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Cakewalk Home Studio 3.0. Cakewalk Music Software (P.O. Box 760, Watertown, MA 02272 1995. $129. System requirements: IBM/compatible, 10MHz, 80286 or higher, Windows 3.1, sound card or MIDI interface. MIDI keyboard optional.
Cakewalk Home Studio 3.0 is a sequencing program that allows you to record, edit, play back and print music from your PC. Music can be entered with the mouse, although it is less time consuming to use the MIDI keyboard. You can build music layer by layer using different instrument sounds, recording each part or instrument separately. Music can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Notes can be entered, moved or deleted with a click of the mouse. Cakewalk Home Studio uses the General MIDI list of patch names. Unlike the more advanced (and expensive) Cakewalk Professional 3.0, you must configure the patch names for your own instrument if you are not using General MIDI sounds.
The Cakewalk screen is divided into several sections. If you are familiar with the drop-down menus of Windows, you should have no problem navigating your way through Cakewalk. The tutorials are very helpful for learning the basic program operations. There is a control bar at the top of the screen that resembles the controls of an audiocassette deck, with buttons for rewind, play and record, as well as buttons for help, step record, tempo, meter and key signature. From the drop-down menus, you can select several different views of your recorded performance. From each view, it is possible to edit your performance.
Event-list view displays your recorded performance in a list format. In this view, it is easy to check for wrong notes in a particular passage and change them by...