i switched from cubase le to sonar home studio 6 Xl,then upgraded to HS7,then HS8, then to Sonar 8 Producer. i think this product is awesome. my only problem is that i don't know how to use all the stuff that came with it but i am learning and having a blast doing it. who knows but some day i might even get lucky and will be able to get my music published. meanwhile back at the ranch, I Am having fun.
Thanks ,
David

ORIGINAL: Jeff Evans

I started with Cubase on the Atari and then switched over to Logic for PC. I used a room full of hardware synths and found Logic controlled all that OK. But then Apple bought out Emagic and of course stopped at Logic at 5.5. The later versions of Logic continued on the Mac of course. I think Apple were hoping everyone would throw their PC's away and go out and buy a MAC and continue on with Logic but I dont think that happenned as much as they may have hoped. Many composesrs of music stayed on the PC and just looked into alternative programs.

I decided the PC operating system was fine for all of this kind of thing. I also made a decision to go completely digital and sell all of my hardware. Now this is another debate too of course and I now firmly believe that virtual instruments are very similar and you dont really need a room full of hardware. Many programs offer extensive Audio and Midi recording, editing and playback. But for me the instruments was a big thing and Sonar 8 offers a full set of absolutely excellent sounding instruments.

As a professional composer I found I needed 3 things to cover all bases. A great sampler (maybe two) with large libraries, a great set of analog instruments and some interesting digital sounding instruments. I had all these with EMU and Kurzweil, Moog, Sequential, Roland, Oberheim, Korg analog synths and DX 7's and SY77 for very spaced out sounds.

Sonar 8 was my first introduction to Sonar and I think it seems like the best one yet, but for Instruments, it set me up immediately with everything I needed to start producing music and quickly. Dimension with its library and the remaining instruments all cover the areas I had previously and much more as well. I added extra vitrual instruments and have far expanded from what I had previously in hardware.

I think the look and feel of the program is the best and very professional, detailed, tidy and easy on the eyes too. The MIDI and Audio capabilities are outstanding and also the excellent audio plugins also are a major bonus...

+1 for the points above...

I have been pleased from day 1 when I first start using SONAR 8 from Cakewalk.


I can say after many years using all kinds of professional DAW:s, like Pro Tools HD, Logic, Cubase and so on..that SONAR 8 is best professional DAW on the market right now and will continue to be so for sure.

I really get amazed everyday in the studio discover new tools and functions, and how seamless everything work and have been organized inside SONAR 8. The DAW doesn't miss anything, except only perhaps track based included (phase) Audio scope on every channel like we have the RMS and peak meters already. Perhaps something for SONAR 9.


To rap it up, SONAR 8 producer edition, full Native 64bit program, is a complete professional DAW and experience you have engineering it, is just amazing and inspiring.


Regards
Freddie

ORIGINAL: Nick P

Here's my story. I'm switching away from Sonar, having "switched" to it from Home Studio 4. I purchased v5, v6, and v7. I'm not purchasing v8. Why? Sloppy MIDI performance for starters. Argue me to the death that there can be no difference between DAWS, but program a tight dance groove in Sonar, Logic, and Cubase and hear the difference.

Hi Nick P!

Sorry to interrupt this thread but I must say Nick, SONAR has the tightest and natural midi of all DAW:s on the market. I very sensitive when it comes to grooves, Swing, I'm a perfectionist.
I even manual delay some elements of tracks to get the perfects swing.

Jeff Evans, that is also a drummer with 37 years of experience, feels the same about MIDI in SONAR 8 too. I think the same as Jeff already pointed out, that it can be hardware related if you have that kind of a bad experience about Midi in SONAR 8.

I'm just saying, you will see and be even more disappointed about Midi-performance in other DAW:s being “untight” and “unnatural”. Great example of bad midi is in Cubase SX3, 4 and so on....(not on Atari)


Regards
Freddie

Hi!

I've been for a long time using Cubase. But in my university people work with Sonar, so I gave it a try.
Actually, I was searching for a 64bit native program, so it was the natural choice. I really like it, I'm sure I'll love it when I can work at 100% with it. Ciao!

Hi I'm new here.I switched to this program because they said that the microphone Samsun CO1u is more compatible in this program. So I decided to try it out..
I need some tutorials though its way complicated then Adobe Audition O_o

I worked more than 15 years with Logic and in other places I had to work with Pro Tools and hated it from day one..
after Apple bought Logic things started to become bad, no more support, no updates and a very buggy environment, lots of crashes, and yes Macs DO crash!
then I decided to switch to Cubase since it is cross platform I could use it on my G5, but the performance was bad, much worse than with Logic, no crashes but I coudn´t open as much plug in´s and vsti´s like I could in Logic; speaking of which Logic has only AU which sucks anyway..
so then I had to get a new Computer to get my power back, and since there is only Mac Pro with Intel and only 3 PCIe slots, I would have to buy all new PCIe cards, like my UAD´s, Powercore, the RME card etc..,
that was the point where I decided to go PC! I built myself an Core i7 maschine which has an rediculous amount of power and under VISTA 64 I installed 6GB of ram and it´s just great, and payed half of a Mac!
I have to admit that some things are easier to install and handle on Mac, but still it was worth for me to learn how to get a PC running and it´s ok.

Then finally I got the crossgrade package from SONAR 8, cause I wanted to buy Dimension PRO and z3ta, they are both fantastic, and for € 270 I got SONAR with it.
I read in some forums that SONAR has a great sound, also saw Terry Howard´s video, and I thought let´s give it a try, since it´s sittin on my PC anyway. I had a recording of an life event, wich I had to mix an deliver, bout 40 tracks of Audio and I OMF´ed them to SONAR. Just by listening A/B to the unmixed track, no plugs and so on, it was amazing, the difference to Cubase. Specially in the upper range, maybe from 800 HZ on it gets a special clarity, which I didn´t get before, and that shocked me!
I decided from that day I will work in SONAR, it´s a little tough to learn the program and there are some features I loved in Cubase, but hey at the end of the day, all we want is good sound. Since I´m doing my mixes and mastering, this was relevant for me to switch.
Thanks Cakewalk and keep on developing great stuff!

WITH REGARD TO MIDI TIMING:

My experience driving EXTERNAL sound modules (Kurzweil K2500s and EMU racks) is that tight dance grooves were very sloppy. Tight short sounds were randomly not aligning on the beats they were programmed at - useless. (we now know the main culprit is MIDI over USB etc..)

HOWEVER: I now work all in the box with only softsynths and I have detected NO timing issues AT ALL. Tight, tight, tight!

More on why I now work almost entirely in SONAR coming later when I have time to type a good page!

~Cheers

I just bought Sonar 8 PE with the intent of letting it replace Cubase 4. I was actually pretty happy with Cubase SX2.2 that I used for two main purposes: Editing Midi files for live backing use and for recording my own songs in the home studio. Before SX I was a happy VST 5 user. My sequencing career started with a floppy version of Cakewalk Apprentice, how about that?

I upgraded to Cubase 4 to get some of the new content, there was a lot of new sounds and effects and a shiny 'new' user interface.

It became clear shortly after that I couldn't use C4 because of a stupid Midi export error and I waited for a year before they fixed that. I think it was clear from the start that C4 was a realease forced through by sales/marketing and it shouldn't have been released until at least half a year later. Now it works pretty good but I don't feel like getting C5, I simply don't see any important feature updates that I need (except maybe the voice pitch correction plugin).

I tested Sonar a couple of years ago (at a time where I had lost that annoying hardware dongle for Cubase) and I was impressed with the new Midi editing tools. That was a true upgrade from Cubase that haven't seen anything new Midi-editing-wise since VST 5.

Also, the fact that Yamaha bought Steinberg and are developing Cubase in the direction of Yamaha hardware is an important factor I have to consider using a Roland Fantom XR module as my main sound source for both studio and live work. I think it is a safer bet to use Roland gear all around, software and hardware. I have always loved Roland gear, they seem to grow after using it for some time. I get the feeling that they actually know the needs of musicians!

The Sonar 8 PE package is an impressive one, it seems to be a really complete package with all the essential tools to make great sounding music. There are some important plugins there to complement my present UAD-1 plugins and I don't expect that I will have to buy anything else to get going.

I know the startup learning period will be tough, I have become quite skilled at Midi editing in Cubase and I will demand the same productivity from Sonar so expect a million stupid questions soon!

EDIT (2 months later): After the honeymoon with Sonar 8 it's becoming clear that I can not achieve the same Midi editing productivity that I have with Cubase 4. It's a sum of different things, the most important being the oldfashioned, bankoriented patch select system in Sonar with very limited audition features. I have a Roland XR module with 5 expansion cards and therefore thousands of sounds to choose from and in Cubase I can make an instrument definitions file sorted by instruments (or any other way I like it). I can quickly find and audition sounds in a nice list sorted by instrument type.

The other thing though not a major one is keybindings. In Cubase I have a brilliant logical editor that can do just about anything to Midi tracks and I can save presets and bind a key to the preset. That makes it possible to use single keystrokes for all those little Midi editing features that I use all the time (like editing velocities, compressing notes, quantizing notes etc.).

I was surprised to discover that Sonar does not have the ability to display a grid with swing settings. You can quantize with swing but not see what you're doing! The grid needs to follow the quantize settings off course (like Cubase does it). Another small but important thing: Why doesn't the piano roll keyboard show the notes you're playing? I often feel like driving blind in Sonar, it seems like Cubase has a lot more user communication built into the user interface.

To sum it up, the advantages of Sonar did not outweigh the disadvantages. I'm keeping Sonar 8 for the plugins, Guitar Rig, Vocal tools but I'm not planning to upgrade it unless important things happen with the patch change system. On the other hand I'm not planning to upgrade Cubase 4 either! I will be following the upgrades of both programs with great interest.

best regards

JimR
Denmark

Hi All
I started making hip/hop/breaks/dnb on fruity loops moved onto a mpc and now i just bought sonar producer 8. The functionality and easibilty for what i do is great.
just use my mpd 32 and keyboard mainly now
Very Happy with PE8

well when i first started doing the whole PC Music thing, didnt really know all that much about it ,so the first program i dabbled in to get my feet wet was ACID, which was fine i guess for a little bit, then i ended up acquiring cakewalk home studio 9 i think it was.. then i tried Cubase. wasnt a big fan. and out of frustration trying to learn any of these programs i kinda gave up for while. then i messed around with REASON when that hit the market, which i liked alot. but realized i couldnt record audio then i got into using sonar when i discovered that . but this time i was dedicated to learning it and not giving up so easily... ended up getting a job at Sam Ash Music working in the tech Dept, which i learned alot as well and had the opportunity to learn & use all the daws that are on the market. i guess Sonar was the easiest for me to get accustomed too so maybe thats why ive stayed with it since 2.0. but i do like it more than all the other that are out there.. cool thing about workin at Sam Ash for that time i was there ( 2 yrs) all i had to do was call whatever company and get a NFR ( not for resale) copy of the software FULL VERSION, and that included soft synth makers as well. so needless to say. i pretty much had everything for free. but since i havent worked there in over 2 yrs thats why im still using Sonar 6

Also would like to see more support by musicians and publications (like Computer Music and Future Music), for SONAR in the UK, as I still get a blank stare when I mention I use this, instead of the normal so-called industry standard Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools.

skinmechanic


+10

I started out with the original version of Sonar some 9 or so years back (whenever it was) and have steadily moved along with the increasing version numbers. I'm running 7 at the moment and have the diisk pack for 8 at home. I'm not planning on installing 8 (and 8.5) until Win7 is officially launched though, at which point I'll do that on an i7 based platform and can go 64-bit as far as possible. Could be an expensive year, given that NI have just announced Komplete 6 (or was it 7?).

From NZ. Switched from Ableton 4 to Sonar 7. Was sick and tired of Macintosh-style one button can do anything, simplicity in everything, German minimalism all-the-time everytime nonsense. So I decided to liberate my mind!

The switch has been a happy one. I am especially impressed with the ever growing set of "64 family" plugins.

don't know if you could call it "switching to" or following the trend...  I'm an old guy who loves his faders, pre amps and hardware.  the bigger the console the better.  after being away from it for a while... the itch hit me again.  started researching and reading articles as much as possible.  as a live performer in the eighties and half the ninties before turning to engineering  the only thing i knew about daws is they were cool toys.... but not very reliable.  after talking with lyle and harold from roland/cakewalk i came to the desision that cake walk was the best way to go.  and as a keyboard player i was verry firmilliar with roland gear. after becoming the first proud owner of the vstudio 700 in canada i was off and crawling.  within a few weeks i was tracking and editing and playing around with the mastering tools that came with pro.  my first impression of the vstudio was that it was tayler made to master in suround... and of coarse it's ability to mix with vidio.  my studio is almost complete and except for the growing pains and the occational nightmares with "the box"  i have to say.... if i had this thing 25 years ago  i would have put out a new album every month.  i still love my anolog gear but now i'm the producer... and things are done the way i want them done.  i have the best of both worlds now.