Re:Sonar X1 Studio + T-Racks or X1 Producer
2011/01/11 09:36:17
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T-Racks is a good package. I like the 'new' units - Fairchild, Pultec, opto-compressor and especially the limiter (sorry, imo boost11 can't hold a candle to it) quite a lot, and I think the multi-band compressor is an overlooked gem as well. The other old standbys are worthwhile and get used from time to time, and the wrapper/chainer is a pretty good environment including decent metering.
Overall though I'd also recommend going for the Producer upgrade and saving the difference towards shoring up whatever specific things you feel are missing. The Mastering effects in Producer are quite good (though the LP64 has some issues, hopefully fixed soon...) and replace some of the components of TR.
Bear in mind that the IK folks often have wacky sales and if you're patient you can sometimes pick up the single processors pretty cheaply - I got a whack of them (like 5 for 1 or something like that) on a group buy a year or so ago and added the classic compressor for $10 on an audiomidi.com no-brainer deal last month... neither of these deals is available now but similar ones are bound to come along eventually.
You can demo all the IK singles and see if they float your boat, get your own impression of them rather than trusting mine or someone else's... And of course you can mix and match the things you really need from various other sources...