Cakewalk at NAMM 2007 Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California

Post NAMM Updates

SONAR 6.2 Videos from Winter NAMM 2007
There are two videos now online from Winter NAMM 2007. SonicState.com has a video featuring Brandon Ryan that covers the new features in SONAR 6.2, and Crossfader.com has a video of Brandon giving a demo on music creation in SONAR 6.2.

Series of SONAR Artist Interviews on Crossfader.com
Crossfader filmed a number of video interviews with SONAR customers at NAMM including: film & TV composer Shawn Clement; Billboard-charting pianist & composer Kevin Kern; and film & TV composer Peter Johnson.

Day 1 - We’ve Reached the Vista

Well, it’s the first day of NAMM and we’re very excited to be here. We have a number of big product announcements, including another first for Cakewalk. It looks like we’re going to be the leading the pack with Windows Vista support. SONAR 6.2 is coming next week…yes you’re reading right, not 6.0.2, but SONAR 6.2. Besides being the first native DAW for Windows Vista, there are so many new features in this free update, it knocked SONAR up a couple points.

In addition to the SONAR 6.2 update for SONAR 6 Producer Edition and Studio Edition, we’re announcing version updates to the entire SONAR line:

SONAR Power Studio, SONAR Home Studio, and SONAR LE. These will all be released over the next few months.

Now before all you Project5 customers start accusing us of SONAR-favoritism, we’ve got some news for you too. We’ve released the feature set for the upcoming free Project5 Version 2.5 update. I think you’ll be pretty happy with what you see.

We’ve been doing some serious development with Roland Systems Group on a high-end recording solution for live venues that combines SONAR with the RSS S-4000 Digital Snake system. By adding REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) Recording Technology to SONAR this will allow the recording of 40 simultaneous channels of 24-bit / 96 kHz audio by connecting the RSS S-4000 to a PC’s Gigabit Ethernet port. There will be a beta program for this technology, read the press release if you’re interested in learning more.

I’m psyched about our special guests this weekend.

Sharkey will be discussing production techniques and showing off tracks and from his new Monster Maker project with C-Rayz Walz. If you’re wondering who the heck Monster Maker is…here’s a tip and tell only your friends: Monster Maker is the band to watch on the underground hip hop scene in 07. Check out some pre-release tracks here. After his talk, Sharkey will be providing the soundtrack for SONAR 6.2 Launch party, being held in our booth. Sponsored by Intel & Microsoft Windows Vista.

Later this week we have Torben Larsen, the mastermind behind VC-64 giving a talk and demonstration of VC-64 and its capabilities.

Johnny Juice will be giving production tips as he debuts tracks from the new Public Enemy album Beats and Places and his new project the baNNed. You can listen to Grand Theft Oil off the new PE album on Juice’s MySpace page. Given the nature of that song title, and the nature of Public Enemy, supporters of the current administration here in the US may want to pass on that link.

Industry legends Terry Howard (Ray Charles) and Rory Kaplan (Queen, Michael Jackson) will both be giving talks about audio production with SONAR.

And Kerry Livgren, the man who wrote Carry On Wayward Son and Dust in the Wind as the primary songwriter, guitarist, and keyboard player for Kansas will be discussing how he is now using Dimension Pro on the most ambitious work of his career, entitled "Cantata: The Resurrection Lazarus." An epic, orchestral and vocal composition based on the Biblical story from John Chapter 11 that he has been developing for over 20 years.

WHEW… that’s quite the first post? Check back in tomorrow for more NAMM news.

Day 2

Well the second day of of the show was amazing. The SONAR demos were packed. Brandon and Zac have been knocking them dead.

In the "NAMM news that I am totally psyched about" category, Universal Audio have just released 64-bit drivers for the UAD-1. I've been dying to use my UAD on my x64 rig, and now I finally can.

One of my favorite things about NAMM is getting to hear from our customers all the great things they have been doing with our software. One story that stood out, SONAR user Jimmy Nichols lets us know that he's been using SONAR as his virtual instrument host every night with Faith Hill on his Neko PC Performance Workstation.

The SONAR 6.2 launch party was a blast. Intel and Microsoft Windows Vista sponsored the evening. Sharkey spun a skiller set of mashups and there were many members of the press, artists, and our friends in the industry in attendence. A good time was had by all.

Check out some of the photos.

Alan Parsons, Denise Latscha from Intel, Rory Kaplan

Jimmy Nichols & George Taylor founder of Synthogy

CSI New York's Pete Johnson & Cakewalk's Chad Beckwith

Sharkey spinning

Shawn Clement & DJ Johnny Juice

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow.

Day 3 & 4

Well I have to apologize faithful reader. Things were just so busy the last couple days of the show that I was not able to get daily updates online.

Here’s a summary of the news and events for the last two days:

I spent most of the day on Saturday, facilitating artist interviews for Microsoft’s new Crossfader.com website. Pictured above are Microsoft’s Darek Mazone with Paul Wertico and Peter Johnson. Other interviews included Shawn Clement, Kevin Kern, Vivek Maddala, and Sharkey. You can expect these interviews to be live on the Crossfader.com website soon.

A couple of our partners were showing some exciting things with SONAR 6.

MOTU joined Cakewalk on the Vista. MOTU was showing off their newly released Vista drivers by running SONAR 6.2 on Vista with their Ethno instrument. If you’re interested in finding out more, click here.

Frontier Design was showing the Alphatrack with SONAR 6. It’s working incredibly well with SONAR and you can expect more news from us in the future on this product.

I finally got to see Cakewalk and Roland’s joint REAC technology, and it was very impressive. They were recording multiple channels of audio simultaneously across a 100 meter Cat-5 cable plugged directly into a PC’s Ethernet port. This will definitely affect the way that venues record events in the future.

All of our artist demos were filmed. So you can expect us to have new footage online soon of Kerry Livgren, Rory Kaplan, Terry Howard, Sharkey and Johnny Juice talking about how they use Cakewalk products.

Right before the end of the last day Joey P and Dale Ramsey stopped by. They are pictured above with Cakewalk's Alex Westner and Steve Thomas. They have been using Rapture and Dimension Pro on a number of productions including the Ludacris' most recent release.

All in all this was the most successful NAMM show yet. We’re very excited about the groundwork that has been laid at this show that will materialize as more exciting news for Cakewalk customers in the coming months.