Sonar questions

[dabresk]

Just downloaded a trial of Sonar 7 producer. I currently have Cubase SX3. I have decided to completely revamp my entire system (new dedicated computer...everything....ouch), but I feel it is necessary to do what I want to do. A few questions:Sonar users: what do you like best about sonar?Non sonar users that have tried sonar: What don't you like about sonar?What is the main difference between producer and Studio?I tried running a rewire to reason last night and had nothing but pops and cracks, and then it stopped with the word DROPOUT at the bottom of the screen. Am I doing something wrong?The program itself was intuitive, as I was up and running and had a test song finished in a few hours. Sound quality exceeded that of Cubase (nice built in compressor in Sonar).I wil also be getting EWQL Composers Collection (another BIG ouch). Does anyone know of any issues with that and Sonar?ThanksBresky

[davekershaw]

Hi bresky.I use Sonar 7 producer and I find it fine.I've not used anything else, so can't comment on any other daws.I like the layout of Sonar. It is intuitive.It was difficult to get the hang of to start, but I suppose that's the same with the others.The help files were a great help, but I got a copy of "Sonar 7 Power, the comprehensive guide" by Scott R. Garrugus, and it does explain everything in depth.I like Session Drummer 2, and V-Vocal, and found some useful tutorials on youtube for both.All in all I'm happy with Sonar 7. It works great with my Presonus Firebox.I find EWQL Gold and Colossus work fine with it too.I did initially get some dropouts, but this was just down to latency and buffer size.There are some higher quality plugins, like Lexicon Pantheon, Perfect Space and LP64 Linear Compressor that only come with the producer edition.So yes, it works well for me.Hope this helps.All the best,Dave.

[ibanez468]

Well Bresk,I'll be honest with ya', at first, there wasn't a whole lot I liked about it. It seemed rather complicated (and sometimes to this day, it still is) but the more I force myself to deal with it, the more I'm able to manage it a little better. Sonar is one sophisticated DAW program. I have Sonar 5.0 Producer's Edition. I also have Cubase LE, and it is just as sophisticated as well. A lot of things to tweak and setup, and experiment with. Ya' kinda' either hunker down and try to master the dang thing as much as possible, or get frustrated and give up. Me being the stubborn musician that I am, I'm not willing to let some computer program get the best of me. So when I found out about all of the great programs that everyone else was using to get great sounds (EWQL, EZ Drummer, etc...) I knew I had to get with the program, as all of these fantastic programs needed a host. So I just rolled up the sleeves and started to find my way through it all. Some situations in Sonar are probably not much different than they are in Cubase SX3 (I'd imagine). Ya' just have to get familiar with how everything is set up, and experiment to get the desired results. Sonar 5.0 has a great deal of features, so I'd assume that 7.0 will have a few more. Might even be easier to work than 5.0. What I like best is how you can convert MIDI from any of the plug-ins to audio. A feature I stumbled across by accident late last year, after I joined TAXI, as I wasn't using a computer DAW at the time. The way I was going about it when I learned of this conversion, was just to get the audio out of the plug-ins, and then transfer .wav files from Sonar to my external DAW. Now, I'm starting to get a little more comfortable just "mixing in-the-box", and exporting a final .wav file out. Now I'm starting to record my live audio externally, and importing it into Sonar or Cubase when neccessary, but mainly I'm using ACID Pro 5.0 for my final mixes. It's been the easiest one of them all to deal with as far as I'm concerned. So I'm going through a little bit of a transition period now. (the faces resemble all of the different moods I go through trying to tackle this stuff).It's kinda crazy, I use different DAW's for different things, depending on what I know how to do well with each one. I use Sonar to get the audio from all of the plug-ins, and then transfer to ACID 5.0 to do my final mix. Sometimes I use Mackie's Traction 2 for the features it has, as it may have features that the others don't. It depends on what I'm trying to accomplish.I don't really know what the difference is between the 2, but from looking at a screenshot on the internet of Studio, it doesn't look like it has as much stuff to deal with as the Producer's Edition does. It might very well be a kind of lite version of PE, not sure. I think I did a rewire in Sonar 5.0 once using Reason, and it seemed to work out fine. If you're getting pops & cracks, you may have to change a setting in there. Maybe change ASIO to MME in your audio settings. Can't really say, but that's what I'm talkin' about. There are so many things to set & re-set, and putz around with until you get what you're lookin' for. Can be time consuming. Then you're not makin' music, now you're trying to figure out how some program is suppose ta' work. Therein lies the frustration. Well, I've rambled on long enough. Good luck to ya', and I hope everything turns out well.I-468

[che]

We have used the Sonar line of DAW's since it was Cakewalk Apprentice in approx 1994 so we've grown up with it basically. We just purchased the Producers version of Sonar 7. We also use Reasons. Sonar has some awesome features. We are looking forward to using the Boost 11 plugin that comes with it. We have played around with V vocal and love it. It can clean up your vocals if you hear something you don't like after the recording session is over. We really max it out and try to get everything out of it that's possible. I only know what I hear my husband and 17 year old son talk about, which unfortunately is quite a bit We've recently purchased a new mic and studio monitors so we're having fun hearing how much better things sound now with way less effort.

[davewalton]

Quote:Just downloaded a trial of Sonar 7 producer. I currently have Cubase SX3. I have decided to completely revamp my entire system (new dedicated computer...everything....ouch), but I feel it is necessary to do what I want to do. A few questions:Sonar users: what do you like best about sonar?Non sonar users that have tried sonar: What don't you like about sonar?What is the main difference between producer and Studio?I tried running a rewire to reason last night and had nothing but pops and cracks, and then it stopped with the word DROPOUT at the bottom of the screen. Am I doing something wrong?The program itself was intuitive, as I was up and running and had a test song finished in a few hours. Sound quality exceeded that of Cubase (nice built in compressor in Sonar).I wil also be getting EWQL Composers Collection (another BIG ouch). Does anyone know of any issues with that and Sonar?ThanksBreskyI use Sonar and the EWQL stuff you mentioned. The main thing I can think of is to always use the VST versions of plugins and not the DXi versions. Even though DXi is "native" to Sonar, it doesn't seem like it ever really took off. Even though it's offered in various plugin packages, all problems I've ever had disappeared once I installed and started using the VST versions.Having said that, I think that at this stage of the game with all the major DAWs being in their fourth version or greater, there's no package out there that's going to hinder our development. I don't see anyone being stifled creativity-wise by the current versions of Cubase, Sonar, or anything similar. If you found Sonar to be intuitive then that's pretty much most of the consideration I think. You won't be held back by a lack of quality or features, that's for sure. Dave

[ibanez468]

Che,That's cool! Yeah, it's one thing ta' grow with a certain product, like Sonar, it's another to have ta' sneek in the back door and get re-aquainted like I had to. I used Cakewalk back in the day too. It was alot easier to manage then, after learning how to work it. I had really gotten comfortable with it at one time. Then I got away from musical computer programs after investing in external DAWs. I thought they were a little more hassle-free, and I never had to worry about upgrades and a new OS. Now I'm back to square one again, more so out of necessity than anything else. But I'm up for the challenge, and I can also appreciate all of the new technology, and how things have grown, from the musical programs standpoint, that is. I just have to dig in there, and get 'er done! ibanez468

[che]

ibanez468 ,I can sympathize with the learning curve issues. They've definitely had growing pains along the way. My husband is a book, DVD and tutorial type person and my son is very hands on so between the two of them and their friends they learn new things at an unbelieveable rate. They are actually sitting behind my in the Garage/Studio right now. Suppose to be working on submissions for 2 listings for tomorrow, but while listening to somethng new in Sonar or Reasonsthey got sidetracked and have created ANOTHER song that will need finishing. That's one disadvantage of have a DAW so accessible. They start so many songs, have awesome music and it takes forever to get back to lyric writing. Good LuckGood luck

[ibanez468]

Thanks. Same to you and your crew.

[che]

Does anyone know if the full blown Cubase version uses the LAME or Fraunhofer mp3 converter? We are looking for the least expensive way to get the Fraunhofer encoder and will have to purchase something to get it. We only have a LE version of Cubase.

[ibanez468]

Che,Here's a link to a forum that talks about the converter, and soforth. I read a little bit of it. Perhaps you can gather more useful information in your search.http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=447368ibanez468