Upgrading to X2 Producer...KINDA

Well you could do a custom install and just swipe the extra synths, VSTs, etc and leave out the main program. Some of the stuff that comes with X2 producer will work as standalone but some of it needs to be run in X2 specifically. For example I think the Rapture and Zeta thingies that come with it will work on their own but TH2 may not (I'm not sure about this but still you get an upgrade path to the full version of TH2 which does work standalone). I'm not sure about SD3 and really I couldn't give an entire list of what will or will not work but yeah... some of it most definitely will.
 
You could call support and I'm sure they'd give you a definitive list. I would also say you might as well just install the entire program because the actual program itself won't use up a lot of space and then at least it is there when you feel like playing with it (it is a very nice program) and you won't have to fiddle around with extracting all the elements you want. It'll just be there and you can test things out as you go. I think it's only $100 right now for 8.5 users anyway and the goodies that come with it a worth at least that much.
 
Cheers.

I would not recommend that. Eventually you will have to bite the bullet and learn the interface. Its not that bad after you use it for a while. You'd be better off just buying the plug-in then trying to strip them out of X2 which I don't think will even work because the VSTs cannot be individually extracted so you'd have to install X2 and then go round them all up and try to load them into 8.5 and there's no guarantee they will work in 8.5. 

I went straight from 8.5 to X2, and after learning 'D' and 'Shift-D'...well, that's pretty much all you need to learn :-)
 
I like things to stay the same and familiar (I *still* can't stand the horrible ribbon thing in Word/Office, or the new gmail compose window), but the changes made to Sonar really are a great improvement in workflow design and don't take very long to get your head around. 

8.5.3 has a bunch of things that you can quickly accomplish through shortcut key combinations, and when X1 came out, a lot of the folks who had mastered those earlier key combos were initially quite frustrated over the radical redesign.
 
Nonetheless, the merits or lack thereof aside, one CAN fairly quickly perform needed tasks in X1/X2a - and learning the general flow of X2a is not a gigantic undertaking.  There are countless videos out there, as well as the forum here, for dealing with any questions or issues as you learn your way around.
 
I myself find the X2a UI quite easy to use, and love it.  I also think X2a has some incredible features that have definitely raised the bar for what one can produce at the end of it all.
 
If you haven't done so, why don't you download the free X2a demo and play around with it for 30 days?
 
Bob Bone