Cakewalk Sonar

Cakewalk Sonar
Developer(s) Cakewalk
Stable release X1b (18.0.2.242) / March 21, 2011; 10 months ago (2011-03-21)
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Type Digital audio workstation
License Proprietary
Website cakewalk.com/products/sonar/

Cakewalk SONAR is a digital audio workstation made by Cakewalk for recording, editing, mixing, mastering and outputting audio. The latest versions of the software are SONAR Home Studio 7, SONAR Home Studio 7 XL, SONAR X1 Producer Edition, SONAR X1 Studio Edition, SONAR X1 Essential Edition, and SONAR LE. SONAR LE is an OEM version bundled with hardware; all the other versions can be purchased separately.

SONAR's features include:

Contents

Notable features

Video and Audio Formats

Sonar provides limited facilities for video, and more complete surround sound capability (5.1 and 7.1), and supports .avi, .mpeg, .wmv and .mov files. SONAR has the ability to show video as thumbnails contained within a separate track.[1] With appropriate hardware, it is also possible to output the video to an external monitor screen via Firewire. All the common SMPTE formats, frame sizes and frame rates are supported. It is possible to transfer audio loop files from other compatible software into sonar and complete a final mixdown.

Various audio export options (including 64-bit MASTERS) are AIFF, AU, CAF, FLAC, RAW, SD2, W64 (Sony Wave-64), WAV (Microsoft)

Active Controller Technology

Also called ACT, this is a feature that assists in the process of remapping parameters of MIDI controllers or surfaces. Having the ability to control effects and virtual instruments (See Software synthesizer), the controller/surface mappings for a particular plug-in work the same on each instance of that plug-in, whenever that instance has focus.[2] SONAR now fully supports the integrated SONAR V-Studio 700 automation suite, [6] which is a complete SONAR-dedicated automation console built by Cakewalk/Roland. (ref. Cakewalk (company))

SONAR also supports other dedicated special-purpose controllers/surfaces such as the CM Labs MotorMix, Sonar includes a general purpose plug-in, called ACT MIDI Controller, that can be configured to support any generic MIDI controller (controllers/surface), such as the JL Cooper FaderMaster, Peavey PC-1600, and Kenton Control Freak. Generic controllers/surfaces typically have 8–16 strips of faders/knobs/buttons, are non-motorized, and can often be configured to transmit MIDI messages (continuous controllers, NRPNs, Sysx, etc.).[3]

AudioSnap

AudioSnap is a tool that makes it possible to fix audio timing without slicing up or destructively editing audio tracks. It is possible to quantize one part at a time or an entire project.[4] Instead of quantizing a whole clip, it is possible to split the clip into smaller pieces, or into beat-length pieces by using the Split Beats Into Clips command. If the succeeding beats in a clip do not line up with the grid, the clip can be quantized by using the AudioSnap Beats command, which will line up the beats in the clip with the grid.[5]

Computer Configurations

Beginning with version 6, SONAR is able to fully take advantage of full beginning to end 64-bit internal processing, a 64-bit audio engine, and a 64-bit mixer on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Sonar Video Support". Sound on Sound. 2007. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec06/articles/sonar6.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-21. 
  2. ^ Active Controller Technology (ACT). "[1]." Accessed on May 21, 2007
  3. ^ Act MIDI Controller. "[2]." Accessed on May 21, 2007
  4. ^ AudioSnap. "[3]." Accessed on May 21, 2007
  5. ^ AudioSnap Commands. "[4]." Accessed on May 21, 2007.

External links