Review: Cakewalk Plasma

Cakewalk

Posted 2001-10-28

This year has really been a banner year for Cakewalk. With the release of Sonar and the inking of several new distribution deals, you really don’t have to look far for great digital music creation products. What might surprise you, however, is all of the different market price points you’ll find these great products. Take for instance their latest offering – Plasma.

About a week ago, a copy of Cakewalk Plasma arrived on the doorstep. We were curious, but not overly excited. From the outside of the box, what we saw was a cool tool in the $50 price range for budding musicians out there who are more on the contemporary edge. After all, one of the prime features of Cakewalk Plasma is the new Plasma FXPad which allows joystick and mouse control over effects parameters that control the multitude of DirectX goodies in the box.

What we soon realized, though, was that even with all the glitz and glamour, Plasma isn’t just a toy. As a matter of fact, what you’ll find when you look under the hood is the Sonar engine in most of it’s glory. Sure, some the more advanced options and features of the full Sonar product aren’t in there, but for the most part – all of the quality and user friendliness is.

After several days of playing with the cool looping capabilities and gittin jiggy with the mouse pad, we really settled in for some cool experimentation. Starting off with the cool bonus CD loaded with “Smart Loops”, we built several incredible rhythm tracks that had the cones on our 15 inch pa cabs rocking. Then, we took our Fat Strat Texas Special, courtesy of our friends at Fender, and recorded some sweet funk and heavy riffs that we quickly turned into groove tracks that were “acidized”. After playing around for hours just recording cool riffs and other repeating licks, we started arranging everything together. Once the mix was where we wanted it, we took our KSM27 Studio Condenser mic from Shure and started playing with the vocals.

If you’re anything like the fools that we are, vocals are the last thing on your list of talent. That’s what made this product so much fun, though. We ran our vocals through everything from the Black Hole preset to the Dirty Hippy. Although we were trying mostly to cover our awful vocals, we were at the same time dancing around the mouse pad and slammin’ our joystick to test all of the cool effects. The percussion and guitar loops were prime victims in this onslaught as well. What amazed us wasn’t all the trick stuff, though. Don’t get me wrong, there’s tons of creativity to be unleashed here. What impressed us most was the quality of the recording capabilities of this product.

Even when running dry with the studio condenser mic or a guitar or bass, the clarity and dynamic range of the tracks was amazing. When you throw in the added bonus programs, like Fruity Loops Express, built in soft synths and Cakewalk’s own Pyro mp3 and CD creator, you’ve got a music production powerhouse in your hands for half a hundred beans.

Bottom Line:

If you’re looking for something that can perform like Acid on steroids, look no further. Plasma is an incredible tool for the aspiring musician and home recording enthusiast. If you don’t have the budget for the full blown Sonar package – start here. You can’t go wrong. Heck, you can even edit sound tracks to Windows AVI movies with this product. Simply amazing.

Review: Cakewalk Plasma

Cakewalk

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