As far as what you want to do both will do, Mucis Creator is a light version of sonar 1, where Home sutio is a light version of soanr 4 and quite advanced in comparision. Both do a good job, but if you can afford SHS$ XL then go that way.
Now to address the similarity to garageband, while i said both will do, that is true, however they are not much like garageband, Cakewalk is more of a full featured myltitracker, designed for blending midi work with audio tracks, garageband which i compare to Sony's Acid Pro, is basically a loop based programs with the ability to add live recorded tracks into that Environment. One thing you could do, even though it will cost you a tad more, is to buy Cakewalk MC($40), and Acid studio($70) and see which one make the most sense to you. Then later upgrade the one you want to the better version , maybe Sonar 5 P.E. for Cake or Pro 5.0 for Acid.
You might want to take a look at Cakewalk's Plasma or Kinetic as well.
post edited by Robomusic - 2005/12/26 12:48:31