MusicRadar

• Review
• Manufacturer's Description

As predictable as Cakewalk’s updates are, they’re never spurious or superficial. Sonar 6 Producer Edition is a case in point: it features clever new plug-ins, performance enhancements, guest appearances from old friends and some pleasant surprises.

 

Sonar has a reassuring air of maturity these days - Cakewalk now have many years of experience when it comes to creating MIDI and audio

software. The program is stable, functional and flexible, and certainly no processor hog.

 

Multi matters

 

Speaking of CPUs, Cakewalk were among the first developers to offer 64-bit support, and they’re now at the vanguard when it comes to multiprocessor and multicore support. Intel Core 2 Duo owners who buy Sonar 6 will certainly be able to ratchet up the number of plug-ins hosted in their synth and effects racks.

 

Although it feels thoroughly modern, Sonar still bears a resemblance to the sequencers that came before it (and to some of its competitors). Even a Cakewalk Pro Audio user will be able to get around the interface with ease.

 

This time, however, Cakewalk are giving users far more control over Sonar’s appearance than ever before. While previously you could specify which toolbars were shown (and where), the toolbars themselves can now be customised to suit your workflow. You can also decide which functions will be displayed in the track view. Don’t know which sort of time ruler to display across the top of the track? No worries - now you can display all of them at once.

 

And it doesn’t stop there – even the menus are user-configurable. You can hide menu items you rarely use, rename the ones you do and rearrange their layouts.

 

Another welcome addition is the ability to organise and categorise plug-in menus. Some long-time Cakewalk users have relied on third-party solutions to get their plug-ins into order, but now it’s possible to sort and display them as you see fit. And as with all of Sonar’s customisable functions, new layouts can be saved for instant recall.

 

We should also say that the overall look of Sonar 6 is a bit more ‘dimensional’. Faders look like faders and knobs seem to pop out of the screen. While there are some who will feel that any attempt to emulate hardware is a touch anachronistic these days, others will celebrate the fact that Sonar now looks far less drab than it once did.

 

Of course, looks aren’t everything. Power is the name of the DAW game, and Sonar certainly has the goods under the hood. We’re talking 64-bit processing, unlimited MIDI and audio track counts, powerful editing features and plug-ins galore. Our old favourites are still onboard, including Pentagon 1, the Sonitus effects suite and the Lexicon Pantheon reverb plug-in. Roland’s V-Vocal pitch-correction tools and TTS-1 sample-based synthesizer are present and correct too.