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If any piece of music software deserves the descriptor venerable, it's Cakewalk's MIDI sequencer product. This thing has been around in one form or another since 1988. Its current form began taking shape in 1992 when it was released for Windows. It turned another corner in 1995 when digital audio features were added to its extensive set of MIDI tools. Cakewalk has done an impressive job of keeping up with or leading its competition in adding new features, refining functionality, and improving the interface, all while keeping prices very reasonable. I took a look at Cakewalk's latest top-of-the-line offering, Pro Audio 8 Deluxe.
I installed the product onto my primary Windows audio machine: a Pentium 200MHz MMX with 64MB of RAM, a Turtle Beach Pinnacle sound card, and an Adaptec Ultra-SCSI card running Windows 95. This machine had Cakewalk Pro Audio 6.1 already installed, and Pro Audio 8 found it and effortlessly updated the application. My other machine, a Pentium Pro 200MHz with 96MB of RAM, a Sound Blaster 16 card, with an Ultra-Wide SCSI card running Windows 98, held no previous versions of Cakewalk, so Pro Audio 8 stepped me through the setup process with little hassle. On both machines, I used a Mark of the Unicom MIDI Timepiece AV for MIDI interface and synchronization duties, and Pro Audio 8 recognized it flawlessly.
INTERFACE. After you've launched the application, Pro Audio 8 presents you with a new, empty project file (using the default Normal template), or optionally, a very simple but handy window called Quick Start. Quick Start gives one-button access to New File, Open File, Open Recent (with a drop down list of choices), and Learn More.... At first, I turned off Quick Start, thinking I didn't need that sort of thing. Eventually though, I came to like it as, well, a quick way to start. If you choose to create a new project, you're presented with an impressive list of prebuilt (and user-created, if you've made any) project templates. Templates can store all kinds of settings for a new document, so once you figure out how you like to use the program, make up your own default startup template and save the time of making basic settings for each new project. The...