Cakewalk Turns 20, Glimpses the Future

Late 1980s, deep in the basement of the Oberlin Conservatory: Strolling past the broken-down harp cases, a surprise visitor enters my electronic music class. Greg Hendershott, a tall, thin upperclassman I recognize from his gigs with a Santana/Talking Heads cover band, hauls out his "portable" computer to show us what he's been working on. The sewing-machine-size Compaq looks ponderous next to our shiny Mac Pluses, and I say something like, "You wrote a MIDI sequencer in DOS? Why?"

A few years later, Greg started a company to sell a newer version of that sequencer, called Cakewalk, and it went on to huge success. In addition to a friendly price, the software had a cake-simple interface that even blind people could use. The company, then called Twelve Tone Systems, eventually adopted the name of its star product, added audio features galore, and continues to blaze new trails today. Here's a video the Cakewalk team just posted to celebrate its 20^th anniversary. Note the part at the end where the staff shares its wildest dreams for music software. I have a feeling if anyone achieves them, it will be Cakewalk.

Since Greg and I left Oberlin, the electronic music program has exploded beyond its dank corner of the basement into a gorgeous suite of professional studios and computer labs. When I visited last year, I saw a full-blown digital recording console, high-end mic preamps, and rooms with floating floors, non-parallel walls, and 5.1 monitoring.

Ironically, the lucky students were nowhere to be seen. They were all off coding audio algorithms on their laptops. (One told me he only goes to the studios when he wants to "hear diffusion.") Remembering how my classmates and I used to fight for studio time — even shutting off the speakers until the night watchman had gone so we could jam all night — I was amused.

On the other hand, it's fun to imagine that today's students are doing something far more ambitious: building tomorrow's Cakewalks.