Yeah i just switched from Cubase today after years and ordered Sonar 8 Producer today....be here in the morning so can't wait to install..
Rob Lee

I used Reaper for about 8 months. Reaper was my first real experience with a DAW. While using Reaper I found that my CPU just wasn't up to speed so I set out to build a PC that would handle recording. After building my PC a friend suggested that I give Sonar a try and the rest is history.....I am now using Sonar 8 PE and at this point I don't think I'll ever use a different DAW,......Sonar rocks!!

I went away from Sonar earlier this year and tried Cubase, but apart from Cubase's arrangement facility I don't think its in the same league, especially if you are starting out or on a budget. As an example I just wrote and recorded a short midi strings quartet using Sonar 7 and the tools and plugins that came with Sonar 7 and nothing more. To me it sounds so real, even though I'm a noob at this. (Can be heard here Short Quartet)

With Cubase I can't even get close to the above. To do so would involve spending another £400 plus just to get the right sound. I can't believe that off the shelf, with nothing else other than a computer, one can generate such sounds.

I've done with my flirting, I'm staying with Sonar

RobP

I started out many years ago with Magix. I then bought Voyetra's Record Producer. Soon after that I purchased Cakewalk Music Creator. I upgraded that a few times before getting Home Studio 6, then 6XL. A couple of months ago I upgraded to 7XL. I wasn't too crazy about the interface but I was willing to adapt. Then Cakewalk offered the Sonar 8 Studio upgrade for $39 so I bit and that's where I am now.

I am a multimedia journalist for a newspaper/website in northwest Indiana, not a musician, but I've always liked music and synthesizers and this is a way to fulfill a fantasy. And I have applied some of my musical "talent" to a few of my multimedia projects. At work I use a MacBook Pro so I use Logic Express 8 on that.

John

I first tried out a version of "Cakewalk" many years ago, before the name was changed to "Sonar". However, I switched to Sonar from Logic. I had been using Logic for a few years in my Windows Based recording studio and was fairly happy with it. However, when emagic got bought out by Apple and discontinued their Windows product, I had to make a tough decision. Either convert the studio to Mac, or convert my DAW from Logic to something else. I priced a bunch of Macs, while I downloaded and tried a bunch of software demos and read about the other Windows based DAWs.

In the end, after the evaluation I went with Sonar. I found it to be not only better then the competition, but much better then Logic.

So I've been happy with Sonar Producer edition for a number of years, and as far as I can tell the competition can't touch them.

I've been using Sonar since it was Sonar 0.0 and I've even used just Cakewalk (before Sonar was invented), its my 9th year with this product and I love, I know what it like and what it dont like, yes there are bugs but I know how to work around it. I've tried almost all the other DAWs but I stuck with Sonar. I'm a television / radio producer, audio engineer for over 18 years, I looked at Sonar develop and now I can used Sonar 8 with very little or no extra external plugins. Kepp up the good work Cakewalk.

I switched to Sonor from Logic. I'm a PC user and we all know Logic doesn't run on Vista unless it's in a VPC with XP.

Learning a new format took a bit of time, but it was a blessing.

i used sonar for 1 year..and its actually my first recording program i ever used. What can isay? its great to me! i just would love to see more midi plu ins! i use a lot of them! Sonar is one of the best!

I started out with Cakewalk Professional...I still have my single 3.5" floppy disk for which I paid $500 ... I later grew with Cakewalk into the Pro Audio line but eventually switched to Cubase SX and had a good run with that program...I do like the UI for Cubase quite a bit.

As I have grown with computer recording and sequencing I switched from hardware synths to virtual instruments so I have been on the holy grail quest of finding the most bang for my buck in terms of processing power. I fell into the Apple marketing hype and thought paying the big bucks for a top of the line apple computer and getting Logic would give me the power I needed -- boy was I mistaken. I purchased a Mac Pro 8 Core intel system amost 2 years ago and started with Logic 7. I absolutely hated Logic. I don't even know where to begin with it's limitations...but the "environment" comes to mind, as with strange workflows that were hard to adapt after spending so much time with other sequencers. I sold Logic 7 and tried Digital Performer...ugh, it has some cool features but some really backwards ways of doing things...until recently it had no rt. mouse button support and it doesn't use midi regions for editing. Wierd. I tried Cubase 4 on the mac but there were so many performance issues I ended up selling it. Then Logic Studio came out...wow, this looked promising. A revamped UI, better workflows...wrong. Again, after spending $150 in tutorial videos I still find it clunky to work with. I hate the strict design. I can't move my transport without throwing away the whole purpose of the new UI. I always have to start a project by being forced to create a track first. Sure I know I will need a track, but let me start with a blank slate -- Don't impose a workflow on me. I hate that none of the track level meters mean anything and that the channel strp doesn't update correctly.

I know I am in the minority here, but I just think Logic is not very good -- Way over hyped. In particular, I am always struggling with CPU spikes with very minimal projects. I am running an 8 core system wth 6 gigs right? Shouldn't this be running like melted butter?

So, fastforward to the present...I needed to install Vista 64 on my mac through bootcamp so I can run Maya 2009 64 bit and Photoshop 64 bit. I then decided to give Sonar 8 demo a try...holy shiat...it works! I know I have been reading about user problems with Sonar, but I am telling you this version works great on my Vista Mac. For example, I can run tons of VI's...including Omnisphere and Kontakt, and it works, with no CPU spikes and hardly any cpu drain. Granted with Omnisphere, switching things has a little lag as it loads in and out of memory, but it never crashes, and I can load about 8 instances with 4-5 part multis without a hitch and barely tax my system. On the Mac/Logic side this was impossible. I would always get CPU overload messages. Even Sonar's UI has grown on me -- I love the customization options. I love proper track folders vs Logics embedded folders. I love the track manager, snap tools...etc. Honestly, I think Sonar's UI is oneof it's greatest strengths. No candy coated garbage. It just works and works well. I'm sure I will hit limitations as I delve deeper, but nothing I don't feel I can't tackle. Hell, even being able to load an bitmap image on the background is killer. AND, since Spectrasonics is releasing everything in 64 bit as with NI eventually, my performance is only going to increase, plus with Cakewalk releasing 8.03 soon...everything is looking up. I think that what sells me the most on Sonar is the development. I love coming to this forum and reading fairly up to date announcements of where Sonar is going. Consistent history of updates and new versions. Try that with Apple. Their software developement is so sparce.

So yes, I am wierd, I barely load up OSX anymore -- it is a cool OS, don't get me wrong, but it suffers from the boutique syndrome where major development for cross platform apps and plugins goes to windows setups first, then ported to Mac...so you never get the full power unless it is directly written for OSX. No Maya 64 bit on OSX right now for example :( Vista honesly is perfectly stable on my Mac system. I feel confident in Cakewalk since this is their 3 rd generation of running in a 64 bit environment. All the other sequencers slowly trickling to 64 bit are bound to those initial growing pains. Sonar has matured so well in this regard.

After spending time with the demo I decided to place my order for Sonar 8...looking forward to making some music, thanks for a great product!

I got into Sonar at version 5, after ditching Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 for PTLE years ago. Now I have set up a sweet Sonar-based system here. Thanks to companies like Cakewalk for making such fantasic software products. Check out the pics:
www.myspace.com/redroomstudiosrocks

OK another new DAW guy here.

I recently purchased both Pro Tools LE and Sonar 7 PE. It's a long story. Unfortunately I have not been able to get started on my studio due to my jobs habit of moving me around alot. I liked the idea of Pro Tools as they have a VERY good marketing team, it is about as close to an industry standard as you can get, and knowing that the big guys like George Lucas and Peter Jackson use it to make blockbuster movies made it very attractive. However since I was not able to set up either PTLE or S7PE I have spent my time reading the user guides and anything else I can find on both and have determined that Sonar is more of what I need. My interpretation of the info makes me feel that Sonar will be better at MIDI implementation than Pro Tools and since I'm usually on my own MIDI sequencing will be a huge part of how I operate. Besides being a prog rock and metal fan, I am also a huge film score guy and since I can't afford to have a full orchestra and choir hang out in my living room while I write I'm going to need the MIDI capabilites for softsynths. I know PTLE has MIDI stuff but my gut reaction is that Sonar will be better at it. Also finding that Roland and Cakewalk have teamed up is a good selling feature to me since I've been using Roland gear since the JV-80 came out. Any way I hope that Sonar will help me finally get a CD or three finished. Thanks for listening.

Here is my recording gear time line. I had more failures than successes, but it was interesting to look back over the path.

1985 - Tascam 234 4 track. The system worked well. Especially after adding a small outboard mixer. No MIDI capability.

1991 - Roland GR-1 and Cakewalk MIDI SW. MIDIAtor MPU401 MIDI interface. Primitive Windows stuff. I didn't like the MIDI sounds. Gave up on computer recording, and stayed with the Tascam tape machine for a few more years.

1998 - Roland VS 1680. It worked, but I hated the user interface. The sound quality was not great. The VS internal mic pre's were sub par, among other things. Windows still did not seem ready for prime time host-based recording. The Mac / Pro Tools path was well beyond my budget.

2000 - Tried Cakewalk PA9. The on board laptop sound card (ESS Maestro) never worked properly. Back to the VS-1680.

2001 - Tried Sonar 1.0 with an EGO-SYS WaMi Box sound card PCMCIA interface on laptop. Driver issues with EGO-SYS were never fully resolved.

2004 - Sonar 3.1SE. Home-built Intel motherboard P4 desktop computer and Delta 1010 interface. My first host-based system that actually WORKED. Still had some glitch issues, but I was actually doing most of my work in 2-track with Wavelab during this time period.

2009 - Jumped five versions to Sonar 8.3 SE. Upgraded last week, thanks to Cakewalk's welcome and affordable upgrade policy. 8.3 SE seems to be running fine on my 5 year-old P4 2.8GHz system w/ 2GB RAM and the Delta 1010 in tests performed so far. The program feels much more responsive as well. I love the look and feel of Sonar 8.3 (MUCH improved over 3.1)

I've stayed with the Studio Editions because the majority of my work is recording acoustic instruments. I do use MIDI tracks for click and melody guide tracks, and for importing Sibelius scores to make practice loops. I just don't need all of the extras offered in the Producer Edition. I've ordered Scott's book this time, in hopes of getting a better handle on some of the possibilities (which I am sure I am missing.) I am most excited about the arrival of the Tranzport to free me from the desktop. If it works as well as the demos I've seen, it could change my recording life.

The user community is a huge plus with Cakewalk. Thanks for being here!

Hi I'm Ronnie Bee
Owner of Ronnie Bee's GigaByte Band, and Enchanting Moments Studio, (Home Movies).

The main reason I went to Sonar 8 Studio Edition from SHS-XL is I purchased a 64 Bit PC, and am running Vista Ultimate 64. Also. I recently bought a ASUS Xonar-D2X PCI-Express DTS, (Digital Theater Sound) Optical Sound Card, and a Logitech Z5500 5.1 Surround Sound System. When I found out you were dropping the 64 bit support on the HS-XL side is when I made the final decision to go to Sonar 8.3 Studio.

I sure am glad I did, I have just produced my first test song in DTS Optical Surround Sound, and it sounds Great. The Xonar converts the sound coming from Sonar 8.3 input to DTS 7.1, and you can hear every instrument I put in there, and the voice is so crisp, I love it. The Xonar also came with a PMP Program which will convert my MP3s to Virtual 5.1 or 7.1; and since it has channel volumn normalization it almost mixes the tracks for me.

I will be retiring from my day job April 30, 2009; Plus I have the full version of Dimension-Pro, and all of the other synths that came with Sonar 8; so I hope to have some knock out music up on my sound click soon. I plan to renew my VIP status and produce a few more CDs in Surround Sound before I retire permanently. -

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Hi everyone...

I'm involved in Dark Electronic Music...

I Have been using SONAR since "version 4" and, in my experience, It is, by far, the most featured - most stable DAW I've tried (at a quite reasonable price...) ... and I can tell you I tried all DAWs around... (before SONAR, I've used emagic Logic, Cubase SX3, Ableton Live...)

IN FACT, eventually, since "version 5" came out, SONAR has become my real "operative" Sequencer and all Instruments/Plugins supplier... together with "SAMPLITUDE" (other huge DAW/Editor...) for its really advanced "Audio Editor" functions...
I personally find these two together being the most powerful Music Production environment possible on earth...
...simply NO WAY BACK, after you deal with their capabilities/qualities....

To me, SONAR, by ITSELF, gives EVERYTHING needed for creating music... Advanced Sequencer (outstanding MIDI editing features), a deal of Instruments with sounds covering all music genres... great Fx Plugins... SURELY comprehensive - "All-In-One" like no other....

Let me end with a very "personal" consideration... ...I find SONAR even the most "Gothic-Styled" DAW available...
...which makes me really LOVE it more...!!!

ORIGINAL: ronniebee

Hi I'm Ronnie Bee
Owner of Ronnie Bee's GigaByte Band, and Enchanting Moments Studio, (Home Movies).

The main reason I went to Sonar 8 Studio Edition from SHS-XL is I purchased a 64 Bit PC, and am running Vista Ultimate 64. Also. I recently bought a ASUS Xonar-D2X PCI-Express DTS, (Digital Theater Sound) Optical Sound Card, and a Logitech Z5500 5.1 Surround Sound System. When I found out you were dropping the 64 bit support on the HS-XL side is when I made the final decision to go to Sonar 8.3 Studio.

I sure am glad I did, I have just produced my first test song in DTS Optical Surround Sound, and it sounds Great. The Xonar converts the sound coming from Sonar 8.3 input to DTS 7.1, and you can hear every instrument I put in there, and the voice is so crisp, I love it. The Xonar also came with a PMP Program which will convert my MP3s to Virtual 5.1 or 7.1; and since it has channel volumn normalization it almost mixes the tracks for me.

I will be retiring from my day job April 30, 2009; Plus I have the full version of Dimension-Pro, and all of the other synths that came with Sonar 8; so I hope to have some knock out music up on my sound click soon. I plan to renew my VIP status and produce a few more CDs in Surround Sound before I retire permanently. -

Edit Spelling

Update:
I liked the way Sonar 8.3 Studio works with my system so much, I decided to go ahead and upgrade to the PRODUCER EDITION, so I could get all the tools for producing surround sound, and the rest of the instruments that come with PRODUCER. I plan on producing some serious surround sound, and maybe even dubing a few of my Movie tracks.
I'm Trying to talk Cakewalk into Giving me a full production of RAPTURE, since I already bought the full DIM-PRO.