Sonar 6

Hi folks,

I have lurking here for several weeks and was wondering how much you all think that the version 6 might be? I have v4 PE and was very tempted to grab v5 PE when the price came down to $129 last week. However I am still climbing the learning curve on v4 and thought that I might just be better off waiting for v6, and skipping v5 altogether. I have read many of the threads regarding recommendations for upgrades and have learned much from them. As I primarily use Sonar to record acoustic drums and do not compose music at this time, I really don't need much more that v4 right now. However I plan to expand my knowledge base and home studio capabilities greatly over the next year or so. In fact I have both the Sonar "Ignite" and the "Power" books and am about half-way through Ignite at this time. I plan to be through both of these within the next month or so, and then grab a copy of v5. The other thing is that all of the video tutorials for v5 are still out now and readily available--unfortunately I never did find any of the DVD tutorials for v4 because I waited too long.

So the bottom line is that I really wouldn't mind waiting for v6 before upgrading. However v5 is out now and (I assume) most of the bugs are out of it. And given my current level of abilities with the software, it's very nice to have an application with few bugs because (to be honest) I am not sure I am experienced enough to tell the difference between bugs in the program, or bugs in me! But while I do not mind running a year behind the current version (and say, buying & using v5 for the next year), I don't want to get too far behind. From what I have been seeing, many of the improvements in each version come from features in the previous version. So I guess I thought that it might just be easier to stay proficient with Sonar by getting the latest version in the final few months of it's first year out. Does this make sense?

Thanks in advance.

OK, you lost me already... A grace period for what? They've already lowered the price for v5 PE from $179 to $129. Are you saying that you think it will go even lower?

I apologize--but I don't know what sort of grace period you refer to.

TB

I would say just stick with what you have for now unless you see a feature in 5 or 6 that you want.

Rather then trying to lean all the software can do, come up with a list of things you need to get done, go down the list one at a time and learn how to do those things. Even folks who use software in a pro studio don't know everything it can do and they don't need to. Results are key here not how much you know, the only folks who need to know everything are the ones who sell it, not the ones who use it.

To compile your list of things you need to know how to do map out your workflow in the studio. Once you come up with a complete process for building a new project and taking it all the way to CD you can start filling in the blanks on each step till you get it all documented. Ask yourself at each step you identify "Do I know how to do that ?", "Is there an easier or quicker way ?", "How much does this matter ?" for example will you spend a month learning a slicker way to do something but only saving a few seconds per session doing it. The things to spend time on first are the things you don't know how to do at all and are important to keeping the recording session flowing so you can consentrate on the music and not being an engineer.

You will have to upgrade at some point to get support, to get a feature you want, or maybe because of a new version of Windows. Don't buy things just because it's a good deal or you think you are getting behind, Sonar is just a tool and as with all tools they exist to get the job done. Folks were getting songs recorded just fine with Sonar 2.2 in fact the main reason I upgraded was to get support for my Frontier Design Tranzport wireless remote.

Make muisc, learn the tools you need to learn to get the job done, write some more songs.

Wait for 6.