Audio Production Features:  

Roland became a boogeyman in previous versions, where producers using ASIO and other external audio devices. Fortunately, this has been rectified, with a reward coming in the form of audio-to-mono assignments, which allows users to use older processors and synthesizers for an expanded palette and vintage sound.

SONAR's greatest strengths have always been in its recording features. For carte blanche composition other music production software programs like, say, Ableton Live are far superior. But, for musicians that still prefer to use proper instruments for their musical or production efforts, SONAR does a-okay. Then again, SONAR does still have 16 pads for samples that can be patched from GUI or MIDI devices to add a little "untz-untz-untz" to a production effort. SONAR has its fair-share of praise and prose-worthy features, but for brevity's sake, we'll narrow it down to a choice few.

Feeling Loopy

Beatscape is similar to Ableton Live and FL Studio's loop-generators, albeit slightly scaled back. But bigger isn't always better, and SONAR makes a fairly convincing argument of this. With 16 pads, 16 step generators and more than 48 effects, producers and musicians alike can shift, shape, remix, fix and destroy tracks and songs alike. Beatscape's strengths are largely due to SONAR's Loop Explorer 2.0, which functions as both a preview window and visual grid for MIDI groove clips and samples. Making use of Beatscape otherwise would be far less, well, possible.

Step It Up

SONAR's Integrated Step Sequencer is another feature worth mentioning in some depth. It's not quite as simple as Ableton, Reason or FL Studio (really, drag-and-drop should be as easy to do as it is to say; i.e. very). The minor selection and implementation issues aside, the Integrated Step Sequencer makes fairly quick work of creating beats, grooves, bass lines and other percussion arrangements to embellish existing tracks or, for the intrepid, create tracks from scratch. It seems to be more suited for the former, but with enough tooling could be used for the latter as well.

Ah Snap!

SONAR's AduioSnap editor has gained a lot of positive press. And for good reason. It might not seem like a big deal, but having a feature that enables producers to adjust and fix audio timing, make changes to tempo and other track levels and attributes without destroying it outright is, actually, a very big deal. Combine that with its tuned-up quantize tool, which enables users to stretch, warp and, yes, quantize tracks MIDI-style and you have a musical MacGyver in the works.