Cakewalk at AES 2006
Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco
AES Videos
Terry Howard on the Importance of Sound Quality
Mixing Tips from Terry Howard
Terry Howard on Integrating Studio Hardware with SONAR 6
Advanced Roland V-Vocal Editing Techniques
October 8th, 2006
The TEC Awards last night were a lot of fun. This award show, which is voted on by the readers of Mix, is like the equivalent of the Grammy Awards in our industry. Will Lee hosted the event—he's turning into the Billy Crystal of the Pro Audio Industry, he was absolutely hilarious.
Intel was the premier sponsor of the event, and as part of their sponsorship, they played a video during the event which showed their technology being used by leaders in our industry. You know, people like George Massenberg, Rory Kaplan, Graham Nash, and ... Cakewalk's own Brandon Ryan. It was awesome seeing his picture up on the big stage with such luminaries. While I am on the topic of sharing the stage with luminaries, I was a little disappointed that we did not win TEC Awards for Dimension Pro or SONAR, but I had to remind myself that we were sharing the stage with legends of the recording industry such Dave Hewitt and Steve Miller, and technology heavyweights such as Neve, Euphonix, and SSL. It is an honor just to be recognized along with that group. We did however receive a KeyBuy for Rapture from Keyboard magazine.
Speaking of Gear, I thought we should talk a little about the hardware we used on the main stage for our presentations during the 2006 AES Show. Along with the SSL console we previously mentioned, we were also using Manley Compression and EQ, an RME Audio Interface , and JBL LSR 4326 Reference Monitors. Our presentations have never sounded better. I'd like to thank these companies for their support.
Rory Kaplan spoke on Saturday about how easy it is to mix in surround with SONAR, and he played a mix he had done for Queen. Terry Howard gave another talk on combining an in-and-out of the box techniques for mixing. They both had some very educational things to say. Rather than try to paraphrase it here, we'll have video excerpts online in the coming week.
Rory Kaplan presents a Queen surround mix in SONAR 6
Between the demos to engineers, press meetings, and continued work on industry partnerships, this was our best show ever. The Cakewalk crew did a bang up job. We're all heading back to Boston now.
The hard working Cakewalk crew takes time out for dinner
Thanks for reading,
Carl
October 6th, 2006
Well, the first day of the show was a smashing success. The word
has been spreading about SONAR 6 and our demos were packed all
day long. And the SONAR 6 launch party was the place to be. Our friends
from Intel, all of the major music publications, and various partners
in the industry all turned out. At the party I had a great conversation
with SONAR user Vivek Madala. Later this month, Vivek will be having
a silent film he scored performed live by the Portland Symphony
Orchestra. We'll write more about this in our newsletter.
Terry Howard's first presentation went
well. He talked about how much he liked SONAR for it's stability,
ease of use, and sound quality. He discussed his techniques for running
SONAR in conjunction with a large format console and external hardware.
He mentioned that he does more work in the box now than ever, but
there's some gear in particular some products from Manley Labs that
he's fallen in love with and just can't let go. After the talk there
was a lengthy Q&A session.
In walking the show floor, I saw a couple things of interest.
Tascam was showing off their new Giga GVI using SONAR 6 on an
Intel-enabled Mac running book camp. I'm anxiously awaiting Frontier
Design's new AlphaTrack, a compact control surface that includes
a motorized fader, three encoders, and a touch-sensitive jog
and shuttle strip. Frontier's support for SONAR with this is
really well implemented. It looks small enough that my wife may
not notice me bringing in another piece of gear into my studio.
On a funny note, Brandon & Michael have been trying to show
SONAR 6's new crash protection functionality but they have been
unable to get the application to crash. Going beyond the call
of duty, Noel Borthwick went back to his hotel room last night
and wrote an intentionally bug-ridden plug-in, aptly titled "ACME Crash
Me," so Michael and Brandon could start showing off the
feature today.
Last
night Terry Howard and I party hopped between a few industry events.
The Universal Audio party, held at Asphodel Studios had
an amazing surround sound presentation, and
in one room they had a crazy old analog synth that required you
to patch cables
to and from each component used to generate a sound...boy am I happy to have
Rapture and our synth rack doing all that work for me behind the scenes now.
Looking forward to the TEC awards tonight.
I'll have another show update tomorrow.
Carl
The Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco
SSL AWS 900+ with SONAR 6 (drool guard not yet installed)
October 5th, 2006
Cakewalk is excited to return to San Francisco for the 2006 Audio Engineering Society conference.
The AES show provides audio engineers, producers, and musicians the opportunity to see the latest in recording technology. It also presents an excellent educational opportunity, with a full program of technical papers, seminars and workshops covering current research and new concepts and applications in the world of professional audio.
Our goal for this year's show is to continue as the technology leader in the music creation and production space. SONAR 5 made a big stir last year with 64-bit support and a ground-breaking audio engine, turning the heads of the notoriously hard to impress golden-ears roaming the show. This year will be just as exciting with SONAR 6's show stopping features like AudioSnap™ and ACT™.
Today will be our first public presentations of SONAR 6, and we’re thrilled to be showing it in conjunction with an SSL AWS 900+ board, which added support for SONAR earlier this year. In addition to SONAR 6 demos by Cakewalk’s Brandon Ryan and Michael Prager, Grammy-winning engineer and producer Terry Howard will be giving two presentations at the Cakewalk booth on optimizing a hybrid production environment combining in- and out-of-the-box mixing techniques. In addition, 5.1 pioneer Rory Kaplan will be speaking about using SONAR for surround audio production.
Tonight we’re hosting a VIP party, sponsored by Intel to celebrate the launch of SONAR 6. And we’re also excited to be nominated for 2 TEC awards this year for both SONAR 5 and Dimension Pro. The awards are Saturday night and I’ll keep you posted.
Important announements at the show today:
SONAR 6 Now Shipping - It might be hard for die-hard Cakewalk fans to realize, but there are actually a few people out there who might not know that SONAR 6 is on store shelves and making big waves. It's always a good idea to do a press release just in case. -Read Press Release-
Fast Forward >> SONAR 6 Tour - Cakewalk is hitting the road again, this time to show you what SONAR 6 can do to make your music creation and production experience better than ever before. Also of note, Microsoft Windows Vista™ is sponsoring the tour. Did you know that SONAR 6 is already being tested on the long-awaited new operating system? -Read Press Release-
Session Drummer™ 2 Expansion Packs are Coming! - Cakewalk is partnering with leading drum content provider Smart Loops to create expansion packs for SONAR 6's new drum instrument, Session Drummer 2. These packs, featuring new sample and groove content, will be available in Q4. -Read Press Release-
Cakewalk Announces Appointments - Two veteran Cakewalkers have moved up to new positions, and we have gained an industry veteran as our new Executive VP of Sales and Marketing. -Read Press Release-
Check back every day of the show for an updated blog with more exciting news.
