Advancing the Art of Audio
By Eddie O'Brien

It's a Cakewalk

Having cut my teeth on Macintosh MIDI sequencers, and followed the road to glory as yesterday's underpowered computers became today's beefy workstations, I've developed certain expectations regarding the look and feel of digital audio workstations (DAWs). They need to be intuitive - no endless hours with the manual, please; they need to be practical - I want quick access to the features I use most often, and not have a bunch of foofraw in my way; and they need to be attractive - if I'm spending hours at a time composing and editing, I don't want unimaginative blocks of gray, utilitarian tools or a garish display of primary colors. Occasional tastes of Windows-based DAWs left me unsatisfied - their tendency toward hard edges and über-geek interfaces were less than inspiring. One would think that combining good programming with an elegant interface would be a piece of cake, though that's not generally the case. Fortunately for me, things change!

On the surface
Musician's Friend recently pulled me out of writing retirement to review and assess the new SONAR3 from Cakewalk. I needed a sequencing solution to complement the battery of soft synths on my PC, so I decided to give SONAR3 a ping. The box was hand-delivered by a Musician's Friend representative, and I wasted no time in getting started. Installation was painless - the setup wizard analyzed my hardware configuration and automatically adjusted software settings for optimal sound.
To get a quick fix on SONAR3, I opened one of their sample projects. The first thing I noticed was the interface - very earthy and elegant. And a quick peek under the hood revealed that virtually every interface element could be separately colored to suit your whim, décor, or personal sense of feng shui. While colors may not be high on your list of "things a DAW's gotta have," this meticulous attention to detail ripples throughout the program.

Points of view
Like all professional DAWs, SONAR3 provides several different customizable views, allowing you to work with your tracks in musically useful ways.

The Track View is SONAR3's "Grand Central Station," where everything comes together. It is divided into several sections, or "panes" in Sonar parlance. The Track pane is where you name tracks, set up effects, and assign routings. It marries up with the Clips pane where your audio waveforms or MIDI piano-roll information is displayed. One particular feature in the Track View stands out immediately, both visually and as a feature - the Track/Bus Inspector. Using about an inch of real estate to the left of the Track View, it provides a detailed (and fully customizable) view of the currently selected track, including controls, effects, routing, levels, meters, and more. It's an extremely useful feature that's been too long in coming!. The Track Inspector is optional and can be hidden/shown as needed as well as locked to any track, bus, or main out.

The Console View is a flexible, versatile virtual mixer, where all your project's tracks, buses, and main outs can be massaged into a finished masterpiece! If you're familiar with traditional hardware mixers, you'll feel instantly at home in the Console View. Replete with faders, meters, pan controls, bus knobs, routing, effects assignment, and much more, it's the place to be for hands-on manipulation of your tracks.

SONAR3 offers other useful views as well. The Piano Roll view delivers the intuitive standard for MIDI editing. Included in the Piano Roll feature set is the Drum Editor, where each drum sound is individually selectable, allowing you to use any number of drum modules for your sample base! The Piano Roll and Drum Editor views both include the Pattern Brush tool that lets you "paint" your tracks in without having to fuss about individual notes.

The Staff View brings your MIDI information into the world of traditional musical notation. For those of you more comfortable with noteheads and quavers, this is the place for you. For guitarists, there's also the option to view your music in tablature notation or on the Fretboard Pane.

For groove fans, the Loop Construction View brings the power and flexibility of Groove Clips to Sonar users. Tracks can be imported, their tempi and keys analyzed and used to create rich, compelling loops. Of course, SONAR3 recognizes the full library of Acid files, so a wealth of material is ready for your own brand of sonic mayhem!

SONAR3 even provides a view for those who excel at left-brain thinking - the Event List View. Laid out like your favorite spreadsheet, the Event List View provides a sequential list of each individual event, giving you access to your music at a fine level of detail!

Producer's choice
SONAR3 offers a wealth of features on its own - everything you need to plan, record, and edit your tracks. But as usual, Cakewalk doesn't stop there. The Producer Edition of SONAR3 includes several exclusive features that really put SONAR3 in a class of its own!

For world-class reverb, pros invariably look to Lexicon. And for good reason - their reverbs are renowned for their pristine sound and stunning realism. The Lexicon Pro Pantheon Reverb plugin delivers this sonic excellence to SONAR3 users, with an interface reminiscent of their hardware LARC. With 16 virtual knobs and sliders at your command, customizing the reverb for your own unique sound couldn't be easier!

Another SONAR3 Producer Edition exclusive is the per-track Ultrafunk Channel EQ section. It's a 6-band parametric EQ with 5 individual filter types. Each band can be shown, hidden, edited, and automated, plus a mini version of the EQ graph can be displayed on each track! The Sonitus:fx Suite also brings high-end dynamics and multi-effects to the SONAR3 Producer Edition with their Sonitus:fx Suite.

No modern recording venture would be complete without a software sampler and, once again, SONAR3 delivers the goods. The VSampler 3.0 is a DXi sampler that offers great sound and a wealth of features. You'll enjoy 128-voice polyphony, built-in effects, 16 stereo outputs, and the two CDs of sample content. Wrapped around it all is a clean and intuitive interface that'll have you sampling in no time.

It's a keeper
You know how it feels when you're recording and you get that "perfect take." It makes everything else seem to run that much more smoothly. That's how it is with SONAR3 - from the comprehensive interface enhancements to the attention to sonic details, SONAR3 is a product that will actually make recording easier and more creative! If you're an audio professional with a desire for the best tools available, you owe it to yourself to give SONAR3 a serious look.


Cakewalk SONAR3 Producer

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