Live from the Cakewalk booth in the Roland arena, learn why SONAR X1 rocks for film scoring as Shawn Clement (Quantum Quest) shares his favorite SONAR X1 tips, tricks, and features.
In the video Shawn talks about his process of writing and delivering music for film and TV and how SONAR features like Track Folders, Track Templates, and FX Chains 2.0 help his creative process.
Upgrade to SONAR X1 or find a dealer to become a new user today.
Live from the Cakewalk booth in the Roland arena, take a look inside the perfect computer for SONAR X1 as HP’s Dan Bennett opens up and tears down the powerhouse HP Z800 workstation.
Featuring a BMW designed, tool-less chassis, an incredibly unique power supply, a plethora of powerful under the hood options, and so much more, the Z800 truly is a dream machine for making music with SONAR X1.
Upgrade to SONAR X1 or or find a dealer to become a new user today.
So your newest masterpiece is ready to be mixed in SONAR’s pristine 64bit audio engine for the rest of the world to hear, but are you really hearing the full range of your mix? If your monitoring system does not include a subwoofer, then you most likely are not.
While an ear can be trained to work with almost anything over time, a good monitoring system is crucial for making more accurate judgments in mixing. In my early days as a fledgling engineer, the studio I worked out of had a nice set of monitors but no sub. So what does that mean? Endless time wasted making (at that time) cassettes to run out to the car with so you could find out that the low end was either too high or too low or not hitting the right frequencies. Back to the board, hope your guess at the eq adjustment was right and then back to the car again. Better fire up the coffee machine, this could take all night. Continue reading “Why you need a subwoofer. Or, "What's goin' on down there?"”
Musician or IT professional?
It seems today’s musicians must be part artist and part IT professional. It’s a difficult dance that requires knowledge, time, and patience in order to achieve a level of success. The intention of this series of blog posts is to help with the IT part or the equation. My goal is to help with questions related to system optimization, maintenance, organization, networking, and other IT-related concerns important to musicians in the 21st century.
In this first post I’d like to talk about basic practices for achieving a smooth running PC-based DAW. I’ll also offer my thoughts and suggestions on OS “tweaking” or “tuning”. In subsequent posts we’ll get deeper into specific areas and talk about other aspects like organization and networking. Most of these tips will assume you’re running a PC with Windows 7 installed. Continue reading “Computers in the Studio (Part 1)”
By now you may have heard about the upcoming X1d update which will be free for all registered SONAR X1 customers. And you may have also seen the press release which lists all of the features and enhancements contained in the free update.
However, what you might not have seen is just how insanely cool the FX Chains 2.0’s new Mod Matrix is. OK, since its really just a couple of menus it may not look cool, but what it does is absolutely awesome.
Winter NAMM 2012 was a huge success for Cakewalk. For the second straight year, we were located in the Roland Arena with a great location right by the entrance. We got to meet a lot of new, existing, and potential users. In addition, we had great demos from some of our favorite Cakewalk artists (and even some special appearances). We also got to show off SONAR X1 Production Suite, the new ProChannel Concrete Limiter, and Cakewalk instruments like Z3TA+ 2, Dimension Pro, and Rapture. We wish everyone could have joined us for the show, but here’s a recap that hopefully makes you feel like you were there. Continue reading “NAMM 2012 in pictures”
“SONAR X1 was the obvious choice” – Electronic Musician Magazine
We were thrilled to pick up our Editor’s Choice award at the NAMM show last week. SONAR X1 won for “Extreme DAW Makeover” thanks to the new Skylight user interface. Thank you to all the editors at Electronic Musician who voted for SONAR X1 – we appreciate the support.
Upon picking up the award, we displayed it proudly at our booth, for the whole world to see (well at least the NAMM attendees). Here’s a photo with the only caption I thought was fitting:
Back in October 2011, we released SONAR X1 Producer Expanded which introduced ProChannel modularity. This included the ability to add new modules to the ProChannel. Since that time we have released two Cakewalk branded ProChannel modules, the PC4K S-Type Expander/Gate and the PC4K S-Type Channel Compressor. In addition, Softube has released the Softube Mix Bundle which includes VST and ProChannel versions of the popular Softube Mix Bundle.
So what’s next for the ProChannel? Well we received many requests for a limiter so we set out to create a great brick wall limiter that felt right at home on a channel or bus – perfect for mixing or mastering. Here’s a sneak peek at the new ProChannel Concrete Limiter. And you won’t have to wait long to buy it as it will be available for sale as a download at the Cakewalk Store in time for the start of NAMM 2012.
More information and sound examples will be released at NAMM 2012.
When it comes to SONAR, many of us often just think of recording and creating music for one medium, but there are many people out there using it in other ways. Pristine Productions is a company based out of Philadelphia that has been using SONAR for many years to record Major Label artists; only not in the traditional sense…
Week-in and week-out, Ron Cote and his crew are found working with some of the biggest names in the business such as Shinedown, Disturbed, Stone Sour, Staind, Avenged Sevenfold and most recently, the undeniable Adrenaline Mob who are currently making a huge mark in the rock world. When I say “working with” I am talking about a platform beyond recorded music that extends into the depths of capturing the whole “concert experience” on video. Ron is hired by Major Labels and directly by bands to go into the trenches and capture those moments that give us all goose-bumps; those moments where a guitar solo just sounds way better than it did on the studio version of the song; or those moments where the lead singer delivered an inspirational melody he/she should have put on the studio record. Continue reading “Ron Cote and Pristine Productions Utilizing SONAR X1 with Chart-topping Rock Acts”
Award winning SONAR user – composer/producer Shawn Clement is at an exciting point in his “intense” career:
Little did he know, when in 1996 Shawn Clement took on a “gig,” that he would be stapling a movement to the universe’s musical bulletin-board. “Reality TV – what’s that? Who’s going to take interest in that?” These were some of the questions flying around the conference rooms of major television networks back then. Well it just so happens that still to this day 95% of us get sucked into the inevitable antics of The World’s Wildest… The World’s Scariest… The World’s Most… You know, those shows that catch your eye when you’re flicking through the channels and catch a quick glimpse of a Corvette being severed in half by a semi-truck; and there it is – wham – a half hour later and you have neither moved from that channel, nor your seat for that matter. Continue reading “Shawn Clement: On A [Quantum] Quest with Intense Music”
