The Power in Cakewalk SONAR (Quick Pro Guides)

Quite a bit is sort of left off assuming you have experience in many aspects of recording to DAW's and knowledge of more than average on PC's or Mac's. . I would have like to have more in depth information on setting up program and its VST and add ons folders and exactly where they should go when you do as suggested and use multiple drives to set up and have things where they should go, more so for add ons or VST instruments not part of Cakewalk and third party content. How exactly to install and what should go on the Main OS drive and what can go on alternate internal drives on a desktop to make things run smooth and efficiently . This still has me confused. Yes it gets touched on but allot left off and on a how to manual did not seem fair at all. Otherwise if you are somewhat familiar with DAW recording and setting DAW's Up in your PC or MAC the rest is useful

This guy's writing and teaching is absolutely top class. Way better than Garrigus'. It's self-evident as you read. He truly makes you fully aware of how the software works and his tips and tricks are spot on. It's a shame Cakewalk went out of business. The Sonar DAW software really is fantastic and customizable.I cannot say enough about how excellent a teacher this Edstrom is, and how he makes you feel like he's anticipated your thoughts and addresses them as you read. His knowledge of recording studios and old hardware, emulated with software, is impressive.

You know this book is like the missing manual for you and that's great. But like the manual it's fairly soulless. There is a difference between something that shows you how things work and something that shows you how to work with this software. This shows you how things work. How some things work. If you were hoping for a book to show you how to get started, how to put a project together or how this works with that to create music then keep looking and let me know when you find it or create it.

It's a good basic primer on how to start using Cakewalk. As a non-pro what it covers is enough to get me through almost 100% of what I need to know to enable me to produce an acceptable end product. The included disk is also very helpful.

This is a good book with DVD. It is full of information. If you have Sonar, this book is very helpful.

useful reference

It was just what I needed. I was already familiar with Sonar. But this help to explain (in layman terms) things I needed help with.

This one was the right one-more up to date

For those who are beginning to explore the world of DAWs (digital audio workstations) the choice of software and the technology can be very daunting. There is a mountain to climb. Cakewalk is very much underrated in my sphere of using orchestral samples. The first key point is that Cakewalk is free and it is a full professional version. The second key point is that you can learn very quickly ( by reading this excellent handbook and playing the DVD tutorials) how to use Cakewalk. The third key point is that by becoming proficient in using Cakewalk, you will have saved yourself a lot of money (compared with the cost of pro versions of other DAWs) and be able to produce music at least of equal quality to musicians using other DAWs.This book is an essential tool to learning how to master Cakewalk quickly. It is worth every penny.

I have Sonar X1. It shipped with a pitiful handbook which was a complete waste of time and a pdf manual which was over 1800 pages long. While no doubt pretty complete apart from cursory explanations of midi instruments one has the strong impression that this reference tome had been incrementally changed over time without ever having been rewritten. This is understandable as nobody would willingly attempt to rewrite such a monster. Indeed I read that Sonar X3 has a reference manual pdf of well over 2000 pages which backs up my thesis. In the old days of Cakewalk ProAudio, the fore-runner of Sonar, the manual was manageable even though it was a few hundred pages long. Nowadays it is not. If you want to look something up you have to trawl through a search in Adobe Reader and you might eventually get to where you want to go. Or not. So Sonar must be very intimidating to new users because there is simply no easy way to get into it. Furthermore it is often made more difficult by odd choices of default, such as the Custom tab for track view which does not include input or output options. It took me an age to work that one out. Curiously, thus is also an omission in this otherwise exemplary book which assumes that such actions are performed via the inspector pane rather than the track pane (probably fine for newcomers but not necessarily for people reared on ProAudio 8).Sonar is an excellent but complex DAW but it is surely not beyond the wit of man to produce a manageable handbook for basic operations. And this book does just that and very well too. Of huge importance is the large number of illustrations and very readable type and layout. The Garrigus book, by comparison, is very deficient in this regard although clearly more detailed.As a refresher or introduction to a fantastic bit of software I cannot recommend this highly enough. Indeed, Cakewalk should license it for inclusion in the Sonar box.

A good book for both beginners and seasoned users of SONAR. I learned extra tips on how to manage my projects professionally. However it doesn't go into enough detail on the final mix process but there are lots of other books available that do this.

This is a 'how to use' Sonar Cakewalk, not a tutorial on how to create music

Well written but this will take at least a week to read and digest, looking forward to watching the dvd and working along with the examples.