The Cakewalk Blog

The success of SONAR X1 user Chris Standring’s groundbreaking 2010 CD Blue Bolero, which topped several year-end lists and produced a No. 1 single, made it tough for him to create a follow-up record; but all early indicators are showing that he managed quite nicely with the new Electric Wonderland recording which came out yesterday.

As of this morning, Chris woke up to find out that Electric Wonderland has hit #1 in its genre on the Amazon.com sales chart, as well as #1 on the BDS Radio Tracking Chart (Billboard) for the same genre.  I would say that’s a setup for a pretty great day, especially considering the “sales” climate of the music industry in general.  Electric Wonderland is a 10-song CD of original songs that fuses elements of the last record Blue Bolero’s orchestral touches with a deft jazz-pop touch that’s been a hallmark of Standring’s stellar career.

One of the changes Chris made on Electric Wonderland besides going from SONAR 8.5 to X1 was mixing the record on his own.  (more…)

Softube’s new Mix Bundle for the Pro Channel in SONAR X1 Producer Expanded includes five awesome sounding modules that will make your mixes come alive!

In addition to three distinctly different EQs (Passive, Active and Softube’s own creation the Focusing EQ), the Mix Bundle has the TSAR-1R reverb and a great FET Compressor. I used these two modules for my demos at this year’s NAMM Show and I wanted to share my experience with them this week. (more…)

Recently we released our NAMM videos to CakeTV. The six videos contain over an hour of footage of SONAR X1 demonstrations narrated by a combination of Cakewalk staff and Cakewalk artists. And there’s certainly a lot of interesting and useful information to be seen (and heard).

However, due to circumstances beyond our control, the video’s audio quality didn’t turn out quite as expected. With our booth in the Roland arena, and with so many adjacent demo booths within direct earshot, said audio contains not only what’s in the demo being filmed but also a lot of what’s going on around it.

Seth Perlstein at the tail end of one of his SONAR X1 demo at NAMM 2012

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Live from NAMM 2012 at the Cakewalk booth in the Roland arena, Cakewalk’s Mike Trujillo demonstrates creative music production and recording techniques with SONAR X1 Production Suite.

Mike’s demo features SONAR X1 Producer Expanded’s Browser, Track Templates, Matrix View, FX Chains 2.0, ProChannel, Session Drummer 3, and more. Plus he lays down tracks with Rapture and Z3TA+ 2, records guitar, and captures a Matrix View performance in this dynamic, unique, up-beat demonstration that’s packed with information for the initiated and uninitiated alike.

Upgrade to SONAR X1 or or find a dealer to become a new user today.

Live from the Cakewalk booth in the Roland arena, longtime SONAR user, producer, singer, and songwriter Yogi Lonich (Wallflowers, Melissa Etheridge, Buckcherry, and Fuel) shows off his latest SONAR project and breaks down why he loves to create music in SONAR X1.

Upgrade to SONAR X1 or or find a dealer to become a new user today.

Live from the Cakewalk booth in the Roland arena, learn why SONAR X1 rocks for video game scoring.

In Part 1 Sean Murray (Call of Duty: Black Ops) and Chuck Carr (Twisted Metal) share their favorite SONAR features and break down why SONAR X1 is the fastest, most powerful DAW for scoring to games.

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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.

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.

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Cakewalk Artists on Both PC and Mac are off to an Enormous 2012

We are well on our way into 2012 and many artists relying on various Cakewalk products are off to an enormous year.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have spent some time with most of these artists recently, and even more fortunate to have worked with a few in some creative capacities using SONAR X1 in the recent past.  There are some common threads that these artists share, but I think the most important element is that they are all working ridiculously hard in their own circles.

Murray Daigle

[Toronto, ONT, Canada]  Murray Daigle is a very talented Canadian Producer/Mixer/Songwriter out of Toronto Canada.  He just relocated to a new space in Toronto and opened a new studio running SONAR X1 Expanded.  A big “congratulations” goes out to him on a “Certified Gold” record for Neverest’s track “About Us” along with a SOCAN #1 Award (co-written and mixed on Cakewalk Sonar X1.)  Murray also produced and co-wrote other tracks on the Neverest release which came out in January and is already working on material for another release later this year. (more…)