Planning on buying X1

Hello,

I 'm planning on buying Sonar X1 and last week on the internet I saw a store where I could download X1 for the amount of $ 399, that is way cheaper than the € 385 I have to pay for it in stores around in Holland.

Is it safe to buy a downloaded version?
If so, can anybody recommand a store where I can buy a downloaded version of X1.

Just to be sure that my laptop is capable for using Sonar X1: I Have a pentium Core i5-460M 2,53 ghz, 4GB Ram with windows 7. I'm planning on buying a USB soundcard. Will Sonar X1 run smoothly on my laptop?


Thanks in advance!
Rudo

Rudo


Hello,

I 'm planning on buying Sonar X1 and last week on the internet I saw a store where I could download X1 for the amount of $ 399, that is way cheaper than the € 385 I have to pay for it in stores around in Holland.

Is it safe to buy a downloaded version?
If so, can anybody recommand a store where I can buy a downloaded version of X1.

Just to be sure that my laptop is capable for using Sonar X1: I Have a pentium Core i5-460M 2,53 ghz, 4GB Ram with windows 7. I'm planning on buying a USB soundcard. Will Sonar X1 run smoothly on my laptop?


Thanks in advance!
Rudo

For 1st question I would want to be sure it is either Cakewalk or Roland store to buy the download to ensure you are not getting a cracked version on a scam.(know your source)

One of the biggest problems with a laptop can be the speed of the hard drive.  If it is 7200 RPM you should be fine.  If it is only 5400 RPM it could cause a major bottleneck and severely restrict the number of tracks you could use.  I am assuming that is a dual core processor so should be fine otherwise with a USB Audio Interface.

Rudo dont download software.. goto..

www.kellysmusic.ca

they ship internationaly...

as for your laptop they dont make good hard disk recoders
in general you need fast drives, you could use a SSD inthe
laptop and external usb hard disk..for data storage... I
prefer to tell you streight up..btw X-1a rocks...

should b fine...im running it on windows 7..i got the i3 intell with 4gig..500memory..and i also downloaded mine from the cakewalk store...you got everything i got,well..you got a better proccessor

If you can avoid using the 5400 for your Audio output or any streaming sample libraries it would be fine as an external.(in other words for storage and backup)

I am not familiar enough with the SSD's to advise you there. 

I could get up to 20-25 tracks and have reasonable latency as long as I was freezing the synths as I went.   By  combining tracks (export to track) like violins,viola,cello etc into 1 track and archiving the originals I could get up to what would have been the equivalent of a 60 track file, but it is a pain if you have to go back and change anything.

The reason the main hard drive speed is so important is that buffering is done via the main HD.  If you have  to read info(eg VST samples)from the drive  as well as write info (eg. Audio output of synth)to that drive while read/write memory buffers to it as well you can see that it quickly becomes a bottleneck. (On my desktop I use a 10,000rpm main drive which improved performance dramatically)

By using an external 7200rpm USB/Firewire drive for Audio output and your sample libraries that would take some of the load off the main drive but still not ideal if you use the 5400rpm.  Your processor is definitely better than what I had in my laptop so it should have better performance than mine did, but the 5400 would still present limitations.