Cakewalk Sonar X1 Studio review

The redesign also fails to address another of our long-standing misgivings: things don’t always work exactly as we expect them to. The pop-up windows for the bundled virtual instruments include preset managers that are confusingly devoid of any presets. The V-Vocal editor has an untidy approach to version management, hiding muted clips behind active ones. Even something as simple as enabling or disabling the click track was only possible when playback was stopped. There are several more minor issues – the revamped interface is more than skin deep but it isn’t as thorough as we’d have liked.

Three versions of Sonar X1 are available, with the Studio version reviewed here sitting between the flagship Producer (£317 including VAT) and the entry-level Essential (£79). Sonar X1 Essential is limited to 64 audio and instrument tracks and various other mixer count restrictions, it omits some advanced editing modes and comes with a basic library of effects and virtual instruments. X1 Studio is much closer to X1 Producer, differing only in their bundled effects and instruments, with a handful of the best ones absent in Studio.

The bundled instruments and effects are a motley crew rather than the stripped down yet high quality collection we’d hope for in this mid-price package.

However, it’s these effects and instruments that help Producer to stand out from its peers. Without them, X1 Studio’s plug-in bundle is patchy and the software struggles to carve a niche for itself. It scores highly for its breadth of editing features, from V-Vocal processing to its Track Layers for handling multiple takes, and its mixer routing couldn’t be more flexible. As such, it ticks more boxes than Steinberg Cubase Artist 6, which is more significantly cut-down compared to the flagship Cubase 6. However, Cubase Artist is more refined and exhibits greater attention to detail; we prefer its quality over Sonar X1 Studio’s quantity.