SONAR Home Studio Reviews

Okay, first of all I think Sonar just messed up mi audio drivers I dont know how. This never happened to me on any other DAW, it's a good program and all, but now I can't hear any audio from my computer. Anyone havind this problem to?

I have got a few crashes with the program and it makes me wonder if the program is good. BUT, i really love the interface and i think it is kind of user friendly. Despite the few little problems, i like to produce in this software. Also, Igot in touch with the developper on steam and he is ready to answer questions for people like me who doubt about the program. I suggest you try it first because i have 50 hours on it and i will probably need another 50 hours to know if i really want to buy the full edition or not. I have used other programs before and it is really hard to choose since other programs are also really good and there is not a big difference in prices. TRY MULTIPLE BEFORE BUYING.

This product seems like a decent entry level DAW. Well, very entry level. However, it was good enough to do what I wanted to do at the moment, with the minimal investment required. There were some features that I liked, especially when working with MIDI instruments. It took me a bit to get it set up properly with my equipment (Komplete Kontrol S88) but I eventually got it. Shortly after I was able to actually start working with it, it broke. Would not launch at all. I tried the support forums, and searching online. I performed a few fixes, and of course the normal verify/reinstall. Then I contacted Cakewalk support. That was a joke. I would have recommended this product if it weren't for that. It's going on two weeks, and I haven't heard anything from Cakewalk except a survey about my support experience so far. Which I rated poorly, of course. One of the most important things for software of this kind to have is a decent support system. They won't even give you a phone number to reach support. So, for now, I sincerely don't recommend this product. I would suggest something along a similar pricepoint, (like Reaper?) or just investing the money in yourself and getting a decent DAW. If anything changes, maybe I'll give it a go again.

Great DAW, but unfortunately Gibson (the parent company to Cakewalk) has ceased all development and support for the Cakewalk line of products. Therefore I can not recommend this application anymore (although I still keep the thumbs-up). Please consider using Samplitude Music Studio from MAGIX... This is also on Steam. If this is outside of your budget, get Music Maker (Premium) and move to Samplitude when it is on sales. You can interoperate these applications as they can read each others files easily.

Gibson's shutting Cakewalk operations down and we will not receive updates or patches anymore. Do not buy this product. It's buggy as it is and without any future support it's a complete waste of money.

Another crap product. This one couldn't even install itself properly. I had to go through and manually configure EVERY FREAKING SETTING EVERY DAMN TIME I LAUNCHED IT!!! I had another product, the rapture pro, that refused to play nice at all with this product, even though they are made by the same company. I got some silly bit of session as a bonus, which somehow negated the license of Rapture Pro until I uninstalled the Session that comes with this waste of data. I will never purchase another product made by cakewalk for as long as I live. If that company buys out a product I use, I'll stop using it. I swear, I'm livid at how abhorrent this software is. 3 hours in, and I still couldn't get it to do anything.

Always having some problems. Especially with getting audio to function properly. Nice amount of Midi toys tho. Not much joy found from that when you can't use them properly when audio stops randomly, or stutters heavily.

It's better than some of the other sound mixers on here. You get a decent amount of viritual instruments and loops to in the base product. Runs well. Doesn't crash a lot. I bought some of the other more expensive ones and they wouldn't even launch. I bought this at $49 then I saw the reduced price. So refunded it and am buying it at the reduced price, which is pretty damn good value. There is always the option to add the DLC and upgrade to the Pro Version too. So I like that. Versatility. I'm not musician hey. I just like mixing, loops and tunes and adding vocals so does the job for me.

[EDIT: After 170+ hours, here are some updates. You'll easily find them since I'll add brackets to identify them.] First of all, we'll all agree that this program mostly appeals to beginners or amateurs. It's not as expensive as the pro-oriented softwares and it obviously offers more than free recording softwares out there. Basically, this program is meant for those who want to take things a little bit further but aren't willing to burn too much money. After all, not all of us make a living out of music. Paying $200 or more for what could stay a hobby is quite a sum. I think there's definitely a market for Sonar Home Studio. The program delivers on many aspects. First of all, it looks good. The relatively dark colors of the software makes it easy for the eyes and will definitely not be an issue if you work on it late at night. If darker colors aren't your thing, there's a lighter skin for you to use. Its interface is fairly intuitive. There are buttons and all, everything to make you feel like you're toying with something real. There's a help box and a solid amount of tutorials, so if you feel like you're a little bit overwhelmed, don't be afraid because the program guides you pretty well. That's a very good thing since, like I said, this program will appeal to beginners. [ The help content is incredible. If you take the time to read it all, you'll master the software like a pro. I rarely come upon great tutorials and help files like this. ] The program recognizes hardware quickly. I plugged in a few things just to see if everything was compatible. Seems like it's all working. I tried other programs that didn't work with Rocksmith's Real Tone Cable, so I'm glad this one works with it. Now, I haven't fully tested all the software yet, but as far as multitracking goes, seems like it's all right so far. [ I've tested it and I've done a few songs already. I've got nothing bad to say about it. Recording, mixing and overall manipulation of the software is fine. ] I got multiple crashes already. Sometimes, it's due to clicking on something - anything - while the software is working on something else at the same time. A little tweaking here and there by the devs should do the trick, but I don't know how programming works, to be honest. It could've been tested a little more before having a public launch, in my opinion. They collect data from their users for this purpose, I guess. Let's hope they get enough error reports so they can fix those crashing issues. I got many, many crashes by using Rapture Session that comes along with it. To those who don't know, Rapture Session is a virtual keyboard with a ton of instruments. [ I like working with Rapture Session. There are many instruments indeed, but I'd say 50% of them are variations of the same things. ] Once again, it looks good, but the mechanic behind it doesn't seem to be working 100%. Don't try to hit too many notes at once, it'll crash. If you load an instrument, seems like you get 1/5 chances that it'll never load and will result in a crash. I highly recommend that you save your work very, very often. Whenever you make a manipulation, whatever it is. Now, this shouldn't be. The program should be more stable. As I am writing this, it has been released for a little more than two months. I'll be honest, I didn't check the forums yet and I don't know what they're up to, but two months of collecting user crash data should be enough for them to fix their major crashing issues. [ With time, I've learned to "evade" crash-making manipulations. You just have to learn how to work with the software's glitches. It's not so bad and won't get in your way. I rarely get crashes now. Rapture Session seems to cause most of them. If an instrument doesn't load, be patient and don't click anywhere. It might take 30 seconds or so and it'll load. One thing that I find troubling, however, is that through the countless crashes I've experienced, I've only had 2 crash reports to send. The software doesn't seem to be able to identify most crashes when they occur and when you reopen it after a crash, it's as if you closed it normally - minus your unsaved work -_- . If the software sends crash reports only 5% of the time, I don't see how it could improve itself over time. ] I tried to save my first project in all the available formats, just to see how things would go. I couldn't export in the "RPG Maker" .ogg format but .oga was fine. I have no idea why .ogg won't work. [ Still doesn't work. Some encoding issue. Kinda gave up on that and resorted to other softwares such as Audacity ( which is free, by the way ) to do the job. ] [ I removed part of my review concerning the missing MP3 encoder since it is now free for all Sonar users ( no matter the software ) and not missing anymore in SHS. Tested it myself. Encoding in mp3 format works like a charm. ] [ In conclusion, if you are considering spending money on an audio recording software, make sure that the mp3 encoder is included! ]

I've used Cakewalk SONAR years ago (2005 ish) and enjoyed it back then. It was my go-to recording application. I'm a casual user, that is, my musical interest comes in waves from year to year, so I'm not a professional by any means. Using SONAR today through Steam has thus far been fantastic. I read another person's review who reported system crashes. I haven't found that to be a recurring problem, although it happened to me one time. I was trying to delete a track while the loop was playing. Quite frankly, that's not an ideal way to delete a track. I should have stopped the loop first (I usually do anyway). I'm considering that one crash user error. I was impressed with the large number of sounds they give you out-of-box that you can use to author tracks. I used to use FruityLoops back in the day because I liked the "sequence" view when authoring. I was stoked to see this sequence view in SONAR Home Studio. It may well had been there in 2005, but I didn't know about it. The interface is fairly intuitive. There are some little specifics that I picked up along the way to find what I was looking for, but I did alright for the most part. If I was a total beginner, I think the learning curve would be much steeper. I whipped out a tune complete with a drum, base, and piano synth track in all of 20 min. clicking around trying to figure it out. That's not bad for first introductions. Where things went south for me, was when exporting my song, the MP3 export option is not built in. That's an add on that costs (at the time of wirting this) $9.99. When reading the add on, it says that all your buying is the MP3 encoder to aid in your "workflow". So you're going to ding me $10 for convenience? Really? They give you all these sounds for free, and entire recording interface only to be petty with the MP3 export feature? If you're looking to "upsell" me, upsell me on the sounds/plugins, not something so integral to the final production....just feels ugly. Overall, I'm really happy with it and would have no problem recommending it to a friend. The MP3 thing is quite a bit silly, but I suppose I'll convert it using any of the thousands of free converting options out there. I can't wait to use it more and put out some cool tracks. My System: Dell Precision M6700 Laptop Windows 10 (x64) 32GB Memory SSD Intel Core i7 3840QM 2.8GHz (quad core) Using the ASIO4all driver.