Published on May 12, 2013 by Chris Hadfield
A revised version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.
Uploaded on Feb 20, 2012 by Larrivée Guitars
Additional video of Chris Hadfield visiting the Larrivée Guitar factory in Vancouver, Canada – builders of the Space Station guitar. He talks about challenges of playing in the weightless environment and recording original music in Space and also mentions using Cakewalk Software to record.
Cakewalk software is so essential to the recording experience that astronauts don’t leave earth without it! Future commander of the ISS, Chris Hadfield, visited the Larrivée Guitar factory in Vancouver, Canada – builders of the Space Station guitar. He talks about challenges of playing in the weightless environment and recording original music in Space using Cakewalk. Credit: Larrivée Guitars
SONAR X2 Producer receives “9/10 rating” from Computer Music
The December 2012 issue of Computer Music features a full length review of SONAR X2 Producer and the verdict is great. Here are just a few excerpts from their review:
On Automation Lanes: “Automation Lanes come to SONAR and integrate beautifully with the Smart Tool for ease of use.”
Console Emulator: “You get three gorgeous vintage console emulations in SONAR X2 Producer, meticulously modeled after authentic analog circuit behavior.”
BREVERB SONAR: “This stunning reverb only comes with the Producer Edition, but it almost pays for the price difference itself.”
Verdict for upgraders: “The potential sound quality is awesome. The Console Emulator, BREVERB, and Overloud effects are stellar and very powerful enticements to upgrade from X1.”
Read the entire review in the December 2012 issue of Computer Music magazine, which is available at newsstands today.
Boston, MA, (June 25, 2012) — Cakewalk, the world’s leading developer of powerful and easy to use products for music creation and recording, today announced the resignation of Greg Hendershott as Chief Executive Officer. Michael Hoover, currently Executive Vice President of Products, has been named President and will assume primary responsibility for all day-to-day Company operations, effective July 1st, 2012. Greg Hendershott will remain available as a consultant to support a smooth transition.
As Executive Vice President of Products, Michael Hoover has been instrumental in the direction and success of Cakewalk. Michael has over 20 years’ experience in the MI industry and joined Cakewalk in 1998, as Product Manager, where he made a huge impact with a succession of critically acclaimed products. In 2002, Michael joined the management team as Vice President of Products and Marketing and, more recently, became head of Engineering in his current role as Executive Vice President of Products. Michael has a background in audio engineering, is passionate about music and technology, and loves to play guitar. (more…)
Why are Major Publishing Companies such as EMI seeing such great success with project studios? Because with modern technology, top talent and a good set of ears, a demo may turn into a master at any given time.
Over a year ago I had the pleasure of setting up a studio at the EMI building in the meat packing district of NYC after they chose SONAR X1 for their project studio. Since then, according to Creative VP EMI Jake Ottmann “the room has been a tremendous success” with an array of well known and developing artists from all over the world engaging in music creation.
The EMI project studio facility was primarily created for the roster of EMI artists who found themselves temporarily working in New York City. “When you’re a hit songwriter, you are traveling quite a bit and find yourself in different cities at different times,” stated Jake Ottmann. “We built this room up for top-notch artists and songwriters that are in town and need a great place to relax and write music. It’s been an awesome experience since its inception and we have seen some great success. SONAR X1 and the PC Audio Labs machine which are both the heart of the room have been rock solid for these artists and writers.”
Some of the recent artists who have been working in the audio lounge include Jay Trill, Lana Del Rey, Mathew Koma, and The Glory Days.
“Sometimes it’s a few hours here and there with the X1 room just for basic writing, and other times it’s a full on technical writing/producing session that could end up on a master, just like a recent session that went down with an affiliated artist/writer/producer who was working out of here last month.”
~Jake Ottmann (VP Creative, EMI Publishing)
When putting this writing room together, EMI made a calculated decision to go with SONAR X1 and a V-Studio 100 all powered by a tailored PC Audio Labs machine. “We were looking for a solution that covered all,” explained Richard Reuss who is head of the technical team for EMI. “We wanted something that covered it all delivered in one box. We didn’t want to get into purchasing plug-ins from one company, and then synths from another; we decided on SONAR X1 Producer not only for everything it comes with, but also for the way the workflow exists in the program.” “Our writers are very unique and diverse,” added Jake Ottmann. “SONAR X1 is not only a cutting edge recording tool, but also an amazing writing tool as well, and that was very important to us in our decision; not to mention the fact that the stock plug-ins, synths and drum modules are just as good as, if not better than anything else on the market. It’s been working so well for us that our in-house audio team has been using it for post-house related projects as well – we’re pretty psyched to get this much mileage out of the system.”
Although EMI Music Publishing has a huge facility for office space, it was obvious to the staffers that there was not going to be a lot of square footage allocated to this music room. “I think one of the selling points for us was the fact that we don’t have a ton of room in this spot [the room itself], so having the Pro Channel on every track to get a big console sound without the console is huge for us,” explained Richard Reuss who has been a longtime SONAR user.
SONAR X1 continues to be the choice for leading creative institutions such as EMI Publishing. It’s also the go-to D.A.W. for many creative producers, songwriters and artists who want to be inspired by their system. Right now, you can get a great deal with the SONAR X1 First Class Upgrade promotion that will help you to create radio-ready tracks.
Congratulations to Paul Oakenfold and TC Spitfire who found themselves at #3 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs this past week with the track Surrender.
The track was written by Paul, TC and J Hart who also sang the track. TC Spitfire who is a passionate SONAR X1 Expanded user co-produced and mixed the track using a combination of all the ProChannel modules. “This new era with the ProChannel and X1d [Expanded] is on a serious elevated level. The combination of the modules has me staying more and more inside SONAR natively,” TC told us.
On a daily basis, TC is very busy individual. Between writing new music, producing, mixing and remixing, he finds himself a bit overextended these days and “taking it and enjoying it while it’s there.” Most recently, he has worked with artists such as Cher, Matt Goss, Matt Morris and Jean Baptist – and that is just in the recent past. “On a daily basis I will jump from remixing a track for 4 hours, to writing in another studio for 4 hours, and then back to our lab for another however-long-it-takes-session – for the next barrage of musical craziness.”
For the track Surrender which is currently charting on the Billboard Dance Club Chart, TC collaborated with both Paul Oakenfold and J Hart on the writing side and then built and mixed the song completely in SONAR X1 Expanded.
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CW AR: This vocal sound is huge in this track. What was some of the processing involved?
TC: On the vocal track I used the new Hybrid mode in the ProChannels QuadCurve EQ. I cut quite a bit of the low end off and had quite a bit of mids popping for this track around 1.8k. I was able to surgically cut out some other frequencies in the mids to get the vocals away from other keyboard parts in that range.
On top of that, I used the PC4K channel compressor along with a slight touch of the Softube Saturation Knob with the switch on the “high” setting. I also sent multiple lead vocal tracks out to a lead vocal bus which had the PCCL Limiter on it for a slight boost and some tightening.
CW AR: This track and all your tracks for that matter are really tight, what are the main factors for you in achieving this sound?
TC: It’s pretty simple, but it’s also pretty complicated. It’s simple, because most of it has to do with compression, EQ and limiting, which are 75% from the ProChannel in my tracks. It’s complicated because carving the frequencies, making the decisions on where to compress and how much, and what to use a limiter on – all factor in. Sometimes, over compressing and using too many limiters will just make a song sound flat-lined and not breathing. I think another factor is not using too many of the same compressors or EQ’s on every single track. I really like mixing up my inserts. On some tracks I will use the 76 and others I will use the Softube compressor. I even use the PC4K bus compressor on tracks – call me crazy – haaa. There are no rules in the digital world and use my ear and the tools SONAR X1 Expanded provides to get the sound to where I need it to be.
In the next year you will be hearing a lot more from Paul Oakenfold and TC as a new deal was just signed with Sony Records. As soon as the details are released on that we will keep you posted. Until then, you can check out SONAR X1 for free here.
SONAR X1 is the most intuitive D.A.W. on the market today. It’s easy to get up and running, and it’s just as easy with practice and experience to become an advanced user. If you are running windows, and you are a musician, now is a great time to pull the trigger with the SONAR X1 Advanced Workshop Giveaway Promotion.
“SURRENDER” [Completely recorded, mixed and mastered in SONAR X1 Expanded:]
Some artists spend more time trying to catapult their image into the status spotlight than they do actually creating music. Some artists lay low under the radar diligently doing their thing. In this day and age, there really is no right or wrong way to be an artist in the music industry, you just have to do what you do best and run with it. If the content is great, it will find its way.
A great artist example of this notion in my book is SONAR X1 Expanded user Jon Lee. Working and residing in Santa Monica, Jon Lee lays low under the radar while creating music and sound-scapes for some of today’s most popular “verite” style TV reality shows. If you have seen the show Cops, than you are probably familiar with one of the most prominent production companies in the biz, “Langley Productions.”
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 Wonderlandrecording 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 Wonderlandbesides 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…)
A little over a month ago we featured Javier Colon on our blog the day before “The Voice” premiered. I don’t think anyone had a doubt that he would be anything less than stellar on the show, but I don’t think anyone realized the impact he would have on viewers around the world. If you have seen the show you know what I am talking about; Javier’s voice is undeniable, and combining that with his first-class demeanor and composure has authentically gained him millions of fans around the world. Since the premier, Javier has been on a whirlwind ride and we have been fortunate enough to keep in touch with him even though his schedule has changed… just a bit;) (more…)
Congratulations to Paul Oakenfold and TC Spitfire who found themselves at #3 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs this past week with the track Surrender.
A little over a month ago we featured Javier Colon on our blog the day before “The Voice” premiered. I don’t think anyone had a doubt that he would be anything less than stellar on the show, but I don’t think anyone realized the impact he would have on viewers around the world. If you have seen the show you know what I am talking about; Javier’s voice is undeniable, and combining that with his first-class demeanor and composure has authentically gained him millions of fans around the world. Since the premier, Javier has been on a whirlwind ride and we have been fortunate enough to keep in touch with him even though his schedule has changed… just a bit;) 
