Sonar? Logic? ProTools? WHICH IS BEST?

[mojobone]

Lots of free sounds for EXS24 on the web, too. If you need to get up and running quickly, Logic/Logic Express and the Mac are your best bet; some interfaces/drivers are still not compatible with Vista as of this writing, it's a can of worms unless you're getting a purpose-built machine and the expertise thrown in to make sure everything's compatible.(though Sonar is said to be fully Vista compatible and I think they have a list of interfaces for Vista OS in their site)If you had more time than money on hand, and didn't need lots of virtual instruments, I'd recommend Reaper and a used XP machine. And Tracktion is still the easiest to learn, though it's starting to look like an orphan.

[allends]

Hi Anj,So much great advice and so little time! You say you're leaning toward Logic or Sonar. I tend to agree with your thinking. I interpret this as a choice between Mac and PC.If you choose to stick with the PC world, then I'd say go for SONAR Power Studio 660 because it comes bundled with a dedicated FireWire interface (here). I'm a Sonar user and I'm doing fine with it, although I did not buy the firewire version and I wish I did. If you choose to go the Mac route, then Logic sounds like the clear winner for you. I have no expertise there so I'll deffer to the great previous advice you got already. Although your boyfriend is a great help on Macs, I don't hear you saying that he can help you with the recording software and that's where your learning curve will be. Still, I can't help but wonder if this is the right way to go for you. There are times when I wonder if the audio engine in Sonar is giving the true clear picture of my mixes, because I always seem to hear more when I listen to the final mix in another player. Hmmmmm! One last tip - I'll let you know what I did wrong. My monitoring setup is totally off for mixing. I bought a pair of KRK Rokit 8 powered speakers because the price was right for me and I thought I wanted a big sound. I now wish that I had bought the smaller, more articulate powered speakers. My problem is that everything sounds great on these big fat speakers so it is double-work translating my music to TV, laptops, iPods, etc. Also, my headphones aren't doing the job to my satisfaction. I bought a pair of Sony MDR-7506 which sound very nice, but again, not clear enough to listen in on what's really happening in the music. So the lesson I learned the hard way is: you need clarity-clarity-clarity in your monitoring setup.I didn't mean to make this post so very long because you already have so much good stuff to read from others! But I would encourage you not to pick software based on your initial impressions. It is not important whether the software appears user-friendly to you at first glance. What is important is how friendly it is once you become good at it. I have faith that you WILL become good at it very soon whatever "it" is.Good Luck!Allen

[flood]

I am in the process, after two decades, of dumping Pro Tools. It was great for a long time, but I see a bundle of problems with it now.First issue: How many years has Vista been out? Pro Tools has no 64 Bit compatibility, which, to me is very important. Recently I upgraded to the fastest hotshot machine I could get my hands on, dual quadcore 64 bit 11 gigs of ram. PRO TOOLS DOES NOT WORK ON IT.Being the "industry leader", I would expect their product to work with the top-line hardware.No dice.Over the past decades I have literally spent hundreds of thousands on various incarnations of Digi gear, starting with their first program a 2-track recording program called Sound Designer. I was there through all the changes from SD to TDM systems and finally Windows native. I feel a bit ripped off that now, well into the Vista era, you cannot use Pro Tools on the best hardware.I am moving to Sonar. All of my Waves plugins are Ilok based, thankfully, and have already migrated.Whne I got to looking at the nuts and bolts of what I accomplish in Pro Tools, I realized a startling thing. Mos tof my capability had nothing to do with the Digi software itself. Mostly, it was the choice of add on software, plugins and so on that I had built over the years. And they all work with Sonar.Pro Tools HD may support 64 bit, not sure, but an entry level system in HD with a decent amount of VST and third party software could easily reach 30k.Sonar is 700 at the top-end I believe.End of a long relationship for me, and I am a bit saddened by it, but Digidesign has done an atrocious job by not keeping up to the 64 bit standard.2 cents, and best wishes!

[che]

Just wanted to add one more to the Sonar column. We've used Sonar (Cakewalk) products since the mid 90's and have had no major complaints that come to mind. We have the Producers edition. We do have a copy of ProTools loaded so that we can use it if necessary, but that is rare. I'm not sure which sound card we are using at the moment. We have an EMU (internal) and an M-Audio firewire (external). Anyway..... we've loved Sonar over the years and keep being tempted to switch. We haven't found anything that has been worthy of us making that huge of a leap. We have plugins etc.... that work well and don't want to fix it if it ain't broke. We also have Vista, 32bit and 64bit. Had to use the 32bit for now until some of our hardware (keyboard etc) gets 64bit drivers. We just integrated Stylus Expanded into our studio and everything works seemlessly. Good luck with your choice and integration. There's sure to be a learning curve, but there are tons of tutorials available. If you lived closer I'd have my son give you a "things you must know" lesson. He still might be able to help a bit if you choose Sonar.

[southpaw]

Ill cast another vote for logic. Price is a steal and best value of ANY software that i have ever used. I started with reason then moved to pro tools then i added ableton live into my workflow then i finally went to logic and i have never questioned switching to anything else since.Ive used some of the logic masterclasses to learn some of the more advanced features of logic, but for the basics i think it is easiest to just tinker with stuff and try to learn new things as they come up, because its easy to get overwhelmed when learning any DAW.Protools is great for audio, lots and lots of people use protools so moving projects and files are easy with protools, although its not very hard to move audio files from one system to another, so imo i wouldnt heavily factor that in to my decision. I think logic is the most intuitive platform available and comes with enough tools to create professional sounding mixes with little other than a competant mac and decent interface etc... But that's because i know how to get around in it and make it do what i want it do.But note, i agree with as mentioned above, i dont think theres any end all be all program, i think the main question is choosing which platform and then more importantly - getting into it and learning the tools. It will take some time but ultimately if you really want to which sounds to be the case, then it wont be long until you are up and running. Regardless of host DAW, most of the skills you learn about processing and editing can be applied to another host, with some adjustments to the controls and framework of the program, all hardware tools can be improved as you learn your program, any set of cheap monitors can be learned, and you can always keep strengthening your signal path once you can hear what needs to be improved. So whichever platform you choose, is - generally speaking, without consequenceunless you cant get around efficiently on it. A compressor is a compressor a limiter is a limiter, an equalizer is an equalizer, now the quality may be different, and they may have different interfaces/features, but do ya see what im getting at?My point on the hardware side is that obviously anything that touches the sound will improve your sound quality (Mics, preamps, converters, accurate or learned monitoring system, etc.) and theres plenty of great hardware compatible with every 'top 4' program...but theres no need to get expensive gear and not know how to really take advantage of it... with software the better you know your tools the less outboard gear and ultimately less expenses there will be a need for - in order to produce broadcast quality mixes.So theres my 2 cents. Hope it helps. In reply to your 'where to find learning resources' i can give you a couple places. -www.Audiomecca.com is a small online resource site i built to provide basic information to those looking to get started recording, the articles and dictionary (i wrote in my off time, while deployed) can give you some of the basic basics. www.tweakheadz.com a great resource for digital music production, made by 'rich the tweak'just another guy sharing free content. Although, my site is humbled in comparison to his wealth of information hes written and developed over many many years.

[girasoledonna]

Well I've done my research, and with buying all the equipment and the MacBookPro with maxed ram and apple care subscription - its looking like this will cost more than I thought. I had anticipated about $5,000 but its looking more like $7,000. OUCH!! I'm just a poor school teacher! But actually this is the best time to buy this stuff. I live with my folks still, have very small overhead, and have a steady full time job. I will be able to pay this off quickly actually! If i work hard, probably within a year! But alas, it is still quite an investment.

[matto]

Jan 6, 2009, 3:06pm, girasoledonna wrote:Well I've done my research, and with buying all the equipment and the MacBookPro with maxed ram and apple care subscription - its looking like this will cost more than I thought. I had anticipated about $5,000 but its looking more like $7,000. OUCH!! I'm just a poor school teacher! But actually this is the best time to buy this stuff. I live with my folks still, have very small overhead, and have a steady full time job. I will be able to pay this off quickly actually! If i work hard, probably within a year! But alas, it is still quite an investment.I wouldn't spend $7k, that's for sure. Maybe you should look into custom built PC's after all. If you need a laptop, you can get a custom built machine that's basically a destop replacement (Intel Quad Core 2.8, 4GB RAM, 2 large internal drives etc for under $3500). You can add a good bit of software to that and still stay under $5k.If you go with a desktop (and I would not recommend a laptop for running your primary DAW unless you absolutely need the portability) you can get an extremely powerful system for under 2.5k, and something a bit more modest but still easily powerful enough for what you need for even consideranly less than that. Remember I'm talking PC custom built for music here, not an off the shelf Dell or HP.I'm not trying to sway you from Mac to PC, I really couldn't care less about which you get, but spending $7k is crazy IMHO when you have limited funds, and absolutely unnecessary.

[slideboardouts]

I agree with matto, 7k is way more than you should be spending PC or Mac. Here is a price breakdown for you (these are approximates):Refurbished mac pro: $1,700 (I assume you have a keyboard and mouse you could use)Logic Studio: $500Presonus Firebox firewire interface: $250KRK Rokit 6" : 500-600 ( you can get the 5's for cheaper, or you can get them used for cheaper too)Monitor cables: around $10 for the cheap ones.Computer monitor: Around $200...I have one that I will sell for $50.Midi controller (if you don't want to use the Roland you mentioned): around $160So the grand total would be approximately $3420 and that would give you more than enough.If you want to save some money use the Roland as a controller (-$160)use a computer monitor you already have or buy a used one (-$200)Buy a refurbished imac (could be up to $700 less)BUy used monitors from ebay etc. (-$100 to $200)So after you throw those savings in, you are looking at around $2,200. You can add on a decent mic for $150, but you can probably do without that for a while unless you want to do a lot of acoustic guitar work.Also, since you are just starting out with recording and using DAW's, you might want to start with logic express and then upgrade once you get the hang of it. Logic Studio might be a bit overwhelming if you don't know your way around DAW's and MIDI. That would knock another $300 off of your initial expenses.-Steve

[mazz]

Even with a new Mac, the iMacs are a good choice because they have the monitor built in. You could load it up with RAM and run Logic Express and it would be a long time before you bumped your head on the limits of the system.Laptops are cool but just due to the fact that you would be moving it around, if something happens like you drop it or it gets stolen, you're down. Not a good thing when you have composing deadlines to meet.7K is a lot for a starting system.Mazz

[jpmuzic]

You don't have to spend that much. It doesn't take 7k for a mac book pro. What most people don't realize is that you can go on to apple.com to the store and scroll down to the bottom and go to refurbish and there you will find like a mac book pro that may have came out last year of the last model which works just as fine. This is how and purchase my G5 I am also a Teacher so I do understand the bud jet thing. I see that girasoledonna said maybe you want to look into getting a custom PC word to the wise I wouldn't. I have been working on Apple all my music Carrier. But for you to spend that kind of money is crazy there is no need to spend 7K. If you have any other question contact me I use to work in retail and I still have my contacts! I have both platforms Pro Tools and Logic out of the two I use Logic the most now that Pro Tools is trying to now to catch up now to Logic its like a bit to late! Do that research!JPBe blessI rock with one name!