Cakewalk Music Creator 6 Review
If you want to get into DAW-based music without spending a fortune, Cakewalk has a solution. Hollin Jones tries it out.
Price: £59.00
Manufacturer: Cakewalk
Website: http://www.cakewalk.com
Cakewalk’s long-established flagship DAW, Sonar, has always come in a few different flavours to suit different kinds of users with different budgets. Earlier this year it had a major overhaul and its ageing GUI was redesigned to put usability at the forefront and in turn address what was the one major issue with this undeniably powerful and fully featured application. Now, with Music Creator 6, Cakewalk has taken the essence of that new technology and distilled it into a new, entry-level package. At a fraction of the cost of its bigger brothers, it nonetheless offers many of their essential features and looks remarkably similar.
Get creating
Music Creator is Windows-only, and though it will run on an OS as old as XP, it needs 2GB RAM and, perhaps more surprisingly, a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo or AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4GHz processor to run. While a Core 2 Duo at this speed is the minimum that many producers will have powering their systems, it may exclude Windows machines more than a couple of years old. This is most likely a result of the fact that the software is derived from Sonar, which is generally run on much more powerful systems than an off-the-shelf PC. In the technology world, however, things move pretty fast, and it’s unrealistic to expect to run new software on older machines.
The installer is a hefty 5.5GB download, so be prepared to leave it running overnight unless you have a fast connection. Once downloaded there’s a slightly arcane installation process, with lots of extraction and wizard screens to go through. Once you’re past this, you can authorise the software online.
When you’re up and running, what you have is essentially a cut-down version of Sonar, complete with the new Skylight interface. This is much more accessible than the old interface, and all the major sections of the interface can be resized, dragged, picked up, detached or docked as you like. There’s a good window management system that lets you save and load screensets, so it’s easy to flip between mixing, tracking and editing views, for example.
Track laying
You get up to 150 tracks of audio and MIDI recording, which is more than most people will ever need, plus a good selection of project templates set up for composing in different styles. The Browser section lets you navigate your hard drives and sound libraries with an Explorer-style view, and loops can be previewed in the Browser and dragged and dropped into the project.
You get 1,000 professionally recorded loops that are designed to be used together and built into songs, and this accounts for some of the large download size. You can, of course, record audio into tracks, then edit, slice, stretch and arrange it, and record or program MIDI tracks. A tool palette at the top enables you to select the relevant editing or selection methods, and everything is generally also available through right-clicking. The new Smart Tool is rather nifty and alters its function based on which section of the application you are mousing over. Remarkably, for an entry-level program, there is support for notation, so you can work with musical scores as well.
Virtual instruments have always been Cakewalk’s strong suit, and here you get a small but good selection. Cakewalk Sound Center is a go-to module for bread-and-butter sounds like guitars, basses, synths and drums; Studio Instruments Drums is a great-sounding virtual drum kit with preset patterns; TTS 1 is another synth that’s wide-ranging in its scope.
You can add more instruments later through further purchases and Music Creator can utilise plug-ins installed on your system. This includes effects, and you get some good ones bundled, including AmpliTube 3 CS for guitar tones, plus ten of Music Creator’s own general-purpose studio FX. The mixer is professional, providing clear and easy access to effects, EQ and fader functions and there’s automation in the mixer as well as throughout the rest of the application. When your mixes are done you can export them or send them directly to SoundCloud.
Big package, small price
Music Creator is a very affordable way to get into music production on your PC, and has many of the essential features of Sonar but without the bells and whistles that beginners wouldn’t need anyway. The interface is much improved, though some still find it a little clinical, and the bundled content and editing tools available to you will certainly have you producing tracks in next to no time. MTM
Verdict
WHY BUY
Very affordable
Good range of instruments and FX
Skylight interface very flexible
Many bundled loops
Music notation is a bonus
WALK ON BY
Hefty download
Installation a little long-winded
A well-featured and powerful DAW with many of the features of Sonar and a very attractive price tag.
★★★★★★★★
Score: 8
This review first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 104
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