problems or running great??

no problems here since sonar 4, now using 6.

If there was ever a problem, it was because i didnt know what i was doing! lol

I'M in shs6 and love it! the only reason i have probs. is because i have a lot to learn.

but once i figure out how somthing is done it is allways very smooth.

junkflesh!

Newb here.

I'm running pretty well here. I just received S7PE today,registered, installed the 7.01 update. I had a few driver issues even with my interface ASIO drivers, but a slight adjustment took care of the "static" sound. I've worked through quite a few of the tutorials, which ultimately helped me tune my Lexicon Omega and the stupid Audigy card in my system (yeah I know the general consensus there) and all is working as of now. Most of it was thinking about the routing going from Midi to Audio, and bouncing down. I may run into some other problems, but the hour I spent tweaking and figuring stuff out today taught me quite a bit.

Now if I can get my midi keyboard controller early next week, I'll be in business.

Used Cakewalk Pro Audio 7 to 9 then SONAR 3 right through to SONAR 7PE. No probs. A few driver issues, incompatabilities with a fwe plugs or other drivers whcxih have all been sorted.

Looking to start all over now with new interface and a quad Core I think probably in the new year. Or maybe a C2D Laptop. haven't decided which yet. Any advice??

Not many problems here, and fewer than ever with S7.01PE. Well, it does crash occasionally, but no more than the iMac/PTLE DAW we have here.

Sven

Any piece of complex software like this is going to have bugs. That is unavoidable. The likelihood of hitting one is directly proportionate to the number of features you regularly exercise. So those most likely to be having problems are the ones who go deep into the feature set.

I, like many, do not delve deeply into every facet of SONAR functionality. I do not know what a groove clip is, and looping is not in my vocabulary. I never use the notation view. For that matter, I never use the Console view. I don't use the new mastering plugs, nor most of the bundled soft synths. Those all represent areas where I will never experience a problem!

But I do use automation envelopes extensively, so the current automation bug is a major nuisance.

I do use the PRV extensively, including the scrub tool, so the 7.0 bug with stuck MIDI notes was a bother until it was fixed.

Overall, I have been pleased with SONAR's stability and reliability. I have been especially happy with Cakewalk's track record of quickly acknowledging and fixing bugs. If SONAR is the only heavyweight software you use, you probably can't appreciate that most narrow-market software vendors roll bug fixes into the next major release, which can be months away and will cost you money, even if all you want is the bugs fixed (one of the things that killed Steinberg's reputation).

ORIGINAL: leapinlizard

I use Sonar 6PE and have never experienced a crash or shutdown of any sort. I attribute the success to three things: (1) good hardware, (2) good drivers, and (3) last but not least, good software (Sonar in particular). The majority of the problems I have seen reported on this forum can be traced to one of the three categories above. I would speculate that hardware is probably one of the biggest problems - with all the motherboard/chipset/memory/processor/video/soundcard combinations out there, it's easy to get a bad combination at some point. Couple that with the number of people who don't take proper static precautions when reaching inside their box, whether it be a store-bought one or a custom-built one, and you have the potential for some real problems. This is why system builders (we have some good ones on the forum) exist - they know what works and what doesn't, and they know the precautions to take. This is not to say that you shouldn't build your own system, but be sure to do the research and know what you are doing before you do. A lot of store-bought systems tend to have substandard components in them, so a little research goes a long way here as well.

The drivers category, as a lot of Vista users are discovering, is important as well. A sound card or midi interface is only as good as the drivers that support it, and there are some companies (Echo comes to mind) who have excellent driver support, and others who have questionable driver support. Bottom line - do the research, and go with the known good.

Software - there is lots of free stuff out there, and I have read on these very forums lots of people having problems with plugins and such. A lot of people claim that "Sonar doesn't work with this plugin or that plugin", never taking into account that the plugin could be the culprit. Hey, Sonar goes through a full and rigorous development, testing and QA cycle to ensure that it works in the greates numbers of situations possible. Does Joe Cool's freebie VST go through the same cycle? I seriously doubt it. I'm sure they are not all bad, but I personally avoid freebies unless they come from a reputable company (like Kjaerhus). Again, do the reasearch and go with the known good.

Hope this helps somebody.

Sorry, what it does do is tick me off.

Man, if it's really as you say, me thinks Cakewalk needs to go to a guaranteed to run only on their own tested proprietary systems. You know, kinda like profools. What you are saying is not the way they (as in Cakewalk) ADVERTISE it. The spec data lists minimum system requirements and other pertinent info which, would lead most "reasonable" people to believe if their personal system at least meets those specs, they'd be running fine.

This is getting silly now and your post is kind of in the vein of the GURU on this very forum that told me a few years back that if you ain't a computer engineer, you gotta expect problems.

This much I do know. And I know it with an absolute certainty from 5 years of working to get this this stuff to stay reliable day after day, on 3 different machine upgrades in unteen versions of Sonar. If you're fooling around and it doesn't matter, it's no big deal when you discover something doesn't work right, play right or even the ocassional blue screen, unhandled error, pop, click, or having to up latency to the stratosphere to get the program to play the song at some point, bla bla bla. You really don't stand to loose too much if you're fooling around. But, and this is MY personal experience: if you tax this stuff and really must rely on it, it WILL let you down when you least expect it or can afford it. Like when you're under the gun and the bills are due. Know what I mean ?

Sonar PE 7 here. On since Pro Audio 9. How many PC upgrades? Lost count.

Never, I mean NEVER, one problem. It simply works.

Caveate: I average 20-30 hours a month on recording, not professionally.

pianodano - Sorry, hope I didn't ruin your day! I think you brought up some good points and some unfortunate truths at the same time. I think there is a certain amount of marketing hype that leads one to believe that Sonar (or any other similar software) should run flawlessly on a minimally-configured system; however, as any forum lurker knows, it just ain't true. There are firewire chipset issues. There are sound card incompatibilities. There are video card/driver issues. On and on and on. In a perfect world, this should not happen, but you and I can read about it daily on this very forum. Do we need to go the profools route and spec every piece of hardware we need in order to run? Geez, I hope not. But, we are dealing with computers here, and although you don't have to be a system engineer, there is a certain level of knowledge required to get things running and keep them running smoothly. Even when I had my old Teac 4-track I had to know how to demagnetize heads, clean pinch rollers and splice tape. I did not have alignment equipment, so I had to take the deck to a pro ever so often. No matter what kind of equipment you are using, there are things you need to know and research you need to do.

You obviously do this for a living (or have a very serious hobby!) and have had your share of equipment failures. I work on computers all day and I can tell you that they will fail at the most inopportune time no matter what software you have loaded on them. Sad but true. I wish it were different.

I am surely preaching to the choir, so I will end with a line from Bruce Hornsby: "That's just the way it is, some things will never change."

No problems on Sonar 5PE, 6PE or 7PE. Any issues I have experienced were due to my own learning curve and have been easily resolved by seeking out knowledge through the manual, the forum or Scotts Sonar Power books.

Take care,


Bob

ORIGINAL: Bonzos Ghost

Remember that this forum typically attacts people with application/system problems. There's countless Cakewalk users out there that have never visited these forums, so you're not going to get any response from the majority of users that are working away with little or no problems.

I don't completely agree with this. From my (admittedly limited) experience here, there are many, many users who gather to discuss gear, technique, suggestions, etc. without complaining about system problems. There are plenty of people who do post just to complain, but I don't believe it's even a majority. My 2 cents.

I have also had individuals sya that they used to use pc's and had lots of problems with sequencers until they switched over to MAC and they say that they can concentrate on their music with out any hitches at all. They do not talk about what program they are using. so there is no reason to lie and save face.

ORIGINAL: leapinlizard

pianodano - Sorry, hope I didn't ruin your day! I think you brought up some good points and some unfortunate truths at the same time. I think there is a certain amount of marketing hype that leads one to believe that Sonar (or any other similar software) should run flawlessly on a minimally-configured system; however, as any forum lurker knows, it just ain't true. There are firewire chipset issues. There are sound card incompatibilities. There are video card/driver issues. On and on and on. In a perfect world, this should not happen, but you and I can read about it daily on this very forum. Do we need to go the profools route and spec every piece of hardware we need in order to run? Geez, I hope not. But, we are dealing with computers here, and although you don't have to be a system engineer, there is a certain level of knowledge required to get things running and keep them running smoothly. Even when I had my old Teac 4-track I had to know how to demagnetize heads, clean pinch rollers and splice tape. I did not have alignment equipment, so I had to take the deck to a pro ever so often. No matter what kind of equipment you are using, there are things you need to know and research you need to do.

You obviously do this for a living (or have a very serious hobby!) and have had your share of equipment failures. I work on computers all day and I can tell you that they will fail at the most inopportune time no matter what software you have loaded on them. Sad but true. I wish it were different.

I am surely preaching to the choir, so I will end with a line from Bruce Hornsby: "That's just the way it is, some things will never change."

Hi Leapinlizard,

Nah,you didn't ruin my day. I think I just must have read your post at the wrong moment. I am sorry that I came across as rude. And thank you for your thoughtful reply.

I am not a computer scientist and I doubt anyone here is either. I jumped on the DAW bandwagon just about 5 years ago but have been involved with computers one way or another since I was introduced to them at 20 years of age in the Air Force. I am 56 now so you can imagine that I have seen all kinds of hardware and operating systems come and go. Some where ok. Some where very good. There was a time when the entire industry from top to bottom was tightly controlled and overseen by serious scholars and professional engineers. At one time every thing that computers and their usually proprietary software was used for was just to mission critical. And you know as I do that those days are forever gone and it's now a total free for all. Now when faults are discovered, developers can easily blame anyone or even everyone else for the entire system failures. What a deal huh ?

I do love the potential possibilites of Sonar. But since I consider so many of them as yet unfulfilled, I hate on the whole, what it does to us. It often destroys creative moments and sensitivites and more often than not causes us to spend precious unrecoverable time looking for work arounds, fixes and well, you know the drill. I said last night on another thread that it reminds me of a little dog chasing his tail.

The vision is great. The real world example is, imo, just not there yet. But ymmv.

It hasn't been that long ago that you or I could pick up the phone and quickly have a technician at Cakewalk on the phone and diagnose problems. Have you tried that lately? As a business man myself, the current lack of support indicates one of two possiblities or perhaps a combination of the both at the present time. Either, they have a huge market and they are riding high, flush with cash for now and have fallen into the success trap of thinking that it will continue unabated OR they simply cannot deal with the volume of problems they are faced with now. I really suspect it is combination of the two. Currently the only viable support available is this forum. You may have noticed, as I have, that it lately has turned into a personal chat fest with nearly every thread spiraling off topic and into one-upmanship chit chat. Evidently, Cakewalk doesn't care about it either which is clearly evidenced by their lack of moderator control.

For my part, I am really happy for anyone that is able to enjoy real productive time with Sonar no matter what level it may be on. However, if you will do a quick search on a few of the threads I have started over the years, you will see that I somehow, without effort, seem to severely tax the software and while not at all expecting it to do anything unusual or that is not specified that it should do, uncover issues that demonstrate flaws that are of a elementary or fundamental nature. They are however, of such a critical nature to me that my entire focus is lost and the moment is just gone forever.

A very close friend of mine jumped ship about 4 years ago and went to Protools. Since he is a guitarist, he does not do midi intensive work. He and I grew up together and have known each other for well over 43 years. He has told me on several ocassions that if I didn't find something else very soon, I would simply quit doing this stuff. He easily recognizes the seriousness and the mental strain brought on by uncountable and unquantifiable technical problems and his observations, in my opinion, sums up just how much this stuff is screwing with people's heads. This stuff is very serious for some people. Some have spent their entire lives as musicans and or songwriters and have previously enjoyed the professional environment of analog based systems. Yes I am intimately familiar with the high reliabilty of tape based systems. Also with digital hardware based systems which are highly prone to failure.

Personally, I would have been very pleased way back at version 3 if Cakewalk would have stopped already with the unecessary novelties in upgrade versions OR would have allowed customers to choose a different path. If they needed financial support to perfect what they had then, I along with many others I am sure, would have gladly provided it and supported them. But with each new version, more new issues have been introduced and we are now dealing with so many that weren't there before that I for one, seriously doubt they will ever be able to track them all down. There are way to many variables now. I thinking the whole thing is on the verge of collapse just like a house of cards.

have also had individuals sya that they used to use pc's and had lots of problems with sequencers until they switched over to MAC and they say that they can concentrate on their music with out any hitches at all. They do not talk about what program they are using. so there is no reason to lie and save face.

This is a myth. The Mac has always had as many software issues as the PC. In fact, they used to be considerably worse because they were very late getting a protected mode operating system, so it wasn't just the app that would glitch but the whole system. The grass always seems greener on the other side because you don't use the other system on a daily basis and experience the glitches.

Under either the Mac OS or Windows XP/Vista today, as long as the hardware/drivers are solid, then the sytsem as a whole will be quite solid, and vice versa. But the apps are only as solid as the engineering behind them, and in the case of a DAW that includes all of the plugs that you use, and that's the biggest problem.

If you are having serious problems, then for the most part you have one of these issues or both:

- You have hardware/driver problems
- You have a set of plugins in use in a such a way that their bugs combine in a lethal way.

That's almost always going to be it. And, worst of all, you have #2 above, and it doesn't cause an immediately deadly problem, but it overwrites data that then gets written to disk, and therefore is corrupted when you try to load it back up again, and then you get all kinds of wierd failures. And, you can have a completely solid system, and then one day you move this plugin up one notch on a given track or you insert a new plugin, and it goes to hell, because the bugs that were always there in some plug that you are using suddenly is now in a position to whack something important, and it may well not be the one you just moved or just inserted. You just changed the order of things in memory and a memory access bug that was overwritting something unimportant before is now hitting some very important.

Partly it's because bugs are always there. Most applications are tested as a monolithic entity, so those bugs that are deadly in a given configuration are found and fixed. Others are still there, but they are non-lethal. But when the application is of the sort where third party code is combined in ways that are not testable in any practical way, then the bugs that are there will eventually hit a lethal combination and whack you.

Partly it's because any time third party code is loaded into another program, it's done based on some standard (VST or DX.) These are inevitably never as well defined as they should be, or subtle semnatics aren't made clear, or how to react to pathological conditions are not well defined. So each vendor that builds software based on that standard will interpret things differently, or they will react to wierd conditions differently, and it causes all kinds of subtle problems. They cannot look inside the guts of the host apps they are loaded into, so they can only go by that usually insufficient standard documentation and hope for the best.

What you have said makes a lot of sense to me. Does this perhaps explain why TDM plugs are so expensive comparatively speaking, ie: they are much more strenuously tested before Digi will allow them to run on their app?

I would imagine so, since they are targeting the professional market, and are targeting a single platform, where the native versions run on lots of DAWs and no one can really test thoroughly on them all. And they are making enough money on them (in this very limited market) to justify heavy testing. Also, the TDM plugs split the plugs in half and only the interface runs on the host OS, with the processing parts running in the much more constrained and simple DSP board environment.