Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer

The Leading Choice in Digital Audio Workstations

SONAR 8 Producer gives you what you need for recording, composing, editing, mixing, and mastering. Get innovations that matter, from exclusive features to ignite creativity and perfect your tracks, to groundbreaking technologies that always keep you in control, all backed by the industry's leading 64-bit audio quality. And SONAR 8 Producer delivers the go-to production tools you want with the best collection of virtual instruments, mixing, and mastering effects found in any DAW.

With unlimited tracks, amazing creative tools, inspiring virtual instruments, the freedom to work with any audio  interface or control surface, and the most complete delivery capability for collaboration with users of other DAWS,
award-winning SONAR Producer is your best choice in a digital audio workstation.

Create

SONAR 8 is the only DAW that offers one-of-a-kind music creation tools that actually help in the songwriting process.

Whether you are searching for new ideas or looking to add musical parts to existing songs, SONAR 8 can help you break through those creative blocks. Click here for specs.
Dimension Pro Dimension Pro allows you to add real and synthesized instrument sounds to your songs. It includes 7 GB of content, 2200+ programs, plus the Digital Sound Factory Vol. 2 Classic Keys Pack. SONAR 8 Producer Exclusive Loop Explorer 2.0 Loop Explorer 2.0 lets you browse and preview audio and MIDI groove clips and patterns.

Quickly build backing tracks for your song and preview MIDI with the virtual instrument of your choice.
True Piano TruePianos Amber is a VSTi that provides realistic piano sounds, superb playability, and acoustic-style responsiveness. Get brilliant sounds with low CPU usage for optimal performance. SONAR 8 Producer Exclusive Step Sequencer The Integrated Step Sequencer is the easiest way to create beats, grooves, and lines for all your instruments. Use your mouse or the included drum patterns to get a project started or to add new parts.

Rapture LE is a special version of the award winning Rapture synthesizer. It includes over 200 programs & hundreds of oscillator shapes. Perfect for today's pop, dance, and electronic music.

TruePianos Amber is a VSTi that provides realistic piano sounds, superb playability, and acoustic-style responsiveness. Get brilliant sounds with low CPU usage for optimal performance.

The Integrated Step Sequencer  is the easiest way to create beats, grooves, and lines for all your instruments. Use your mouse or the included drum patterns to get a project started or to add new parts.

Record

SONAR 8 provides the most comprehensive recording features of any DAW on the market today. It's designed to meet the needs of even the most demanding professional—whether recording a solo performance, a band, or even an orchestra.

Recording without limits—unlimited tracks of audio and MIDI, unlimited simultaneous inputs, loop recording, and the ability to record for hours without stopping means you'll be able to capture all your ideas, no matter how big.

Session Drummer 2  is the fastest and most fun way to create realistic and vital drum tracks. It works great when you want the sound and feel of a real drummer to play along with.

Guitar Rig 3 LE allows you to plug-in to the latest award-winning guitar amp modeler from Native Instruments. It includes 3 amps & cabinets, 11 effects, tuner, metronome, and over 50 presets.

Track Templates make it easy to get your project started. SONAR includes a variety of templates for audio, virtual instrument tracks, and even entire projects. Save your own templates any recall them instantly any time you need that sound.

Stay inspired with a new Dynamic Transport offering true rewind, fast forward, and pause; improved jog, shuttle, and scrub; audition and anytime recording for on the fly arming/unarming of tracks.

Pure power—SONAR pioneered support for multicore and multiprocessor computers, Windows Vista, and x64 processing, now in version 8 we've optimized for high track count/low latency performance and a more responsive user experience.

Edit

SONAR 8 offers precision editing tools you won't find in any other DAW. Whether you're editing audio or MIDI, it's easy to make pinpoint edits and fix issues you didn't think were possible.

AudioSnap allows you to non-destructively fix audio timing, make instant tempo changes to an entire project—even quantize audio like you would MIDI.

Roland V-Vocal editor lets you achieve perfect vocals tracks and is integrated right inside SONAR. It includes pitch correction, phrasing, dynamics, vibrato, and Pitch to MIDI conversion.

Comping in SONAR is a breeze with powerful tools that take the headache out of getting the perfect take. Easily select the best performance from multiple takes and piece it together to sound like one flawless track.

Smart MIDI Tools  revolutionize MIDI editing by providing you with a powerful and customizable workflow innovation.

Three tools can each be configured to perform multiple operations, saving you valuable time.

Mix

SONAR 8 offers the perfect mixing environment for any professional engineer. SONAR's industry-first, end-to-end, 64-bit double precision floating point mix engine allows you to mix with sonic clarity using a suite of versatile

effects, powerful mixing tools, and endless routing possibilities.

Configurable Console—control volume, EQ, sends, pan, and much more just like a hardware mixer. You can also easily integrate most popular Control Surfaces or MIDI controllers.

64-bit audio mix engine means you are mixing with the best audio quality in the industry today. Best of all, you can take advantage of this audio engine on both 32-bit and 64-bit PCs.

Channel Tools  provides easy and powerful zero-latency channel processing for adjusting L/R channel placement, gain, pan/width, and phase; and more.

VC-64 Vintage Channel is a channel strip, dynamics processor, EQ, and De-Esser that's been called "the magic bullet for your tracks" by many engineers. It includes presets designed by professionals and can be side-chained.

External hardware support allows you to use hardware gear right in SONAR. Tracks stay tight with automatic plug-in delay compensation for external and internal plug-ins. Perfect for outboard gear, stomp boxes, and more.

Transient Shaper  is a powerful tool for sculpting the transient dynamics of any percussive based source material.

Great for drum loops and percussion, electric & acoustic guitars, and piano.

Master

SONAR 8 allows you to deliver the final polish to your tracks with high-end effects that were designed specifically for the task of mastering.

LP-64 EQ  is a linear-phase Equalizer that puts a professional sheen on your final mix. Get accurate processing and eliminate phase distortion that is common with parametric EQ.

LP-64 Multiband is a linear phase mastering compressor/limiter. It provides clean, clear non-smeared control over isolated bands for volume maximization or attenuation/limiting with superior linear phase technology.

Boost 11  is a peak limiter that gives your final mix maximum volume and punch. With Boost 11's simple interface, you'll have your songs, radio- and duplication-ready in no time at all.

TL-64 Tube Leveler is a line driver/ leveling processor with advanced analog vacuum-tube circuit modeling algorithm.

Add the unique qualities of tube color and warmth found in classic recordings 64-bit Mastering is a reality in SONAR with end-to-end 64-bit audio from native 64-bit audio files, tracks, busses, mastering effect inserts, to file export, your audio always retains its sonic integrity.

Superior Final Rendering whether you're archiving a 64-bit floating point, 384 kHz final master, or exporting 16-bit/44.1 kHz audio for CD/MP3 through Windowed Sinc Sample Rate conversion and POW-r Dithering.

What's New in Version 8

If you're upgrading from an earlier version of SONAR, version 8 is the upgrade that was designed specifically for you.

With SONAR 8, more so than any previous SONAR upgrade, we've asked our customers to tell us what features and enhancements they want. We've listened. Check out the extensive list below.

New features, optimizations, and workflow enhancements include:

    Loop Explorer 2.0—view provides browse and preview of audio and MIDI groove clips and patterns; quickly drag and drop loops and patterns into the track view; MIDI groove clips and patterns can be previewed with the virtual

instrument of your choice.

    Dedicated Instrument Track—single track optimized for mono or stereo virtual synths which simplifies the process of working with virtual instruments. In the pursuit of offering users options in how they want to work, the

multi-track method of using virtual instruments employed by previous versions of SONAR is still supported. In addition users can split and combine instrument tracks to/from discrete audio/MIDI tracks.

    SONAR Performance Optimizations—with focus on functionality including improved performance at high track counts and low latencies, faster launch time, and the ability to change audio devices without restarting; streamlined communication with VST plug-ins and Improved ASIO performance with output latency compensation.

    User Interface optimizations—smoother display when resizing windows and panes, optimized metering, more responsive zoom and scroll.

Editing Enhancements:

    Clip Selection Groups—Furthering SONAR's multitrack recording and take management capability, SONAR now automatically groups clips together across tracks after each recording pass — perfect for comping any multitrack ensemble performance, especially drum takes.

    Aim Assist Cursor—Visual guide to assist in lining up tracks for precision editing.

    Split and Mute Tools—can now edit multiple clips simultaneously.

    Free Edit Tool—for performing edits by clips or by time without the need of a modifier key.

Recording Enhancements:

    Live Effects and Soft Synth Recording—play and record effect and soft synth output into audio tracks in realtime using SONAR's live bounce feature.

    Anytime Recording—while the SONAR transport is running or looping users can now arm/unarm audio and MIDI tracks, punch in, punch out, and toggle between play and record.

Mixing Enhancements:

    Exclusive Solo Mode with Solo Override—New solo mode forces soloing to one track/bus at a time and prevents tracks and buses from being muted when other tracks/buses are soloed.

    Bus Inputs QuickGroup Command—automatically groups all source tracks feeding a selected bus.

    Mono hardware outputs—for easy assignment of tracks and buses to individual hardware outputs in addition to stereo pairs.

Control Enhancements:

    Transport Updates—True Rewind, Fast Forward and Pause Buttons; Audition Button; Improved Jog/Shuttle Heuristics; optimizations for control surfaces and scrub performance.

    Control Surface Enhancements—Show/Hide Tracks from Surface can follow either the Track View or Console View, obeying visible/hidden tracks, Control Surfaces MIDI port assignments retained/stored in SONAR, Real-World VST

Parameter Values are now displayed.

    Track View and Console View Sync now automatically syncs visible/hidden tracks between the Track View and Console View channels.

Additional Enhancements:

    Enhanced Sample Rate Conversion — now employs the same fast convolution engine as the LP-64 series 64-bit mastering plug-ins.

    Vista Audio — WASAPI support, which is compatible with any Vista audio device, including WaveRT PCI and motherboard audio, USB, and FireWire devices.

    QuickTime 7 Import/Export —support for the latest QuickTime 7 codecs, including H.264 and AAC audio.

Workflow Enhancements include:

    Insert Send Assistant—provides a fast and easy way to create effect buses and insert sends to new or existing buses.

    Updated ACT Presets —mappings for popular plug-ins and controllers.

    Templates — over 400 new production ready Track Templates and Project Templates.

    Drum Maps & Presets — Updated Drum Maps and Plug-in Presets enhancing our most popular plug-ins.

    Patterns — New collection of drum pattern presets for the integrated Step Sequencer.