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Create Record Label, High-Quality Productions With SONAR 8.5

MatrixViewFor Chris Maguire, upgrading his DAW to SONAR 8.5 was a no brainer. For $99, Chris made the move from SONAR 8.0 Producer and immediately began to see the improvements made to the DAW’s feature set and functionality.  In his review at Altsounds.com, Chris explains how he used the VX-64 Vocal Strip, PX-64 Percussion Strip and the Matrix view (the brand new mixing and arranging tools in SONAR 8.5) to create high-end, professional sounding productions.

To Chris, these three additions to SONAR 8.5 alone, “were worth the upgrade price so when you throw in all the other updates, tweaks and functionality you get for your money, there should be no question (to upgrade to SONAR 8.5).”

Read Chris’s full analysis of  SONAR 8.5 at Altsounds.com.

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Intel's Core i7 980x Processor Brings Unbelievable Performance to Computer Music-Making

Slow and steady may win the race but it does not make creating music on the computer any easier!

Accelerate your music-making experience on the PC with more power and better stability, check out Intel’s new Core i7 Extreme Edition Processor. Code-named “Gulftown” the Core i7 980x is the first 32nm, six-core processor with 12 computing threads! In short, it brings a whole new level of performance to your computer’s workload. See the video below, produced for the Core i7 980x’s launch, at last week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA.

“The Core i7 Extreme and SONAR 8.5 equals UNBELIEVABLE performance.”

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Cakewalk Nominated for 2010 MIPA Awards

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.

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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.

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Receive Instant Savings On SONAR 8.5

Thinking about upgrading your DAW to SONAR 8.5? Now may be the best time to do so! As a leading choice in music production software for professional musicians worldwide, SONAR 8.5 has everything you need to compose, record, edit, mix and master your music. Its extensive array of virtual instruments and audio effects, gives you the freedom to create all sorts of compositions. While its double-precision, 64-bit audio engine and unwavering Windows support, gives you more power to play!

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When you purchase SONAR 8.5 Studio or Producer during the month of March at select retailers, you will receive a $100 instant rebate. Click on over to Cakewalk’s Special Offers page to enjoy your new studio today!

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SONAR 8.5 Goes Above & Beyond Typical Update

New features screenshotTo upgrade or not to upgrade? That is the question for many SONAR users concerning the latest product release, SONAR 8.5. Although, it’s not your typical point release, Craig Anderton calls version 8.5 “another welcome step forward, it delivers more than it promises”. With its new tools for creativity and added support for Windows 7, SONAR 8.5 gives today’s musicians the best recording environment at an affordable price.

A long-time SONAR user, Anderton gives his reasons why SONAR 8.5 is an ‘overachieving’ point upgrade in his latest review for Keyboard Magazine.

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AudioMidi.com Likes the Sound of the V-Studio 100

audiomidiAudioMIDI.com’s Dee Davis gave the V-Studio 100 a workout recently and came away very pleased with the results.

Dee hooked up the VS-100 to a PC running Windows XP Professional, with 4 GB RAM and two 1 TB Hard drives, all powered by an AMD Phenom X4 Quad processor. After installing SONAR 8.5, Dee pulled up some recent SONAR-produced projects and found them to sound terrific , “perfect” in fact.

After checking out projects in higher sample rates and getting positive results, Dee recorded some vocals using the mic pres and was also “pleasantly surprised with the sound quality.” But the true test came when s/he recorded his/her Musicman StingRay Bass with the VS-100. Initially skeptical — “I am very hard of audio interfaces, as I feel they never truly get the real tone” — Dee was delighted when the resulting sound turned out to be “the best I have ever heard on any recording system!” S/he also went on to highlight the VS-100’s Windows 7 compatibility, solid control surface functions and use in Mackie Control Function Mode.

“Ultimately, I found the V-Studio 100 an excellent device to work with,” she concluded. “The sound quality was great! The mixer and effects were solid and very easy to use.” Finally, she noted that “This compact unit will serve many of your needs with just one purchase. With the included software, you have everything you need to start recording right away.”

You can read the full review on AudioMIDI.com

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Music Radar's 12 Ways to Get More Out of SONAR 8.5

SONAR 8.5Make your New Year’s resolution one that you can be proud of. Dare to be more adventurous as a music-maker in 2010 with Music Radar’s 12 Ways to Get More Out of SONAR 8.5. With this guide, you’ll be able to manipulate SONAR’s tools for composing, editing and mastering your projects in ways you never thought possible.

Did you know that you can assign SONAR’s virtual instruments, such as Session Drummer 3, as well as project views, like the Matrix view, to your favorite controller? Trigger pre-loaded sounds and patterns from your controller with these tools and you’ll have a musical mash-up like no other. Does your vocal track need a little work? Use V-Vocal to create multi-part harmonies and AudioSnap to tweak the timing for a more realistic performance.

These tips and more can be found in hard-copy. Pick up Computer Music Magazine (January 2010) for a complete guide to the creatively-charged, SONAR 8.5.

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Building a Better DAW with SONAR 8.5

blogcritics_logoSoftware Developer and Sci/Tech Reviewer at BlogCritics.org,  T. Michael Testi likes what he sees in the new version of Cakewalk’s flagship digital audio workstation, SONAR. With improvements made to its mainstay features including Session Drummer, AudioSnap and Step Sequencer, SONAR is transforming into a simpler and more tangible product for those new to the music production world.

Session Drummer 3 sports a 3D photo-realistic drum kit with 200+ pre-loaded percussive sounds and 20+ new kits. AudioSnap 2.0 employs a cleaner user interface with a dedicated transient tool and proportional stretching mode to make timing adjustments in several places a cinch. Step Sequencer 2.0 brings more flexibility to composing patterns by grid with brand new tools for auto-populate and per-step probability.

“With SONAR 8.5,” says Testi, “it was all about the optimization of the features that were (already) there… These (features) will not only improve your production, but will get your creative juices going”

See what’s new and improved in SONAR 8.5 Producer on the The Ram Review at Blogcritics.org.

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Meet Cakewalk Representatives This Holiday Season

Edit-5During this Holiday season, we would like to take some time to personally assist you with any questions you might have about our products.

During the coming week, our technical sales representatives will be at select music retailers across the country with the sole purpose of helping you learn more about SONAR 8.5, V-Studio 100, V-Studio 700, our audio and MIDI interfaces, desktop monitors and more.

Find a location near you on Cakewalk’s Tour page.

We look forward to meeting you!

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The Musician's Digital Audio Workstation: SONAR 8.5

seth_kelloggIf you saw our ads for Guitar Tracks Pro 4, then you already know that 3 out of 4 Cakewalk employees are guitar players.  In fact, many Cakewalk employees are also full-time musicians, using Cakewalk products to record, mix and master their own projects.

When it came time to design the new features in SONAR 8.5, we focused on what we felt would be the absolute best enhancements to help us all be more creative and produce better sounding music. We added new beat creation and arrangement tools, a new drum instrument loaded with stellar sounding kits, enhanced audio quantizing, new multi-stage effects plug-ins, and much more.

To honor the new and improved version of SONAR,  we’ve added the Created by Musicians page to Cakewalk.com to share with you our own musical talents and favorite features in SONAR 8.5.