight the VS-100’s Windows 7 compatibility, solid control surface functions and use in Mackie Control Function Mode.

“Ultimately, I found the V-Studio 100 an excellent device to work with,” she concluded. “The sound quality was great! The mixer and effects were solid and very easy to use.” Finally, she noted that “This compact unit will serve many of your needs with just one purchase. With the included software, you have everything you need to start recording right away.”

You can read the full review on AudioMIDI.com

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SONAR Is A Conventional DAW, Packing An Arsenal of Options

stepsequencerIn keeping with tradition, says Create Digital Music’s Peter Kirn, SONAR looks like the average Windows software with lots of buttons, knobs and menus. However, with its latest version, SONAR employs a vast array of features that allow the user (whether expert or beginner) to customize the way they create music on the computer – making it easier for them to record and produce music on their own terms.

Calling SONAR, the DAW of More, Kirn takes a microscopic look at these new features, instruments, support and usability enhancements added to the program with the SONAR 8.5.2 update.

Continue reading “SONAR Is A Conventional DAW, Packing An Arsenal of Options”

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Gift Ideas & Special Offers for Musicians

gift guideThis holiday season, Cakewalk has a gift (or a few) for you! Need help finding the perfect gift for the music lover in your life?

Click on over to Cakewalk’s Holiday Gift Guide for great ideas and special offers. Save big on popular products from Cakewalk, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia and Notion to name a few. After all that hard work shopping for others, reward yourself with free plug-ins, awesome discounts on PCAudioLabs computers and much more.

Plus, when you make a purchase at the Cakewalk store before December 24, 2009, you may be eligible for FREE Shipping! Don’t forget to place your order by Monday, December 21  to ensure a Christmas delivery.

Happy Holidays!

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Amplify your Home Recordings with Guitar Tracks Pro

GTP4_TrackViewFretbase.com’s Brian Stolte, mainly a Garageband / Mac OS user, pulled out his Windows XP laptop recently to try out Cakewalk’s Guitar Tracks Pro 4 and was pleasantly surprised at the wealth of tools available for the guitar player turned home recording guru. “As compared to Garageband from Apple, one of the first things I noticed was there were a lot more options and features for each track,” he wrote.

Stolte was impressed by the wealth of ‘extras’ Guitar Tracks Pro offers. “Beyond the recording software, Cakewalk has included a demo version of Guitar Rig 3 to provide you with a ton of amp modeling options,” he noted. Later, he found that “the ability to generate tablature or notation from any MIDI track is handy for exporting individual parts for band mates.”

Apple and Garageband customers are notoriously loyal to their OS but, even Stolte had to give some props to Guitar Tracks Pro: “Overall I thought Guitar Tracks Pro 4 performed very well on my laptop and provided a very good solution to a guitar player looking for a way to create and record new songs. I found myself using the application to record guitar parts and riffs along with some backing drum tracks.”

Read Brian’s full review at Fretbase.com

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Building a Better DAW with SONAR 8.5

blogcritics_logoSoftware Developer and Sci/Tech Reviewer at BlogCritics.org,  T. Michael Testi likes what he sees in the new version of Cakewalk’s flagship digital audio workstation, SONAR. With improvements made to its mainstay features including Session Drummer, AudioSnap and Step Sequencer, SONAR is transforming into a simpler and more tangible product for those new to the music production world.

Session Drummer 3 sports a 3D photo-realistic drum kit with 200+ pre-loaded percussive sounds and 20+ new kits. AudioSnap 2.0 employs a cleaner user interface with a dedicated transient tool and proportional stretching mode to make timing adjustments in several places a cinch. Step Sequencer 2.0 brings more flexibility to composing patterns by grid with brand new tools for auto-populate and per-step probability.

“With SONAR 8.5,” says Testi, “it was all about the optimization of the features that were (already) there… These (features) will not only improve your production, but will get your creative juices going”

See what’s new and improved in SONAR 8.5 Producer on the The Ram Review at Blogcritics.org.

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Meet Cakewalk Representatives This Holiday Season

Edit-5During this Holiday season, we would like to take some time to personally assist you with any questions you might have about our products.

During the coming week, our technical sales representatives will be at select music retailers across the country with the sole purpose of helping you learn more about SONAR 8.5, V-Studio 100, V-Studio 700, our audio and MIDI interfaces, desktop monitors and more.

Find a location near you on Cakewalk’s Tour page.

We look forward to meeting you!

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The Musician's Digital Audio Workstation: SONAR 8.5

seth_kelloggIf you saw our ads for Guitar Tracks Pro 4, then you already know that 3 out of 4 Cakewalk employees are guitar players.  In fact, many Cakewalk employees are also full-time musicians, using Cakewalk products to record, mix and master their own projects.

When it came time to design the new features in SONAR 8.5, we focused on what we felt would be the absolute best enhancements to help us all be more creative and produce better sounding music. We added new beat creation and arrangement tools, a new drum instrument loaded with stellar sounding kits, enhanced audio quantizing, new multi-stage effects plug-ins, and much more.

To honor the new and improved version of SONAR,  we’ve added the Created by Musicians page to Cakewalk.com to share with you our own musical talents and favorite features in SONAR 8.5.

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SONAR 8.5 Leaves You Fully-Satisfied

stepsequencerImpressed with SONAR 8.5’s wealth of new tools and workflow enhancements, Music Radar gives the ‘half update’ 5 out 5 stars! Among the reviewer’s favorite additions were SONAR’s Matrix view, Arpeggiator and effects processors (VX-64 vocal strip and PX-64 percussion strip).

“Percussion and Vocal Strips rock! Step Sequencer is much more useful. Arpeggiator presets are a goldmine. Matrix View encourages spontaneity. Solid performance. The most comprehensive Windows DAW.”

In all, says Music Radar, SONAR 8.5 may be labeled a ‘half’ upgrade but it is well worth the price!