Kinetic 2: Beat Production (Cakewalk Kinetic 2)

Member Name: cognition

Product:	Cakewalk Kinetic 2
Date:	11/12/08 (446 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to learn to use, Fast workflow, Comes bundled with great sounds and patterns, Rewire, VST , DXi

Disadvantages: Limited to pattern based song creation

INTRODUCTION
Cakewalk, the Boston based developer of music production software, has been in the game since 1987. Building their reputation first on the Cakewalk Pro Audio line of sequencers, and then with the Sonar range of Digital Audio Workstations, Cakewalk has grown immensely as a company. They started branching out into the domain of virtual instruments with the acclaimed releases of sotware synths and samplers like Dimension Pro, Z3ta+ and Rapture. In 2008 Roland acquired a majority share in the company. While Cakewalk is most known for their Sonar range, they also developed a selection of music production packages with a slightly different taste: Project5 and Kinetic. While Sonar is a full fledged digital audio workstation, Kinetic was marketed as a 'Beat Production' software package.

THE BASIC WORKFLOW
Your song is based in a specific definable BPM (Beats Per Minute). It is based on clearly defined 'Patterns' (parts/bits/pieces) that strictly comply to the tempo of the song. Each part lasts a defined value in terms of measures, beats and bars. The patterns are your building blocks. Each pattern is loopable, meaning that the part can be repeated over and over in a smooth fashion. Once you have made a select number of patterns that fit well together, you arrange them, for instance pattern1x4, pattern2x2, pattern3x4, etc.


The Kinetic2 work space has 6 basic parts.

1. The mixer
This includes 16 tracks, 2 bus-es and a Master track. Each track can hold one instrument. The mixer allows you to control the volume, panning and routing of each track within your project. The bus-es are used for routing several tracks to the same channel/track before they go to the master track. For instance, if you mix 4 synths so they sit really well together in the track, you can route them all to a bus. Then, if you need to adjust the volume of the synths, you can use the slider from the bus to adjust the volume of the entire group rather than having to adjust the slider for each synth separately. This also allows you to use the same effects and processing for the input of the bus.

2. The Pattern Selector
Kinetic comes loaded with hundreds of patterns in different styles, put into categories. Basically, you click on a main category, like 'drums', then for instance 'Electronic' and then 'Trance1'. Voila! A pre-programmed trance drum track has been loaded up. You can now go to the Sound Browser and select the specific sound set that will be used to play back the pattern. This is a very fast way to get started building a track, if you're not good with drums or if you need to get an idea or a groove going. Personally, I feel like I need to have some input at this stage myself, so if I use a pre-programmed pattern, I always edit it. Kinetic doesn't only come with drum patterns, but also synths and bass and other sounds. If you want to make your pattern from scratch, you can go straight to the Pattern Editor.

3. The Pattern Editor
A piano roll view allows you to see the notes that are being played, for how long they are being played, and at what velocity. You can record your MIDI keyboard directly if you want. I usually draw my parts in with a pencil tool on the piano roll.

4. The Sound Browser
You have your pattern all done in the Pattern Editor, the actual notes that will be played, but what instrument do you want to play it with? Again, all the instrument sounds that come with Kinetic have been organized and put into categories. For instance 'Drums'-> 'Electronic' -> 'TR-909 Kit'. You can also use your own third party VSTi and DXi virtual instrument plugins. So now you have the notes in the pattern and the instrument that plays the sound

5. The Sound Editor
Then on to editing the sound. This is where you can tweak the synth settings, apply EQ, reverb, delays, compression and other effects. Basically this is where you shape the sound. You don't have to. By all means, all the presets sound fine 'out of the box' but you may want to add a bit of compression to your drums for extra thump, a bit of reverb for ambience or delay as a special effect. EQ could help you position sounds in the mix. I find myself that I use far less effects in Kinetic than I do in my usual sequencing software.

6. The arranger window
As described earlier, this is where you select in what order your patterns play and how many times each pattern is repeated. You're limited to one pattern playing at the time, but then, one pattern can feature up to 16 tracks of instruments. Arranging works like choosing which pattern you want the 'pencil tool' to represent. You then 'draw out' the structure. It couldn't be any simpler.

That's basically it. You can then export your song in .wav, .wma or .mp3 format.

INCLUDED SOUNDS AND EFFECTS
-Roland GrooveSynth. This includes sounds from classic Roland synths and beat boxes, including the legendary TR-909 and TR-808 drum sounds.
-PsynII. Analogue sounding synmthesizer with good electronic sounds.
-Dropzone. Sample playback instrument with support for your own sample files and REX-format loops
-Tempo-synched ACID-format loops and MIDI groove clips
-Generic effects: Reverb, Delay, EQ, Filter sweeps, Bit decimation, etc
-Kinetic 2 also has VST support, so you can use instruments and sounds from your third party providers
-Kinetic 2 has Rewire support, so you can use it within your other music software

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
Spending most of my time recording guitars and writing more intricate and organic sounding music, my motivation for getting Kinetic 2 was that I received an offer from Cakwalk to get Kinetic 2 at a reduced price. I received this offer because I am a registered user of Sonar, the software I use daily for composition and recording. I love Sonar, and the offer was one I literally couldn't resist. So it was more the fact that I was curious to try out a new piece of software at a low price rather than having a specific desire to obtain Kinetic or work with beat production. At first I felt limited by Kinetic's workflow. It's like with Propellerheads' Reason, which I've only vaguely tried. I felt creatively restricted, limited and locked into this very limiting workspace where everything had to work out as a loopable pattern. While a digital audio workstation like Sonar gives you a wide blank palette in which you are completely free to do anything you wish, you only have so many choices with Kinetic. Of course, these are two separate applications made for separate use, and once I found a use for Kinetic, I found its limitations to be a strength. When this occasion arose for me was when I was asked to make an audio file for an online game that could work well as a loop and which would not take up too much file size. The keyword here is loopable. For anything groove based or made for looping, Kinetic is a godsend. It's practically impossible to make something in Kinetic that wouldn't work as a loop, and once you get the hang of it, you can build your tracks up by copying your current groove to the next pattern and then building on the next pattern with an added track of melody. Basically, if I ever need to make a loop in the future, Kinetic2 will be my go-to program!

PRICE
Cakewalk Kinetic 2 has been out for a few years now. You should be able to grab a copy for around £40. I myself got the software directly from Cakewalk's USA based web store. Being a registered user of Cakewalk Sonar, I received an offer to buy Kinetic 2 for roughly £15. At that price it's a literal steal. Even at £40 I would recommend Cakewalk as an excellent tool for loop production at the price, although I have to admit I do not know the direct competition in this price class very well. I don't think you could get a better alternative quite as cheap as Kinetic 2. I would not recommend Kinetic 2 for much more than £40, as I don't think what it offers is necessarily worth much more.

Summary: Fast, easy and fun production of pattern based music for your PC!

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