I don't know if this is the appropriate section to post this question in, but here goes.

I used "cakewalk" many years ago to create music. can anyone tell me what the best programs are nowadays? I lloked at the cakewalk website and couldn't find an explaination for what their various programs did.

thanks.

"Best" is subjective, and you'll find you'll just want to work with what works best for you and not necessarily anyone else.

Being Mac-centric, I don't know much of what's out there on EITHER platform really but for PC I've heard of:

- Sonar
- Acid
- Logic 5 (discontinued)
...
http://www.zzounds.com/cat--Software--2436

I'm sure others will have a more informative reply.

Also Cubase, Ableton Live, N-Tracks, Tracktion, Pro Tools, Garage Band, Adobe Audition & Reason. What is it that you would like to do? There are a lot of areas, that these programs cover.

Downloading the demos is a good idea, all the current programs are very competitive, so it comes down to what workflow/interface suits you best.

Personally, for soundtracks, I turn to Vegas first. If I'm recording my own soundtrack music, I use Acid to take advantage of it's video feature with a sequencer, soft synths, and loops.

For pure music composing and performance, I'm a big fan of Ableton Live. For mastering, Pro Tools.

Thanks. You've given me a place to start looking....

Sonar is technically the latest version of Cakewalk. I use it and like it a lot (works just like Pro-Tools).


Ryan

Hello Robert,

I thought I would add in my recomendation for Live...

I too used cakewalk to create music quite a long time ago. I started using
Ableton Live during version 1 and have never looked back. Live 5 came out
a few weeks ago and it continues to impress me.

The Midi handling is top notch and the sound quality great. Warping of
wav/aiff files has been improved as well.

I too use Cakewalk Sonar 2 (effectively Cakewalk pro audio 11) and it's great.

Only with Sonar did cakewalk introduce non-destructive audio editing. How I managed before I don't know.

Jon