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I'll try to add some more photos tomorrow, but this was a big deal. Basically, it's a complete, turnkey studio based around Sonar 8.0, along with a hardware controller, audio interface, and Roland Fantom synth engine (built in the interface). As they are not exactly unknown quantities, it might not seem that impressive at first until you scratch beneath the surface.
The interface has tons of I/O, but what impresses me is that the mic preamps sound really good. Also, they have digitally-controlled gain, and you can control this directly from the console and store gain settings as a preamp. So you can have different presets for different miking situations.
Having the Roland synth built into the interface may seem gratuitous, but it's a zero-latency hardware synth with a bunch of excellent-sounding presets. It's very convenient to have a high-end synth that's ready to go as soon as you turn things on, and doesn't load down your CPU. But you can also add an ARX synth expansion board which isn't like a new ROM set, but another synth engine--more polyphony, more sounds, etc.
The controller has nine motorized faders, but to me, the star of that show are the 12 rotary encoders that tweak EQ or perhaps more importantly, control synth and signal processors via Cakewalk's ACT protocol. The choice of controls and buttons makes it easy to navigate through Sonar, especially the jog/shuttle wheel--great stuff. What Cakewalk didn't emphasize was that the controller is also Mackie-compatible, so if you use programs other than Sonar, odds are you'll be able to use the controller with it.
I was lucky enough to have a pre-production prototype controller to work with for an EQ feature article on controllers, and it really is a game-changer for Sonar...serious workflow mojo, thanks to well-executed hands-on control. The three images show various views from the Cakewalk press conference in the morning of the show.
The interface has tons of I/O, but what impresses me is that the mic preamps sound really good. Also, they have digitally-controlled gain, and you can control this directly from the console and store gain settings as a preamp. So you can have different presets for different miking situations.
Having the Roland synth built into the interface may seem gratuitous, but it's a zero-latency hardware synth with a bunch of excellent-sounding presets. It's very convenient to have a high-end synth that's ready to go as soon as you turn things on, and doesn't load down your CPU. But you can also add an ARX synth expansion board which isn't like a new ROM set, but another synth engine--more polyphony, more sounds, etc.
The controller has nine motorized faders, but to me, the star of that show are the 12 rotary encoders that tweak EQ or perhaps more importantly, control synth and signal processors via Cakewalk's ACT protocol. The choice of controls and buttons makes it easy to navigate through Sonar, especially the jog/shuttle wheel--great stuff. What Cakewalk didn't emphasize was that the controller is also Mackie-compatible, so if you use programs other than Sonar, odds are you'll be able to use the controller with it.
I was lucky enough to have a pre-production prototype controller to work with for an EQ feature article on controllers, and it really is a game-changer for Sonar...serious workflow mojo, thanks to well-executed hands-on control. The three images show various views from the Cakewalk press conference in the morning of the show.
There are now eight music videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a cover of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," which joins "Little Pieces", "Black Market Daydreams," and "When the Grid Goes Down" (complete with disturbing video 
)
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I know what you mean, but if you break the costs down, it's not as bad. The full package has not only the control surface (which definitely rocks), but also Sonar 8, the full version of Rapture (the non-V-Studio Sonar 8 only has the LE version), a really good interface--the eight mic pres sound excellent--and a Roland Fantom synth.
There are now eight music videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a cover of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," which joins "Little Pieces", "Black Market Daydreams," and "When the Grid Goes Down" (complete with disturbing video )
)
Good point. I've worked with a prototype of the V-Studio controller, and it speeds things up enough that I estimate within less than a year, it will have paid for itself given how many projects I do with Sonar. I'll definitely be buying the controller as soon as it appears...I'm sure it will last more than a year, so past a certain point, it will start making money for me.
There are now eight music videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a cover of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," which joins "Little Pieces", "Black Market Daydreams," and "When the Grid Goes Down" (complete with disturbing video )
)
There are plenty of high grade mic preamps and converters out there, too, but what this gadget offers is a fully integrated system, including a hardware control surface. This means that instead of buying several pieces from different manufacturer and then have to make them work together, to the computer, it looks like just one piece of hardware and one piece of software that were designed to work together.
True, and it also lets them get away with things like being able to adjust mic preamp gains from the control surface itself, and save gain presets for different recording scenarios.
The control surface will probably work with other DAW programs...
It can do Mackie control, I've used it with Ableton Live and some other programs. If it didn't do Mackie control, that would have been a deal-breaker as I don't want two control surfaces on my desktop.
Lots of converters use the same chips as Apogee. That's just a small part of making a good converter-the-box.
Bingo! Spread the gospel, brother. Chips are pretty similar these days, but the "glue" varies considerably.
But Roland has always done digital pretty well, going back to their early samplers, so the converters are probably good enough so that they aren't going to stand in the way of making good recordings. They've been learning about mic preamps for a while and probably have them down pretty competently now.
Well I don't get excited about mic pres, but I will say these are very clean and "sweet" - no brittleness. They're better than most of the mic pres I have, and there are eight of them, so it would be a step up for my studio.
There are now eight music videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a cover of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," which joins "Little Pieces", "Black Market Daydreams," and "When the Grid Goes Down" (complete with disturbing video )
)
As far as I know it's playback only, but you can add ARX expansion cards for more sounds.
There are now eight music videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a cover of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," which joins "Little Pieces", "Black Market Daydreams," and "When the Grid Goes Down" (complete with disturbing video )
)
Use the Make CD option.
There are now eight music videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a cover of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," which joins "Little Pieces", "Black Market Daydreams," and "When the Grid Goes Down" (complete with disturbing video )
)
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