Customer Reviews

Sonar 8.5 Producer Edition [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been a Cakewalk user for years, starting with their Pro Audio software and dating to when the company was known as 12-Tone Systems. Their software has only become better and better as the years have gone by. Sonar has been the best available Windows-based digital audio workstation software for a long time now - to the point where a fair number of producers and studios have migrated to Sonar from Pro Tools, not to mention a steadily increasing string of software and industry awards. (See Cakewalk's site for names, if interested.) And, of course, with Boot Camp, you can run Sonar native under Windows if you have a recent Intel-based Mac - running a Mac doesn't force you into Pro Tools for software at this level.

Be warned - if you are not heavily into audio, audio for video, MIDI, recording, sequencing, effects, looping, mastering, mixing, etc. - and possess the audio domain knowledge that all that entails, as well as a good understanding of the complexities of running full-on audio software from a technical standpoint - you can find yourself overwhelmed by this software, and you will be MUCH better off with Cakewalk's Home Studio version of Sonar. Sonar (particularly Producer) can be enormously complex, but that's not due to any design issues - quite the contrary! Rather, that's because it covers a vast array of audio activities, options, and capabilities. It is possible to use it simplistically, but I'd direct anyone with only those types of needs to simpler software suites.

On the other hand, if you do have the audio and technical knowledge, you'll find Sonar Producer is flexible, powerful, configurable, and responsive. It is also very stable and has been so for many versions now. Be aware that this type of software by its nature (high processing loads, need to control latency, timing control and issues among multiple devices and interfaces, etc.) can be compromised by PC setups optimized for multipurpose use.

The software comes with a terrific package of high-quality effects plug-ins. I've also found Cakewalk to have good customer service - one of the very, very few, in fact, where the response on customer service calls is as good as on sales calls. Cakewalk continues to improve the user interface with Sonar 8. Particularly welcome are edit changes, including multiple-clip edits, and optimizations targeted at running high track counts. Several instruments are included, and I'm particularly happy to see Dimension Pro, which includes Garritan Orchestral sounds, and TruePianos Amber. Your interests and activities will differ, of course (mini are Midi-heavy), and you should really look through the complete list of enhancements on Cakewalk's site. Enhancements for this version runs several pages long. This is a major upgrade from Sonar 7.

I do have one issue with Cakewalk, though I'm not knocking down the rating because of it as the software itself is too good. The problem is that Cakewalk hits their user base pretty hard on upgrade fees. You can pretty much count on having to spend a few hundred dollars per year to keep the software up to date if you take every version and keep your plug-ins up-to-date. I've always felt that companies should upgrade customers from the most recent versions for little or nothing if they have paid for a recent upgrade, at least for a download. There is some price tiering depending on what version you're running, but it's insufficient, in my opinion. At one point I unknowingly purchased an upgrade weeks before a new release - but Cakewalk still charged me the full upgrade price for the new version. That kind of pricing policy doesn't encourage customer loyalty. I understand that this is a minor issue for a pro or a studio, but Cakewalk also has a large installed base for Sonar Producer among non-pros.

My preference would be for Cakewalk to adjust their release approach to one of more incremental releases between major versions. It's far more disruptive to install a new version, taking on the setup and learning issues than it is to install incremental upgrades (Cakewalk does release some patches.). You do get what you pay for, however.

In addition to the software, buy a Sonar book or two, take the tutorials, hit one or two of Cakewalk's roadshows, and join a forum or two. There is a fairly steep learning curve with Sonar as with any other pro-level audio suite, the good news being there is a lot of support out there due to the market's embrace of Sonar.

I am a novice at home studio recording, having done in studio recording in the late 70's & early 80's - during transition from audio to digital recording.

It is a bit overwhelming to learn the ins and outs of such comprehensive software. I would say it has taken a month of video tutorials, reading Cakewalk forums, Sonar help tutorials and reading Sonar 8 Power to get me up to speed quickly - I think a month is pretty quick. But, the reward is having software that is very powerful for a wide range of applications, while having the best recording sound of the several daw software demos that I tested. Kudos to the program designers at Cakewalk and their 3rd party vendors for giving the average Joe "amateur musician/songwriter" the recording & production tools that I could not have imagined several years ago. When you add up the features of the "Producer" version, it is quite a bargain.

I have used Cakewalk products for about 10 years now. I have always been impressed with how user-friendly their software is and it is great that a company out there makes PC-specific software. I have used other software and have found that Cakewalk's is the most logically (pun intended) set up.

I would suggest that if you buy this software you'd better have some foreknowledge of audio technology. Also, if you are just starting, then look at Sonar's Home Studio products first. They are much more affordable and can do much of what this product does minus the effects, soft synths, and processing power.

Also, you will need a powerful computer and audio interface to run this software. If you do buy this, make sure you invest in a high quality sound card too, otherwise what's the point? It'd be like buying a great stereo receiver and connecting it to two inch speakers, then wondering why it doesn't sound like the awesome stereo your neighbor has. You need the proper equipment to run this; it's not end-all-be-all product, and neither are the other DAW's.

I highly recommend this product. I have had great results using it, but it does require a lot of knowledge. I also highly recommend that you purchase a user guide to help exploit all this product can do. Check out "Sonar Power": they have always been helpful.

This an excellent product, highly recommended for anyone serious about music production.

Unfortunately, the Cakewalk EULA specifically forbids reselling SONAR. If you buy this product, you will not be able to get support or fix releases, or discounted updates.

There are a lot of detailed reviews posted for Sonar 8 producer edition. Great job on the breaking down the product! I have used Cakewalk's products for home recording for several years. I have utilized Guitar Tracks Pro, Sonar 7, and now Sonar 8 PE. Basically, this product is outstanding for an amateur musician. Great quality at an affordable price. I would recommend getting the producer edition for the exclusive features such as V-vocal, Boost 11 and several more. I have my songs posted at [...] that I used the Sonar line to produce. Fill free to check out what can be accomplished using this program and a home pc.

Cakewalk Sonar 8 is an excellent DAW for Windows users. I highly recommend it. However, I do not recommend that you purchase it from J&R through Amazon.

I received Sonar 8 Producer today from J&R Music and Computer World only to find out after I installed it that the serial numbers for Sonar and the included products Dimension Pro and Guitar Rig 3 LE were already registered.

Also, the box was not shrink wrapped and had scratches and signs of wear. The included manual and DVD box also had scratches and signs of wear on them. I suspect that J&R sent me a used copy of the software, which is completely useless for software that requires product registration. The license is what I paid $450 for; without it, the product is worthless.

I don't know if somebody tampered with the product, or if J&R is trying to rip us off, but someone should look into this.

Edit: After contacting J&R, I shipped the product back and received a replacement. The replacement registered fine and had no problems. Maybe my experience was due to a random error, but I suggest that you consider buying Sonar elsewhere.

I never liked Cakewalk's confusing and hard to learn manuals,and Sonar 8 is no exception. Don't buy this product if you are a pro musician who wants to spend time more to work on the music,than to work on the program,seriously. I have been a keyboardist and guitarist for 15 years and have used computers for 9 years,so I am no hobbyst. The DAW i used to hate the most was Logic. Sonar comes second in my list.

Sonar 8 includes a free upgrade to 8.5. In order to get the upgrade you must register on cakewalk's store website and then buy it for $0. Cakewalk displays a webpage which gives you 3 hours to d/l the files. The update is approx 3 gigs which takes a long time to d/l. Sonar 8 has to be installed first because 8.5 detects it and will not install without 8.0 being on the computer. You can't remove 8.0 from the computer so you a stuck with an old version taking up disk space. Cakewalk's support website contains bogus info. Saying that if you remove 8.0, you would have to reinstall 8.5 because you would lose functionality. Whoever wrote that never tried it because once 8.0 is gone, 8.5 won't install. BTW my os is vista 64 bit version and I installed the 64bit version of the product not the 32. When I ran sonar I found that the included plugins did not work. I reinstalled beatscape, dimension pro and the content and the seemed to help still having issues with some others. When you install the dimension pro and the content dvds, the dvd drive makes noises like it is going to explode. So I'm hoping that the install did not damage my dvd drive.I find that the reasons given on the cakewalk website for a workaround to get dimension pro to run are lame. One being that you have to copy files to another directory. Well why didn't cakewalks install put them there in the first place. Didn't they test it? Second Vista's security policy may be stronger than XP's causing sonar to have to be run as admin to get dimension pro to work, but why write to the registry in the first place? Wasn't .net supppose to eliminate the need for having to do that? Also the pdf 8.5 manual is not part of the upgrade so you have to d/l it seperately. Cakewalk has wasted a lot of my time with their crummy install.

Cakewalk 10-CWSP8.00 Sonar 8 Producer Edition - Windows
I purchased SONAR 3 Studio Edition back in 2003 and I liked the recording and music production software very much. In 2003 my computer was a Dell Dimension 8200 Intel Pentium 4 2.26 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, CD-RW drive, 64 MB GeForce MX graphics card, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz DSP sound card, and Harman/Kardon Speakers, HK-695 running Windows XP Home Edition ($2,154.11 computer system). My amount of RAM was the recommended amount for SONAR 3 Studio Edition. I bought SONAR 3 from Musician's Friend on 12/12/2003 for $299.99. I did both audio and MIDI composition using SONAR 3.

On December 8, 2004 I added an Apple Power Mac dual 1.86 GHz G5 system with 1 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, running OS X Panther and later OS X Tiger ($2432 computer system). I had Klipsch ProMedia GMX 5.1 speakers for $199 with a $44.95 Monster 2m Toslink cable. In February 2005, I purchased Logic Express as a student at Auburn University for $99.00. In the final analysis I prefer my SONAR 3 Studio Edition to my Logic Express. My Power Mac recently died whereas my 1999 and 2002 Dell Dimensions are still very much alive.

In late April I purchased a Dell Studio XPS 435MT computer for $3,006.00 excluding tax and shipping. The essentials of the system are: Intel Core i7-940 2.93 GHz Processor (1 MB L2 cache, 8 MB L3 cache), Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit, 12 GB tri-channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066 MHz, ATI Radeon HD 47850 512 MB graphics card, 750 GB - 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 Gb/s 16 MB cache hard drive, two DVD drives one of which is 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability, SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio, 24 inch Dell display, and Bose Companion 2 Series II Multimedia Speaker System. On April 24, 2009 I bought SONAR 8 Producer Edition from Amazon for $446.99. I use it for recording guitar audio and postproduction work on some of my church's recordings of Sunday services. My recording setup is a 2001 Fender Deluxe Reverb-Amp monitor, a Boss GT-8 guitar effects processor coaxial to a M-Audio CO2 coaxial to optical converter then optical to my sound card on the new computer, and one of my seven electric guitars (3 Fenders and 4 Gibson guitars). I have also connected a Roland GR-20 guitar synthesizer to the analog line-in of the sound card for recording purposes. In my postproduction work it is very easy to rip tracks from my church's recordings using SONAR 8. Audio editing is especially easy with the SONAR products. All in all I highly recommend either the current Studio or Producer versions of Roland/Cakewalk's excellent SONAR software.