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JackLudden
Published on 08/09/08 at 09:30
Sonar 7 installs very easily. The installation is intuitive, and a good amount of customization options are presented throughout the install. Cakewalk is a company that is on the leading edge of DAW creation, so they of course have drivers for every windows version you'd want to use, including 64-bit editions. I had no compatibility issues thanks to that. The general configuration is as simple or complex as you want it to be, which is one reason I love Sonar. You can customize this program so much that if you spend a little time with it, it can easily provide the best workflow of any DAW on the market - including the "industry standard" protools. The manual is of course very large because the scope of what this very powerful program can do, but it is also very thorough.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
I run Sonar on a Windows XP system with an Intel motherboard, dual core Intel processor, 4GB of Ram, an 80GB Raptor hard drive for audio and 3 500GB data drives, and I use a MOTU 896HD as the interface. It works great in this configuration. Sonar is quite efficient, and with my computer I pretty much never run out of CPU headroom - and I use a LOT of plug-ins - including CPU intensive ones like Altiverb and the Waves bundle. Sonar also of course lets you adjust latency, so you can squeeze more perfomance out that way. I will say that now and again you enconter a bug in Sonar. Usually cakewalk patches it up within a few months, and usually they are not a big deal. But that is one caveat to this program. However, most of the time if you have a crash, Sonar 7 lets you make an emergency save of your project, so you rarely lose data between that and the auto-save feature.
OVERALL OPINION
I've been using Sonar in its various forms for about 5 years. I love how customizable it is, and the fact that it comes with SO many useful features such as time stretching, pitch correction, a ton of soft synths, a nice midi editor, multiple clips per audio track, etc. I have used all of the major DAWs, and Sonar blows them all out of the water if you asked me. It's a shame it's not more popular, as it really should overtake protools. It seems to be getting more frequent use though. The value is a no-brainer - you get so much with this DAW, that you save a ton of money on other software that becomes not quite so essential when you consider all the nice bundled plug-ins and soft-synths. I would definitely buy it again. Also - Cakewalk has great customer service, and their web forum is very active with knowledgeable users. So if you have a problem, expect to have a solution very quickly. Sonar rocks!
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
I run Sonar on a Windows XP system with an Intel motherboard, dual core Intel processor, 4GB of Ram, an 80GB Raptor hard drive for audio and 3 500GB data drives, and I use a MOTU 896HD as the interface. It works great in this configuration. Sonar is quite efficient, and with my computer I pretty much never run out of CPU headroom - and I use a LOT of plug-ins - including CPU intensive ones like Altiverb and the Waves bundle. Sonar also of course lets you adjust latency, so you can squeeze more perfomance out that way. I will say that now and again you enconter a bug in Sonar. Usually cakewalk patches it up within a few months, and usually they are not a big deal. But that is one caveat to this program. However, most of the time if you have a crash, Sonar 7 lets you make an emergency save of your project, so you rarely lose data between that and the auto-save feature.
OVERALL OPINION
I've been using Sonar in its various forms for about 5 years. I love how customizable it is, and the fact that it comes with SO many useful features such as time stretching, pitch correction, a ton of soft synths, a nice midi editor, multiple clips per audio track, etc. I have used all of the major DAWs, and Sonar blows them all out of the water if you asked me. It's a shame it's not more popular, as it really should overtake protools. It seems to be getting more frequent use though. The value is a no-brainer - you get so much with this DAW, that you save a ton of money on other software that becomes not quite so essential when you consider all the nice bundled plug-ins and soft-synths. I would definitely buy it again. Also - Cakewalk has great customer service, and their web forum is very active with knowledgeable users. So if you have a problem, expect to have a solution very quickly. Sonar rocks!