Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio (Windows)

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Sonar Home Studio 7 is the easiest way to turn your PC into a full-fledged music production studio. From start to finish, Sonar Home Studio will help you capture your creativity and share it with the world. With Sonar Home Studio you can record live instruments, vocals, or any audio source. You can easily edit audio, MIDI, and music notation. The updated Loop Explorer gives you the tools to build backing tracks faster than ever. Add real instrument sounds using the included virtual instruments suite. Bring your mix together with studio-quality audio effects and professional mixing tools. When you are finished, share your music on the web or burn it to CD for fans, friends, and family. Sonar Home Studio is the complete solution for creating and sharing professional quality music--now easier than ever.

Sonar Home Studio 7 is perfect for:
Bands who want to produce their own album

Singer-songwriters who want high-quality versions of their songs

MCs who need beats and an easy tool for recording

Aspiring producers and engineers getting started with recording

Educators who need to create accompaniment and lead sheets

Video editors and podcasters who are looking to create their own soundtracks

Anyone who dreams of having their own multitrack recording studio

Get Started Quickly
Get up and running quickly using the library of included project templates and assistant tools.

Hands on Mixing
Now it is even easier to mix your tracks. The new Console view allows for effortless read more mixing, and provides all the visual feedback you need to get the perfect mix.

Work Smarter
When you are ready to create music, the simplified user interface guides you through the process, making it easy to achieve professional results.

MIDI Made Simple
Editing and arranging MIDI is just as easy as audio. Just click on your instrument track and go to work with enhanced tools and a visually simplified interface.

Live the Dream
Realize the full potential of your music by adding backing tracks and instrumentation using the new Loop Explorer and included virtual instruments.

Audio & MIDI Recording
Now easier than ever: featuring an overhauled, intuitive interface that lets you quickly record, edit, arrange, and mix your music. New simplified Instrument Tracks allow you to set up, play, and record virtual instruments faster than ever. The updated Loop Explorer allows for quick auditioning of audio & MIDI loops and audio samples, increasing your workflow and efficiency. Record guitars, keyboards, vocals, live turntable scratches, CD samples, or any other sound. Even record MIDI performances in perfect time with Input Quantize. Sonar Home Studio puts it all together seamlessly.

Enhanced Synth Rack
Use the new Synth Rack to control the VSTi and DXi instruments in your project from one easy to manage window. Find instruments quickly with customizable Synth Icons and display customized controls for each instrument, putting the most needed controls right at your fingertips. Get more synth sounds by patching Project5(TM), Kinetic(TM), Reason(TM), ReBirth(TM), and other ReWire compatible synths.

Instruments
Sonar Home Studio 7 includes four instruments with thousands of sounds ranging from drums, bass, and guitar to keys, horns, and strings. Spark your creativity and layer your tracks using these new instruments:

DropZone Drag-n-Drop Sampler -- Perfect for creating remixes or for building the perfect hook for your song. Includes real instrument sounds, drums, vocals, REX-format loops, and more.

Roland GrooveSynth - Get sounds from the classic Roland synths and beat boxes that shaped hip hop and electronica.

TTS-1 GM2 synth - A high quality, multitimbral, multi-out GM2 synthesizer with a Roland(R) synth engine to generate amazing, expressive sounds. Includes Keys, horns, strings, guitars, drums, percussion, and more.

Square 1 - An easy-to-use vintage analog synthesizer, oriented to the serious music enthusiast. High quality sound with a warm and easy layout, perfect to learn synth programming.

Remixes
Just drag and drop a sample into DropZone, and make it part of your beat. Perfect for creating remixes or for building the perfect hook for your song. You can also use the new Loop Explorer to preview and audition audio and MIDI loops in the tempo and key of your song, and quickly drag them into your project to create layers of tracks.

Video Soundtracks
Sonar Home Studio provides a fast and effective way to create, edit, and dub soundtracks for digital video files. Just use Sonar Home Studio to import and sync any Windows AVI or MPEG video. With video thumbnails and easy video export, you can quickly score, edit, and share soundtracks and sound effects for band videos or home movies.

Music Notation
Sonar Home Studio integrates notation tools that allow you to create and print your own musical scores. Record and transcribe performances using any MIDI instrument, or just point and click to edit notes directly on the staff. Print up to 24 staves per page, with chord charts and symbols, lyrics, dynamic markings, and more.

Effects
Make your tracks shine with studio-quality effects. Sonar Home Studio 7 has you covered with 10 effects that can be used to mix your tracks or can be used while you record, in real-time. Effects include:

- Sonitus:fx EQ integrated into every track
- Alias Factor
- Tempo sync modulation filter
- Tempo sync delay
- High frequency exciter
- Tempo syncing classic phaser with feedback
- Studio reverb
- Multi-voice chorus/flanger
- 2-band parametric EQ
- Compressor/gate

Active Controller Technology
Using your favorite MIDI controller or control surface has never been easier with new Active Controller Technology (ACT). Easily control and automate effects, instruments, and your mix from MIDI controllers by automatically remapping controls to whatever has the focus. It includes templates for some of the most popular MIDI controllers and control surfaces on the market today.

Share Your Music
Sonar Home Studio 7 introduces Cakewalk Publisher, an innovative new tool that helps users publish and present their music online. Cakewalk Publisher allows Sonar Home Studio customers to create a customized, online, streaming music player with playlists of their music that can then be directly uploaded from Sonar Home Studio to band websites, MySpace pages, and other Internet sites.
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System Requirements

Minimum
Operating System: Windows XP (32-bit) / Vista / Mac OS X with Boot Camp

Processor Speed: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1500+ or higher

RAM: 512 MB

Graphics (resolution, color depth): 1024x768, 16-bit color

Hard Disk Space: 100 MB for full program installation

Hard Disk Type: Any

MIDI Interface**: Windows-compatible

Audio Interface***: Windows-compatible

Media Drive: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R, or DVD+/- RW Drive

Web Server Access****: Available web server space with FTP access privledges

Recommended
Operating System: Windows XP (32-bit) / Vista / Mac OS X with Boot Camp

Processor Speed: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 2.8 GHz [EM64T] AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2800+ or higher

RAM: 1 GB or higher

Graphics (resolution, color depth): 1280 x 960, 24-bit color or higher

Hard Disk Space: 6 GB for program and content

Hard Disk Type: EIDE/Ultra DMA (7200 RPM) or SATA

MIDI Interface**: Windows-compatible

Audio Interface***: Windows-compatible

Optical Drive: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R, or DVD+/- RW Drive

Web Server Access****: Available web server space with FTP access privileges

* SONAR does not support Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 or XP x64
** Required to connect external MIDI devices
*** Required for audio playback.
**** SONAR is presented on DVD media. DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R, or DVD+/- RW Drive required for installation.
****Cakewalk Publisher requires you to have available web server space with FTP access privileges. An internet connection is required for music uploading. A broadband connection is recommended.

For support or warranty questions, please contact the manufacturer:
Phone: 888-CAKEWALK

Reviewers gave this product an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. (113 ratings)
Submitted May 9, 2005 by a customer from qwest.net

"Core product is solid and works great - Great value."

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
I would have upgraded my studio long ago, but this works great - I get compliments on my sound ALL the time. No near-term plans to upgrade.

Sound
Nothing wrong with the digital sound. Even the pitch correction - Very few artifacts, if any. Reverbs are clean, choruses fine. Synths are fine. Drum sets sound great - Just add some meat with the built-in parametric eq.

Features
Everything you need is here - Maybe not in the most obvious place, but it's here. I read one review on this site complaining about not being able to go from 'midi to mp3'. Not true. Step 1) The software synths provided here allow you to drive them with midi and create a .wav file complete with effects. Step 2) True, the converter from .wav to mp3 is a trial version, but who needs it when you can do it better with iTunes anyway. Parametric eq, graphic eq, wave editing, pitch correction, effects, cut-and-paste-drag-and-drop non-destructive editing, consoles, projects, midi, software synths, loops, etc. Features galore, all work well.

Quality
Core product is solid - A couple addons are lame and have been known to expire during the product's lifetime, as noted in other reviews on this site. Leaves a bad impression. Cakewalk could improve in this area. Advice - Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is a fine product.

Value
Simply cannot beat it for the price. read more

Manufacturer Support
The web site keeps users alerted to problems with releases. I have found what I need to know there. Never had to call.

The Wow Factor
Presentation is pretty utilitarian. Does that make a difference?

Musical Background:
Active Musician

Musical Style:
Rock-jazz-latin-gospel-funk-bluegrass fusion
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44 of 48 people (92%) people found this review helpful. Did you?
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