Hello Lynn, I can tell you the Sonar 8.5 works very well with WE and SonarX1 works reasonably well since GW Micro updated the Enhanced Sonar App. I've not tried Sonar X2 as of yet, but will probably be buying it in the near future. When I upgraded from Sonar8.5 to X1 I emailed Cakewalk about X1's accessibility and their response was that since I'm blind I'd be better served with 8.5 than X1, but I had already made the purchase. I see that Sam said that Cakewalk claims better accessibility with X2. However, I can neither confirm or deny that fact. All I can say is I've not read that on the Cakewalk site and this is the first I've heard of it. I hope so though since Sonar is the only accessible DAW out there. In GW Micro's defense they have done an amazing job keeping up with the technology, but as Steven said in his post effects and plug-ins leave a lot to be desired. I personally don't have the skills to write custom scripts for it and haven't even thought of trying Hot Spot with it.
Since you are a keyboardist do you plan to use many soft synths or will you be using mostly hardware keyboards and modules. I ask this because to tell the truth the biggest difference I've seen in Sonar 8 and X1 is the new looking interface and Sound Central, their new synth and font management tool. If you're like me and have a boat load of keyboards, modules, and only a few good soft synths then I'd go with Sonar 8.5. I'd also suggest purchasing a couple of control surfaces. One to manage your tracks with and a control surface that is made to work with plug-ins. I personally use a Behringer BCF2000 to manage my tracks and a Novation Nocturn to manage plug-ins. However there are several good ones on the market. The Mackie control surface is the standard that most all others are based on and the Mackie C4, while I don't have it but have used it, is a great plug-in and soft synth manager. With the addition of a couple of control surfaces there's no reason in the world you cannot record and come out with professional results like any other sighted counterpart. The only thing I wish I have and don't is maybe a Braille display so that I could monitor recording levels silently. However, I've been a Cakewalk user since V3 or 4 so I've learned by experimenting, trial and error, and a bunch of experience to judge my levels by ear and do just fine with that. As far as tutorials I'm not aware of any for blind users specifically but there are a ton of them out there. Even many available from cakewalk. If you have any question that I may answer for you, or be of help getting you up and running don't hesitate to contact me off list at [email protected] and happy recording. -----Original Message----- From: lynn white [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 5:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Sonar Question I am seriously thinking of buying Sonar but want to know if it works rather well with WE? I know that it works with Cake Talk but that is only for Jaws. I am an above average keyboard player. So, what would be the recommendation of which version of Sonar to purchase? Once buying Sonar, is there a tutorial that one can find to get started? Thanks. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
