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Cakewalk Travels to Japan for SONAR Premium Day

RobinBrandon2A few weeks ago, Cakewalk traveled to Akihabara, Japan (a district of Tokyo) to take part in the Fourth Annual SONAR Premium Day. To locals, Akihabara is known as ‘Electric Town,’ as it’s where all the technology stores (carrying everything from LED TVs to music production software) are located. Cakewalk’s CEO Greg Hendershott and Product Evangelists Brandon Ryan & Robin Kelly introduced the new version of SONAR to 870 guests at the event, giving live demos on how to record, mix, edit and more with SONAR 8.5.

The event kicked off with a video featuring SONAR Product Manager Alex Westner discussing the latest features in SONAR 8.5. Greg then gave a great speech on new technologies in the industry, such as the release of Windows 7. Brandon and Robin rounded out the day with a number of demos. Brandon used a Intel Core i7 machine running Windows 7 to demonstrate a few tasks on the V-Studio 700, while Robin ran a Quadcore Vista (32-bit) computer to show off the many features of the V-Studio 100. Throughout the day, attendees gathered around one of three stages to share tips and techniques on Cakewalk’s latest products.

Although we couldn’t see these events live in action, Robin added some video highlights of the trip to his unofficial Cakewalk blog. Click on over to see footage from the show floor.

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SONAR 8.5 Named in Top 20 Hits of AES 2009

mix_certhit_logo-(2)For more than 30 years, Mix Magazine has been reporting live from major audio and music trade shows, acknowledging some of the most innovative products in the industry.

This year, Cakewalk’s SONAR 8.5 was selected by the editors of Mix as one of the Top 20 Hits of AES 2009!

Pick up the November issue of the magazine to see the full article!

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How Windows 7 Will Effect Your Music Production?

borthwick2Cakewalk Chief Technical Officer Noel Borthwick, a noted expert on Windows platforms, covers crucial topics around the introduction of Windows 7, such as compatibility with Cakewalk products, issues in upgrading from Windows XP and related points of interest for PC users.

For an in-depth look at Windows 7 and how it might affect your use of Cakewalk products, check out Noel’s Q & A below. Also, see Peter Kirn’s article at Create Digital Music for more  insightful tips on Windows 7.

Continue reading “How Windows 7 Will Effect Your Music Production?”

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'Inside Home Recording' Reviews Music Creator 5

IHR logoInside Home Recording (IHR) is the longest running podcast to date that covers the latest in home studio recording, hosted by web guy / ‘podsafe’ musician Derek K. Miller and keyboardist / composer Dave Chick. Derek and Dave are both professional musicians involved in performing, teaching, producing and recording music. Based in Vancouver, Canada, IHR strives to bring the latest news, reviews, examples and techniques to musicians around the globe.

A few months ago, we sent over a review copy of Music Creator 5 to the IHR team. Dave immediately gave his first impressions. In their latest episode, Derek conducted an extensive review on the program- running it on a Windows 7 test candidate.

Click on the links above to hear their thoughts.
Visit IHR.com for more home recording news!

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Live from AES 2009: TechBreakfast Gets A Healthy Dose of Cakewalk

techbreakfastOver the weekend, Tech Breakfast.com stopped by the Cakewalk booth at the 127th Annual AES Show in New York City for an exclusive look at the latest tools on the market.

Check out Tech Breakfast’s footage from the floor to see Cakewalk Product Specialist, Rich Curtis, show you how to load the matrix view, enable MIDI learn, trigger loops and arm your SONAR 8.5 tracks for live performance. Also, get up close and personal with Cakewalk’s ‘swiss army knife’ the V-Studio 100. Rich gives you an overview of the unit and all it’s capabilities (recording, mixing, playback) with and without a computer!

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Live from SIGGRAPH 09: Intel Interviews Carl Jacobson & Noel Borthwick on Processor Optimizations for Music Production

At this year’s SIGGRAPH Conference in New Orleans, Carl Jacobson met with the host of Intel’s Visualize This! TV Show, Arti Gupta, to discuss Cakewalk’s advancements in it’s software performance. Some of Arti’s questions were so technical that we thought it only fair to ask Cakewalk’s CTO Noel Borthwick to add his thoughts. Watch the video and check out Noel’s comments below:

AG: Cakewalk is a member of the Intel Software Partner Program.  What challenges were you trying to solve?

NB: The bandwidth available to the typical modern DAW user using a modern CPU such as the Core I7 is astounding compared to what was available just a couple of years ago. Users expect our software to use every ounce of available CPU cycles and horsepower it can to process their audio and mix. Cakewalk has been on the bleeding edge of technology for the last 15 years, taking advantage of cutting edge capabilities of the operating system as well as available hardware resources. With multiprocessing and 64-bit computing rapidly becoming mainstream, it has become even more critical for our software to make efficient use of hardware resources.

For example, for efficient multiprocessing we try and optimize all the code paths that are used in asynchronously mixing audio. The goal is to present a multi core machine with even and distributed workloads allowing the cores to work as hard as possible. To do this, we streamline the relevant code and minimize all high latency instructions.

Some typical areas that we try and improve our performance in are:

• Multi-processor load scaling: How well does a controlled test project load across multiple CPU cores?

• 64 bit performance: How well does the 64 bit version of the application perform with multiple workloads?

• CPU use: How efficiently does SONAR play back a CPU intensive project?

• High bandwidth tests: How well does the application perform while streaming audio at high sample rates (192K, 384K, etc) and bit depths (64 bit audio, etc)?

• Low latency performance: How well does the application perform streaming audio with very small audio buffer sizes (such as 1 msec buffers)?

Continue reading “Live from SIGGRAPH 09: Intel Interviews Carl Jacobson & Noel Borthwick on Processor Optimizations for Music Production”

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Cakewalk Announces the V-Studio US Summer Tour 2009

 We’re excited to announce our latest clinic tour providing in-depth demonstrations of the new SONAR V-Studio music production hardware! We’ll be holding these events at select retailers nationwide (US only) – including Best Buy and Guitar Center – and attendees can pre-register online to win a $100 gift certificate to the retailer hosting the event!

The SONAR V-Studio 100, is a one-of-a-kind product that combines a powerful Audio / MIDI interface, a control surface, a digital mixer, and an SD WAVE recorder.　Compact and portable, the VS-100 is perfect for the musician on the go. Lay down tracks or capture an idea whether you’re in a hotel room, on a tour bus, wherever.　Plus, the VS-100 works with both Mac and PC and all major DAWs, so musicians can take advantage of the VS-100’s compelling feature set no matter which platform they are using.

The SONAR V-Studio 700 is the flagship of the V-Studio product-line and will be making appearances at various stops on the tour. Matching SONAR 8 Producer with the VS-700 Console, the V-Studio 700 offers the ultimate solution for music production through a complete offering of finely-tuned and tightly-controlled hardware and software. The VS-700 also includes the VS-700R I/O, the Roland Fantom VS synth and Cakewalk’s award-winning virtual instruments, Rapture and Dimension Pro.

We’ll be adding additional tour dates regularly, so visit the tour page on our website for the updated schedule: http://www.cakewalk.com/Events/tour.asp

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Add Punch to Your Percussion with SONAR 8's TS-64 Transient Shaper

One of SONAR 8’s handy new features is the TS-64 Transient Shaper. Although the idea of the transient shaper isn’t new, it’s not a common processor to be bundled with a host DAW.

A transient shaper is a dynamics processor for sculpting the transient dynamics of any percussive-based source material. The TS-64 works best, for example, with drum loops and percussion, electric and acoustic guitars, and piano. While included in SONAR, the TS-64 is not exclusive to the DAW and can be used in any program that accepts VST plug-ins.

Sound On Sound’s Craig Anderton used the tool in SONY Sound Forge and Steinberg’s Wavelab without a hitch! Take a look at his thought on the TS-64 Transient Shaper, it’s controls, and how they can affect the sound of your mix.

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Learn SONAR Online with BerkleeMusic.com

Berkleemusic.com, the online continuing education division of Berklee College of Music, offers SONAR online courses and certificate programs for all skill levels. Master aspects of multi-track recording using MIDI, audio, loops and plug-in effects using SONAR. Enrollment is now open for the Fall term which begins September 28, 2009.

Click here to learn more about the online courses and to try a free SONAR lesson!