I have been a professional musician for a long time but the learning curve of home recording has kept me from trying it.I've been putting it off forever. But I finally want to learn how to record my own songs.
I know it is 2015 but this is what I have:
I still use XP and I don't want to upgrade because I have so many programs that work for me perfectly in XP.
I currently have Sonar 6.2 installed on my computer .Everything is working. I also just bought a DVD for Sonar 8 that came with a tutorial DVD, which I could install and update to 8.3.
I have a presonus audiobox 22vsl interface and a ketron midi module. I probably wouldn't use softsyths, but drumloops yes.
I have the book Sonar Power 6 and a bunch of video tutorials for Sonar 6. That would be very helpful to learn how to use Sonar 6
Other than the tutorial DVD I don't have much for Sonar 8. But I suppose I could buy another Sonar Power book for that.
I posted about upgrading from 6 to 8 a while ago and got some really good information already, but I have one more question.
What might be the main reason why I should go with Sonar 8 over Sonar 6. Is there a particular feature that Sonar 8 has that would make it worthwhile to switch? Workflow, Memory use, better features to handle loops, Program stability?
 
 

In would go with Sonar 8. It's far superior compared to Sonar 6. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb09/articles/sonar8.htm
 
Rocky

8-8-Eight!!
 
Rox

I started on 6 and liked it but 8 does a lot more and comes with a lot more content too. Here's a Sound on Sound article on it:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb09/articles/sonar8.htm
 
Many people stuck with 8.5 even after X1 and X2 came out. Some were won over by X3 but even so I think 8 is well respected. Personally, I think if you stay the course with learning to record your songs, you'll want to switch to Platinum eventually, but you can always try a demo or even buy a month and see from there. For now I suspect you'll be fine. It's nice to run the latest and greatest but you can sure do a lot and learn a lot with 8.

i was rocking 8.5 until Platinum almost came out, i had bought X1 but never really used it, i was comfortable in 8.5. I had eventually upgraded to X3 and loved it then few months later Platinum came out lol. Love platinum as well. But my time with soanr 8 and 8.5 was very good. Stable program, quality effects/plugins, very powerful especially considering the years it came from.

You will not be able to run Platinum, in any way, shape, or form, on Windows XP.  There are code dependencies that are built in to Sonar now, that did not come into existence until Windows 7 Service Pack 1, so that is now the MINIMUM Windows version your computer can have and run Platinum.
 
Windows 7, whether in 32-bit or 64-bit mode, is far superior to XP or XP Pro.  XP is out of service, and will never ever get further maintenance from Microsoft.  Don't get me wrong, I was a HUGE fan of XP Pro, but it is DONE.
 
I hope that your computer runs a good long time with XP, and I hope you have some really good backups, on drives that are new enough to not themselves fail when you need them the most.
 
There are refurbished computers from Micro Center (www.microcenter.com) that are literally starting at $129 - I just saw the ad for them this morning.  The one at that price would need more memory, and another HD or SSD, but they have ones with Intel i5 CPU's and 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB HD For $329 (http://www.microcenter.co...ults.aspx?sku=407122).
 
In any case - best of luck to you, 
 
Bob Bone
 

I used to be (justifiably) terrified of upgrading Windows, but when I upgraded to Win 7 pro 64, all of my old Win XP 32 stuff ran just fine on it. In fact, it was pretty much a problem-free upgrade. I may have had to right click on an executable or two and set it to run in Win XP compatibility mode, but that was it. Most everything was automagical.
 
But you have to go with Pro, as Home is missing many of the compatibility options.

Roxy
I know it is 2015 but this is what I have:
I still use XP and I don't want to upgrade because I have so many programs that work for me perfectly in XP.

I appreciate what you are saying - why fix what isn't broken? But sadly, XP is broken - it's not safe to have an XP machine connected to the internet because there are security flaws which mean you can get viruses and data-loss attacks just by browsing the web.
 
Probably 95% of the programs that work for you in Windows XP will work exactly the same in Windows 8.1. I'm not going to claim there won't be a learning curve, but you won't have to leave all your programs behind.
 

What might be the main reason why I should go with Sonar 8 over Sonar 6. Is there a particular feature that Sonar 8 has that would make it worthwhile to switch? Workflow, Memory use, better features to handle loops, Program stability?

I don't think I used Sonar 6 - I used 7, 8, and 8.5, plus some significantly older versions. But the last version of Sonar 8.5 was fairly stable and had a handful of features that weren't in earlier versions. Perhaps more importantly, a bunch of bugs get fixed with every version, so even if you don't care about the features introduced between version 6 and version 8, you will at least benefit from any fixes that were made in that time period.

My first Sonar version was 6.2.1 and I was blown away with it at the time.
 
Sure, compared to Splat it lacks a bit but this doesn't stop you from making GREAT songs in 6.2.1.
 
If you can't, it's not the software.
 
8.3 built on the foundations laid by 6 & 7 but from memory, I think the original version 8 had "issues"
Then of course we had 8.5, which I ran on an XP machine with 4Gb of RAM.

Thanks guys, I hear you.Maybe I will take that step into the new millenium. I know it's overdue.
I do have all of my data on a LaCie Porsche 2TB drive. So I guess I have a Porsche and a Model T
I do run Acronis Backups and also I use a program called Rollback RX.So I'm covered should anything bad happen.
But yes, it would be nice to take advantage of more RAM. I have 4Gig but as you probably know XP only sees 3 of that. I have a Lenovo R60 thinkpad with a 500 gig drive in it with a 1828 Ghz Intel duo core processor. Maybe that could even run Windows 7. I'll have to go to the local shop to see what it would take to switch over. But It might be more cost effective to get a new laptop.I'll check out Microcenter.com.
In the meantime (after reading the SOS review) I think I am going to install Sonar 8 and I'll buy a "new" Sonar 8 book from Amazon. they are less than 10.- shipped.
Thanks again for your help.