Dropzone question

Dropzone will play 2 samples simultaneously, each with its own envelopes and filter. You can make nice pads this way.

But if your concept is 2 or more instruments, then by all means use a new instance of Dropzone for each Instrument -- then you have the full power of a Sonar track behind each Instrument.

is it bundled on the sonar installation disk?

I believe it's been bundled since Sonar7. You may have to re-scan your VSTis if you're not seeing it show up.

Just to expand on Kurt's answer above: You can load many more than two samples, but they'll need to be 'mapped' inside of an .sfz file. The two elements are the basic building blocks (equivalent to a synth), and a program file (*.prog) groups these together under a single container.

If you have DimPro, you can navigate directly to its Multisamples folder, and load up the .sfz files into DropZone without modification. Then you can quickly tweak those with the DZ parameter controls. For example, you can load up a piano in Element 1, and a guitar in Element 2. Bring up the Sustain and drop the Release in one Element, and do the reverse in Element 2. Now you've got a piano that 'releases' into a guitar tone on each note.

Is it available elsewhere?

It's also part of Kinetic 2. I've seen K2 for ~$50 USD; less than that in the occasional crossgrade deal.
Edit: Here's a descriptive image of the interface.

Michael,

I don't know if the bundled version is compatible with both, but I would assume so. I've run Dropzone from Nuendo -- I know of no reason it can't be run from any vst host.

Maybe consider upgrading to Sonar 8? I've owned Sonar 6, and version 8 is much more powerful, and much more stable. Excellent MIDI editing tools were added in Sonar 7, by the way.