well theres no other way to do it ,but hands on experience.You have to find out what program you like. I started with cakewalk home studio,then went to protools,and now i'm a cubase user. But all the programs basicaly do the same things,the difference between them is that they all feel different.Although in the big picture they do the same thing, but getting there takes different routs on every one of them. So if i tell you Cubase does it best,i say cubase does it differently ,it does it to my likes,and i feel comfortable with it.Although i can comeback here tomorow and tell you it sucks!!!

because of something that sonar has and cubase doesnt

but i wont