Cakewalk SONAR 5 Studio

by Cakewalk

Product Features

• New PSYN II subtractive synth, Pentagon I vintage analog synth, Roland GrooveSynth, SFZ SoundFont sampler, RXP REX Player groove box
• Also TTS-1, Cyclone, and DreamStation
• Updated MIDI FX plug-ins -- with additional effects like Additional effects include Lexicon Pantheon Reverb, Sonitus - fx Suite (10 effects)
• Integrated inline audio and MIDI editing, arranging, and mixing all in one view
• Envelope automation drawing enhanced with tempo-sync patterns, freehand, more

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• ASIN: B000BL0VAM
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 10, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,698 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

SONAR 5 Studio Edition was designed with project studios and aspiring professionals in mind. The software was built on the same core engine as the SONAR Producer Edition, it offers a complete solution for all your mixing needs. Use it for recording, arranging, editing, and mixing your audio productions - all in a tightly integrated workspace. Object-oriented clip-based effects and editing including per-clip effects bin, clip-based effect automation, and more BitBridge enables 32-bit VST effects and instruments in SONAR's 64-bit environment Remove DC offset during recording Dynamic Console View with per-channel EQ and assignable FX controls Freeze for tracks, effects, and synths -- you can edit frozen audio, then use Quick Unfreeze for toggling Edit and print traditional staff notation SurroundBridge uses your favorite stereo effect plug-ins in surround Manage large projects effectively with Navigator Pane and Track Folders, per-project audio directories; Consolidate project files for fast backup; Search for associated files Video output to 1394 FireWire devices for high quality viewing Sync to and send SMPTE/MTC for scoring external video OMFI & Broadcast Wave import/export for collaboration with Digital Performer, Logic, Nuendo, and Pro Tools studios Imports and Exports as - WAV (including 32-bit float files), ACID-format WAV, Broadcast Wave, AVI (with stereo or 5.1 audio), OMFI, MIDI, MP3 (30-day trial encoder), QuickTime 6, Windows Media Audio 9 (WMA), WMA9 Pro 5.1, WMA9 lossless, Windows Media Video (with stereo or 5.1 audio), and proprietary Cakewalk formats (.cwb,. cwp)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Kills creativity due to problems & missing documentation/tech support., January 22, 2006

By 

ZXC (USA/Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cakewalk SONAR 5 Studio (CD-ROM)

I purchased this product (Producer edition actually which is this + some software synths) just 2 weeks back. And it is a nightmare when it comes to work in it. Will annoy you about every 20 mins, and if you try to contact the tech support you will not have a toll free number, and will have to wait loooong time to get someone on phone (what happens after that ? I don't know because I could never get someone to pick up the phone.) So check it out on there web site, and read about there tech support policy yourself.

After spending 500 US$ I learned it hard way though.

1) Not a robust product, and doesn't behave in predictable manner in many cases. Like if you add the Session Drummer to the track, and after working for some time, if you closed and came back to the project it won't always play back the drum track at all !!!. I have to do some opening and closing of the session drummer window thinking may be something will reset it and then sometime (at random) it starts again.

2) The user interface needs several improvements. Intuitiveness is strongly missing. You cant guess things most times, and sometimes there are technical bugs and many other time the documentation is missing. For example when I insert a new audio track (by bounce the track feature, which is converting the midi to sound), the track display is simply grayed out. I keep looking for the waveform to get the sense of where the signals are, but it won't show. Turns out that it doesn't refresh by itself, like how you would expect to drop a file in windows explore and then the file should appear in the folder where you dropped it. Here nothing, After getting frustrated, and trying various menu actions and not getting anything, suddenly by chance I move the window size a little bit & then the wave form display suddenly comes up. Duh!!!. It's a bug.

3) No STARS TO DOCUMENTATION. It has a basic book, which does explain the basic tracking features. BUT THE SYNTHS & EFFECTS MANUALS ARE MISSING. The book is a common one for the Studio & Producer edition and lacks almost all the features exclusive in producer addition. The Cyclone grove sampler is blank when I start it. There is like 5 line description each on a total of about 6 pages of documentation which doesn't not tell how to load sound in the Cyclone and use it. I am still searching for a step by step guide to the RXP, SFZ the sampler, and other things. I cant save the modified patch in the GM MIDI1/2 basic synth TTS 1 by my own name, so basically cant save synth with my own parameters.

4) Many other issues, basically out of the box, many things don't work. Like PerfectSpace effect doesn't work in, it wouldn't show the fancy graph like in the brochure but just a dumb empty screen and no effect on the track. I am still working on that one to find what is really missing.

5) Poor QA/Testing behind the product & Disastrous tech support. I felt really sorry for my 500 US$ when I installed there update the 5.01 from there web site. Turns out that all the 4 projects I created in last 2 weeks won't play. I mean totally frozen, no sound, no movement. I tried to uninstall the update pack, found out that they did not include any uninstaller for the update pack. I wanted to call the tech support, turns out !! no toll free number, and I had to wait long time, until I ran out of patience. I called there sales, where they sure have the toll free, and they pick up the phone immediately. And I explained my problem, they took down my number, and said they will call me back, and it has been a week and no reply. Anyway I had to uninstall the complete software and install the 5.0 again (don't try system restore it will give you more probs).

For a 500 US$ software I would expect a tech support which answer phone and at least be toll free. (based on what I know it costs companies less than 50 cents per 10 mins for toll free line).

Many small things which will come in your way when you do day to day work, and drive you nuts and destroy your creative spirit, and make you fight with the technical problems, and missing manuals. Once a while you can resort to forums for answer, but that is not very productive having to learn so many things about the software, synths, settings, etc etc etc.