Music Software Product Reviews
Doc's Music Blog
| 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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| Digital Producer (Version 3) – Digging Deeper |
| We recently released Version 3 of our popular Digital Producer course. Even though the general topics are the same as Version 2, we wound up adding about 80 minutes of new content which explores these areas in a lot more depth. I thought it would be worth discussing the rationale for some of the subjects that we added. Here is a summary of the most significant changes: (more…) |
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Digital Arranger – Completing Your Musical Ideas
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We recently released a new training course Digital Arranger-Know It All! designed to help people create songs for production on a computer. This course is quite different from our other courses which focus primarily on Digital Audio Workstations and other music software. Composing and arranging, no matter what environment you are working in, is less about technology and more about the application of music theory, harmony, and grooves to create various genres and styles of music. I’m going to cover some of the highlights of the new course in this blog. (more…)
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Digital Performer 7 – New Mixer, Guitar Amp & Score Features
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MOTU recently released a new version of Digital Performer, and we have now added a new training course for Digital Performer 7. The most notable improvements in this upgrade involve the Mixing Board and the QuickScribe score editor as well as a set of guitar and bass amp simulation plug-ins. This blog covers the highlights of these new features. (more…)
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Sound Forge 10 – Building on Strength
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Sony recently released a new version of Sound Forge, and we have now added a new training course for Sound Forge 10. Sound Forge, like most Digital Audio Editors, is a mature product. Thus the new features and functions are relatively incremental. Nonetheless, these enhancements do add significant value to this audio workhorse. We cover the major new functions in-depth in the new tutorials, but I’ll go over the highlights here. (more…)
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FL Studio 9 – More Plugs, Fewer Bugs
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ImageLine recently released a new version of FL Studio, and we have now added a new training course for FL Studio as well as updating our DAW Shootout. This new version has a few new plug-ins and major features as well as a long list of minor enhancements and bug fixes. We cover the major new functions in-depth in the new tutorials, but I’ll go over the highlights here. (more…)
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Sonar 8.5 - Cakewalk Takes a Breather
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For the past 7 years every Fall like clockwork Cakewalk has released a new version of Sonar, more frequently than any other DAW manufacturer. So I suspect it’s either the economy or that even the Sonar faithful are becoming a little burned out on new releases (or probably a little of both) that prompted a different strategy this year — Sonar 8.5. Unlike some manufacturers normally Cakewalk only does bug fixes in “point” releases and doesn’t charge for them. The upgrade to Sonar 8.5 costs $99 and has a surprisingly generous amount of new content. In response we decided to issue a free course upgrade for our Sonar 8 customers instead of doing a new course. Here’s my take on the new features in Sonar 8.5. If you’re a first-time Sonar customer, you may also want to take a look at my blog on Sonar 8. (more…)
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