Recording - June 2013 - 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.

Recording - June 2013

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