CAKEWALK SONAR VS PERFORMER

[edteja]

I am looking to change my multitrack recording software. I use Cool Edit Pro which is no longer supported and does little or nothing as a midi sequencer. I can load VSTs and play midi files but no midi editing. The ones that seem to be popular here are Sonar and DP. I used the old Cakewalk a couple of years ago, but not Sonar. Is there any appreciable difference in the focus of these two products or is it more just a matter personal preference? I suppose Cubase is also an option. although the one version I worked with a while back seemed to have a very tempermental interface.I have been to the web sites, gotten some of the demo stuff (the pro tools demo convinced me that it was not what I wanted), but still can't get a handle on how they migh compare. According to Recording Mag they are all wonderful, but then they don't seem to have met any expensive software made by and advertiser that they don't like.

[matto]

Well I guess the most obvious difference is that Sonar is PC only, DP is Mac only...so if you're gonna choose between one of these two it's not just a software choice but also a platform choice. Cubase is cross platform, and if you decide on Mac you should consider Logic as well.Btw the reason Recording says they are all wonderful is because they actually are. They are all amazing pieces of software that do pretty much everything you could possibly ask for...they all just do it a little differently, so you need to figure out which corresponds most to your way of working.matto

[edteja]

Okay, thanks for that reality check. I had thought Cakewalk was cross platform as well. Spent too much time reading what it did and too little on where it did it, I guess. Plus the fact that I assumed (back to that problem) that they would all put out programs for all major hardware. Wrong again! So the trick is to find some way to try out the mac-based programs without owning a mac, it seems. Otherwise it is hard to know which corresponds to the way I work--or would like to work.And thanks for the aside comment: I am honestly glad that is the reason they like them all. After spending a number of years in the magazine publishing business I am just a tad cynical about product reviews.

[nickbatzdorf]

Ed, it's healthy to be cynical, but I was the editor of Recording for ten years and I can tell you that they're not going to recommend something that's total shyte. I now edit and publish my own magazine (Virtual Instruments), and my solution is normally not to waste the space on reviews of lousy products. However, if it's a product that everyone is waiting to hear about - for example if the new Vienna Symphonic Library were lousy (and it isn't, it's great) - then we'd say so. But we'd say so constructively; I want to like every product I review.It was pretty much the same at Recording.With that out of the way, both Cakewalk and Performer have been developed constantly for the past couple of decades. Those programs truly are great and you're not going to go wrong with any one of them. Same with all the other DAWs that are still around.

[edteja]

Very cool. Thanks to you both.

[brandondrury]

After 5 years of using Vegas, I decided to get into midi sequencing again. I love everything about Cubase SX3. I guess it's a personal thing, but I'm amazed at how well thought out nearly every feature is.Brandon

[spariam]

I also use Cubase 3 for MIDI, and have found it very intuitive and easy to use. I'm not crazy about the built-in effects (at least not the reverb), but I pretty much only use it with EWQLSO Gold, so that's not an issue. Actually, I think the interface is one place Cubase generally gets good marks. One reason I chose Cubase over Sonar (which I used at one time) was that I wanted something cross-platform.