Cakewalk Sound Center

It's not very user friendly

Seems like they're out of business, nothing works at all, included all the DLCs. It's a shame, really.

Cakewalk means easy, this is nothing of the sort, I am still struggling with its appalling non intuitive design. Youtube tutorials, etc no real help, cannot find any of the very expensive dlc instruments I purchased anywhere. An abomination, avoid.

IMPORTANT! Don't pay any attention to my hours on this one. I've used it mostly as a VST with other music software besides SONAR and Music Touch Creator (both of which I own). As such I've probably accumulated well over a two hundred hours with it. In order to accumulate hours with Sound Center you must run the Steam Cakewalk Plugin Manager as I did just to get enough time to be allowed to write this review. Now on with the review...

If you're looking for a multi-instrument MIDI module VST that includes mostly real world instuments and synths then look no further. With DLC addons you can expand the sound library to include vintage synths, sound effects, world instruments and many other sounds.

I'd recommend Cakewalk Sound Center if you're looking for good piano, guitar and chamber instruments. The twelve string guitar sounds identical to it's real world counterpart. With a good MIDI controller the pianos sound thick, and lush with presence of the real thing. There's voice sequences (much like from the Korg Triton and many other modern synths) and other digital instruments as well.

Each sound comes with its own simplified parameters which can be set (even during a performance) via knobs on the synth interface. Most of these parameters deal with Tone, Frequency Filters (Resonance and Cutoff as well), Parametric EQ, Effects parameters and other aspects pertaining to the currently selected instrument.

As far as in a recording situation, I'd recommend a speedy computer (AMD 3-4 Ghz or i3-i9 with at least 8 GB of ram) to run this module comfortably in a recording setup. You'll definitely experience latency on some of the complex timbres such as the Steinway Grand unless you have the horsepower. Perhaps in the future Cakewalk and other manufacturers might consider using the GPU for virtual synths which would take much strain off the CPU (which is currently how pretty much all synth modules are run).

Setting it up for use in other programs (including those not bought with Steam) is fairly trivial and involves adding the Cakewalk VST folder from the Steam installation of SONAR and/or Music Creator to the VST search path of the software you intend to use it with.

I'd highly recommend this instrument and seeing as you cannot buy it stand alone (not that I've seen so far) add it as a bonus plus for being included with both Music Touch Creator and SONAR. I've used it with Ableton Live, Magix Music Maker and a few other MIDI programs as well.

It is also great for live real-time performance if you're using it with a MIDI controller. You certainly could gig as a keyboard player with this software as your main sound module, say running it from a laptop at your gigs.

10/10

WAS amazing

made orchestral music for prior film... that was years ago. Wont run anymore. tried multiple machines, boot on win 95/xp/7/10 and looked for patches. nothing. :(

This is one of the worst softwares I have to deal with in all the years of my pc life!!
I have a usb md-audio keyboard for my pc.. MC6 doesnt like or reconise the device.. It will then randomly work for no reason what so ever, then suddenly stop working.. Even on my old PC mc7 doesnt work properly which I use for my recording..
If I could get a refund I would.. I would even push for a refund on using valuable hard drive space..
A word of warning, do not get anything from cakewalk unless you got hours to spend sorting stuff out for it to temp work...
If you go online and check out the manual for the stuff they sell.. well good luck on that...
Ive had it with cakewalk and there apolling, useless hard drive fillers..
out of 10 does -1m count??..

This is a very good product when used in association with Music Creator 7. There are a number of Cakewalk expansion packs allowing you to add to the sound palette of the Sound Center. You can definitley make MIDI tracks using the sounds the just come with the Sound Center as well but they are limited.
It is better when used with an external MIDI controller however at a pinch you can definitley use the provided keyboard to work up some tracks.

Unreliable. Unstable. Unsupported.

I've tried using this product with Creator 6, but found that it had a number of major problems with modules not loading and features not being in line with the advertising. The selection of samples in the sound centre packs are disappointingly limited. The base product quikcly became unsupported as the developers pushed out more expensive versions. The documentation was poor. The support was unhelpful.

I suggest avoiding this product line. There are far better options available for casual and serious music-makers alike.