Project5 from Cakewalk

Well I started this article a while ago then got sidetracked. Now with a bit more time to finish investigating, here is a brief look at the Project 5 work environment from Cakewalk.

Being a loyal Cakewalk user, I couldnt resist the temptation of jumping on this product before it was even released. Just the specs alone gave me the idea these guys worked on this for awhile before releasing it. And judging from what I found once installed, I was right. This software seems aimed at the users of Acid, Reason and the likes. Although it is much deeper then that as I soon found out. But we'll get back to that in a minute. Most writers wait till the end to tell you whats wrong or not up to par with the product, I want to get it out of the way first, as ther are really only two gripes I have with P5

The install went very smooth and was without any problems as per all the Cakewalk products, it checked what it needed to check and updated the VST Wrapper that it uses to allow the use of almost any softsynth out there. Doesnt prompt for registration or anything, which I had done previously anyway to check for any patches I might need. But, upon finishing the installation and P5 wants to start it automatically loads the biggest demo file they have. Now this is all well and good for the most part but, if you have a PC on the lower end of the recomended specs it will lock it up instantly. the mouse drags and clicks are delayed sometimes for 30 seconds or more. So trying to close that demo out to open something smaller is almost futile. I would rather see it open to either something smaller, or just an empty project. This would save a lot of heartache adn headache for those who may not know how or why this is happening. But I can see why they do it to demonstrate just how much this program can do all at once, so its a bit give and take. Maybe a warning or give the user a choice before opening that size of a project imediately. The other is I would have liked to see 5.1 mixing adopted here as it is becoming a more popular format to mix in for some, but not all. But that said, there is rumor that the next generation of Sonar may contain just what those of us waiting for surround mixing are waiting for.

Now, on with the meat and potatoes. If your into creating tracks with pattern based, live sequancing, orusing loops and such this program is at the top of the heap right out of the box. It comes with several usable synths, samplers and effects enough sample content to give anyone a good start on just about any project. Compatability is not really an issue here as they support any ReWire client, ASIO, DX, DXi, MFX, WDM, VST, and VSTi using any windows compatible hardware. For the record I ran it on a minimum requirement machine, PIII 667Mhz, 768mg ram using an M-Audio Delta 44 and a MidiMan midisport 8x8 USB interface. I ran it interfaced in Sonar 2.2 XL as well as 3.0 Producer and it worked seamlessly.

There is allready an update patch out that fixes a couple of minor issues that appeared after the release. This page also contains links to 128 new psyn patches which I will talk about in a bit and a pluggin for adding midi out capability to P5 as well. http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Project5/updates.asp

I'll start with the psyn (pronounced sine) softsynth since it is in most projects I have started with P5. The psyn is a subtractive synth engine that emotes a lot of the analog sounds of the 70s and is just as at home creating new and fresh sounds for today. It is fairly easy to twist up fresh patches with two filter banks that can run independantly, four multi wave oscilators which can generate up to 5 waveforms each simultainiously, cross modulation for ring mod and FM synthesis, five 6 stage envelope generators which can be controled live, and three assignable LFO's. It is also capable of 64 note polyphony with unison, has a portamento function and will run in true mono. And to top it off, it will run with full automation which means you can tweak it as you go and run it all back in your sequance. I found the stock patches to be pretty good starting points and just went from there. It is pretty easy to just use it or get a bit deeper and design your own sounds. And as I said above, there are 128 new patches for this synth as well, so you should have no problem finding a sound to fit somewhere.

The DS864 digital sampler is another great tool in P5. It is another performance oriented synth which supports several sample file formats including WAV, AIF, SF2, Akai S5000/6000, Kurzweil KRZ, and its onw proprietary format. Long story short, it can handle 8 layers with up to 64 voice poly. It will do sample level editing and FX for setting up your own sounds. Tweaks include two resonant filters with keyboard tracking and will run in series or parallel, four 6 stage envelope generators, and three LFO's. I personally like the eight available audio outputs for processing outside the sampler or in P5 itself. And of course all parameters are automatable. It ships complete with 500 MB of sample banks from Q-Up Arts. I found the interface to be very straight forward and easy to navigate as well as easy onthe eyes if your in for those long sessions. The supplied banks contained some pretty usable stuff, but nothgin to write home about. But for me the ability to mangle my own samples as well as theirs was what made it usable for me.

Next we have the Velocity drum sampler. It supports the use of WAV, AIF, LM4, and its own proprietary formats. It has 18 polyphonic voices each with up to 32 velocity layered samples. editing of the samples includes start and end times, tuning, volume and panning. Controls include low-pass resonant filter, bit decimation, and reversing of the sample. Again five stereo outputs let you do much more outside the sampler itelf, either in P5 or with outboard gear. And it has full parameter automation. Inclded with the bundle are 175 MB of drum kits from FXpansion and Q-Up Arts. I found the interface again easy to use, but you need to dig a little deeper to figure out the sample loading if your going to use other formats aside from their own. All in all it is a very good addition to any arsenal of tools used for creating differant layers of sounds. And after all it is only a drum synth, but a good usable one at that. I personally like the fact that filters and such can agin be automated for some very cool effects on the drums themselves.

Ok, so now another drum synth. Yes P5 has alot of them it would seem, but they all serve a purpose and I have used more then one on several occasions. Well this one is called nPULSE and it is an analog modular drum synth. It does the classic drum machine sounds like the old Roland TB series and the likes, but with a twist. It features 12 voices, each with thier own oscilators. Five assignable outputs per voice for adding effects and such. Each modules presets can be set independantly, there is support for key mapping, and again full automation as well as the fact the toms can be cross modulated for som very cool effects as well. The old school analog drum sounds are what makes this thing stand out, as I found them to be very usable and I was capable of taking them well beyound anything that I used in that era of analog drum sounds. All in all it is another great addition to P5.

So now we get to one of P5s synths I really liked. Well ok so I liked them all, but this is the one that is really going to get the attention of those who are familier with ACID and the like. This one is called Cyclone DXi Groove Sampler. Another sampler yes, but indeed so much more as you will soon see. Cyclone rolls several creation and performance tools into one dynamic little DXi. It is a 16 part ACID compatable, groove sampler, loop editor, and composition tool in one big screen shot. I loved the fact I could do everything in one screen, and I can see where this thing would be great for slicing up beats and samples, assembling them and such on the fly in alive performance. Simply load up your loops or wav samples and your off using any midi device, midi track , PC keyboard or mouse. You can tweak just a slice of yoru loop or the whole thing. Slice up loops and combine them with others, or combine several pieces of wavs and loops and export them as your own custom grooves. You can use any wav files but using ACID compatable files allows you to load them into the project and they will play at project tempo and pitch. Controls for each loop include gain, pan and pitch. You have full control over looping points which comes in handy when you are creating in odd time signatures and polyrythmic pieces. It also supports key mapping which is very important to me as well as having mutliple outputs for routing signals to various effects and such. All in all I found it easy to use, and as I stated before the use of this thing in real time would make it ideal for live performance since you can slice and dice on the fly as long as your computer has the power the limits are pretty endless.

So now weve covered the software synths shipped with P5, but remember you can use any software synth that is DX or VST compatable since P5 comes with one of the best VST wrappers I have found. I used several VSTs inside P5 and found them to work flawlessly, but again be aware that some of these synths gobble up CPU power at a heavy rate so make sure your machine is up to the task. I will say that I have only covered the surface as far as some of these synths go. I am a tweak junky and as of yet I have really only gotten deep with psyn and the DS864, but I didnt hit any brick walls as far as usability with these things. I barely scratched the surface with psyn after spending about 6 hours straight just playing with knobs and altering the presets that come with P5 for it. I also loaded my Tassman modular synth into it and found it nice to use the synth rack and sequancer in P5 for working since the Tassman is such a huge synth and very deep to operate it was nice to not get distracted by the interface of P5.

Now this is were P5 gets a bit more interesting, at least to me since I have this love for not leaving any sound unaltered this was were P5 shined for me again. There is a small truckload of effects and processors that come with P5 and can be used in Sonar as well as in P5 so its really a plus here. The biggest surprise was a thing called the Spectral Transformer. This thing can almost be played as if it were a synth with full parameter automation and realtime control it should be. It includes six primary effects that can be chained together or used independantly as well as five oscilators that add more twist to an allready mutated bit of audio. It is difficult to describe the sound I got with this thing, but I can say that dont think I will runout of uses for this thing, ever! The six primary effects are as follows with a brief description of what they are, but believe me, they are much more then I can describe here. Transposer, which as its name implies can do continuous pitch shifting in real time, from very high reedy sounds to low level rumbles, very rich and full. Accumulator, which does glissando, pitch bends and reverberation type effects, only much more over the edge then your run of the mill stuff. Exaggerator, which boosts the peaks and valleys of spectral frequancies. It can bring out and allow you to sweep through specific frequancies. Very cool effect for selecting just one piece or several pieces of audio to be tweaked. Lo-Hi Filter, which as it sounds does what it should. I think they put it in there because I know that I for one love using filters in conjunction with effects used to wack audio into unrecognizable bits to create new sounds, so it stand to reason it should be in there. It also makes using the osscilators much more fun. Tracer, which is really just another filter, but much more refined. It allows you to thin the sound out selectivly untill only a "trace" of its former self remains. I found several uses for it when creating new loops and bits of audio. Shifter, which again as it sounds moves frequancies around by adding or subtracting values to the various frequancie componants. Again it is a tool well used along with the others, and I did find used for it. Anyway, you simply pop this thing in as another pluggin and away you go. I have used it in Sonar as well and it is amazing for wacking audio into something completely differant.

The other fully automatable effects included with P5 are great as well. Nothing truly spectacular but very well done and useable as such. Three of these are also tempo/sync type effects meaning they will lock right up to the tempo of your project making stunning effects when used properly. They include, Tempo/sync modulation, tempo/sync delay, tempo syncing classic phaser with feedback for some really tweaked effects, high frequancie exciter, multi-voiced chorus/flanger, 2 band parametric EQ, compressor/gate, and their wonderfull studio reverb. As I said, nothing absolutely stunning but they make P5 a rather complete and ready to use package.

Ill run quickly through the remainder of what makes P5 a complete and usable tool for studio and live performance. This is where the control comes in and the ability to work in one area to get most of the owrk done. P-Seq is the pattern sequancer which does much more. It is a step sequancer just as it sounds, in the formal piano roll style. But it allows you to super impose automation data right over thenote data, either audio or midi. You have step or real time recording and the automation can include track and midi data, plus the automation data for DXi or any audio effects patched in. There is a pattern bin to browse, organize, and audition patterns to be used in your project. Then simply drag them to the editor for any additional editing before sending your data to track where it can be copied and posted, or dragged out as in ACID. In P5 all data can be treated as a patten, even automation data which I found to be a great help when using the same type automation in several differant areas. SYNCHRON-32 is modeled after the old scholl analog step sequancers, but with much more for todays world. Generate patterns and trigger midi synths, and trigger patterns in real time from other midi devices. It provides 32 steps with control over pitch, rythmic duration with shuffle, tempo sync, per step flam, legato, and bends as well as polyphonic mode, and 32 banks for presets. There is more but not enough space here to describe it all. After you have created your patterns you can simply right click in the track view and select form yoru preset patterns, then drag em out or copy and paste as you wish.

At the heart of it all are the SYN-OPS control center which allows tweaking from one central location without dragging the whole synth into the picture. And the P5 audio engine performs perfectly without a hitch making it great as I said for live performance as well as use in the studio. Their mixer was just the essentials which is just fine for me as I use it Rewired into Sonar anyway. Another benifit I found is the fact that using it live you can patch in multiple controlers and play multiple synths at once without a hiccup. And again I cant say it enough but it seams that everything in this program is automatable, which for me is the biggest plus of all, since I am just one guy with son many layers of synths to work with. And I alos found the fact that you can tweak and record during playback by switching into and out of it on the fly.

I will again say that P5 includes way to many additional loops, patterns and stuff to include here. But be aware it is more then enough stuff to keep you in fresh sounds, loops and such for a long time. And it makes for one big start for those who might be getting into it for the first time.

And here are the minimum and recomended system requirements.

Minimum system would include win 2000 or above, Pentium 800 or above, 256 meg of ram, 200 mb of HD space, 1024 x 768 video res at 16 bit, and any window compatable sound card using WDM, Direct sound or ASIO.

Recomended system is, winXP, P4 1.7gig and higher, 512meg of ram, 1.5 gig HD space, 1280 x 960 video res at 32 bit, and again same audio card specs as above, but I would truly recomend something running ASIO drivers as the WDM standard just doesnt seem to keep up and I truly got much reduced latency with the ASIO drivers.

Once again, I will say that P5 is a giant step into this type of thing for anyone who has ever dabbled with ACID or any other program of this nature. It rolls so many of the features I loved but where in 6 differant programs into one big ball. And it even runs very stable, which is usually no the case on something of this magntude on its first release. So thumbs up on P5 from Cakewalk, I am glad I got into it and am sure that it will be in many of my projects to come.