Cakewalk Home Studio 2004

I paid $129 direct from Cakewalk. I wanted an inexpensive digital recording software package for my PC.

This product is fairly easy to use...but you have to READ THE MANUAL. There are so many features with this product that it simply can't be too intuitive. The sound reproduction/capture is very good. I've had the software for about 5 months now and it has proven to be very stable. And the software does so much that, for the small home studio user, its really all you need.

Recoding, mixing and rendering to .wav or .mp3 is really simple to do once you get the hang of it. And the on-board audio effects and decent sounding. I recently figured out how to create a drum track with the software despite the fact that my audio card doesn't support MIDI (thanks to Cakewalk tech support!). It really sounds good and it easy to do.

There's a lot about this software that I haven't learned yet. And the manual, though it does a good job getting you started, simply doesn't go into enough depth. Thankfully, Cakewalk has a good web site and provides good tech support. I've run into just a couple of minor problems with the software...and I'm not even sure its the software's fault. About every 10th recording I find there's some sort of "static" or interference in the track I just laid down. There's a rhythm to the static. I don't have a clue what might be causing it. But I do know that it is extremely frustrating to be on the 10th take of a track and think you nailed it just to find that its totally useless due to that static! That really stinks. But, again, I'm not sure it's a Cakewalk problem. I'm using an M-Audio Omni Studio as my PCI interface.

Another thing I didn't like was the fact that the .wav to .mp3 converter that comes with the package (which is very good) is only a trial version. The full version costs $30.

Besides the "static", Cakewalk is a feature-packed software package that does a really good job for the money. But keep in mind the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) principle...if you don't have good recording gear (mics, instruments, amps, audio card, etc.) you're not going to get a good sound. I've got a Shure SM58 and a Shure Beta 57A that work really well. Cheap mics give a cheap sound. And your basic "sound" card simply won't do the job. I'm not a tech guru, but I did realize early on that you have to invest in a quality audio card (like the M-Audio Delta66; $319 at Musician's Friend) before you can ever hope to get decent results. As a matter of fact you should spend about 2X as much time researching your audio card as the software you're going to buy.

One other word of advice...I hope you've got a high-end PC. You'll need at the very least 256MB RAM to run this software. Recording really taxes your system. I'm running 384MB with an 80GB 7200 rpm hard drive with MS XP Pro. I've not had any problems yet.

This is a very handy, feature-packed software package that is absolutely perfect for the small home studio. It's reasonably priced and does a very good job.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com