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November 2006

Setlist:

1.
Interview With Monster Zero
2.
Toronto MeetUp Recap
3.
Gear Review - Sonar 6
4.
Top Teams/Newest Members

5.
News and Events
6.
Tune Of The Month
7.
CD Review -Paul Gilbert
8.
Fruity Loops Tutorial

Roger and Harley

MONSTER ZERO

It was my distinct pleasure to convince this Monster to
do an interview. On the off-chance that you're not familiar with Monster
Zero, get into the audio chat room and meet him. He's one of the nicest,
funniest, and wisest peeps you'll ever meet. (He plays pretty good too!)
Ladies and gentlemen...give a big MW *clink* to....the MON, the MYTH, the
LEGEND... Roger Hunt!

Myu: Dude, great to have ya with us this
month!

MZ: Thx Myu it's a privledge

Myu: About a year and a
half ago you stumbled into our midst. Tell us a bit about how that
happened and what your initial impressions about the site were.

MZ:
I happened on this great site looken for some tab for a song I was haven
trouble with figgureing out...as usual...lol

Myu: Describe the
place you were at musically at that time.

MZ: I was mid point in my
midlife crisis...lol. I was just out of one band and getting started just
writing for fun...guitar things I have had lurking and just wanting to
revisit old ideas and lay some things down for my own sake.

Myu:
You're all about 80's rock. What's the attraction?

MZ: I like the
energy and the big show of that type of rock. I always liked the passion
and fire of songs that where coming out then. I found out that you could
have arena energy and a fun show in smaller venues with a good light show
and a P.A that delivered the goods.

Myu: How would you describe
your approach to soloing and composition?

MZ: I like to follow
after the vocals have been laid unless the song idea really hits me in a
differnt way. If it gives me a certain mood I'll go off a little but I
always try stay grounded to the feel. For me it's the total package. I
love the way Neal Schon of Journey does his leads...passion so thick you
can cutt it!

Myu: You've done some band work, as you mentioned.
Tell us a bit about that.

MZ: I was lucky to be able to play out in
a time that the type off music I liked was very poupular, and a popular
local band could open for big shows without being signed to a majior
label. The bands that I played in had a whole nites set list of popular
tunes for bars of course, and a full set of originals for the concerts.
I'm finding out that the 80's stlye rock covers or originals are coming
back and still make for a good nite playing out.

Myu: What gear
are you using these days? Anything you don't have that you'd like to?
Anything you've gotten rid of and miss?

MZ: I like my Line Six
AX212. It's work horse and simple to set up. In small places I just mic it
with two Sure SM 57's. If I'm gonna do a bit bigger show I'll use it to
drive the VHT 100 watt tube and a coulple of old junk Marshall cabnets.
Thats a fun rig and I have differnt patches for that set up. I keep both
configuations simple as far as the amount of patches, but each patch has
tweaked effects and eq to the max....lol. As far somthinbg I miss. Prolly
my old crippled 100 watt Marshall head, Big Muff, and this huge Morley
echeo thingy. It had a pedal that worked off a photo sensitive
deal...lol...that gave you more effect as you droped the pedal. It didn't
use a magnetic tape ,it used this tunafish like can that had pickup heads
in it..sheeshes..and it spun around and you changed it by turning a
dial...LOL. The fat rubber bands that drove it would always
break.

Myu: You're one of our hard-core audio chatters. What's the
best thing about audio chat? Has it changed the way you play?

MZ: I
love live playing! Whether it's to a backing or just jamming. Audio Chat
is like a cool treehouse where you can go and listen or play with your
friends. Peeps can share ideas or just cutt the fool with each other.
Audio Chat is prolly my favorite thing MW has to offer. It's like a mini
meet up every nite or day your on...*CLINK*

Myu: I understand you
have several hobbies in addition to music. When you're not on the site,
where can we find you?

MZ: My jet ski rt now is so much fun. My
wife and I like to look for Dolphins and cruise with them or just sit and
watch em play. Also my old 1979 Jeep CJ7 cruisen the beach is fun. I'm an
Unreal Tournament 2004 junkie on the comp. Kite board surfin is on the
menue again.

Myu: Turn us on to 3 tunes we may not have heard and
tell us why you chose them.

MZ: Dream Until Tomorrow (Lynch Mob) I
love the the way Lynch has structured this tune it is very beautiful and
the builds in it are very dramatic. I also like Neal Shons' version of
Whiter Shade of Pale, he plays his heart out on it. It's off the album he
did with Sammy Haggar. Chris Impellitarie - I Fly Tonight. This song just
ripps. Grahm Bonnets' vocals are neat, and Chris really nails
it.

Myu: Got a post cooking? We gonna hear something new from ya
soon? :-)

MZ: OH boy...you had to ask..LOL. YES! I've had some
computer issues and it's a looooong story but I'll get em worked out
soon.Nice excuse rt? lol. I have neglected my team war friends and I feel
bad about that so hang tight and keep your earplugs handy.

Myu:
What's the one thing you are most looking forward to about the next
meetup?

MZ: I could write a bible on this one Myu. Plain and
simple....I like hangen and jammen with some of the coolest people I have
ever met in my LIFE! This site has been a blessing watching people improve
and share what we love in life...music and things close to our hearts. The
Meet Up is is that X a Billion :)

Myu: Well, Roger, we certainly
appreciate you taking the time to type with us this month. Thanx for bein
here, and good luck in the future!

MZ: Thank you, Kyle and all the
people at MW for all the great times and things to come...can't wait.
CHEERS and *clink* rog

Toronto Meetup Recap

by Fiddlefusion

It was Sept 29th 2006. Another Meetup
here in Toronto was about to begin. I had made the
necessary preparations for everyone (PA rentals, school
set up to jam in, etc). I got off work at 5:00PM Friday
afternoon and raced home to get changed and be at the
school for 7:00PM to meet the guys from the meetup. I
remember fitting 4 amps, a PA, and 6 guitars, mic stands
etc into my car (a Toyota Corolla lol).

I got to
the school for shortly after 7:00PM. Heimdall &
Deuce were waiting for me. we got in the school and set
up all the gear. We started teaching each other some
licks. Deuce taught me a cool "Ender" lick and Heimdall
taught me a cool arp thing using some open string type
of stuff. I showed them some Gambale type of arp sweeps.
Then we jammed for some time. At first we jammed over
some chords here and there. Then we jammed to some of
Funky's backing tracks that�I brought.

Razor
came in with his band Stratosphere (John on drums, and
Andy on bass) later on that evening. Razor had had quite
an experience getting across the border to Canada and
they held him up for some hours. So it was almost
midnight when they showed up. They went to the hotel to
crash right away. The evening was over. So we called it
a night and arranged to meet at the school the next
morning Saturday.

On Saturday morning, we all
met at the school at 10:00AM. Deuce and his girlfriend
had coffees for all of us ready. Razor and Stratosphere
set up their gear. We jammed into the early afternoon
with Razor and his band (you can see Heimdall's videos
of that jamming on his site). Then we went out on the
town a bit. The Meetup was held in Mississauga Ontario
(basically a suburb of Toronto). We went to downtown
Mississauga to a pub for some lunch and a couple of
brewsky. We had a great lunch and talk. Then we went to
a local music store called The Guitar Shop, where some
guys got gear and tried out some axes. Then back to the
school to resume the meetup.

Back at the school
Stratosphere ran through their set that they were to do
at the concert. We saw what an awesome band they wee. It
was just great to watch them. By now, it was dinnertime
and Sam & Dennis (bass player and drummer from
Manic) arrived. After that the Stick Player arrived (He
was also a monster baas player as well. His name was
Justin. He played an awesome Stick. Heimdall will have a
video of his Stick playing. You got to see it.

Then the concert began. Stratosphere took�the
stage. They did an awesome concert. The crowd was awe
struck by them. It was incredible. Then I got up with
Sam & Dennis and we played some stuff. The first
song was a fast song Sam wrote. We had to do it a second
time due to the mistakes I made in following those guys.
they were jammed for a bit. After the Jam with Sam &
Dennis, Razor got back up with Stratosphere. The stick
player joined them. It sounded fantastic. I couldn't
resist not trying out some violin with the stick. I
busted out my fiddle and joined in. We had a great time.
At one point, both drummers were up there playing. It
was great to see 2 kits side by side. Then with the both
of them playing at the same time was awesome. They are
both great drummers. The jamming went till about 3:00AM
after every on left.

Then we met back at the
school on Sunday morning at 10:30 AM. we had coffee
again and shot the breeze for a while. Then everyone
packed up their gear and loaded up the vehicles for the
long ride� home. Hiemdall, all the way back up north.
Deuce, back to Ottawa, and Razor and his crew back to
Grand Rapids Michigan.

Thanks to Fiddlefusion for contributing this
article! The guys were gracious enough to provide some
PICS
and VIDEOS
for download. Check 'em out, could be YOU there next
year!

Gear Review - Sonar 6 Producer Edition
By
CapnZilog

SONAR, currently in its sixteenth (!) incarnation
for Windows, began as a modest MIDI PC sequencer called Cakewalk by
a small Boston company called Twelve Tone Systems back in 1987.
Since then it's evolved into a comprehensive and robust digital
audio workstation (DAW) product, starting with Cakewalk For Windows
(1989), Cakewalk Pro Audio (1995), SONAR (2000) and SONAR 6 which
came out last month. Like Zildjian, the cymbal company which just
happens to be the oldest company in America, Cakewalk is the world's
longest-running manufacturer of PC recording software. The company's
close relationships with Microsoft, Intel and Roland are unique in
the music world, making Cakewalk something of an iconoclast in an
industry traditionally dominated by Macs.

If you've been on
the SONAR upgrade path for awhile, you may have noticed a certain
pattern. One, you can expect a new release pretty much every year,
and Two, the number of improvements made to the program tend to be
in inverse proportion to the number of new plugins you get. In other
words, if the program hasn't changed much (as it did between SONAR 1
and SONAR 2) you got a load of new plugins, but when it changed more
(as between SONAR 2 and SONAR 3) there were fewer. Well, SONAR 6 is
quite possibly the most comprehensive upgrade to the product, ever -
and although there are some new plugins in the latest version, the
program is the star this time around. BTW, if you're already on
version 6 and haven't downloaded the latest patch, you can find it
here.

Sonar 6 Track View

At this point I would like to clear up a few things
about the Cakewalk product line. There are many "lite" versions of
SONAR sold under various names, such as Cakewalk Home Studio, Guitar
Tracks, etc. These products are basically modified, stripped-down
older versions of SONAR intended for casual users and lack such
professional features as unlimited tracks, MIDI sequencing, pitch
correction and surround mixing. The software I'm discussing in this
review pertains to the full-strength flagship product, which is
aimed at professional musicians and comes in two flavors: SONAR 6
Studio Edition ($299 street, with the standard set of plugins) and
SONAR 6 Producer Edition ($499 street, with fancier plugins and
support for surround mixing.) Since these two are typically sold
only at music specialty stores like Guitar Center or Musicians'
Friend, if you found your software at Best Buy you are probably not
running the real thing! Serious home recordists should forget about
the "lite" products and stick to the Studio or Producer editions. If
you own something else, crossgrades and upgrades are available
direct from Cakewalk - but if you're a first-time buyer it pays to
shop. Like Microsoft Office, paying full MSRP for a major software
package is something best avoided.

Don't
Complain, Train

Since this is only a brief review of the latest
version of SONAR and not a tutorial, some familiarity with previous
versions is assumed. A 30-day limited trial version is available here. Additionally, you may want to check out the
product brochure for a full comparison of the two editions
and check out some of the online videos showing off the new
features, which can be found here, here and here. New or upgrading users will also enjoy the
excellent SONAR 6 Flash course produced by Digital
Music Doctor - SONAR 6 is a huge product, and a few hours spent
watching this will shave tons of time off your learning
curve.

Fig. 1: Audio Snap

Clips are the standard audio object in SONAR,
displayed here in the Track View as a chunk of sound that can be
automated, processed, and mixed. However, these aren't the only
types of audio object; earlier Cakewalk products introduced Groove
Clips for creating ACID-compatible loops and V-Vocal Clips for
Auto-Tune style pitch-correction. SONAR 6 introduces a third type of
clip called Audio Snap, which adds a Beat Detective-like
functionality formerly available only on expensive Pro Tools
systems. Since this is the most important new feature of the dozens
added to SONAR 6, let's visit this in some
depth.

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News & Events

2007 MeetUp

Destined to outrawk all meetups since
the one named after a cartoon bird (even without the big
metal spinny thingy), the MW 2007 MeetUp in Griffin, GA
is tentatively scheduled for late March. If you've never
been to a MeetUp, you're strongly encouraged to come and
enjoy a Southern spring tradition. Bring yer appetite,
yer axe (with spackle, if needed), and yer willingness
to be around some of the most excellent musicians on the
planet for a weekend of jamming and making friends. We
guarantee you have nothing better to do than this, and
you won't be sorry. Click here for details and make your travel
plans now!

2006 GWammies/Hall of Fame Nominations

Our MW Hall of Fame will be inducting
one Synth and one Bass tune this year. The nomination
procedure can be found on the Message Board by clicking
here. Also, be thinking about your
noms for all the best of 2006, which has really been a
stellar year for MW! Details for Gwammy categories and
nomination procedures will be coming soon, so STAY
TUNED!

Tune of the Month - OCT 06

So Far, So Long

by

Funky

CD Review

Paul Gilbert's �Get Out of My Yard�

by RazorRay

Hey all you guitar Freaks! Are you starved for some
virtuosity? Maybe crave some speed demon strict alternate picking?
Are odd time signatures your thing? Maybe you like crazy unison Bass
and Guitar lines. Do you like cool effects and killer tone on your
guitars? Or is it a well thought out composition that gets your gut
turning. Well look no further, Paul Gilbert delivers all of the
above on this CD.

Allow me to give you my take on these
tasty tracks that appear in order on the CD.

1. Get Out of My
Yard � This is a Freakish guitar solo that starts out with some
monster-tapped arpeggios that are literally impossible. It takes 2
people to do them. One person to act as a moving Capo and then the
other to do the crazy arpeggios over that. After that it moves to
just Paul jamming with his own trademark licks at super lightning
speed and ends in him screaming get out of my yard. What will strike
you off the bat is his dry distorted tone from his guitar and that
Laney Amp. His tone is much like Mattius Eklund . It�s very in your
face which works so well with his technique cause it is so over the
top and pin point accurate. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you can see
Paul perform the beginning of this tune on You Tube.

2.
Hurry Up � Very hip tune that reminds me of older Rush. Paul and his
Bass player do some killer unison lines. The Comp goes all over the
fretboard with about 10 zillion parts to it in multiple time
signatures and tempos. Also some cool effects on the Paul�s guitar..
notably an old Phaser in spots. You know the sound that VH had on
his first 2 albums in spots...that�s the sound.

3. Curse of
Castle Dragon � This tune is an old school Neo Classical Malmsteen
riff thingy. I have no idea how to play or write stuff like this but
all I know is it sounds killer. With very strict alternate picking
passages by Paul. It�s smoking.

4. Radiator � one of my fav
tunes on the CD. This song starts out with these gorgeous slightly
distorted chords with some sparse notes in between. These chords
would normally be clean cause they are like 9ths or major 7th type
of chords but with them slightly distorted it just sounds so full
and beautiful you just about drool on yourself. After that it breaks
into some killer Robin Trower bluesy soulful lick. It has the
trademark Robin Trower sound to with the chorus kickin in the mix.
At the end it double times and then comes back to the original riff.
I had to listen to the song about 4 times in a row before I could
move on to others on the CD.

5. Straight through the
Telephone Pole � This tune is an upbeat chicken pickin rocker. Paul
has a solo in the middle with some runs that are very metered and
precise. Amazing stuff for sure. Comp is kinda scattered but hey
it�s a whacked out tune what do ya expect.

6. Marine Layer �
This is my least favorite tune. It�s an Acoustic Ballad with Piano.
It�s slow , almost Windam Hillish and it is very atmospheric. Oddly
out of place on this CD.

7. Twelve Twelve � This is another
slower ballady type tune but with distorted guitar that weeps and
wails and cries. By this time you kinda get the idea that Paul can
rip up every fret on every string pausing only to accent with a
weepy bending note here or there.

8. Rusty Old Boat � About
time the funk was brought out. This song totally rocks. It has that
Medeski type Organ in it that doubles the main riff along with the
Bass. Again Paul solos all over this Mo Fo, leaving no doubt about
his prowess. Lots of stops and pauses between the lines which makes
it really interesting.

9. The Echo Song � This song sounds
Industrial and is basically Paul having that multiple Delay setting
on his guitar throughout the song. It kinda gets repetitive (Pardon
the Pun) but it is amazing when you think this has to be one take
with all that delay on. There would be no way you could punch into
that.

10. Full Tank � Straight up Old School Rocker here
with an Old School ending where you hit the chords in a descending
pattern till you end on your main Key. Of coarse Blistering solos
are all over that, all over the tune in general. Again what did ya
expect?

11. My Teeth are a Drumset � Another Old School
Rocker here but with a more up-beat tempo. There�s a cool break in
the middle with some stops in it and with you guessed it, blistering
solos.

12. 1.Haydn Symphony # 88 Finale � This is a
classical song with a distorted melody lead line. Very strict
picking and there are several lead guitars playing what the violins
would play. Pretty cool but it takes me awhile to get into it.

13. Three E�s for Edward � Played on Acoustic with 3 strings
all tuned to E. A down home bluesy foot stomper with some wide
interval jumps in frantic high speed fashion. If this doesn�t leave
your jaw dropped I don�t know what will. I can�t even explain how
good it sounds and how technically brilliant it is. You will have to
check it out for yourself.

14. You Kids � This is a high
speed punk rockin type of tune with a slight Satch sounding melody
in spots. Kinda makes me want to go Snowboarding at high rates of
speed down a steep mountain. Its got that High energy X generation
type of groove to it.

Well , that�s it, my first review of a
CD. Hope you guys liked it and I hope you check out Paul Gilberts
latest tunes. Peace throughout the Holidays!

Tutorial

SenorX's Guide to Fruity Loops

There's an old saying that goes, 'the only stupid
question is the one you don't ask'. There's also one that says, 'Ask
and ye shall receive', and its with this phrase our story
begins.

ELEMENT was looking for assistance making drum tracks
in Fruity Loops, and posted a thread on the Message Board asking for
advice. SenorX saw the post, and not only did he help answer
ELEMENT's question, he built a very cool tutorial and put it up on
the net for all of us to use! The tutorial, available here, lays out some
of the basic features of Fruity Loops, and ways to use the
software's features to accomplish your drum or rhythm programming
goals.

The tutorial is broken into 4 sections:

Getting Started - This section provides an
overview of the Fruity Loops layout and some basic tips to get
started with the programming tools

Piano Roll - In this section, the power and
convenience of the Piano Roll View is presented.

Effects & VST - Illustrates the How To's
of effects and using software plug-ins to expand your programmimg
options (Under Construction)

Downloads - Provides links to additional
soundfonts and plug-ins (Under Construction)

There are plenty of screen shots for you to follow
along with, and mp3 samples help to keep you on track as you go. The
writing is easy to understand, and even the newest noob can be
quickly assembling the building blocks of a quality tune. Try it
today and see for yourself!

This is really a great tutorial,
and our thanx to ELEMENT and SenorX for making it happen!

If you caught the documentary "Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster" (highly
recommended) you saw producer Bob Rock's staff engineers tweaking
the timing of Lars Ulrich's drum hits on what has to be the most
expensive garage album ever recorded, "St. Anger". Hours and hours
were spent slicing and dicing his drums on a Pro Tools system in
order to tighten up every hit and replace the weak ones in order to
assemble a perfect composite ("comp") take. The software used to
perform this was Beat Detective, an intelligent plugin that locates
the percussive transients in a track and splitting them into
separate clips, making it easy to move the hits around. This is
obviously of great value when dealing with multitracked drums; you
can run the plugin on the kick track, then again on the cymbal
track, and make 'em all line up! Now if you could only do this to
the bass as well, you'd have yourself one TIGHT sounding rhythm
track.

SONAR 6's Audio Snap goes Beat Detective one step
better because, while it is certainly capable of splitting clips at
transients, it can also stretch the notes it finds at transient
points and quantize them. Take a look at Fig. 1 above - it's a
picture of four layers in the Track View, each containing an Audio
Snap clip. Audio Snap has already identified where the transients
are with red bars, but they don't line up because the performance
was rough. Once identified, Audio Snap transients are draggable; you
can slide them left or right in time, and the waveform in between
the handle you're dragging and the next will shrink... or stretch!
You can drag the handles around to align the beats visually, or you
can just Quantize them like MIDI events and make them snap to the
beat or each other. And the best part of it is, it's all
non-destructive; you don't have to worry about screwing up because
you can re-tweak your fixups again and again without fear of
commitment.

What you're probably thinking about now is,
"does this work with instruments other than drums?" Yes! It works
with any type of audio that has transients, and while there's no
guarantee that AudioSnap will automatically find every transient,
(think about how this works when creating Groove Clips) you're
welcome to create any missing ones and drag 'em to where they're
supposed to be. Does it work on solos? Yes, although your success
depends on the source material. If you've got a dry guitar clip
that's played dry and clean enough that you make out the picked
notes, you can certainly nudge notes around in time. Back in the
early GW days, our biggest fear was of people using time-compression
to speed up their entries - but now, between AudioSnap and V-Vocal,
the timing, intonation, volume and even vibrato of solo parts are
all tweakable. But, and this is a big "But" - there's a huge
difference between taking a very good performance and making it
excellent, vs. taking a bad performance and trying to make it sound
good. If it's the latter, fuggedaboutit - you will be able to tell,
so you still can't polish a turd.

As cool as this is, there's
a much simpler application of AudioSnap that doesn't involve
dragging markers around - it involves stretching Entire Clips. Once
you've converted an audio clip to AudioSnap format, (just select and
hit F12) you can select the end of the clip and by holding down the
CTRL key while dragging, stretch it like a rubber band. This is very
difficult to do with Groove Clips, and in fact you can use this
feature to time-stretch an entire project in seconds. (Ctrl-A, F12,
Ctrl-drag & voila - you're now at a new BPM!) Cakewalk licensed
a new high-quality time stretching algorithm called Radius to pull
this off as transparently as possible, but as this algorithm is more
complex than the standard Groove Clip stretch algorithm, it's only
available during bounce and export.

For brevity's sake, I'm
going to have to stop here but there's a lot more to AudioSnap - it
can even be used to create tempo maps! For more info, head on over
to Cakewalk's own page and watch it in action.

Producer Edition Plugins (Session Drummer 2, Vintage
Channel 64, Roland V-Vocal, Perfect Space Convolution Reverb,
Lexicon Pantheon Reverb)

I've mentioned the Producer Edition a few times
now, but without going into detail as what makes it special. It's
tempting to say that the main difference between it and the Studio
edition are the featured plugins, but that wouldn't be fair because
the ability to mix in surround is a major feature all by itself.
Plus the POW-r dithering algorithm, called "best in the world" by
mastering guru Bob Katz, is of great benefit to stereo mixers of all
types.

But if you're not mixing for surround, is it worth
the extra two hundred bucks? Oh yeah. The V-Vocal plugin alone is
worth twice this, if you don't already have it - and if you do
already have it, that means you're probably upgrading from SONAR 5
because the last three plugins in the picture above (V-Vocal, &
Perfect Space & Pantheon) shipped with that version too. In
fact, the Lexicon Pantheon Reverb has been part of the Producer
series since SONAR 3 - and that was a big deal, because it was the
first time that Lexicon had ever lent its king-of-reverbs name to a
software plugin. Which brings up an important point - once a plugin
debuts in SONAR, it's there for good. With a few exceptions SONAR 6
Producer Edition comes with every plugin that has ever shipped,
meaning that the projects you create today should keep working in
SONAR 10 four years from now.

So from the SONAR 6 review
point of view, it's the first two plugins that matter - Session
Drummer 2, and the Vintage Channel 64. The VC64, written by KJaerhus
Audio, is a dual optical compressor/de-esser/EQ/gate with a
unique mid-side 'shuffler' functionality that can perform some
amazing surgery on your stereo image that I haven't seen anywhere
else. Session Drummer 2, on the other hand, is a popular item that
should have been included in the Studio Edition because it's a good
sounding, easy-to-use & flexible drum module which which to kick
the Fruity Loops habit. This is not the first time that Cakewalk has
tried to address the drum issue, and while they've provided several
different solutions over the years, I always felt that their heart
wasn't quite in it. After all, SONAR has always been an excellent
MIDI sequencer, and what more do you need than that? Eat your
veggies! Session Drummer 2 reminds me of a cross between the Cyclone
DXi sampler and the Session Drummer drum generator, streamlined and
reincarnated as a beatbox. Use Cakewalk's patterns & samples, or
create your own - it's open-ended and you can easily create custom
kits from scratch.

Active
Controller Technology (ACT) in action

Alright, I'm gonna have to wrap this review up with
a few personal experiences, having lived with SONAR 6 for about a
month. First, I want to say that this is the most time I've spent
exploring a new product since Cakewalk Pro Audio 5 came out over a
decade ago. The new feature list is huge, with practical
improvements big and small resulting in an upgrade that greatly
exceeded my expectations. And it's also the first upgrade where
simply reading the "What's New" section of the manual is not enough
as the printed docs have shrunk and a number of features go
unmentioned. My favorite addition is AudioSnap, but there are many
less-flashy enhancements that rock such as the brilliantly enhanced
ACT plugin automation, SMPTE time-locked clip placement, 64-bit file
export, the new Plugin Organizer, Clip Locking, dual CPU meters,
Spectrum Analyzer, friendly device naming and all the
Customize-Anything-You-Damn-Well-Please (CAYDWP) user interface
enhancements. Upgrading SONAR users may feel a bit of shock for the
first week or two, but that wears off once you get past the new eye
candy because most aspects of workflow are unchanged (or can be
configured to be!) from prior versions.

Team Warriors Note:
SONAR 6 can read the files of all previous versions along with OMF,
and the versions from SONAR 3 on are largely file compatible in both
directions. And it's still dongle-free, so there's nothing
preventing you from running SONAR on both your desktop and your
laptop. For more info, please visit: http://cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/default.asp.
Excelsior!
- djh

Ed. note: This arcticle is available
online here,
and is periodically updated. Thanks to CapnZilog for doing this
review and for making it available!

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