How good is it!?

OK... in a nut shell, I don't think you can go wrong with MC5. At $40 it packs one heck of a punch.

I record all my music with MC4 (I do have MC5) and I use the mc5 sound center instruments all the time, especially the Ricko bass....

I would NOT recommend the download, since you only get a few instruments, but the boxed version and get the entire compliment of instruments.

Now.... do they sound real? Yes and no.... even the most expensive synth sampled libraries will not sound exactly real unless you use a few playing techniques and some MIDI editing. The editing in MC5 is pretty good, especially for the price. I do not have the higher priced SONAR platform but I think ( and someone with SONAR could answer this) Sonar allows other editing aspects made easier than MC makes it..... some of the deeper editing of the midi velocities and such.... I generally don't go to that extreme.

Even if you buy the more costly SONAR, you will likely want to buy a much better sampled library..... Kontakt, EWQL, LA Strings...etc.... since they do sound better and have a large variety of sounds that even Sonar does not have.

If you have questions about the sound quality.... go to my website and listen to the music I record in MC4, then decide for yourself.

Thanks for the reply, I have bought it! 
Unfortunately before the reply, so I went for the download... oh well.

Have followed all the instructions but I can't seem to find the Cakewalk Sound Centre in the MIDI track pane. I also downloaded the Square I synth plug-in as well and can't seem to find that anywhere either.

Any idea how to enable it?
Will carry on trooping through myself to see if I can find a solution...

Thanks Beagle, I figured I installed it in the wrong directory, just took for granted it would choose the right one!
Will do the same for Square 1 and I'm sure that'd work as well.

Will definitely look into those 3rd party plug-ins they look really good.

Do you have any experience with the Session Drummer 2 download from Cakewalk?
Looks good just want to make sure it will work and that it's a worth buying, mainly want to know if it has more than just rock kits, i.e electric, drum'n'bass style kits, jazz etc.

Thanks again guys!

I've used SD 2 a few times. I think it sounds pretty good.
There are a lot of drum samples in it, but I didn't see any specifically labeled 'jazz'.
MC 5 comes with Studio Instrument Drums, I think, and though I think SD 2 will be a worthwhile purchase, try SID first to see if it fits your needs.
Oh, and welcome to the forum.

yes, you can use Square 1 without a MIDI controller.  you can draw notes in the MIDI track using your mouse to trigger the sounds of square 1 (and TTS-1 and soundcenter, etc).

and you can't use amplitube on the MIDI track, but you can insert it on the SYNTH OUTPUT track or the INSTRUMENT TRACK which are both outputs for MIDI synths.

Win7 64bit

 
Just saw this after you added it to your signature.
MC 5 is not compatible with 64-bit OSs. While it may work, you may also have problems.
From the Cakewalk FAQ:
 
"What Cakewalk programs can I install under a 64 bit Operating System?
Any application that is specifically supported under Vista or Windows 7, has also been approved to function under Vista x64 or Windows 7 x64 (in 32-bit emulation mode). This means that if an application such as: Guitar Track Pro 4, Music Creator 5, or SONAR Home Studio 7 does not list 64-bit OS support on the packaging or system requirements, this is only referring to native 64-bit support. Unlike SONAR, the aforementioned programs contain only 32-bit versions of the program, whereas SONAR contains separate 32-bit and 64-bit applications on the disc.
If you are running a 32 bit program under an x64 Operating System you should expect it to work just as well as running under a 32-bit OS; however, you will not see the same benifits as a SONAR x64 user, such as increased RAM utilization. 32-bit applications are still limited to accessing 2-3GB of RAM even in a 64-bit environment."
 
So you might want to set MC to run in 32-bit emulation mode. Also download the MC 5 update (a link is in one of the threads at the top, the 'stickies').
 
The out-of-time audio is probably due to using an onboard sound card with soft synths. What is your sound card? Look under Options>Audio and whatever is listed under Record and Playback Device is your sound card.

Greg; saw that it wasn't Win7 compatible so installed it in XP SP3 mode
     I have an onboard sound card which is the VIA HD Audio. In OPTIONS>AUDIO the driver is set as MME 32bit, I heard you were supposed to change it to ASIO? Would that help do you think?



Robert; It isn't latency as such, it's just out of time. The notes seem to play slightly out of sync. Say I want to have 4 notes after one another they wouldn't sound in time even though I've mapped them (with snap) to Quarter note intervals. It's like there is a delay from my sound card reading the information and it outputting the sound through my speakers. 
     It isn't that all the 4 notes are slightly off the beat it's that they get played inconsistently. 



Would get a new sound card but my 2nd GFX card's heat sink is slightly covering the PCI expansion slot. Would need to investigate further though. 


What other types/styles of kits does SD2 come with? And can you create your own rhythms through using the piano roll, and not just have to use samples?

Haha yeah, try to make sure I can eliminate some of the common problems first! =)
Ahh okay, kinda wishing I invested in a USB 3.0 motherboard now, because that would make data transfer really fast!


...I'm coming from the 'gamer' side of PC so don't really know that much about this stuff, although studying music technology and production at college! =P
I wasn't such a nerd back then and didn't take into consideration the types of sound cards and audio interfaces we were using!
There's always time to learn! =)

Only have MME and ASIO and ASIO doesn't work. Will look into it.
Anyone know how to get Square 1 synth VSTi working with the piano roll, can't seem to be able to listen to anything, don't even know if I've got it fully working!
It comes up fine in the MIDI track part and the plugin pops up and I can fiddle with things there just isn't any sound or indication that there is sound. =/

Software isn't my ball game! =P

Ahh awesome, thank-you! =) got the VST in the right folder and got Music Creator to recognise it but didn't do the insert>softsynth route!

Seem to have the out of sync MIDI fixed, only because I'm using 3rd party plug-ins instead of Music Creator's ones. Or maybe it's just sorted itself out! Who knows! =P

There are some pretty nice free VSTs out there, I've been downloading a few and they sound really nice! Seems like this shall be a fun little project! =)

Thank you everyone for the help!!

you will find that using soft synths on the factory card, you will have latency, especially when you try to run 2 synths and sync up with an audio track.... the best solution to that will be an external interface. The factory card is not really designed for this kind of stuff, but it WILL get you started.

Yeah copy that... Kontakt is much more costly than MC.....  most of the better libraries will be priced north of $500 and the better plug in FX are also in the $200= range..... but worry about that stuff later, trust me when I say, you will know when you are ready to take that kind of step.

Although it seems as though MC will only let you have 7 separate tracks of MIDI.

 
You should be able to get 48 (or is it 64?) MIDI tracks with MC 5.
Each MIDI track should be on different channels (1-16). If you have several different soft synths in the project, you can use more than 16 MIDI tracks, i.e. 1st 16 tracks running to TTS-1, next 16 through Edirol VSC, 3rd 16 through Proteus VX, 4th 16 through your MIDI keyboard/sound module.
You may be running into the limit on the number of simultaneous soft synths MC has, 8 if I recall.
You get around that limitation by bouncing some or all synth tracks to audio, thus freeing up that synth to be used again for more tracks.
You can then Archive the MIDI tracks so they don't use any CPU and they're still available for later editing by Unarchiving them.

Right-click the MIDI track's number then select MSR-Archive from the pop-up menu. Do the same if you ever want to unarchive the MIDI track.

you have to load a drum kit.  click on the area beside where it says PROG> and it will bring a menu up for you to choose a kit.

I've never bought any downloads from Cakewalk, but I assume they're .zip files (the freebies I got from them were zipped).
You seem pretty sharp, so I won't ask if you unzipped them first.