Recording - June 2013 - (Page 46) ...where we bring you follow-up articles with application hints and upgrade news about gear already reviewed in Recording & Cakewalk SONAR X2 A well-respected DAW matures with sweet added features By Allen Goodman As a Cakewalk user since the early DOS days, I’ve found it an interesting journey through the various iterations of the company’s music programs, and not unlike watching a child grow. In its infancy Cakewalk was nothing more than a basic PC-based MIDI-only sequencer. It has since grown through its adolescence (Cakewalk Pro Audio) into fantastic adulthood with the constantly-improving SONAR, and has become further refined and matured with the introduction of SONAR X2. If the SONAR user community—which has always been very vocal!—is to be believed, then even as SONAR is an obviously superior way to make music on a PC, there was still room for improvement... and that’s exactly what the developers have done in the latest version of Cakewalk’s flagship product. Refining and polishing this rabidly-loved (for all the gripes) DAW and adding some familiar tools that are already successfully in place in competitive products, SONAR once again shows it’s well suited to take its place at the table with the other top-end DAWs. Getting started SONAR is available via digital download or as a boxed set of installation disks. The full application installer is roughly a 6 GB download, which does not include the additional content. Minimum system requirements are: ~ an Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz/ AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4 GHz or higher as a CPU; ~ 2 GB of RAM ~ 4.5 GB of hard drive space for a minimal install, 20 GB for a full install Those are the minimum and as always you’ll probably want to go with higher specifications than that (I almost always do). 46 RECORDING June 2013 One important note: SONAR X2 is now officially a DAW for PCs running Windows 7 and especially 8 (see the sidebar). Windows XP and Vista are no longer officially supported. Let me save you some hassle by reporting that although nothing’s stopping you from installing SONAR X2 and trying it out on an older OS, I really don’t recommend it—I’ll talk about that below. On my Win7 machine (and the Win8 machine in the sidebar) SONAR X2 ran like a dream. Time to get into the present day, kids! Installation and registration is a breeze as usual with Cakewalk products. You do have the option to customize what does get installed, but I always recommend a full install, just so you can have access to all the included goodies. On the face of things Introduced in SONAR X1, the Skylight interface by default is segmented into five main sections. To the left is the Inspector panel, which still offers access to all relevant settings for the selected track(s) or clip(s) in a logical, accessible location. Twice as wide by default, this fully collapsible, expandable, dockable and floatable window allows you easy access to vital track or clip information and settings. For audio tracks, you get two channels displayed side by side: the audio track itself plus the output bus the track is assigned to (or the main out if it’s not routed to a bus). The Inspector strip is tabbed, and you can choose to view the Channel Strip, view clip options, track options, and expand the ProChannel options on audio tracks. MIDI tracks also give you an expanded view with direct access to many options specific to MIDI, such as the input quantize, arpeggiator, and snap to scale. The Controller bar is located at the top of the screen and contains the most important tools and information needed to record, edit and play back your project. Since the Controller bar is fully modular, you can mix and match the options to include information you feel is crucial to have available at a glance in a centralized location. On the right, the now familiar Browser window allows you to easily organize your audio clips, MIDI clips, and VSTs all in one easy-to-view and accessible location. Supporting WAV, ACIDized WAV, WMA, AIFF, REX and other popular formats, you can preview audio clips, or select your favorite hardware or software synth and audition MIDI clips. You can then drag and drop your audio clips or MIDI files directly into the Track View, Matrix, Piano Roll, etc. At the bottom is the Multidock, which gives you the ability to dock and easily access any of SONAR’s views in one tidy place, such as Piano Roll, Score View, Sequencer, Matrix, etc. Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2013 Recording - June 2013 Fade In Contents Talkback Fast Forward SXSW 2013—From Guerilla To Gorilla Finding Fault Reviewed & Revisited: Ableton Live 9 and Push Universal Audio Teletronix LA-2A Classic Leveler Collection for UAD-2 Apogee Quartet Reviewed & Revisited: Steinberg Cubase 7 Mock-Up Magic Reviewed & Revisited: MOTU Digital Performer 8 Ingram Engineering MPA685 Reviewed & Revisited: PreSonus Studio One 2.5 Reviewed & Revisited: Cakewalk SONAR X2 Readers’ Tapes Recording Fundamentals. 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