Music Software Product Reviews
Doc's Music Blog
| Ableton Live 9 |
| Recently Ableton released Live 9, and we have now added a new training course, Ableton Live 9 – Know It All. The new feature set is fairly modest, especially for a product that hasn’t had a major update for almost four years. Nonetheless, there are some significant new features that you might want to consider. As usual, I’m going to review what I think are the most important ones. (more…) |
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| Software Popularity Index — Getting Social |
| Recently we did a major update to our Music Software Popularity Index in which we not only updated the quarterly data but also made some major changes to the structure of the index. In summary, the changes encompass factoring in the impact of Social Media as well as adding Virtual Instruments to the type of software included. This analysis has proved to be one of the most viewed features on our site. I thought this would be a good time to talk about the purpose of the index and the impact of these changes. |
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| Cubase 7 – Know It All! |
| Recently Steinberg released Cubase 7, and we have now added a new training course, Cubase 7 – Know It All. There are a number of interesting new features, and I’m going to review what I think are the most important ones. (more…) |
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| MOTU Digital Performer 8 – Know It All! |
| Recently MOTU released Digital Performer 8, and we have now added a new training course, Digital Performer 8 – Know It All. Although this release includes some interesting new plug-ins, the primary changes are under the covers, namely, Windows support and a 64-bit architecture. (more…) |
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| Sonar X2 – Know It All! |
| Recently Cakewalk released Sonar X2, and we have now added a new training course, Sonar X2 – Know It All. This release mainly consists of new plug-ins plus a few new features as well as minor improvements to the user interface. I’m going to review these new functions in this blog. (more…) |
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| Mixing & Mastering – Know It All! (V4) |
| We recently released Version 4 of our popular course Mixing & Mastering – Know It All and I thought it would be a good idea to discuss some of the new content. When we first developed this course almost five years ago, it was still common practice to use a separate Digital Audio Editor for mastering. Thus we featured Sony Sound Forge, Adobe Audition, and later Apple Soundtrack Pro. But music making technology changes rapidly, and by now there is no real need for the musicians who want to master their own mixes to invest in separate software. Many Digital Audio Workstations already contain mastering tools which can be supplemented by mastering plug-in suites. Thus with this version of the course we have dropped the use of separate Digital Audio Editors for mastering and use only plug-ins. (more…) |
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| Music for Media – Creating Music for Film, TV, and Games |
We recently released a new training course Music for Media-Know It All! designed to help musicians create music for film, television, and games. Over the past decade the opportunities for generating revenue from the conventional pop music genres have declined dramatically. Thus many musicians are looking for ways to expand the scope of both their business and artistic recognition into other areas. Creating music for film, TV, and games offers the conventional pop musician a wealth of additional opportunities. Our Music for Media course encompasses five broad areas:
- Industry Overview
- Composing and Producing
- 5.1 Surround Mixing
- Video Synchronization
- Game Audio Tools
This blog discusses the contents of each of these areas. (more…) |
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| FL Studio 10 – Moving Towards the Mainstream |
ImageLine recently released FL Studio 10 and we have now added a new training course for FL Studio 10 as well as updating our DAW Shootout. This blog discusses the new features and functions included in that release. FL Studio has always been a product that defies many of the conventions of traditional DAW’s. There are several changes in this release that move more towards mainstream DAW features.
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| Cubase 6 – Incremental Improvement |
Steinberg recently released Cubase 6 and we have now added a new training course for Cubase 6 as well as updating our DAW Shootout. This blog discusses the new features and functions included in that release. Unlike the new releases of Sonar and Pro Tools earlier this year which concentrated mainly on software restructuring, this version of Cubase does come with quite a few new user features. However, many of them are basically incremental improvements to existing functions.
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| Digital Audio Workstation Shootout Version 20 – The End of the DAW? |
We recently updated our Digital Audio Workstation Shootout to incorporate the changes in Avid Pro Tools 9 and Cakewalk Sonar X1. These new versions mark the first time in almost a year that any major DAW has been upgraded. All of the DAW producers seem to have hunkered down, waiting for the economy to improve. You might think that both Cakewalk and Avid would have packed their releases full of new tech toys to entice buyers back into the market. But that didn’t happen. The most striking thing about both of these releases is that, although they incorporate major software changes, neither of them introduce any significant new user functionality. Let’s examine the substance of these two new versions because I think they signal a major shift in the focus of the DAW market. (more…)
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