Melodyne via Sonar saved Christmas

My son and I have been working on Christmas songs.  Occasionally I will grab an instrument I never touch and decide we are going to feature it.  If any of you have ever played around with a native american flute, you know they tend to be a pain to get them to play outisde it's natural key. Attempts at sheet music for Christmas songs tend to account for that and adjust notes to avoid half-holing.  Fine and dandy for solo but getting it to work well with other instruments is a pain.  To cut to the chase, I originally tried to mix project in Logic and utterly failed.  Not trashing logic..just a fact.  I imported OMF back to Sonar because I had my laptop with me.  Within minutes I was able to correct the notes in Melodyne to get the solo back into a key that played better with pother instruments and as a bonus i was able to create another layer to reinforce my admittedly weak playing by converting the fixed track to midi  ARA integration takes me to my happy place and are version of Come All Ye Faithful will be ready. ARA integration is the most awesome thing to hit Sonar in awhile.
 
As a bonus, the look  of awe on the faces of the people present ( people who rave how great Logic and Pro Tool are constantly) was priceless. I felt like channeling my inner Jesse Pinkmon and yelling out "Sonar B____es!"

My son started off on Fl Studio, but he seems ready to try using it again after watching the magic.  He also loves addictive drums since he is a drummer. 

He's 14. He has been drumming about 3 years. He plays in jazz band but like a lot of teens, he dabbles in hip-hop. Fl studio is great for beginner in hip-hop and dance because it has that instant gratification factor they can make songs similar to hit pop songs rather easily. Have not tried magix. Where my son has had trouble with fl is it is great for step sequencer and pattern based music but is not the most ideal platform to mix on.

+1 with the small "but" of sometimes frustration can ruin an experience permanently.  FL is not so much dumbed down..just different and to be honest, for certain types of music, a more sensible choice even if you have mastered a program like Sonar.  I don't use it because I'm not really into the genres where it has strengths that happen to be weaknesses within Sonar.   I do agree with you though in principal.  I never got my daughter the 3/4 violins or things like that.  She was short when she started and I suspected she would always be short and would eventually need to play a full size violin anyway.