Cakewalk Sonar X2 Studio

If you have tried Cake Walk's Music Creator 6 you will immediately recognize the new SONAR X2 Studio as a souped up version of this program. The basic interface is nearly identical, however the SONAR product is considerably more sophisticated and powerful. If you didn't like the interface of the Music Creator 6 you will probably not like SONAR either. If you don't have a fast multi-core processor and a lot of ram memory you will be wasting your money. I am currently running this program on a quad core Lenova desktop with 12 gigs of ram. So far I have only crashed the program one time.SONAR gives you a lot for your money. There are addon sound libraries available, but they give you a fairly good start up collection of instruments and sounds. The samples collection is heavily weighted toward the hip hop genre.I have only scratched the surface of the program's capabilities, but I am very pleased with the results. It is very easy to export your creations to a wave format that plays nicely with the standard Windows player. Using the drag and drop matrix it is relatively easy to create a solid background track. The smart tool is handy for quick edits such as volume changes, fades and deleting unwanted beats.I found copying, cutting and pasting within the matrix to be a bit twitchy. Selected tracks are often placed in the wrong physical location often on top of an adjacent instrument track. What should be a simple copy seldom works as expected. It is sometimes difficult to add additional clips of the same type of instrument to a later cell of the same matrix line. This I find to be very annoying. It should be easy to copy an entire group of tracks to the current end of an existing composition, but this process seldom works as expected. This is the primary reason I have reduced the product's rating.Overall it is an interesting tool which produces a solid sounding mix. Compared to other DAWs it is relatively inexpensive and offers a lot of power and flexability for the price. With a little more polish it may pose some serious competion to its more costly rivals.

I love sonar x2. I love the layout-even though its harder to use than FL I got this because I simply cant work in that type of area. I'm still learning, and it's kind of hard to find resources but after I do I'm sure I like this way more than any other DAW.No problems with shipping. Box was in perfect condition, arrived right on time.

I just updated to windows 8, so far it has not worked well together I think It will be fixed soon until then a little annoying

Cakewalk Sonar is an excellent recording software for anyone who is thinking about a home studio or a much more complicated recording arrangement. I love how it work.  Letusgo-Fishing.com Author Lonnie L. Williams

It's a big improvement from my previous software (a cheap version). Way better quality of sound, no high pitch tones in the background.

As a off-on user since the floppy disk days during the last century I try out a new version of Cakewalk every few versions. Like Linux, it is still fun to try, but not to work with.Sonar X2 has a LOT of things going for it. I am one of the few that like the GUI & workflow for the most parts. The Channel Strip with it's Console emulations are fantastic. the EQ in X2 seems a lot smoother than the previous EQ's. All the Sonutis effects are finally stable enough to run multiple instances.BUT...In the 2 weeks I had this to try out it crashed-locked up - flaked out - lost work - changed settings at LEAST 2 times a day. Doing ANYTHING quickly, changing or adding VST effects, trying out presets in any plugin, made me do a hard re-set almost every time.The automation lanes don't work, the comping don't work. Anything to do with a lane slips out of time, will not hold its settings, heck it changed WHILE WORKING on the project,you could watch it just magically move your points....amazing.I thought Pro Tools was the champ in this area, but nope, X2 has beat it. And don't get me started with the X2a "update".....1 day after the update it came off of my system...a system that has NO PROBLEM like these with any other DAW.I really keep trying to like Cakewalk, it has some of the best ideas around, and the best sound when it works right (yes, every DAW has it's own sound out of the box, get over it all you "null" screamers!).Unfortunately this version is, again, a let down....