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Sonar 8.5 gives you the new toys that Sonar 8 didn't.

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Cakewalk is nothing if not dependable. Every year, around Autumn, it releases a major upgrade to its flagship DAW, Sonar.

In case you're unfamiliar, Sonar is a complete music production package, offering audio and MIDI recording, mixing, 15 virtual instruments (synths, drum machines, pianos, etc), tens of effects, editing features such as audio quantise and pitch correction, and loads more.

It comes as a surprise, however, that the latest Sonar offering is not a full upgrade, but rather a pay-for point release. This has caused some consternation amongst Sonar users, but such concerns are, in fact, unnecessary.

Not only is Sonar 8.5 packed with interesting new features (and some pumped-up old ones), but it sports a lower-than-usual upgrade price. It runs on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, though we were unable to test with the latter as it wasn't released until near the end of our review period.

New features

We're looking at the full Producer Edition and some of the most significant improvements in 8.5 are updates, such as Step Sequencer 2.0. The first model of this was inextricably tied to drum maps, but this new one can be routed to any MIDI output or software instrument.

"Not only is Sonar 8.5 packed with interesting new features (and some pumped-up old ones), but it sports a lower-than-usual upgrade price."

The individual rows are now expandable, revealing controls over timing, flam, portamento and, most importantly, velocity, which is shown in the familiar vertical bar-per-step fashion. Not as obvious is that converted MIDI clips retain their timing, if you want them to - very nice!

Beat merchants will be pleased to learn that the third incarnation of Session Drummer is vastly improved. This version presents a slightly gimmicky animated interface and a selection of sampled electronic and acoustic drum kits, and MIDI patterns suitable for a variety of styles.

Amongst the acoustic and mixed drums are some astonishingly realistic combos that certainly had our toes a-tapping. You can bring your own samples and patterns in, too.

In our Sonar 8 review, we complained that it wasn't possible to use Cakewalk's Arpeggiator MIDI FX plug-in on Sonar's instrument tracks. Now, though, there's a powerful arpeggiator built into each and every MIDI and instrument track, featuring hundreds of preset patterns, designed for drums, guitars, electric pianos and more. You still can't use Sonar's MIDI effects on Instrument channels, though.

Matrix and AudioSnap

Some of the most fun to be had with Sonar 8.5 comes courtesy of the Matrix View, which is a performance environment for audio and MIDI loops à la Live's Session View and, indeed, the Groove Matrix in Cakewalk's own Project 5 (although it's not a port -it's brand new code).