Cakewalk Sonar 7

Product Review: Page (1) of 2 - 11/09/07

Cakewalk Sonar 7 Sonar 7 is close- very close -to a DAW that provides everything you need at a high level of quality By Graeme Hague

If there?s one thing that software developers like better than attracting new customers, it?s poaching existing users away from their preferred software. It isn?t easy. Owners of software-driven music studios of any size are creatures of habit and almost always stick within the comfort zone of formats, workflow practices and procedures they?re familiar with. Software they know. We can be kind of grumpy and stubborn about it.

But with Cakewalk?s release of Sonar 7 they must surely lure some users away from the competition. The new features and extra capabilities alone are enough to warrant any pain suffered from learning a different GUI. Yes, I?m impressed. However, it?s not like Sonar 7 is a radical, revamped release. Cakewalk has been chipping away at making it a great DAW for a long time. With version 7 they?ve almost covered everything. Almost? Well, of course nothing?s perfect. . . yet.

The New Stuff
As always there are a few tweaks that at first won?t matter to many of us until the day we need them. Things like an expanded range of file formats for Import and Export (including AIFF and FLAC which actually is handy), support for external inserts and some new side-chaining facilities. The importance of these won?t be that evident to a lot of people, because they can be quite specific for particular studio setups.

The big-ticket improvements are about MIDI programming and editing, some excellent new virtual instruments and plug-ins, facilities for ripping and burning CDs, plus the Cakewalk Publisher which is a vehicle for streaming your music to and from the web.

It?s All About MIDI
It?s like Cakewalk have decided (and many will agree) that the secret to composing and recording individual, unique music still lays in complex MIDI programming- aside from real instruments and vocals, of course. In other words, while loops and samples certainly have their place, their weakness is the problem of avoiding a kind of repetitive sound to your songs (unless you want that). Good MIDI programming of high quality software instruments will always result in a better, more realistic sound. MIDI programming is time-consuming, though. So Cakewalk has put a lot of effort into making this programming workflow faster, easier and even a little fun.

The PRV Tool
Cakewalk would probably prefer the Step Sequencer (below) gets first mention, but for someone like myself who has been using MIDI a long time, I?m more excited about the PRV Tool facility. This is something that would take a while to set up properly to suit individual tastes, but once it?s done you?ll never work without it again.

PRV Tool

Basically it?s a configuration dialogue box to customize how your mouse and all its buttons work. For example, you can assign different tools such as Select or Erase to their own mouse buttons and you can further modify these assignments with keyboard actions like Control, Shift or Alt. Even better, you can configure specific tools to ?come to life? depending on where your mouse pointer is located. Functions such as Adjust Note Velocity will appear if you click the top part of a note event or Note Time Adjust when you click near the left-hand edge of an event. At certain zoom levels it can be a little tricky pin-pointing exactly the right area to trigger the tool you want, but otherwise it?s a real time-saver compared to continually finding icons or menus to change your editing tool.

Speaking of zooming, there is a Piano Roll Microscope Mode that is also a part of configuring your mouse?s behavior. It?s more like a magnifying glass than a microscope and the illustration below shows best how it works. You can zoom in on a section of MIDI data without affecting the entire window. It?s a handy thing for eye-balling any pesky wrong notes among a haystack of programming.

Drag Quantize is another new mouse operation. You can select any notes you want that require quantizing, then by moving your mouse up or down you ?drag? the notes closer or further away from the perfect quantize value. It?s a good way to keep a human factor in your programming with a lot more precision and variation- if that makes sense - rather than the set ?strength? value in the quantize dialogue box (which is still available).

Taking It Step by Step
The new MIDI Step Sequencer will be a familiar-looking thing for anyone who uses Reason to create drum patterns. It follows the same concept of representing each ?step? of your quantise or grid value with a cell inside which you paste a drum hit. To begin with you have to set the grid resolutions, it doesn?t automatically steal the present quantise settings. Next you can paste and delete drum hits as you play back the clip until everything is in the right place. Each note has its own row that you can label using Drum Maps and there?s individual settings for velocity offset, mute and solo.

Step Sequencer

Closing the Step Sequencer puts a ?step sequencer clip? into the project on the track you have highlighted and at the Now Time (cursor) for you to move or relocate as you like. I keep talking about drums here and Cakewalk point out it?s primarily aimed at drum programming, but there?s no reason you can?t use it for other instruments, perhaps to step-sequence a tricky synthesizer line.

The theory behind all this is fine, but there are a couple of hiccups. First, I found the Step Sequencer?s GUI a bit confusing mostly because some of the parameter settings clash with traditional music values. You have to think ?simple? and forget standard music theory. And if you change your mind about the grid resolution after you?ve started programming the extra steps are added, but existing notes aren?t shuffled to accommodate them. In fact, that?s worth a ?Huh?? I suspect that will be fixed soon.

Despite these, the step sequencer works really well for building up libraries of MIDI clips that you?ll use a lot, like 16 hi-hat grooves and such. Plus, if you fool around with it and have some fun there?s a good chance you?ll compose something unique with your mouse that your fingers would never contemplate.

Z3TA+

Nope, it?s not a typo and I haven?t spilled beer on my PC keyboard. The Z3TA+ is one of the new synthesizers included in Sonar 7 (be advised, the Z3TA+ is only in the Producer Edition, but the other new instruments are in both editions). It?s a beauty. It?s an ?analogue-synth with Waveshaping technology?, but if that kind of terminology makes you crossed-eyed, just think of Absynth; Lots of fantastic pads, lead sounds, bass blats, sweeping phasers and plenty of arpeggiated riffs and patterns that will keep you happy for years. Z3TA+ can be the only reason you need to get the Producer Edition of Sonar 7, it?s that good. Of course, there are others.

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