Good tutorials on DVD?

You and I are in the same boat brother. I've done a good fair of reading from the manual but would love to just watch it and do it. I guess that's why I never learned to read music either come to think about it. I just ordered this DVD set since there is over 9 hours of tutorials. I'm thinking I can get pretty proactive with what I learn from it and then look for details in the books as I need them.

http://www.vtc.com/products/sonar45.htm

Once they arrive and I get into it, I'll post a review. I wish cakewalk would put out an extended series of DVDs or website video tutorials. It seems like a pretty natural teaching tool for the new world. I see this question getting asked a lot here. Perhaps the forum members here should start a homebrew tutorial thread - a grassroots movement to enlighten the Sonar masses - FREE! That would be awesome.

Gregg-

I looked at the VTC.com website about 3 weeks ago and thought that $99.00 was a bit too steep and and it was too long as well for a video.

I thought that if I had purchased one of the less expensive tutorials, that maybe it wouldn't be enough, and then buying a different one after that would likely cover much of the same info all over again. So, I came to the "buy once, cry once" conclusion. We'll see if I made the right decision soon.

Gregg-

If you like video tutorials, you may like this one:

http://www.vtc.com/products/sonar45.htm

It has @ 9.5 hours worth of video. You have the option of purchasing the CD for $99 (kinda steep) or just pay $30 for unlimited on-line streaming for 30 days (which is what I am doing). It is fun to watch and David Ludwig is a pretty down-to-earth teacher. Although for someone who is teaching this subject you would expect to see a more professional DAW set up. I was surprised to see that his gear was a little on the amatuerish side. My jaw dropped during the Global Options tutorial when I saw his turtle beach soundcard and then later on I got a glimpse of all the icons and background services on his desktop, game icons, etc. (No kidding) Why isn't his Windows XP tweaked for audio recording? I was a little concerned at first but you get over it pretty soon. He is entertaining with a dry sense of humor, ...."..it feels like it is starting to get cold in here because.... we are going to.... FREEEZE the track..." A productive, rewarding way to use your procrastination time and in the end I learned some neat stuff to boot. :)

RATING: 6.5/10
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On the other hand, STAY AWAY from this one:

http://www.digitalmusicdoctor.com/sonar/index.html

Don't be fooled by the title like I was. If this is a doctor then I am a lawyer (wait... I am a lawyer). This is pure Eckkk!!! Despite the sexy woman's voice, the lessons are dry as all hell and it doesn't go in-depth with any practical solutions. It is almost as if she was reading straight out of the pages of the Sonar 5 manual! And to make it worse, the voice-over is not even correctly synched to the video, sometimes lagging 10 seconds behind the jagged mouse pointer, much like the voice-overs in the old Godzilla movies. (Mouth moves then 10 seconds later you hear the American voice screaming, "Look -- Godzilla!!") The macromedia format is less than 5 frames per second - worse than a live webcam on 'ifriends' hosted by someone with a 28k modem. Just Awful!!! And the tutorial project examples? WORSE THAN AWFUL!! My old Casio CZ 3000 (The 'Cheezy Sleazy CZ' as my old high school band friends called it) had better sounds. Digital Music Doctor didn't even have the courtesy to use decent sample instruments so you get to hear sections of the Entertainer played back over and over using old 1995 midi GM sounds directly from the turtle beach sound card!! Cakewalk should be concerned because it makes their product look bad, as if it was created for the audience of people who are recording with ...., you guessed it... a Turtle Beach sound card.

If you want to throw some money away, the cost for this garage sale junk is $19 to $30 (depending on whether you had previously ordered Sonar 4 tutorial) and you get a download which you get to keep forever. Yeaah!, ....NOT!!! It contains about 2.5 hours of 'torturous tutorials' (say that 10 times fast). I did listen to them all thinking it would improve as the lessons advanced. But I would rather sustain 2.5 hours of Chinese torture before listening to it all over again. ("LOOK... GODZILLA.... AHHHHH!!") It was so bad that I had to uninstall it then delete the cursed program from my hard drive because just looking at the shortcut on my desk top made me want to puke!! (I'm really not kidding it is that bad!)

Thats all I have to say about Sonar 5 video tutorials at this time. Hope it was helpful. Now I must get back to writing my legal brief!!! (Which I would rather be doing than watching a Digital Music Doctor video! Now that, my friend, is very sad!) :(

RATING 1/10

Noah,

I read that Sonar 5 CSI Master will be available February24, previously, it was advertised as being available on February 17. So what happened over at Thomson ?

Ordered from Sweetwater and I am waiting for the tutorial to come in.

Peace