Sonar 4 Producer Edition

Cakewalk has just recently released the latest version of their flagship product, SONAR. Now in it's 4th release, SONAR has added a slew of features to it's application. They have again leveled the playing field by adding, among the most notable updates, surround sound mixing, to the products already great feature list. This was most notable to me anyway, since I have been waiting for it for a long time.

There is much more to the new package then just surround sound thought, SONAR Producer Edition also comes bundled with many new plugins and virtual instruments. Many of the plugins are around their new support for many surround sound formats, such as their reverb and compression plugs for surround. There is also their "Surround Bridge" which can act as a gateway between typical stereo plugins and a surround mix to make it more useful and effective in a surround project. In addition, there are many workflow and usability enhancements, clip and project management features added and/or enhanced, a few composing and editing tools have been added and the existing tools have been improved and streamlined, and much more, which we will get into more detail about further on down the line...

System Requirements

SONAR 4 requires Windows 2000 with an 800mHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM, but recommends Windows XP, 1.2 GB CPU and 512 MB Ram. Looking at the application, I would definately go with whats recommended, not the minimum required hardware and OS. As always, SONAR will work with any Windows compatible sound card, but I, like Cakewalk, would strongly recommend a sound card that has ASIO or WDM driver support. Like many applications today, SONAR 4 will no longer support any operating system older than Windows 2000.

Key Features and Enhancements

I will take a quick fly-over view of the key features and enhancements of SONAR 4, however, be aware that the list is in no way limited to these, if I was to list all the new and enhanced features it would be too long of a list to post here...

• Record, edit and mix an unlimited number of audio and MIDI tracks
• 32-bit Audio Engine has been greatly optimized for this new release for higher performance
• Works with any Windows compatible sound card
• Support most any sample rate
• Supports DirectX and VST plugins and virtual instruments
• Very sophisticated MIDI sequencing
• Reliable syncing with audio, MIDI, video and external hardware
• Unlimited undo/redo history
• Track Folders allow for easier management of project pieces and allows quick access to have global control over such things as mute, solo, archiving and more for every track in the folder.
• Enhanced composing and editing features including clip muting, partial-clip muting, auto-crop tool with cross-fade mode, audition selection and more
• Loop construction enhancements: slice-based envelope control of gain, pitch, pan; slice preview; auto-loop
• Freeze tracks, effects, and synths; edit, arrange, and convert frozen data into groove clips; unload samplers from memory
• Assignable keyboard shortcuts
• TTS-1 multi-timbral, multi-out GM2 synthesizer with authentic Roland® sounds
• Open support for external command-line encoders including surround, LAME, Ogg Vorbis, Monkey's Audio and more
• Supports importing and exporting of QuickTime, Windows Media Video with 5.1 Surround Sound, and AVI with 5.1 Surround Sound
• Export buses and tracks into a composite mixdown, or as individual files...very handy at times
• And a whole lot more...

Installation and Configuration

SONAR has a very hassle-free installation, none of the dongles, activate over the internet or any of these other wacky protection schemes that other software makers are trying to implement these days. Enter your name, business (if any) and serial number and you are off and installing.

The install takes a while, and at various points you get asked about installing optional components, such as bundled virtual instruments or external codecs (those being Windows Media and Quicktime) so the install is not an unattended one, but it's painless. And the codecs in question are required if you wish to import/export from those media types, so if you plan to use them, you best just install them right away.

Configuring is as easy as with any previous Cakewalk product, there is a window in the tools > audio menu to enable the preferred sound card drivers, select which driver type you want to use if it has more than one available, adjust your buffers and other such options.

There is also a second dialog to select the location of your project files, autosave locations and other audio and video caching done by the app. The Default is at C:Cakewalk Projects but I always change it to my secondary audio drive to keep all that I/O on my audio drive, not the OS drive.

Workspace and Workflow

As with most popular multitracking applications, track view is where the user spends the bulk of their time during composing and recording. SONAR 4 is no different in that respect.

That said, as of version 3 and into version 4 SONAR has seen several usability enhancements to track view that bring the console view and track view closer together. The track view not only has input/output selection options, panning control, volume control and the full package of audio editing and MIDI sequencing options, as of version 3, when a track is highlighted, that track's channel strip from the console view also appears to the left of the track list making itself available for effects processing, signal routing and the other features available only in the channel strip.

Moving in to console view, there is an unlimited number of busses available for you to configure and use, even sending a channel back out of the PC and back in again after doing whatever external processing you need. The console can also work with almost any popular control surface on the market, should you prefer to work with knobs and faders instead of a mouse and keyboard keys.

Some of the more ingenious enhancements I have noticed are:

• Track folders, which is a feature I have often thought would be handy, groups track under a "folder", very similar to folders and files on your computer. When placing tracks in a folder, you can then solo and mute the whole folder at once and edit the tracks in a group. However, they took it beyond simply grouping tracks, the folder also contains a composite view of the tracks within the folder with the ability to make quick group edits across all track in it. This improves workflow substantially if you are like me and have two or three tracks of the exact same instrument, just through different mics/DI boxes. One thing missing is a global volume fader for a folder to control the relative volume of all tracks within it, however, aside from that one small gripe, which can be easily overcome with subgroups in the routing, this is an awesome new feature.
  
  
• Track layers, which allow you to store multiple takes of an instrument on a single track, display them individually and edit them while not using extra tracks. Additionally, you can use all the layers as part of your mix as well, with all layers using the same signal routing, including FX bins which saves a great deal of CPU power while still providing the layers of tracks to your mix...pretty clever.
  
  
• Finally, the "nudge" tool, which, has three levels of nudge available to nudge track and piano roll views vertically and/or horizontally with up to eight command available to be set to any key or MIDI event.
  
  
• "Freezing" of track and synths, which is a very clever implementation.
  • Freezing tracks will bounce the audio clips to another clip including all assigned effects, then disable the source track and effects bin, thereby conserving CPU resources. This, of course, can also be "unfroze" and bring everything back to it's original state.
  • Freezing synths will bounce any virtual instruments MIDI data and effects to it's audio track and disable the synth and effects bin to save CPU resources. The synth can even be unloaded from memory. This, of course, can also be "unfroze" and bring everything back to it's original state.
• The bus-able metronome, may sound silly, but it can be handy

Upon opening it for the first time, I opened up a small project I had just started in SONAR 3 to take a look around. The interface is a bit darker but higher contrast, which was much easier on these aging eyes of mine. The interface itself, colors aside, was very familiar and easy to get around in as it took the interface improvements from version 3 (which were substantial) and added workflow improvements to even better the usability of the app.

The toolbars, different views of projects, and the other aspects of working in the the app have stayed very much the same, so if you are an existing user, you'll feel right at home in version 4, if you are not an existing user but thinking about moving to SONAR from another application, it's also a very logical and intuitive application, and always has been, so you will be able to get up to speed very quickly. To help speed up the migration from other apps even more they have key binding presets for other apps to mimic the shortcuts and workflow of other apps.

Also, the toolbars and channel strips are very customizable by showing and hiding the toolbars, buttons and other features which are most and least important to your every day work. Regardless of any components shown or hidden status, it's is always quick and easy to get to it from the menu bar.

The usablity and workflow improvements in this new version are really very cool. Some are plainly obvious and quickly useful, there are a couple that I am only just appreciating now after using the app for a couple of weeks and changing my habits of doing things the old way...always the hardest part of any battle.

MIDI

The MIDI implementation of SONAR has always been one of Cakewalk's best features. SONAR 4 is no exception. It is the easiest to use MIDI of any multitracking app I have ever worked with, and very powerful. Sequencing in the app, sending MIDI back out of and returning to the PC you can control any internal or external device at any level with all MIDI control functionality. The support of virtual instruments is stellar. The only thing I have problems with is, on occasion, had trouble with the VST adapter adapting some instruments and/or plugins. One thing I really wish from SONAR is to have native VST support rather than the silly adapter thing. I have never really understood that.

MIDI virtual instruments are very logical, starting with a MIDI channel and an audio channel, the MIDI channel does all the sequencing and the output is mapped to the audio channel, which is where the sound is output. Makes good sense and is easy to work with. They have complete snap functions with very high resolution if you need it, or total free-form sequencing for the more human feel. That way you are able to stack MIDI and audio plugin effects and different parts of the chain as well.

Really, not a whole lot more to say, MIDI has always been one of their strong points, and continues to be...

Surround Sound

SONAR 4, as I have stated several times, now includes support for surround sound mixing. It should be noted that this is a Producer Edition only feature. The surround panner is very intuitive, and will work with a control surface or joystick panning unit. It has individual speaker muting/soloing, an independent LFE send, front and rear balance control. All the control you would expect in a surround mixing environment.

Be aware, in order to use the surround sound mixing feature, you need to have a sound card with a digital output, S/PDIF or Optical most commonly, as well as an amplification and speaker system to suit the particular surround format you are mixing.

SONAR 4 does come bundled with a couple of plugins exclusively for use in multi-channel formats:

• For the first time ever, for bundling with the app, Lexicon has produced a multi-channel version of it's Pantheon reverb plugin which will work in any project up to a 5.1 mix. The Pantheon Stereo Reverb also comes along for the ride.
• Also, Sonitus has sent along a multi-channel compressor to help the dynamic processing of your surround project. This compressor will handle up to 9 channels of compression. The compressor channels are all linked and any peak in any channel will trigger equal compression across the channels. Also, channels can be isolated in up to four individual groups so you can isolate things like the subwoofer or the front, center channel speaker which often contain audio, especially in film scores, that require individual attention and processing.

As if that's not enough, it also comes with the "Surround Bridge". Surround Bridge is a clever little utility that will work with stereo plugins, making them able to work in a multi-channel project. It can link all channels to a single UI for control, or, each channel can be independently controlled if unlinked.

The properties dialog for any given project has a collection of surround formats from which you choose the format you want, these include 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 and more, as multiple options for many of the standards. When you choose a standard for your project, you then choose which sound device outputs to use for each channel of the format. The surround properties in SONAR also include a stereo mixdown option, which will tell the mix what to do if played by somebody that does not have surround available to them, which is very handy to have. You also choose the bass management option.

Bass management is a very important issue when working in a surround environment. When a surround sound mix is played back, playback devices with bass management of their own add a 10db boost to the LFE channel. So, when working on a surround mix, one has to adjust the LFE accordingly. SONAR 4, in it's infinite wisdom, takes care of this boost for you with it's own built in bass management, so you don't have to worry about the boost issue. When you are finished and ready to export your project, the bass management boost is ignored.

You can also save the above parameters (except the stereo mixdown choice) into personal presets for quick access later with new projects.

The only, perhaps counter-intuitive aspect of surround projects (or at least the thing that requires some time to get used to), is that in track or mixer view of a project, instead of the main surround bus being assigned to hardware outs like every other in and out selection is, it is assigned as "surround main", a "software bus" and that signal is directed to the outs that are specified in the surround project properties dialog discussed earlier. This took me a little while to sink in (maybe I am just slow), I actually had to read the manual to get that straightened out. However, the more I think about it, for as many different formats of surround as SONAR supports, I guess I can understand why it was done that way. If they would have added only support for 5.1 standard format, yeah, it could have been made a bit easier, but with 30+ different formats, well, I guess you kind of have to step back and rethink your goals and how to get there. All told, it's a pretty slick setup, and will presumably be much easier to add additional formats to when the time comes to do so.

Loop Construction and Use

Groove Clips are what Cakewalk calls their native loop format. This type of loop to changes in a projects tempo and pitch and can adjust their root notes pitch change from place to place by placing "pitch markers". You can import your own digital audio clips or ACID™ loops and convert them to Groove Clips.

SONAR comes packaged with it's own clip editor. In this tool you can import, edit and export Groove Clips for use in your SONAR projects. You define the original BPM, pitch and the number of beats of the loop to give the loops a default from which to base it's changes in later projects.

During editing you can slice and dice the clip to your hearts desire, and the editor has most any tool you need available to you for the process. It will set up marketer points at each beat or fraction of a beat according to the resolutions you set, you can edit gain, pan and pitch envelopes and slice each envelope as well. There is even a tool to detect and mark transients in your audio with a definable sensitivity. The more you increase the sensitivity the smaller transients it finds and marks.

To make finding and inserting the loops you want a little quicker, SONAR has a loop explorer which you can open and search through your loops and preview them one at a time until you find the one you want, once you do, it's a single click to import the chosen loop into your project.

Bundled Software

SONAR Producer Edition, as usual, comes bundled with a very nice selection of plugins and virtual synths, which includes:

• POW-r Dithering for converting bit rates while maintaining sound quality. This is a very high end dithering technology that will further improve the importing and exporting of music in all different bit rates without causing the huge fidelity loss that is often associated with such dithering.
• TTS-1 16 part multi-timbral, multi-out, General MIDI System Level 2 compatible DXi softsynth. The TTS-1 uses the Roland® synthesizer engine to generate it's sound. It comes packaged with 256 sounds and 9 drum kits. It also has it's own reverb, chorus, delay, and EQ control and plays back at up to 24-bit 96kHz sample rate.
• Prosoniq MPEX time scaling for matching audio to video or for loop/sample authoring. MPEX uses a technique called "Artificial Neutral Networks", which is a simulation of human nerve cell activity regarding how our ears perceive sound entered into it and "learns" the sound. Using that information, it processes the audio in the most logical and natural sounding way possible.
• Lexicon® Pantheon™ Surround Reverb for all the great sound quality you expect from Lexicon and available for the first time ever in a multi-channel version
• Sonitus Surround Compressor specifically designed for surround applications
• SurroundBridge™, as previously mentioned, to use stereo plug-ins in multi-channel environments, to link all channels to a single control, or unlink for independent control over each channel
• Sonitus:fx Suite of plugins:
  • Compressor
  • Delay
  • Gate
  • Modulator
  • Multiband Compressor
  • Parametric EQ
  • Phase
  • Reverb
  • Surround
  • Wah wah
• One app that is bundled along that seems to not be receiving much publicity is DiscWelder from Minnetonka Software (which is just down the road from me!). DiscWelder is a DVD-A encoding and disc burning application, and the version that comes with SONAR comes with 5 free DVD burns. After that, you can buy DiscWelder for half the normal price. If you are serious about getting into surround sound, this is huge, I have been looking into DiscWelder for a while now, and honestly, when I got SONAR 4 I had no idea it came bundled along. This is going to be the push which actually gets me to buy the app.

Conclusion - A.K.A. My Two Cents

While kind of late in the game for surround sound compared to the other high-end apps, SONAR 4 comes through, and comes through well. Add to that some pretty significant workflow improvements, they have come out with another great product. SONAR 4 is another Cakewalk release that is indeed improved upon by their partnership with Roland, by Roland's additions of the TTS-1 softsynth.

• The track folders is a great idea, though still missing the global volume control
• I really wish Cakewalk would build in native support for VST rather than using that VST adapter that works and all, but is just inconvenient. I have been told there is no functional difference between the two, and there is the advantage of simpler patching when only the VST needs it rather than patching Sonar as a whole, I just hate having to "register" a plug every time I get a new one.
• The new processes that can help conserve CPU power is very cool, and actually quite clever.
• All the workflow updates are great, I found myself flying through a project much quicker with nice shortcuts and better availability of many of the tools.
• The addition of surround sound was inevidible to keep up, I was hoping for it in version 3, but they waited, and the wait was justified, as they did a great job implementing it. While the bussing is something new to get used to, it does provide a very open-ended solution to make room for the many formats they support and pluggin in many more in the future.

Cakewalk support, from my research, is like any company, some good reports, some bad reports, but I hear better things about Cakewalk support than many other companies as of late. Customer support seems to be something slipping by the wayside these days with many companies, but Cakewalk seems to be holding their own. Based on what I have seen at the user forums on their web site, they have a great community of followers that are very eager to help each other. However, like any forum, it has it's issues with troublesome users (I can relate to that problem very well), but overall appears to be a very helpful place and I personally saw how they work quietly behind the scenes to take care of the riff-raff. In addition to online support, I should also mention that the manual is a 704 page book! Considering so many apps now don't even come with one anymore, in favor of the online help menu, I thought this was quite cool. I hate online help, if I need help, I'd rather have a physical book I can take with me when bringing my daughter to dance class, on the bus, in the lavatory, on the patio or wherever else I have reading time.

That said, the "suggested list price" of $959 USD seems a bit steep, but many high end apps are going for the major money these days, and Cakewalk has by no means started the trend, but they are following suit. On the plus side, the street rpice is significantly less at Musician's Friend ($599 for Sonar 4 Producer Edition and $299 for Sonar 4 Studio Edition at the time of this writing) and you are also getting a significantly more powerful program for the money. If you have no need for surround sound, Studio Edition is still available for about half the price of Producer and lacks a couple of other features as well.