Sonar X2 Studio some Questions before I buy

As I have had Sonar 6 LE for a long time I have been given an offer to upgrade to Sonar X2 Studio and want to ask a few questions to make up my mind if it is for me.
 
To put everyone in the picture I do not record one thing at a time I go out record my band on a R16 or Yamaha AW1600 and come back with the recording with a maximum of about 9 tracks per song and dump them into a Daw (Cubase at the moment) as 9 separate monotracks to edit mix add fx etc.
 
Question 1/ on each recording there can be about 10-20 seconds of empty tracks or noise which is the time i start record and get through to the band room to start whatever song we are doing In Cubase when I have loaded the song to get rid of this unwanted begining I use the scissor tool to cut a few milliseconds before we start to play then the Audio to the Left of this mark I use the rubber tool to get rid of the unwanted section on each track then select all and drag all tracks to the beginning of the time line. Now I must be stupid or have a bit of lateral thinking but I have never found out how to do this in Sonar 6 LE but the question is can it be done or something very simular in X2 Studio?
 
Question 2/ Does X2 Studio have an audio to midi converter as I have a nightmare of a job recording my drummers toms as they all drone I get away with this by using the old studio trick of putting tea towels on the toms and to my ears and the rest of the bands this sounds better and does not rob the bass player of his frequencies but does not suit the drummer, so it would be nice to convert audio or pitch to midi and use EZ Drummer although he will probably moan at this too.
 
Question 3/ How hard is it to set up the Zoom R16 as an interface with X2 Studio.
 
Question 4/ Does Melodyne Plug in work with X2 Studio
 
 
Bob
 
 

 

Thanks Charlie,

Well the Producer version is £319 here in the UK so is a bit expensive for me they are offering X2 Studio to me for £79 so a bit more reasonable. I can not download the trial version as their web is broken or so it says they then sugest I contact their web team and when I do it will not accept my email address so I have given up at the moment. I am not a song writter or producer I just want to make a good quality CD of my band before I kick the bucket.

Studio version is still quite good. It doesn't have some of the functions that many rave about, but personally, I don't find many of the Producer features as beneficial as I'd hoped. Best of luck!!

Sonar can do all the things you ask about. Though I do think in the end you will want the producer version. 

The tracks that piled up on the one track can be moved to another track one at a time. Just grab one and move it to another track. 

The way you are recording is not all that uncommon. Sonar can edit your recordings however you get them into your computer. By edit I mean mix. 

I think you will like the ease of use and how quick you can setup for recording. Cubase can do all the same things but no where as quickly.

bigbob63


Thanks Charlie and Brian I managed to set up an other email address and managed to download X2. I asked for a full trial of Studio but the download was Producer so I will be no wiser with what one or the other will do apart from the fact that Producer is more expensive. I would have liked just Studio to see if I could live with within its limitations instead of searching out what producer does that Studio does not.

The first thing I tried was importing Audio from a project on my HD recorded on an R16 it was 5 mono tracks of audio now in Sonar 6 LE or Cubase this would have loaded up as 5 seperate tracks but for some reason X2 loaded all 5 mono wave files on one track so looks like its a search in the tutorials to see how I can do this.

I get the impression that most folk do not work like me that is go and record the whole band and maybe do some punch in/out or re record the whole song again if needed on a hardware recorder then come home dump the results on a HD and edit in Daw I also get the impression that X2 is more a loop editor that is folk make one loop at a time then add the various loops together to make a song but I still welcome feedback from users who have used Studio and can put me on the long and winding road to being a x2 studio user.

outlines the differences http://www.cakewalk.com/products/SONAR/SONAR-X2-comp-chart.pdf

Tnx

Seems a nice community here as you said Bristol_Jonesey.  Well Charlie what you suggested is exactly what I have done but the files do not load into individual tracks which is weird however if I set up 16 track audio and R click an empty track I can import one track at a time or I can do Johns method and drag each track out and drop it in an other track once done I can save as a project and it opens up fine seems strange there must be a setting wrong somewhere I will have a look around. Thanks for the link Rabeach very helpful. I have found out how to delete bits of tracks etc and where the mixer is and panning pots are next I will try to add EQ and then FX and will carry on with the learning curve. I think what I need is Noddies Guide to X2 I have come from the good old days of analogue Tape and big mixing desks and am 63 now so a bit of a uphill struggle LOL.

Bob