Cakewalk Kinetic

Cakewalk Kinetic reviewed in the Technofile by MC Rebbe DJ, VJ, rapper, producer, journalist
If I had to describe Cakewalk’s latest offering, Kinetic, in one word, that word would be cool!

At it heart, Kinetic is a 16 channel pattern based sequencer that’s jam packed with authentic Roland patterns and sounds direct from their line of grooveboxes, putting at your fingertips 101, 303, 808 and 909 sounds, as well as Acid format grooves, all of which are categorised according to instrument type and music genre by Kinetic’s built in content browser. However, you’re not restricted to using just these patterns and grooves, as you can also create your own, in real or step time.

While Groovesynth, the soft ‘synth’ that plays back these Roland sounds, does offer some control over sound shaping e.g. cutoff filter and resonance controls, extremely annoyingly it lacks essentials like an adjustable LFO…urggh S1000 flashback…

Fortunately though it does offer an alternative sound source…the excellent PSyn, an extremely powerful and great sounding analogue soft synth which offers full control of every parameter and which even allows you to switch on/off individual sections such as the twin oscillators, LFO, envelope generator, etc.

Kinetic also has a bunch of effects modules covering most scenarios, the best of which has to be the Spectra FX which boasts an ‘x-y’ control that enables you to both display and control you effects parameters in pseudo 3 dimensional time and space (pseudo because there’s no actual z plane control).

All of this, plus a 16 channel mixer and a song arranger window and you might start to imagine something akin to the clutter of Logic…not so…amazingly Kinetic manages to deliver the goods in just one window (with pop up soft synth and FX modules) and this is one of its great strengths. In fact all of the individual elements are so tightly integrated and well laid out that anyone who has ever used a groovebox or a computer based sequencing package for more than 5 minutes will be able to put together mixes in…5 minutes….something of which certain sequencing package manufacturers should take note!

Other functionality includes the ability to use Direct X plug-in effects (and VST effects with a separately purchasable VST adapter), ReWire, control surface integration, automation and .wav file import & export.

So what’s the damage? Just 99 quid…yes you heard right…99…and at that price, you can’t go wrong. True, the manual lacks sufficient documentation of the hidden capabilities of this software. True the inability to properly edit all those wicked Roland sounds is an extremely cruel tease and something which I demand is corrected in version 2…take note Cakewalk, the Rebbe has spoken! But at the end of the day, even with this limitation, Kinetic represents excellent value for money and is perfectly suited to its target market of DJs and groove based musicians whether as a stand alone program or as a slaved ReWire device (as long as they are PC based DJs/musicians that is, because, like all Cakewalk software, it’s PC only).

Despite its lack of editable Roland sounds, at this price, sounding the way it does and being so easy to use, it gets a full 5 bagels…with the proviso that if version 2 doesn’t offer the editiability I (and everyone else will undoubtedly) want, I’ll eat the bagels I’m awarding it and it’ll be left with none! Cakewalk…you know what to do!

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