A complete solution for creating and sharing professional quality music.

Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 7 XL software is a fun way to transform your PC into a completely developed music production studio. From start to finish, SONAR Home Studio 7 XL will help you harness your creativity, and, once polished, share it with the world.

With SONAR Home Studio 7 XL you can record live instruments, vocals, or any other audio source. You can also edit audio, MIDI, and music notation with the easy-to-use editing features. The updated Loop Explorer gives you the tools to build backing tracks faster than ever, and you can add real instrument sounds using the included virtual instruments suite. Bring your entire mix together with studio-quality audio effects and mixing tools. When you are finished putting all the finishing touches on your compositions, SONAR Home Studio XL 7 makes it easy to share your music on the web or burn it to CD for fans, friends, and family.

SONAR Home Studio 7 XL adds more value by giving you the tools you need to take your productions to the next level. Enhanced features include Cakewalk's acclaimed Step Sequencer, Studio Devil VGA+ Guitar Amp Simulator, Cakewalk Studio Instruments backing band, and Cakewalk Audio Creator LE featuring the Editor and Burner Modules.

Step Sequencer
New to Home Studio XL, the Step Sequencer allows you to easily create beats, synth parts, and more.

Studio Devil VGA+
Leave your amp at the practice space. Plug in your guitar or bass for direct recording and get amazing overdrive and distortion sounds.

Studio instruments
Home Studio 7 XL has everything you need for your a built-in backing band: drums, bass guitar, electric piano, and a string section with more drum kits, electric pianos, strings, and bass sounds.

Dimension LE
A special version of the acclaimed synth with over 400 sounds including real bass, organ, electric piano, cutting edge synths, rhythmic grooves, and more. It also includes the Garritan Pocket Orchestra.

Boost 11
Get more volume and punch from your final mix with this easy-to-use limiter/maximizer. Boost 11 gives you professional results through a simple interface.

Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 7 XL Features:

• Get creative with 64 audio tracks and unlimited MIDI tracks
• Track and project templates do the set-up for you so you're making music fast
• Play and record MIDI parts in perfect time using Input Quantize
• Record your whole band at once using multi-input audio interfaces at up to 24-bit/192kHz quality
• Browse 2GB of loop and instrument content and preview audio and MIDI loops in time and key with your song to create backing tracks
• Create instrument parts using Dimension LE with Garritan Pocket Orchestra and Studio Instruments
• Expand your studio with VST, DX, and ReWire synths, effects, and applications, including Ableton Live and Reason
• Arrange and edit your project with an easy to understand user interface
• Recording, editing, and mixing tools are just a click away and always available
• Print music notation, lyrics, and lead sheets
• Keep projects organized with Track Folders and Track Icons
• Assemble the perfect takes with non-destructive crossfades and other editing tools
• Zero in on edits and navigate quickly with Fast Zoom
• Freeze instruments and effects to get the best performance out of your PC
• Score soundtracks to video in time with the action using the Video Track
• Mix like a pro using the new Console view with built-in Sonitus:fx EQ on every channel and polish with Boost 11
• New Send Assistant simplifies audio routing and effects busses
• Effortless mixing with powerful automation tools
• Sweeten your tracks with reverb, delay, dynamics, modulation, tape and amp simulation, and more
• Control your mix, effects, and instruments from external MIDI devices using Active Controller Technology (ACT)
• Burn your mixes directly to CD, or export your project to popular audio and video formats, including QuickTime
• Upload songs and create custom streaming music players for your website with Cakewalk Publisher

When it's time to make music, think SONAR Home Studio 7 XL. It's got it all. Order today.

Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 7 XL Specifications:

• System Requirements
• (Minimum)
• Operating System: Windows XP/Vista (32 bit)/ Mac OS X with Boot Camp
• Processor Speed: Intel Pentium 4 1.3GHz, AMD Athlon XP 1500+ or higher
• RAM: 512MB
• Graphics: 1024 x 768, 16-bit color
• Hard disk space: 100MB program/application
• Hard disc type: Any
• MIDI interface: Windows-compatible, required to connect to external MIDI devices
• Audio interface: Windows-compatible for audio playback
• Media drive: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R, or DVD +/- RW Drive
• Webserver access: None
  
  (Recommended)
• Operating System: Windows XP/Vista (32 bit)/ Mac OS X with Boot Camp
• Processor Speed: Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz, AMD Athlon XP 2800+ or higher
• RAM: 1GB or higher
• Graphics: 1280 x 960, 24-bit color or higher
• Hard disk space: 6GB
• Hard disc type: EIDE / Ultra DMA (7200 RPM) or SATA
• MIDI interface: Windows-compatible, required to connect to external MIDI devices
• Audio interface: Windows-compatible for audio playback
• Media drive: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R, or DVD +/- RW Drive
• Webserver access: Available web server space with FTP access privileges. An internet connection is required for music uploading (broadband recommended)
  
  Note: SONAR does not support Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or NT. QuickTime support requires QuickTime 6 or higher.

Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 7 XL

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Average of 8 User Ratings

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Customer Reviews

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Great sound, often frustrating.

Posted by Cello Player from Texas on Jan 24, 2010

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Composer/sound engineer student

Reviewer's Play Style: All Genres

I had hardly any problems with this software at first, and learning how to get the good sounds/plug-ins going was time consuming. Now that I have a good feel for how to use this product, my main problem is the fact that it frequently drops out whenever I try to record audio for more than 10 seconds. My 32 bit Dell just can't handle the type of audio going through its system. This is why I am switching to a Mac and getting Logic.

So... If you have a fast processor, an OS other than Vista, and plenty of memory, you probably won't have the drop out problems that I am having. I wouldn't recommend this to beginners as it is very confusing. Midi is great, audio is terrible and many of the plug-ins don't work. I'm getting serious about composing, so I have high expectations. This is good software for the money, just be prepared to do some tweaking with your system and spend lots of time getting comfortable with the workings. Hope this helps!

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A decent studio that may need some tweaking

Posted by Elithal from Mesa, AZ on Jan 6, 2010

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Music Producer & Engineer

Reviewer's Play Style: Hip-hop, classical, ambient

Sonar Home Studio 7 XL is pretty good, even for producers that wanna go a bit further than "at home". The quality of most of the sounds are pretty good, and it comes with it's effects and fixes. You will most likely have to tweak the buffers a bit, as well as bit rate and so on, as you should with all studios. Volume can be a bit strange with the plugins this studio offers, as some tend to be overly loud in Dimension Pro LE while sounds from Groovesynth can be too low. This doesn't seem to have much that can work on your vocal skills, so you better bring some good vocals to the table OR download tuning plugins. As for actual instruments, the strings that come with "Studio Instruments" are the only strings that are worth a look, and are of decent quality (Not EastWest or Miroslav quality, but good). Drums from GrooveSynth and Studio Instruments are pretty good. Dimension Pro LE and a few other plugins that come with make the studio a good electronic studio, but outside of that area you may have to bring other virtual instruments in. There are no good pianos, guitars, a few "OK" basses, good strings, and good drums considering the price.

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Guess I got lucky???

Posted by Ike from Nashville, TN on Sep 16, 2009

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Active musician, Engineer.

Reviewer's Play Style: Country, Blues, Pop

I have had a home studio for years, and recently decided to switch DAW's. I was familiar with Sonar and the price sold me on it.

I've read all the bad reviews and I have to say I think some problems people are having is just old fashioned lack of knowledge. I interface with this software using a Presonus FP10 and the computer I use is about 4 years old running XP. It has a 250gig SATA HD, 2GIGs Ram, 3.3GHZ CELERON without a hickup. I have never had a dropout due to lack of PC Power. I will say this PC is dedicated to music only with the bare min of XP components installed. I've ran up to 17 tracks with multiple effects unfrozen without any troubles. I will say computer based recording, is, was, and always will be a little tempermental. As for vista users...Everybody I know has had initial problems with their software before changing a lot of settings within their OS.

In closing...I would definitly recommend Sonar 7 Home XL. It's not perfect, but its well worth a buck fifty. So when you find the software that is perfect...Let me know cause I've tried nearly all of them.

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well, they said......

Posted by steve f'n brashear from your mothers on Aug 17, 2009

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: active musician, frequently ripped off

Reviewer's Play Style: acoustic banality

i told the good folks at my local music store that i needed something idiot proof and as plug and play as they come. i got this software alongside a m-audio fastrack usb interface. in my opinion, they're both pieces of ****. i've got 4gigs of ram and 2.1 dual core and all i can get this software to do consistently is dropout. hey, why not include an error statement that tells us whats causing the dropout..just saying. as far as the fastrack usb goes, not only is it a piece, but good luck getting anyone from m-audio to answer the phone or an email. i'm sure in the end they'll both blame vista, but, come on.

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Expected More

Posted by PianoKid from Sunny Florida on Aug 11, 2009

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Active Musician

Reviewer's Play Style: Pop-Rock, Jazz/Blues, Instrumental

From reading the reviews for Sonar Home Studio XL written at the time I expected a little more than what I was given, especially from a name like Cakewalk. Most of it works alright for what I need: I haven't experienced too many dropouts myself, but I have a decent computer that I purchased mainly to record music. My biggest complaints are for the drum step sequencer and the staff views. I have used programs like FruityLoops and Finale, so both of these parts in Sonar HSXL are a very low quality and very difficult to work with (like trying to make Norman Rockwell with paint by number). The staff entry won't even input the note values I want! I choose eighth notes and it puts in quarter notes; I want a dotted quarter, and it won't put a dotted note in until I get frustrated and turn off the dotted button and move on. Very frustrating. I used Cool Edit Pro for the longest time and was happy... I work hard on my music and expect to make it with few takes and to be able to actually play it myself. This was part of my process this year of expanding into more modern territory and make things easier, but I would have saved a little longer I think for a higher end program.

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Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 7 XL

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