Drone7
When  you hear the crap quality that people are settling for with an iPod/iPhone and ear-buds, then you'll know why i spend $500 on my headphones (which by the way is regarded as cheap and nasty by audiophile elitists)

Hey man let me guess: Ultrasone pro900?
Crazy the amount of people who won't recognize that these headphones are in a class of their own.

Mesh
As I'm not very familiar with all the varieties of EDM artists out there, so can you please suggest some "well-produced" artists or songs that I can feast my ears on? 

as far as I'm concerned BT is the undisputed god of dance music. nobody comes remotely close to either his mastery of beats and melody or the level of detail and sheer amount of intricate work he does in his tracks. listen to his album in chronological order: IMA, ESCM, Movement In Still Life (UK version is the one I prefer, US version is also cool), Emotional Technology, This Binary Universe, These Hopeful Machines, If The Stars Are Eternal So Are You And I, Nuovo Morceau Subrosa (this one is experimental drone music), and finally A Song Across Wires. There's also the R&R and 10 Years In The Life compilations of radio edits and remixes, they contain a few gems not found in the albums.
 
my personal favourite tracks: The Great Escape, Dreaming, Every Other Way, Giving Up The Ghost, See You On The Other Side, Go(d)t

Spencer
There's also the R&R and 10 Years In The Life compilations of radio edits and remixes, they contain a few gems not found in the albums.

"Rare & Remixed" is a fantastic album. I recommend it highly as well. 

Paul P
A long time ago I couldn't afford it, but I always thought that Cakewalk was built on MIDI.  That is was king of the software-synths-on-midi world.  I waited a long time before finally jumping on board with X1/X2 and discovered that the Cakewalk world was now built on audio, not midi.  Worse, the midi there was had problems. I was kind of disappointed.  What happened ?
 
I also want to record, but I need Sonar for synths and complex midi arrangements.  Drum kits are not high on my list.

I recently bumped up the midi playback buffer to 999 (I had previously raised it to 500 from the default 250) and the midi seemed to stop acting up on me. Bit early to claim that it's all good now, touching wood. If this fixes it however, then Sonar's step sequencer is quite simply the best of any daw. It would be even better if they had the good sense to listen to me and integrate the groove quantizer in it.

@Craig,
 
    I appreciate all the work you have done over the years  on the videos and tutorials and the tips. I have learned a lot from you. With that in mind I would like to see a video on how you use the loops and manipulate them etc. I can not for some reason get my head wrapped around the loop editor. I see that the tips are wrapping up so I thought I would mention this and ,again ,thanks for all you do.

teego
With that in mind I would like to see a video on how you use the loops and manipulate them etc. I can not for some reason get my head wrapped around the loop editor.

Interesting, I was going to post a question in the forum - "How Many of You Use the Loop Construction Window?" I agree it would make for good tutorial material, but bear in mind it's not simple enough for something like a Tip of the Week. Although maybe I could close out with an overview...

Thanks Craig.  I wasn't trying to get you to do one right now, I know you are busy on other things , just something to consider down the road.  Of course if you wanted to do it now that would be ok, too.

Anderton

teego
With that in mind I would like to see a video on how you use the loops and manipulate them etc. I can not for some reason get my head wrapped around the loop editor.

Interesting, I was going to post a question in the forum - "How Many of You Use the Loop Construction Window?" I agree it would make for good tutorial material, but bear in mind it's not simple enough for something like a Tip of the Week. Although maybe I could close out with an overview...

 I've never used it. But that would be something new.  As for working with loops you wont find many DAWs as simple or as good as Sonar. 

kitekrazy1
 
I've never used it. But that would be something new.  As for working with loops you wont find many DAWs as simple or as good as Sonar. 

The Loop Construction window has other uses, like varispeed. I also noticed that if you open REX files in the Loop Construction window, SONAR places transient markers where they were in the 
REX file, which is a good place to get started when creating an Acidized wav.
 
I've written quite a bit about the LC window in my Sound on Sound column, but the articles are quite old and need to be updated.

Spencer
 
 
as far as I'm concerned BT is the undisputed god of dance music. nobody comes remotely close to either his mastery of beats and melody or the level of detail and sheer amount of intricate work he does in his tracks. 

 
He may be the "god" of dance music (in your mind), but is he the 'Father' of dance music? Nup! That title goes to Herbie Hancock (in my mind). "Rockit" started everything.
 
You say no one comes close to BT (whoever that is) for Mastery of beats you say, Nup! That title goes to Shrillex (IMO of course).
 
And in a broader sense, as far as i'm concerned, nothing comes close to Hardhouse for mastery of beats and expression of personal character in ones own self-produced music, nothing else on the planet facilitates the expression of self so apparently and readily when it comes to this EDM sub-genre "Hardhouse". If you wanna show who and what you are as a person, and you make EDM, then try jumping in the "Hardhouse" arena and take it for a spin, see what you can pull-off. That's my actual personal genre, nothing will ever change that, but it so happens that i'm on the EDM-Pop bandwagon at the moment because these two genres share similar DNA heritage, but Hardhouse does not involve female vocals, and i love female vocals in any form, and also EDM-Pop is slightly more traditional when it comes to emotive classic melody and classic female singing. Dance Music plus female vocals = EDM-Pop, so here am I...