Sonar Platinum

I've been trying really hard to find a DAW that would support the way I want to work better than Sonar does for the last year. I've tried Cubase, DP, Reaper, Live, Pro Tools, Reason, just about anything that can run on a PC. With X3, I was fed up with crashes and losing work. All of the DAWs I tried had a great feature set and, for the most part, seemed more intuitive to use.
When Platinum came out, I figured I'd give it one more shot. I've been pleasantly surprised by the updates. I almost never crash Platinum these days, with the exception of my drum MIDI track splitting workflow and with that I know the crash is coming so I can save my stuff before the inevitable crash, oh well. I digress.
The point I'm trying to make is that, so far, I haven't been able to find anything that works better for me. I'll continue using Live because it does some stuff much better but my main DAW will remain Sonar.
Yeah, the staff view needs work and Sonar is clunky depending on what you're doing. There are some things that just don't work the way you think they should, but I've been able to get what I want from it.
Things that work great in Platinum:
VST(i) support, with the exception of Waldorf Lector which blows up, Waves and TAL sound better anyway.
New Fx bins and resizing console, much better than X3, thanks!
What could be better:
Audio Snap
Staff View still needs work but it appears to be getting better.
Pro-Channel: Needs both pre and post for modules, sometimes you want to use something first, sometimes last, other times you want to split them.
Things like Ctrl-D :) Personally, I think it's a Windows bias, but Cakewalk is writing Mac code too these days, maybe someday.
Oh and please fix the clip name bounce issue, it's really freaking annoying.
I haven't really tried many of the new features yet, I've been too busy trying to get a show out but I am interested in Craigs new EDM loops.
I'm probably not going anywhere else anytime soon. Things seem to be getting better.
Thanks!
 
 
 
 

robert_e_bone
Hey, Tom.  Glad you are finding Platinum workable - I am curious.  Do you have any 3rd-party 32-bit plugins loaded in any of the projects that you are having crashes with?
 
I ask because for lots, perhaps most, folks that are using either no or a small number of 32-bit plugins, Sonar runs quite stable, particularly the X3 and Platinum releases.
 
Lots of the software companies that marketed 32-bit plugins have offered free or low cost updates to their plugins to make them 64-bit plugins, and you may be able to get your projects a lot more stable by going through the process of updating all that you can, then testing the remaining ones and only using ones you feel are working OK in a 64-bit Sonar.
 
Bob Bone
 

I don't use any 32 bit plugins. I turned off the scan for anywhere they might lurk.