I started with Cakewalk with Home Studio 6 about twelve years ago. I mainly used it to transcribe my instrumentals. Around that time I tried recording audio, but my dad's old Dell 266 had trouble even with four tracks of audio. I've tried other top audio programs over the years such as Logic, Cubase, Live, and Protools, but I have always come back to Cakewalk. Maybe it's just because I am so familiar with the interface, which has fundamentally stayed the same over all these years. I love the ease that I can use the program now. These days I have no problem getting more than enough track counts.

ORIGINAL: Marketing [Cakewalk]

Hello,

Over the last few years we have seen a major surge in the number of customers switching to SONAR from other applications. We have our own ideas why this has been occuring, but we would prefer to hear it from you directly. So, please tell us.

What we are interested in knowing is:

1. What application you switched from and which version of SONAR you switched to.
2. Your specific reasons for switching to SONAR (specific features in SONAR, specific problems with other aps, customer service, etc.)

Thanks for your support of SONAR and thanks in advance for your help.

Best regards,

Carl Jacobson
Marketing Director
Cakewalk

I didn't actually switch to Sonar, I started with Sonar. I used to record (early 90s) with a 16 ips, reel to reel, board, sequencer, external effects. I managed to produce some pretty decent stuff given the nature of my setup. Then got married, bought a house, had to sell much of my gear.

Then a couple of years ago I got the urge to lay down tracks again. I have a friend who's a professional musician. I asked him about it. I was considering one of those all-in-one devices like a BOSS? My friend uses Sonar for both his home studio and he also plays live and uses it on a notebook. He was "adamant". He warned that this would be somewhat more challenging initially, however, in the long run, and if I'm serious about this, that Sonar was "the only logical choice". I took his advice, and he was right, it was steeper on the front end, but once you begin to understand the program, the power and capabilities are unlimited. I am SO happy that I took his advice, and I am even happier that I did not make the mistake of going with another product from another company. What a mistake that would have been...

Many companies make products that people use all the time and take for granted, vacuum cleaners? Toasters? Things we need to be sure, others make less utilitarian products that bring enjoyment like TVs, bicycles? However, you bring so much more to your customers than virtually any other company can bring. You bring the ability to take ideas from inspiration to fascination… The ability to express yourself to your friends as well as people you’ve never met. The ability to convey ideas and emotions. Many people have told me that my music has sometimes made them cry. Not because it sucked so bad that they just couldn’t take it, but because of the powerful emotion that can be imparted by a well written, well produced piece of music, it’s magical. So you see, you’re not selling software, you’re selling “magic”…

I will be a Sonar customer until the day I die. Thank you.

HI,

I just switched to sonar 6 producer edition from Logic pro 5.5 and i can say sonar has more power it's easier to figure out but there is more i need to learn but in due time i will get it the function are little different from logic it's a little less advance as far as function goes but the overall picture is better so now i found a new home and hope to keep using sonar in the future!!

Thanks!

I am investigating a number of DAW options. I'm not ready to disclose my current DAW(s), but I am comparing the Sonar 7 trial with what I already use.

So far, I have spent most of my time testing Sonar 7's audio recording and playback, as well as basic "synth-via-MIDI" recording and playback features. I have done limited VST testing with Absynth and one or two other VSTs, but not enough to form an opinion in that area. I have done no testing with effects yet.

I find Sonar 7 to be on a par with my regular DAW software; neither significantly better nor significantly worse. My other DAW application(s) is/are stable, and Sonar 7 has also been stable. I don't hear any significant differences between audio engines or "quality of sound." All of my DAWs are excellent recording and playback tools.

I find some things to be less intuitive in Sonar. That is minor, because I just look them up. I do find the "online HTML Help" tool to be lacking, because I've only had a 50-50 chance of actually finding the answer to my question. Then I come to this forum and use the search feature. Again, only about a 50-50 chance of getting an answer. Maybe that's because the features have different names in Sonar.

In any event, I look forward to being able to read a more complete "user manual."

I find quite a bit of the Sonar 7 interface somewhat difficult to see and "click" on (see my thread regarding "hard to see" things on the screen). My vision is not really that bad, either. But I am limited to my monitors' native resolution settings. Some things that should be more configurable include (but are not restricted to):

1. Increase size of buttons in track view and console view (I can see MSR and READ/WRITE just fine, but sometimes their hotspots are hard targets to find).

2. Allow me to make huge, fat meters in console view, and somewhat fatter meters than provided for in track view. This would help me get visual confirmation of signal when I'm sitting 10 feet away at my keyboards or in front of my music stand with an open mic in front of me and a cumbersome-to-walk-with instrument in hand.

3. Allow me to clean up the "inspector" portion of track view. Maybe have a "verbose/brief" option that I could switch on/off for each track or for the project globally (similar to MSR)

On the plus side, I like being able to configure with icons and track colors. For some people, that's a "toy" feature, but not for me. I'm very visual and I organize my thoughts better when things line up correctly, have a certain appearance, consistency, and/or a good graphic to set them aside from the rest of the visual "noise" on the screen.

I would like to see Track and Console icon selection become faster and less "fiddly." Right click, scroll, click on my selection, for example.

I also like being able to use high-contrast track color selections for ease of sight, especially when looking at MIDI tracks while seated at my keyboards across the room.

The step designer and drum functionality is interesting, and I look forward to learning those features. But until I actually get to using them, I don't see that they're vastly better than my other DAW software. We'll see, I may change my mind on that.

At this time, I have decided to purchase the U250 package. It comes with Sonar 7 Studio Edition. I chose this because the USB interface will fill a niche for me. It will work on a workstation or a laptop; The interface is bus-powered, so that will make for a good solution for mobile work if I choose to do that in a couple years. But that interface will also work with my old DAW application, so I am not being "forced' to change my DAW.

And that brings me to my point. I'm really in the best of situations here. I am actually choosing to add Sonar to my rig, not to replace something else with it. It's not my intention to "switch over."

Like any good woodcraftsman, I will have more than one tool in my toolbox, and (hopefully) I will gain enough expertise to be able to use each tool for whatever purposes that tool is best suited for. I look forward to learning more about Sonar and figuring out its best uses for me.

I am investigating a number of DAW options. I'm not ready to disclose my current DAW(s), but I am comparing the Sonar 7 trial with what I already use.

What prevents you disclosing your current DAW(s)?

I have no problems disclosing my other software programs. I also use Audition (Cool Edit Pro 2.0 prior to that), Tracktion, Ableton Live and Cubase. Cool Edit Pro was my first serious attempt to become almost totally reliable on DAW recording. Syntrillium (CEP developers) was purchased by Adobe so I took advantage of the offers to download Audition at no cost. When I decided to add MIDI capablities to my system I gravitated to Cakewalk (HS2XL) and have continued to upgrade as new versions are released.

I still use Audition almost exclusively for audio editing. I use Tracktion, Ableton & Cubase when clients request my services to mix projects that they have recorded using those platforms. I usually open the project in the specific platform so I can listen to it and get a "vision" of their desired end result. More often than not I'll wind up importing the individual wav files into Sonar and then begin working on the mix.

I like having the capability of having access to multiple DAW programs, but Sonar is my usual "go to" tracking & mixing software.

I didn't disclose my other software because my thread was alreayd quite long.

Your post opened with "I am investigating a number of DAW options. I'm not ready to disclose my current DAW(s),..." How many DAW options are available that are in the Sonar ballpark? How did you know your thread (post actually) would be too long to include the mention of the "DAW options" you're investigating.

Nothing but negatives from you since your first post about monitor resolution. Some people just can't be pleased.

BTW, who told you that Sonar 7 was included in the Power Studio package? Guess you didn't do enough research.

Hoooo boy... where to start. Suffice to say I've made a bad mistake.

SONAR 7 was perfect, aside from a few issues. However, given the lack of a demo, I was swayed by the possibility of getting Cubase 4 very cheaply... just to settle my speculations that it might be better at some things. The opportunity came up, I had a bonus that month... and decided to leap for it.

I won't bore you with the details, but I was amazed to find:

1. You can't read VSTi note names from Drum Machines like RMIV, Battery etc. Odd, given Steinberg created the VST format!
2. The MIDI editing is actually worse in many respects. SONAR's Smart MIDI Tools for the win!
3. Nothing even comes close to ACT.
4. The score editing 'improvements' are nothing to write home about. Symbols like marcatto etc. just have options to affect velocity. That's it. You can't assign crescendos to CC1, CC7, CC11 etc.
5. No mousewheel scrolling.

On the plus side, it does have a MIDI arpeggiator that actually works. (Cakewalk, the MFX Arpeggiator needs a FIX, not another glossy graphical tweak, heck, the one in P5 works, can we not have it in the flagship??)

Yeah... I know.... I should've known. But in this instance curiosity killed the cat. (but at least it's sellable...)

*points finger at Cakewalk forum and puts on ghostly voice*

"Beeeeeewaaaaaare...."

I bought Music Creator at a computer fair for 20 bucks and played with it some.
I the got an upgrade offer to Music Creator Pro and played with that some.
Then I got a GNX 3 guitar work station and had a good way to get my guitar (main instrument) into the computer. Now we're having fun. I did the upgrades of MC3, and MC4. I was a little disapointed by MC4 because of the marketing videos made it look like it had features like the eq on the console which it did not have. So when they asked if I wanted to upgrade to SHS6xl I went for it. I barley got to know SHS6xl when they asked if I wanted to upgrade to Sonar 7 SE for 99 bucks. I had to go for it at that price.
And my thoughts were that some point down the road they will ask if I would like to upgrade to Sonar 7PE and that will place me on the top shelf an have the best DAW available. So I will have many many months to work with and try to figure out the depths of Sonar. The feature that I would most like to have that is only offered in 7 PE is V-Vocal as my friends and myself could benefit for the features that V-Vocal can supply. Great software and glad to be part of the family.

I switched from Logic because it doesn't run on Vista. I'm quite impressed with the feature sets of Sonar 7 Producer and the overall application is quite a serious tool for music.

I do have some gripes as a new user and maybe it's due to the learning curve. Some of the issues I have are soley based what I was used to in Logic, as I found Logic more intuitive for myself.

-Although I can physically play all the parts to an arrangement, I prefer notate all of my music with the draw tool in the piano roll. The draw tool is cubersome, it dosn't always place the notes where I precisely want them. Switching the prefs with right click to 'select' or 'delete' notes is a hassle to me as well.

-Is there no wav file editing in S7P? I click on an audio file and would like to clip off the end to make it fit in the arrangement window but I don't see even minor audio file editing. Does this happen elsewhere, or not at all?

-When using Session Drummer 2, I program my beat in the measure(s) utilizing a preset kit that came with S7P. Clicking the Play button triggers one of the automated midi loops in the SD2 which plays with my programmed beat. I don't understand this.

-Building on audio file editing: I have Sound Forge installed. In the Tools bar drop down, I can see Sound Forge. I select Sound Forge and nothing happens to open the app. Is there a setting to correct this?

-Lastly, all of the 'automatic' sounds programmed into some of the synths and the Session Drummer 2 may be useful to some, but I don't care for them. Writing music for me is more about creating every note, not having automation.

Thanks, I look forward to learning this application fully. I also look forward to feedback and being part of the forum.

Have you worked through the tutorials in the help file / manual yet?

Also, have you watched the many videos available from this link posted as a sticky in the forum?

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=925376

Also, Spider_Pig...if you continue to have questions or problems, please post a new topic in order to keep this thread on-topic.

edit: Spider_Pig / topic redirect.

I was involved with recording and performing well before MIDI.
I did a Roland endorsement (after doing the same with Korg previously.) When John Damon (sales rep) went to Roland, I went with him. I started working with Tom Beckman, CEO of Roland USA. This was still pre-MIDI. I started using a cut down B-3 built by the late Bill Beer of Los Angeles' Keyboard Products. He had put together custom organs for the Beach Boys, Santana, Three Dog Night and many others. I came to him with an idea of using the cut down B-3 to key external keyboards. Keep in mind that this was pre-MIDI. He looked at me, as if I was crazy, and immediately went to the drawing board. He constructed a reed set-up capable of keying up to 15 synthesizers simultaneously. I know, it sounds rather common now, but it was earth-shattering innovative in the 70's. Played Vegas, Reno and Tahoe during that time and recorded on Ovation Records, Chicago. It was around that time that Ikataroo Kakehashi, CEO of Roland International started flying into Vegas and meeting me for breakfast after shows to pick my brain. He was very interested in how I was orchestrating the keyboards and using them. He would sit there literally drawing figures on napkins in the coffee shop. Pretty soon, he started returning with various keyboards, effect pedals etc for me to try and critique. He was always interested in seeing how I would use the stuff.
When I introduced the first Roland Chorus unit in the U.S. at the Guitar Center in San Diego, I ran my vocal mike through it and they were taken back. They were only thinking of it as a guitar effect at that time. It's funny now, as it is all so commonplace. It was a lot of fun being involved with the r & d part of new instruments and the beginning of MIDI. Ok, Ok, I'm a bit older than most of ya, but I figure that someday I may be the world's only 90 yr old rock 'n roll man.
Anyways, I started out in the 80's on the Atari 1040ST which was great with its built in MIDI interface using Hybrid Arts SMPTE-Track and all the accessories. Why??? It was simple; Billy Arnell and Stephan Daystrom. Stefan, of course, was a major programmer of the program and Billy used the darn program in more ways than you could think up. Billy knew this program backwards and forwards. They were on the phone with me constantly getting me off to the right direction. I don't think they ever really knew my background, which was better, because they helped me simply because I was some dude who needed help. That, my friends, is worth its weight in gold.

That's why I think forums like this and the great people on it, plus the support from Cakewalk are invaluable.

My second jump after the Atari started losing its support was to move to the PC (after a short time with a Mac). I had tried Logic on the Atari, but was happy where I was with SMPTE Track. When it was time to move, I jumped to the PC which looked to me to a solid choice.

Used Steinberg for some time but wasn't as comfortable with the interface. My last jump was to Cakewalk up through version 9.
I tried Sonar 1, but the computer I was using just didn't measure up.

In the interim, my dad got Parkinson's Disease and I packed up the whole career and came home to care for him. There are still a few people in the industry that wondered what the heck happened to me. Voila, the disappearing act!
Now, I'm just a part of rare record collectors collections around the world. Alas.

I couldn't be without music somehow, so I built a studio not too far from my home in the Lehigh Valley. Eventhough, It was initially an analog audio, I always had in the back of my mind that there had to be a computer somewhere in the middle of everything.

So, I decided to tackle building one a computer specifically for the studio. The unit employs the AMD 64 processor with a couple of gigs of ram and a 160gb drive. That is where I am now. (Of course, I am thinking about the next one I want to build..he heh).

A couple of months ago, I stopped into Dave Phillips Music in Allentown, PA and saw Sonar 6 Studio Edition on the shelf. I decided to give it a shot. Wow...it knocked my socks off. It took me a few weeks to decide to upgrade to Sonar 7 Producer.
And as the story goes..... Heeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr I AM having a blast!
I can't believe how smoothly the audio works in this program (I knew their MIDI part would shine, but I didn't expect the audio to fly too!). I am a convinced Sonar 7 Producer user. Kudos to the whole Cakewalk staff and the many users who tweaked it.

My mortality finally stared my in the face one morning as I was having a cup of coffee. Though I've had many things published from music for kids shows, documentaries, variety shows and, of course, my own recordings...Well, it's simple. I've written literally thousands of songs. I realized that if I don't record as many now as I can, they may disappear with me when my time is up. So I am enbarking on a projec to record as many of my tunes as I can...while I can. Don't get me wrong...I'm still healthy, and I'm not a grandfather, yet.
But I figure, that someday...somewhere...future generations will have received a lot of frisbees full of original material, or they just may say, "You know what, that son-of-a-gun was a pretty creative sort, ya know?"

There is a problem, though. As fast as I record songs, I keep writing them. My mind is flying a mile a minute. You songwriters out there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a great life being creative, but it can drive you up the wall sometimes.
There's simply not enough hours in the day.
Thank you all for you help... yesterday and tomorrow.

Okie Duke (studioguy1)

Hi Guys

used 4 track in the old days and always went to a studio to master - the guy there used cakewalk which always seemed so complicated for us old analog guys !

Finally dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st when my teenage son's pc was on its last legs - and i purchased a new one
someone told me i could put a soundcard into it and use it a daw ! The only DAW i had heard of was a Deputy as a kid!

After months it seemed i pucked up courage to buy a emu 0404 which came with sonar le and a bundle of goodies... i was attracted to Cakewalk over cubase as i had heard that cubase was a bit flaky - i was converted - i have just purchased sonar 7 a big old beast and i feel my education as started once more....! Thanks Sonar for bringing the future into my lounge...

I switched to Sonar 6 PE for two main reasons:

1) Cubase SX was consistently unstable for a plethora of random reasons. The nails in the coffin were bizarre things happening (or not happening) during exports. Often tracks would export as silence or with clicks in them and the hole just never seemed to end.

2) Sonar is the only PC program that supports the Tascam FW1884 controller in native mode.

My experience of Sonar has ultimately been one of respect for its stability when performing fundamental editing and mixing tasks. We've been using for 2 years now to create and mix the soundtrack for a feature length film and whilst we've had hair tearaing moments when bouncing and exporting this large project, westill have everything as it should be and have found the interface to be reliable for the most part.

Problems have arisen when using VST plugins with random crashes but these ca usually be eliminated. One mysterious issue is that sometimes tracks and/or track folders of audio would simply disappear with no logical explanation as to why and this would be the one reason why i would consider using another program for the next project of this scale.

I also find the interface to be a bit sluggish. Whilst this may be due to lack of hardware reaources (in tandem with the sheer size of the project), I have found other programs (Sequoia and Nuendo) to peform better in this respect whilst seeking, editing and reviewing the project, locking well to the video track and allowing me to scrub and seek without the momentary lockups that do occur with Sonar. I've found this sort of bahaviour to hinder cretivity when working on sound design using instruments, VST's and MIDI.

All in all relaiable for for getting the bulk of an 'audio' job done but I'll be looking further afield in future for program/platform to work with sound designing.

Hi. I began using SONAR 5 recently after years of recording on Cubase. I didn't personally ever own Cubase but I used it a lot in studios and some of my friends had it too. Basically I got SONAR because:

1. It wasn't Cubase (which I was tired of looking at)
2. SONAR was offered as part of a package by the company I bought my computer from (Turnkey, UK)
3. It was much cheaper than ProTools (which offered no significant benefits for me over other recording software)

Right away I found SONAR more user-friendly than Cubase, but of course this is just a personal preference. Furthermore, whatever I record into digital audio, whether I use Cubase, Sonar or ProTools, the sound will be identical.

I don't use midi very much so my SONAR set-up mainly records 'moving air' making it a pure audio recorder but with none of the problems associated with tape machines. Digital editing is a blast, and people frequently say 'Wow, we could never have done that on a 24-track tape machine!' I just nod and say 'Yeah, it's f***ing great isn't it!'

Now I've upgraded to 7 the only downside is my own limited knowledge of computer systems and software capability. I'm always learning and these forums are excellent for finding out things which baffle a tech-noob (if that's the right phrase) like me. I love it.

Regards
Duncan X