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SOFTWARE REVIEWED: Cakewalk Pro Audio
RELEASED BY: Cakewalk
PRICE:
REVIEWED BY: G-String
REVIEW:
About 10 years ago, Steinberg created Cubase for the Atari or Amiga. Cubase was a music program for editing digital sounds on a computer. Now, backed by Evolution, they are the market leaders in Music Programs. When Cubase first came out, it gave people the chance to feel like they had a recording studio at their own home. And indeed, they did have, but not as graphically drawn. You know how you can be playing a game, like Quake, and you feel as if you are the person with the gun, and these people are firing at YOU, well this can happen when you're using music program. I can imagine myself, with a long beard, tired eyes, feet up on the desk, keyboard on my lap, millions of beer cans on the floor, and then I tap on the mike and say, "ok boys, and gals, lets take it from the top. . . . . 1 . . 2 . .3 . . 4. ". You get my picture.
Today the program is used by home users as well as in the music industry. The software had such a simple and easy interface, that the manual needed for it was virtually non-existent. The play button played the song, the pause button paused it, the stop button stopped it, the record button started to record the song, etc, etc, etc. The program became a huge hit, so the company made more versions. Backed by Evolution, Steinberg has made a version called Cubasis Audio Lite. The interface is just as simple, but there are more advanced, hidden features.
This piece of software is about 3 megabytes of hard disk space. The reason for this is that it is in black and white. No colour whatsoever, apart from the occasional shade of grey. Anyway. Continuing with the feature on Music Programs, this is for the very basic user, or for the slow PC generation. For those still on 486 33MHz, this is perfect. The quality of sound doesn't get much better once you hit a 16-bit sound card. I prefer it at this level. But then I haven't heard it with the new SoundBlaster Live. that looks exciting. Cubasis is along the same principle as Cubase, if not exactly the same. There are more features as I've said before, but there is now a manual. Yes, the program now comes with a fully-functional manual for your extreme pleasure. Oh dear..............
It is difficult to write about more than one program without comparing them all the time. So I can't be bothered in restraining myself. Cakewalk has definitely got more features. The layout is more attractive and it is a real goddarn good piece of software. However, this doesn't mean that I am degrading Cubasis. Nono. Cubasis was the original, and I am fond of originality, hence why I love Nirvana so much, and all credit should go to the original creators. Steinberg, we salute you friend. And now a minute's silence................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................. Well that's much better.
Cubasis Audio Lite is very user friendly to all technophobes. The only problem they might encounter would be setting up the hardware devices which I found a little tricky. Overall, this is an excellent piece of software for a slow and less powerful PC.
SCORE:
85%
MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIRED:
CPU: 386 DX2
RAM: 4MB
Windows 3.11\95\98\NT
Sound Card
LINKS: www.evolution.com