Irritating newbie question - which version?

Even without having tried out Cakewalk, I know the stock answer: the one which fits your needs, and you have to know what they are. But I'll try to get specific and hope that experienced users might help. Since there was no trial version of Music Creator, I just downloaded the big version of Sonar X2 to try out for 30 days. I wonder if someone else has done that and ended up happily using Music Creator, or if you are frustrated not having the features of the pro versions. I've written and performed a lot of songs and want to record them with the two other musicians in the band in better audio quality than live recording. Also I'd like to do some solo projects with a combination of real guitar and some virtual instruments. I've tried out a lot of entry-level software, liked the audio quality of Cubase LE 4 and the presets for vocal compression and reverb. It also has multi-take function and editing of lanes, which is a must-have feature to edit real instrument recordings, take the best and slice and dice to improve the timing. To avoid going into detail, the results are ok but it's a constant struggle to get the program to do what I want.

X2 trial is actually a little more "crippled" than the full version of MC6 is.  you get more features and plugins by buying MC6 than you do with X2 trial.

MC6 does have layers available in it.  it's an excellent program for the money.

and it's only $40 download and if you find you need more features and plugins, you can always upgrade with a discount.

Thanks, Kalle, Beagle and Herb, Sounds like good solid advice. Appreciate you sharing examples of your music recorded with the software. To give you an idea of where I am right now, I put a children's song for Christmas online last week at www.singadream.com/candle.htm I want to get away from the canned background and get the voices synced better. The project was done with Cubase LE 4 and it was a struggle all the way.

just FYI - I'm not sure Music Creator is going to be any "less of a struggle" than Cubase LE was.

they all have their learning curves.

are you talking about the patch name?

that's a matter of inserting the correct INS DEF for the JV 1010, however, MC doesn't allow that functionality.  you have to upgrade to Sonar X2 Essentials for INS DEF capability.

As far as ID'ing an instrument.... just rename the track to reflect the instrument. It is how I work and when mixing.... is crucial. 

As Beagle points out.... every DAW will have a learning curve. Pick one and take the time and effort to learn your way around it's intricacies. Cake is no different.  

And you do not need to know every little detail about the DAW to make music with it. I certainly don't know everything about my DAW..... I know what I need to know to do what I do with it. The rest.... well, if I don't use that function or feature, I don't even worry that it's there..... but on occasion I will look into something I hear someone else talking about, just to see what it is and what it does.