REVIEW BY MARK EUSTACE: Making and recording your own hit record used to be beyond everyone’s reach – unless you had thousands to spend on a professional recording studio and mastering house.

Thankfully, those days are gone, and thanks to some amazing music software from Cakewalk, anyone can get professional results from their own home PC and bedroom.

There has been an explosion of home-recording artists to make it big – Daniel Beddingfield for one, and they all used their own bedrooms as recording studios.

I have been a major fan of Cakewalk’s Sonar series for years and have loved its simple ways of working, but with a powerhouse of features all wrapped up in a package that can be found in top-end professional studios.

Sonar 8 Producer Edition brings things even closer to the real world by offering a raft of virtual instrument, effects, plug-ins and all the production tools you would ever need to enable to you record and master your own hit record.

Obviously, hit record might be a stage too far to begin with, but with Sonar 8, recording the raw material and making it sound great are two of its biggest assets.

Featuring unlimited tracks, amazing virtual instruments and the flexibility to be able to work with any audio interface or control surface, your PC can turn into a fully-fledged digital audio workstation.

When you start to use any package like this, or DAW as they’re known in the industry, inspiration can be the first obstacle, but with Sonar 8 there are plenty of tools that will inspire you each time you begin a new project.

I was completely blown away by Dimension Pro – which gives you real and synthesised instrument sounds by way of a 7GB library, and the sounds are to die for. The first time I dialled up one of the string patches I found myself playing Eleanor Rigby for hours all because the string sound was so good.

Add to that Rapture LE, step sequencers and Truepianos Amber (an awesome grand piano) and you’re all set to create a soundtrack for a movie or a chart-topping number one smash – and this is just the beginning.

Cakewalk has always prided itself in making the process of recording, mixing and mastering easy for the layman, but comprehensive enough for the true professional – both worlds are catered for here in spades.

Once you fire up the software and select a new project you’re set to go. Arm the track for recording, select your input source and click record – it’s that simple.

And because you have an unlimited number of audio and midi tracks and the ability of recording for hours without stopping, you’ll be able to capture all of your ideas – obviously the size of your hard drive will depend on how much you can record, but you’ll be surprised what you can get on a 500 GB hard drive!

One of my favourite instrument plug-ins has to be the Session Drummer. You just insert the instrument from the rack, choose your kit, or mix and match your own, and you’re ready to rock – literally.

The sound quality from all of the instruments included in Sonar 8 is stunning – and I’m sure if you listen closely to some of your favourite songs today, you will hear some, if not all of them in some form – they’re that good.

Years ago, recording to tape was the only option available and this had its limitations – I remember using a 16-track analogue studio years ago and being very disappointed with the final result.

Nowadays, with digital, you can record your own session on your computer and tweak it until your heart’s content – without having to pay studio fees and being disappointed with the end result.

The first time I played someone a CD of something I had recorded in Sonar, they didn’t believe that I’d recorded the entire thing – drums as well – in my bedroom, using only the software instruments available to me and my guitar.

Another cool thing about Sonar is the ability to be able to edit a single note, or change a chord at will – using a host of very powerful editing tools…now where was that facility when I was in the analogue studio!

Two tools I would like to look at are Comping and V-Vocal.

Comping is an industry term and it refers to selecting different part of different takes in a session. For example, if you sing a lead vocal and decide you like the first line, hate the second and third, but like the fourth, you can just select the parts you want to keep, by simply muting the sections that you don’t like.

Everyone recording music today uses comping at some point and it’s excellent to see this included in Sonar 8.

V-Vocal – is an amazing tool that helps you to achieve perfect vocal by correcting the pitch, phrasing, dynamics – basically everything…and you can even get the Cher vocal sound should you choose to use it! No longer do you have to suffer flat or out-of-tune vocals.

Once you’ve recorded your masterpiece using all of the toys Sonar 8 has to offer, it’s down to the money-side of the process, the mixing and mastering.

Mixing a song is an artform in itself and it can either make a song a hit or a flop . The tools in Sonar are second-to-none and a click of a button gives you a complete console – with all the tracks, buses and auxillary inputs you could even need.

I love viewing the console and running it over two screens – it’s like having the real thing without it taking up acres of space!

There’s too many things relating to the mixing side of the software to mention here, so if you want to find out more about mixing in Sonar 8, check out this link: http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/English/mix.asp

Once you mixed your masterpiece then you have to Master it, this is one of those elements that some people don’t think about – but it’s the Mastering that gives the song it’s radio-like quality and polish and there’s plenty of tools in Sonar 8 to make the process a breeze.

Have you ever wondered why the songs your record never sound like they do on the radio or CD? It’s because of the Mastering – adjusting the sound, frequencies and the overall level of the song are just three of the steps needed to get a great finished recording.

Sonar 8 makes this final stage simple, by providing special mastering-only tools into the mix – using Boost11 you be able to boost your recording level without it distorting, while the LP-64 eq puts the professional sheen on your recording.

Once you’re happy with the final result, you can export it in a multitude of file-types or even burn it to CD – Sonar 8 really is a complete package and one I couldn’t recommend enough.

I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of Cakewalk’s Sonar 8 Producer Edition in the space available here, but believe me it’s only the tip of the iceberg – check out www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/English/ for anymore information.