The Cakewalk Blog

To celebrate Marathon Monday here in Boston and our MARATHON Sale at the Cakewalk Store, here are 10 great reasons you should be running SONAR X1 Producer today.

1. Begin with Better Training: Cakewalk has prepared free SONAR X1 training videos for every skill level on the SONAR U channel of CakeTV. Learn everything you need to know to get running quickly.

2. Take Your Qualifying Trial: Don’t believe us that SONAR X1 Producer is ahead of the pack? Try the new Skylight interface and ProChannel free for 30 days. Download the SONAR X1 Producer Free Trial.

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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…)

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…)

“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:

Winning!!!

Award winning SONAR user – composer/producer Shawn Clement is at an exciting point in his “intense” career: 

• His credentials and track record have allowed him to open an office/SONAR studio at the heart of Paramount Pictures.
• He just had a major successful event at The Kennedy Center in DC where his music was premiered during “A Tribute to the Wounded Warriors.”
• On July 29^th he will be hosting a score party at Paramount Pictures for his original music in “Quantum Quest, A Cassini Space Odyssey 3D.”

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. (more…)

The 26th annual TEC Award nominations are in and we are pleased to announce that SONAR 8.5 has been nominated for a TEC award in the category of Workstation Technology. Professional audio’s most prestigious awards will be hosted for the first time by NAMM, the international music products industry’s biggest trade show. The awards will be handed out on January 14th, 2011.

Experience SONAR 8.5 for yourself at a new low price and find out why it has been recognized by the world’s most prominent forum for honoring outstanding Technical Excellence and Creativity in professional audio production and product design.

View all the nominations

At this year’s Musikmesse International Press Awards (MIPA), Cakewalk received 4 nominations for the development of the A-PRO Series Keyboards, V-Studio 700, V-Studio 100 and SONAR 8.5 Producer. Just being nominated is quite the honor, but we were humbled last night when we won in two categories, Best Recording Hardware for the V-Studio 100 and Best Digital Audio Workstation Controller for the V-Studio 700.

The V-Studio 700 has now won the MIPA two consecutive years in a row, and in two different categories. Last year, the V-Studio 700 won for Best Recording Hardware, so this year’s Controller win really speaks to the VS-700′s versatility, not to mention the high regard for which it is held by the press.

Cakewalk’s Michael Hoover and Roland’s Takao Watase accepted the awards. For those of us in the business of creating products for musicians, the MIPA is the equivalent of winning a Grammy. Aside from having great customers creating great music with your products, the MIPA is the highest honor in our industry. For the 10th annual MIPA, the editorial staff of 111 music magazines from around the globe came together to choose the absolute best products in each category.
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Each year, more than 100 magazines from all over the world – including Mix, Electronic Musician and EQ – come together to vote on the world’s best audio and musical instrument products for the Musikmesse International Press Awards.

This year, Cakewalk has earned 4 nominations for the development of the A-PRO Series Keyboards, V-Studio 700, V-Studio 100 and SONAR 8.5. We are extremely honored to earn such recognition and look forward to Awards Night at Musikmesse 2010 in Frankfurt, Germany.

We are pleased to announce that Cakewalk has been named a finalist for the Global Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner of the Year Award as part of Microsoft’s WPC (Worldwide Partner Conference) Awards for 2009!

Such recognition is given to Microsoft’s most valued partners who lead the technology industry in their approach to deliver customer solutions with Microsoft in mind. We send a big thank you to Microsoft Corporation for this recognition!

View Microsoft’s WPC Awards press release here