Cakewalk vs Sequoia

I was reading a thread earlier and they mentioned a DAW called Sequoia. Out of curiosity i googled it and checked it out. Then i noticed the price was like $3200 or in that ballpark. That got me to thinking, what could possibly make a DAW cost that much money? You can pretty much do anything you want to do with Sonar X-2 without buying any other plugins if u choose, From recording, mixing to mastering. So my question is, what would make a DAW cost that much more than X-2 or any other DAW for that matter?

Well, it will run on XP

chuckebaby


heres the link
http://sequoia-audio.com/en/

sure does, but it doesn't run on windows 8
as far as saw running in xp sure will.
because the code was written for it like 13 years ago.

...and looks it too...

SAW can only work with 24 bit audio and it has a 24 bit audio engine. Its real claim to fame is its written in assembly language. 

You used to be able to demo SAW Studio. I have the demo and it has a lot of very nice features. I also found it to be very efficient and well written.

Timo is right. Sampliquoia may not be the first choice if your doing midi things, but its audio possibilities and the sound is awesome, the metering is better (tpm etc.) and way more flexible. And in Samplitudes Mixer I can see what`s going on, in Sonar I have to guess it.
Don`t get me wrong: Sonar is a very good and for me almost stable DAW. But for mixing I prefer Samplitude. 

LOL I gotta watch what I say around here! I don't want you guys to think I'm cheating on Sonar! Hahaha!

Compared to Sonar: It does more things than Sonar so it's hard to compare it. Picture Sequoia as your one stop "everything" DAW. Recording, mastering, DDP masters, imaging, video, complete DVD/CD burning, booklets/printing, any codec you could need, it's just mad with possibilities as well as options. And you don't just get a little taste of something....you get full blown capabilities in each area. Its metering is incredible and it sports some pretty cool options and work-flow options.

At this point I'm not exactly "green" to Sequoia as I've really put some time into it. Now that I've learned a bit (and I honestly don't say this because I'm on a Sonar forum, it's the truth) I like Sonar more for recording and wouldn't even consider Sequoia unless I needed it for a client video or someone had a project done in it or they used Samplitude. It opens a lot of stuff created in other DAWs though too which is sort of scary. Of course it won't open a Sonar project as everyone seems to leave us out of things....but I'd say that's a good thing in a situation like this really. If I owned a DAW company, I sure wouldn't allow another company to have the option to open my projects in their DAW unless of course there was some good coin to go with it....which I'm sure the others must have done. LOL!

I've not done any video in Sequoia yet, but I have done some recording and mastering with it and it's pretty cool. However, there are too many steps you need to remember though especially with mastering which drives me nuts. It definitely needs to be set up before you just start working in it and if you forget one thing, it can be a nightmare. So far Studio One 2.5 for the win in the mastering department. It's amazingly simple to set up in a "song suite" situation and my go to these days for suite mastering. However, Sonar 8.5 gets the nod for the actual mastering procedure as I can just dance around in that like nobody's business. Then I can finalize and tweak inside of Studio One or Wave Lab. But I'm doing a lot of DDP work these days and Studio One just nails it.

Sequoia seems to miss the 2 second pause at the start in every DDP I do in there. I'm not sure why.....I'm to the numbers on their tutorials but I'm always missing 2 seconds in the beginning yet the actual master in the master suite pre-DDP is absolutely perfect and has a 2 second lead in. Only the exported DDP seems to be missing that 2 sec when I re-open it in Seq to check it.

Is it worth $3200? I'd have to say it is. But only because of all the stuff it does. It is a serious piece of software and like I say, it does everything and seems to do everything quite well from the little I've poked around in it. Other than my DDP issue which I know is me doing something wrong, the CD/DVD burning/booklet printing, recording, mastering and their sick plugs....(they really do have some sick plugins) it's definitely one of the coolest all-in-one programs I've ever tried. 

Is it attractive? Eh...kinda. It's a realistic mixing console that resembles a real console with eq's that isn't intimidating or loaded with goo. When it changes themes, it really changes. I like that in a DAW. The console changes completely to something else. I have asked the Bakers for this several times on this forum. Not that it's important to anyone but me which is probably why they'd never consider it lol, but it sure is nice to click a button and your console totally changes not only in color, but the buttons and knobs change too. It's nice to feel like you're working "away from your studio on a new program" when in reality, you ARE working in your studio on the SAME program. LOL! :) Seriously though, that option is really cool. I'm glad Seq and Reaper allow such drastic changes at the touch of a button. 

I still think Sonar is the most attractive DAW out there hands down. If they gave us our color options back as well as some other cool things just to keep things interesting, I think that would totally rock. I also think Sonar is the best DAW for recording hands down. Guys like Jim Roseberry, Scott Garrigus, Craig Anderton....they feel the same way from what I've read. They all have worked with everything out there...Sonar seems to win them over the same as it does for me of all the ones I have tried.

"So why did you get it Danny?" Because I thought it would be good to have for our business and I got tired of hearing the pro's brag about it. It appears quite a few ME's use it. Was it brag worthy? Only in its options. There's nothing it can do that Sonar can't within reason when you go recording vs. recording. I say "within reason" because every DAW has that little something the others can't do or don't do quite right. You can sort of get the same things out of them but each will have their own way of doing it and some do "it" better....whatever your "it" may be.

But as a mastering suite and all the other things it does...like I say, it doesn't just give you a little taste...it gives you the full deal and you'll be reading about each thing for months. LOL! I see me nailing it to where I can really give it a review in about 3 more months give or take depending on how much reading and experimental time I can get in. But based on what I see now, nah, not worth the money to 95% of the people on this forum. The money part comes with all that it does really.

You figure, if you were to buy Sonar/Nuendo/Cubase/Studio One/PT/Logic (take your pick of which one) for the first time right now without any upgrade pricing, then full blown Vegas or something that kills at video, CD/DVD burning/booklet creating software (the cool thing about Seq is it literally takes all the information in your project right out and brings it into the booklet suite where as if you had another program to do this, it would force you to re-input all your info) all the codecs, mastering suite like Wave Lab or Sony CDA, you'd probably spend about that much for all those programs or somewhere in that neighborhood.

The key with Seq is...it does everything and gives you lots of bang for that insane buck you spent unlike others that sort of give you half of some of the programs all in one suite. Where Sonar, PT, Cubase, Studio One and Logic would be the sports super cars of the DAW world, Sequoia is more the big Range Rover that has decent looks, cool options and a load of everything. It doesn't really compare to Sonar and in my world, it will never replace Sonar. :)

-Danny

.

Danny Danzi

I just hope it doesn't get me banned from here.

Not a chance Danny, and when I saw the title of this topic I thought it would be here for long. But when you get down to it, the OP is simply raising a quite valid question, what do you get in a package the is so much more expensive. It's not another one of them X is better than Y topics, as far as I can see
 
And actually, $3200 for a pro software package is not that bad really. I use AutoCAD professionally, as do a few others here. It's a design package and to get your foot on the ladder, as an individual, you're looking at £4500.

In an industry where we pay thousands for a.single mic or preamp or convertors, paying $3k for.a.DAW is hardly the emd of the world.
It shows that most of the DAWS we use are really budget prices by comparison.
Like the difference between a boutique mic/pre-amp and a sm57, that last 5% is what really costs the bucks if you're not happy with 95%. 
Makes Sonar et al good value.

mike_mccue


I sure wish Cakewalk would make SONAR worth $3200.


best regards,
mike

It already is. It just doesn't cost that.  

Sandmännchen




Timo is right. Sampliquoia may not be the first choice if your doing midi things, but its audio possibilities and the sound is awesome, the metering is better (tpm etc.) and way more flexible. And in Samplitudes Mixer I can see what`s going on, in Sonar I have to guess it.
Don`t get me wrong: Sonar is a very good and for me almost stable DAW. But for mixing I prefer Samplitude. 

Look at all those beautiful Aux sends.  See how many you can see at one time.  This is a good thing.  I would imagine that it's set up more or less like Samplitude ProX in that a post fader send is one color and a pre-fader send is another.  If you are working with live musicians, the Sampliquioa product should really rock your world but the price of admission really separates the men from the boys.  (I'm in the adolescent class since I only have Samplitude Pro X.)

I appreciate everyones input. This was just a question out of curiosty. As i stated before, I love X-2 and it does everything i'll ever need it to do. I was just kinda blown away at the price tag of Sequoia when X-2 offers so much at a fraction of the cost. I have to assume at this point that ill always be with cakewalk. Didnt mean to bring up another DAW, i was just curious and everytime i wanna know something i ask this forum. LOL!

Man, I love those tall faders in Sequoia!! NICE!! I also like the Plug-Ins section on each channel. 

I just noticed that the top bar says Samplitude Pro X on the screen capture of the Sequoia mixer view.

I own Samplitude Pro X and it looks more like this...



Any of the horizontal sections can be expanded or collapsed.  The mixer view is the best in the business, IMHO.