Third Take

The last Cakewalk deal was too good to pass up, and I finally upgraded to Sonar 8.5. I’ve only spent about two hours with it, but they were happy hours. Part of the setup included migrating my settings from Sonar 6, and, for the most part, they were migrated. I had to disable my motherboard soundcard again, and I don’t think 8.5 is seeing my old drum maps, but everything else seems to be fine.

The new plugins sound amazing. I’ve played with TruePianos, Guitar Rig, and Z3ta+. I didn’t expect to use Guitar Rig, but after hearing it, I’m considering selling my SansAmp PSA-1. I even tried it using “input monitoring” and didn’t have any latency problems. The built-in tuner is very convenient.

For the most part, I haven’t had any trouble finding commands or options in the new version. It seems to be the same Sonar, but better. I couldn’t help but smile when I changed my project temp and it automatically stretched my audio clips! Maybe that feature existed in 6, but I never found it if it did.

I got this exciting email from Toontrack:

EZdrummer EZX Expansion titles for $39.99!

Back by popular demand, and for a limited time only,
Guitar Center is offering All EZdrummer EZX Expansion titles for just $39.99 each!!!!

That’s right, from October 1st 2009 through October 31st 2009, head down to your local Guitar Center and take advantage of the instant savings on the best drum production tools around.
Don’t miss your chance to save – head over to your local Guitar Center today!

**Promotion valid at all Guitar Center locations in the United States only. Promotion good from October 1 through October 31st 2009. No Rain Checks. All EZX titles sold on the VSSD system. License sold at store, EZX software downloadable from www.toontrack.com

I went down to my local Guitar Center and picked up the Twisted and Claustrophobic kits. Actually, all you get is a recipt with serial numbers on it, and then you download the kits from the Toontrack website, but the end result is the same: two great kits for the price of one.

Every year about this time, when Cakewalk is poised to announce a new version of Sonar, they offer to give you the new version free if you buy the current version. This year’s announcement has come.

I’ve taken advantage of this offer in the past, and while I think it’s a great offer, my experience was that the “free” upgrade took several months after the software release to land on my doorstep. If you do this, don’t expect to get Sonar 9 the week it is released.

Update: As Joe D pointed out in the comments, this is not Sonar 9, but a paid point release of Sonar 8. Also, those who take advantage of this offer will be able to download the update, rather than having to wait on Cakewalk to ship you a DVD.

After you install EZDrummer, you have to tell Sonar where to find it before you can use EZDrummer. This tutorial explains how to set up EZDrummer as a VST Plugin in Sonar. Read more

If you’re a Sonar 8 user, download it here. There is also a long list of changes and bugfixes at that link.

From Cakewalk:

We’re happy to announce that the SONAR 8.0.1 maintenance update will be available for download next week to registered SONAR 8.0 customers. The update will address various performance issues that were discovered after SONAR 8 began shipping. If you were waiting to upgrade until the first maintenance update, now is the perfect time to place your order. If you order today you can get SONAR 8 in your hands at the same time that the patch is available. More information about the update will be made available next week with a download link.

Anyone tried Sonar 8 yet? I’m still using 6. No support for XP x64 kept me from upgrading to 7, and the fact that 6 is still running like a charm and I’m in the middle of projects.

It’s that time of year again. Summer has come and gone, hurricanes are pounding our coasts, and Sonar is ready for another upgrade. Cakewalk announced Sonar 8 last week while I was on vacation. At first glance, it doesn’t look like there is anything revolutionary, like AudioSnap or V-Vocal from previous releases. However, a myriad of enhancements, tweaks, and under-the-hood performance upgrades could spell monumental improvements in workflow and usability. Read more

Cakewalk just announced a special offer to upgrade to Sonar 7 Producer for $129. The special pricing is good until June 29, 2008. It’s a tempting deal, but I’m going to pass for two reasons. Read more

A lot of home studio recorders seem to mix as they go. After a tracking session, I like to put a rough mix together and hear how the tracks are working. I also think there’s a lot of utility to doing some preliminary mixing before you record additional instruments – especially in the case of drums. Fixing minor timing issues with AudioSnap before recording other instruments can have a huge impact on the overall “tightness” of the track.

However, I often get into a situation where I’m reluctant to change the panning and levels of some elements in my preliminary mix to set up the monitor mix for tracking a new instrument. Muting isn’t a problem, but if I’m recording bass next and the player wants to hear more kick drum, I hate having to upset the drum mix I spent several hours perfecting. As a solution, I’ve begun using Sonar’s excellent routing tools to create something I’m calling the Monitor Bus. Read more

If you want to export MP3s with Sonar, and don’t want to pay $19 for the Cakewalk encoder (or it doesn’t work on your system), there is a free encoder called LAME that can be integrated into Sonar. This tutorial will show you how to configure Sonar to encode MP3s with LAME. Read more