Yeah, that makes sense. In order to have multiple users simultaneously on the same project, you'd have to tackle some heavy issues involving control priority. Still it would be cool to have a second person mousing around with their own monitor taking care of smaller duties whilst you work on bigger stuff, even if their functionality was limited. Pretty much an assistant engineer I reckon.

Uh oh - we've been banished to the netherworld. Did anyone bring a flashlight? HELLO... hello.... hello...hello... CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?...hear me...hear me...

ORIGINAL: krizrox

Uh oh - we've been banished to the netherworld. Did anyone bring a flashlight? HELLO... hello.... hello...hello... CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?...hear me...hear me...

HELLO...Larry. Is that you? I see your light waving in the distance.

Actually this does make sense. After all, we are talking about a competative product even though we've all been pretty good about not bashing Sonar. The move was an appropriate response from cake. At least they didn't tell to go away.

ORIGINAL: kennywtelejazz

ORIGINAL: tomhan

I would not encourage anyone to dump Sonar and move to Samplitude or Sequoia. That would be like throwing out the baby with the bath water. But Samplitude is an excellent parallel app for audio editing, final mixdown and Mastering/CD burning. Sometimes I view it as being a multitrack Sound Forge on steroids.

tomhan,
I agree with what you are saying, and I'm glad you are sharing your experience and views about both programs.
The past few months I have been learning the version I have which Is V8 SE , and although it is not a full featured version ..it is more than enough of a program to get some experience on and learn it's functions.
I'm very happy with it and in the long run I feel it's cheaper for me to upgrade along that route becase I have SONAR 6 already and even if I wanted to add a few high end plugs I would still be better off with upgrading to a higher version of Samp...
As you said SONAR is great at song construction and creation and Samp...is exellent as an audio editor.
I have been using Samp..as my audio editor for the past few tunes and I've already made up my mind to jump up to at least the next version up.. V 9 Master...thats gonna happen before the first of the year ....once I get through Christmas...
Kenny

Glad to hear of your good experoence with the Samplitude and Sonar combo. Keep in mind that the Master version is a 2 trk only version. Of coarse I dont' pretend to know your requirements or aspirations but I would strongly recommend the V9 Pro version if the $600.00 cross-grade cost is at all possible. Some of Samplitudes best assets like the analog suite (Sachas Plugs) spectral cleaning etc., show up at the Pro level only. Check out the version comparison charts on the web site. There is a lot of bang-for-the-buck at the Pro version. I don't think you would regret it.

I have been using Samp for about 5yrs. To me it is the magic combination app for use with Sonar. One of my weekly chores is to lay out and edit radio spots for 2 local stations. In Samplitude, there are features that make this VERY quick and easy, to build these 60sec spots. These radio spots all have a prerecorded 6sec intro. I dropped in the 1st into, put track mark at start. Then, I put a place holding marker at :07 sec. put another place marker @ :47. I am sent 10 40-50 sec spots. I have the autosnap turned on. I click on marker forward button. My cursor is sitting on the :07 in the track. I insert the audio. Trim the front a bit then click the marker forward again. I am now at :47. I trim the end of the audio, click the time tool, then grab the end of the audio track and slide it to the right length. The marker makes the audio snap to the exact length I need. The audio is time shifted to exactly :47 sec. (And sounds great). These 10 radio spots are done in 30-45 min. All this just to tell you Samp is great for editing audio! This would be very hard to do in Sonar. It used to take me a whole afternoon to do in Wavelab! To me Sonar is the best app to compose in. None that I know have so much flexibility midi, audio, and softsynths. That is it's best features. My songs always start in Sonar and end in Samp. Samplitude's object editor is it's best feature, once you figure it out it is major. It is a per clip menu. (like Sonars) but, you can not only add FX, you can route to any AUX, and you have Samp's built per clip EQ/compression/FFT/Convolution. All these can be per clip, per track, aux and master. This makes Samp a major contender in mastering and burning a CD.
Got to get back to work,
Max Arwood

Wavelab does not. I am a registered use of Sound Forge also. It does not have these ablilties either. Did I mention, Samplitude has crashed/locked up twice on me? I should mention that shouldn't I??? Bad huh???? Both times it was plugins... Oh yea, I forgot to say that's twice in 5 years! HA!
Max Arwood

ORIGINAL: tomhan

ORIGINAL: kennywtelejazz

ORIGINAL: tomhan

I would not encourage anyone to dump Sonar and move to Samplitude or Sequoia. That would be like throwing out the baby with the bath water. But Samplitude is an excellent parallel app for audio editing, final mixdown and Mastering/CD burning. Sometimes I view it as being a multitrack Sound Forge on steroids.

tomhan,
I agree with what you are saying, and I'm glad you are sharing your experience and views about both programs.
The past few months I have been learning the version I have which Is V8 SE , and although it is not a full featured version ..it is more than enough of a program to get some experience on and learn it's functions.
I'm very happy with it and in the long run I feel it's cheaper for me to upgrade along that route becase I have SONAR 6 already and even if I wanted to add a few high end plugs I would still be better off with upgrading to a higher version of Samp...
As you said SONAR is great at song construction and creation and Samp...is exellent as an audio editor.
I have been using Samp..as my audio editor for the past few tunes and I've already made up my mind to jump up to at least the next version up.. V 9 Master...thats gonna happen before the first of the year ....once I get through Christmas...
Kenny

Glad to hear of your good experoence with the Samplitude and Sonar combo. Keep in mind that the Master version is a 2 trk only version. Of coarse I dont' pretend to know your requirements or aspirations but I would strongly recommend the V9 Pro version if the $600.00 cross-grade cost is at all possible. Some of Samplitudes best assets like the analog suite (Sachas Plugs) spectral cleaning etc., show up at the Pro level only. Check out the version comparison charts on the web site. There is a lot of bang-for-the-buck at the Pro version. I don't think you would regret it.

tomhan,
true the Master version is only 2 tracks and I would love to swing the Pro version,
it's a money thing, but even the version I have now is 48 tracks and I have never gone over 24 for any of my music.
The spectral plug comes with Samp... Master .
I imagine this is the one you mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw7moo-Z6og&mode=related&search=
I already have it from the Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 10 .
Don't know if it's in Audio Cl...Lab 11 but it sure is in 10 ..when I need it I can acces it in the cleaning lab till the upgrade...
This thread gave me the motivation to learn more about it's use and I've started using/applying it .
I couldn't figure it out till I saw the Video ...lol dang thing works great.lol
They sure don't tell you much at the Official M...site but when I got the Cl..L..it also came with the Music Editor which also was a nice addition .....
since I had Sekd Sequoia V 5....from a friend ...it was easy to just stay legit and remove the Sekd...and work with the Editor ...
Thats when I realy started seeing the light about using Samp....for my editor...
and went to V8 SE ..and hopefully 9 Master or Classic.....

Hey , Krizox...
if you saw the staccato flickering of a Zippo lighter it was me trying to figure out if I got banished to the outer reaches of The Sybierian Net from participating in this thread

Thanks Tom...for allowing us the software section....I went into hiding when this thread got moved

MArwood , thanks for sharing your experience here.
Gotta love that Object Editor...that thing smokes ...took a while over here to learn it ..
I took some Wes M...and pitch shifted his horn section and had his tune modulating all over the place with out any sound artifacts in time ...
and then time shifted the hell out of it..for grins and gigles...


FWIW I'm glad we can have this disucsion , as the said setiment is CAKE Rules for composing ...
I know there is a large camp here of SONAR / Sound Forge users ......
and thats cool ...
I looked under the hood of the Magix software ...
and had that ole gut feeling..
IMHO .... always got way more than what I was expecting every time...go figure a 24 dollar E Version software cleaning lab with a Spectral Cleaning plug.. YEEEHAAA....

Kenny

ORIGINAL: zungle

.

I grabbed DEMO of Sam 8 SE ...........


I have developed opinions on a couple things, could you let me know what you think?

#1....The Sam audio engine seems completely superior to SHS, much more depth and natural. Kinda soft and clean? Quiet?

#2.....In Sam ...All of my plug ins...all.......sound more natural, and clean.....especially the VST's. Even the cheap ones.

#3 The gain staging of the mixer or overall software again seems more accurate and natural than SHS, more headroom?..........calibrates exactly to my 24/96 and hardware mixer. SHS seems to have considerably less headroom and even less uncolored headroom.

I'm not as techy as a few of the Sonar6 guys and can hear the various explanations of pan laws, sound levels, blind tests etc.

Am I nuts or did I hear these differences?

zungle,
Yes to all three....
This is the version I have, V8 SE cost me $49 dollars as a e download
http://www.samplitude.com/eng/sam/se.html
if that is the version you have consider your self a very lucky man, if it isn't please do your self a favor and spend the money and get this version .
Based on real needs this version can more than meet a home studio and add existing Muscle to what you have on hand
Currently my set up has these Cakewalk products
SONAR 6 PE
SONAR 5 SE
Project 5 V 2
HS 2...and Dimension Pro

I got Samp....V8 SE when the only thing from the above list was HS2
While I was using HS2 I had some decent plugs for a one man home based starter DAW
Kjaerhus MPL -1 Pro , PLParaEQ3, Voxengo line of free plugs, Kjaerhus line of free plugs.
the bundled HS plugs, and a few choice freebee's
Like your self I noticed the same exact three points and said WTF...and said am I nut's or what?
the answer is no I'm not nuts my ears aint lying to me .
When all is said and done my goal is music.
Jumped up to SONAR 5 then 6 PE and the gap had a bit closed sonicly ,
btw...I run the 64 bit Audio engine on a 32 bit machine and it does sound good, and anything I have done in SONAR since I got it stays 64 right up to Export Wave.
what I like to do is Export a 64 bit wave of a song done in SONAR and the create a project in Samp...V8 SE
Import the 64 mix and guess what it sound better in Samp.... right out of the gate...
which is dealing with it as a 32 bit float ......
the 3 points you have asked about are still aparent to me the second my project hit my
hhhmmm audio editor S....
for a sonic comparision I can offer this recent project I just did as a songs forum collab

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=917681

the song is called Fishing Buchanan Creek my mix is the full mix and can be found here

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandid=576327

the sonic materials I had to work with are in the version of the song Fishing Buchanan Creek that is the second one down found on the same page as long as it hasn't been pulled ...yet

since you are asking me , my sugestion is to listen to the mix that is just guitar , mandolin , and bass if it's still up
then keep in mind that those sounds were the sounds I had to work with on the collab ,and listen to the one I did.
I took all the raw files ex acoustic guitar , mando, bass placed them in Samp...dialed them in sonicly and then placed them in SONAR ,
from that point on it was a SONAR 6 project so I could play my acoustic guitar , Dobro, Guitar synth, for all my synth midi work , and my lead solo ...all done in SONAR..
did my mixing of the song in SONAR , exported a 64 bit wave ...
oppened up SE V8 and finished up some eloborate audio editing and created my Master Mix
FWIW my Master Mix can be someone elses Idea of sonic hell, but I am proud of my work .

the flexability the program that we are discusing even at the level of least expectation would make it one awesome plug to have for dialing in sounds
FWIW 2 I know other wise and have every intention of incorporating it in every phase of my music
there are more than 3 apparent things to consider try for your self
ex open a project import a wave and try the pitch shifting out , or the time stretch .
even better learn it and do some object editing with different plugs , time warped and pitchshifted for each clip object and you will be amased,
the plugs that come with S....and the on board mixer, EQ, had me sold from jump street.

As I have said and will say it again I love Cakewalk products, also the people here at the forums have taught me a lot I would have never learned with out thier guidance fellowship and support.
For song composition I understand my way around a little in Cakewalk ,
for the Icing I will use what I feel sounds best to my ears , there is no reason not to have both , One Size don't fit all,
I feel lucky to have what we are talking about , in the long run both programs do become Synergestic (sp) and the sum of the two is far greater than either program alone
this has been my $02.00
Kenny

Hi Kenny,

I think I've misread your reply to Zungle. How did you manage to export a 64-bit recording to Samplitude SE? Samplitude SE has a 24/96 much like SHS4. The Classic and Pro version has 32/384. I'm not saying whether Samp 8 sounds better or worse than Sonar, I'm just curious to know how Samp 8 can sound better based on just the bitrate depth and the sampling rate. An exported file cannot be made to sound better than the original. Maybe Sonar's rendering algorithm of a rendered file is responsible for the increased sound quality and not that of Samplitude's since no dithering was applied during the reduction from 64 bits to 24 bits?

A while back, over on the Samplitude forum there was a discussion about how and why many people think Samplitude sounds better or at least different than other apps. The same arguments rage of every forum and most people say it's a placebo effect and that math is math, is math. Therefore, all DAW apps sound the same. Here are to excerpts from that discussion. The first is from the Magix marketing rep and the next from one of the programs developers. I'll leave their names out as a courtesy.

Marketing Rep:

Guys...

Mathematics can generate many variables. When it comes to summing there are many ways in which to calculate the final outcome. There are lots of different algorithms that can have wide varying truncation results. And yes, if 9 sounds better it is because of improvements in calculations...who said that audio engines are written in stone and cannot improve? Or Math for that matter???


I have heard with my own ears the difference and I know for a fact it is not a better GUI that is improving things...


If you don't think that applications are truncating to improve track counts, the amount of FX or latency then you are sorely mistaken...

This is where the Hybrid Engine shines...we are the ONLY app in the world that has both a Hi and Lo latency engine...not to mention some of the best DSP out there. We have complete internal latency compensation for both Direct X and VST...and we have the most advanced Freeze functionality in the biz...these are all contributing factors to Samp and Sequoias impeccable sound character.


Samplitude/Sequoia Developer:

"I can try to give some comments here, bit I won't claim to end this debate once and for all
time. This is my personal point of view, so don't take this for an official MAGIX statement:

-As programmer (and scientist) I tend to the deterministical point of view: just adding
two numbers should give the same in all circumstances, and hence the basic mixing
task should be the same for all 32 bit floating point DAW's - if you take the simple adding
process as a common method for mixing: we know there may be other methods here.

-I also know that due to the number representation in the computer, there just is not only
a limited precision but also a certain "random factor" in calculations with floating point
numbers. This is basicallly caused by the representation of the compiled code in the
system (initialisation of floating point registers with more than 32 bit processing,
usage of registers versus usage of computer memory,...) and the execution of the
code in the real system (e.g influence of other tasks, e.g. with multitasking).
Both is partially depending on the used compilers, but of course also from the
programmming code the application is written with.
A recent example could be a problem with the master gain in the first v8 beta
versions, where it changed the bit depth even when just initialized with exactly
0dB (= factor 1.0 in floating point).

-An obvious step after summing before going to the output is reducing the bit depth
again to 24 or 16 bit. This consists of at least 3 steps: clipping, scaling and dithering.
Every step can be implemented in various ways.
*Clipping can be done straight forward or more sophisticated, both with possible
hazards for the audio signal - but of course hopefully or at least commonly
only present to loud parts of the audio.
*Scaling can be done before or after summing (both is e.g. possible to be influenced by
the user in Samplitude with the input gain options or the master fader). Since scaling
also applies to the input, there's again a lot of things that can be done differently.
Even the discussions about panning law settings may be put here. Since integer based
engines require scaling before summing I can easily imagine different appproaches
in other DAW's.
*Dithering: nothing much to say here: there are more algorithms than we can think of
here. A major "ditherence" may be its application for intermediate steps when
necessary.

So here I see many possible reasons for different behaviour and even mis-behaviour.
And often I have seen or heard the results - not only in other DAWs, but partially also
in our (some still may remember a dithering problem in version 5.1x).

-An often uncommented problem seems the timeline representation of audio
material. There sure is a difference between sample based or PPQ based
approaches. The first gives perfect audio reproduction but possible problems
with loops and BPM values dry.gif while the latter more easily may sacrifice the first
in favour of the BPM.

So to sum it up: yes, the simple adding of numbers should basically give the same
results, but even there may be a bit of voodoo here - although it might be hard
to realize the differences. The more obvious reason for sound differences
are decisions about the processing at input and ouput stage, with a lot of
different ways to go - and I neither mentioned the connection with audio drivers
and other parts of the system.

Regards,

Kenny,

thanks for having taken the time for answering back! The bottom line is that if it sounds better to your ears, then so be it - regardless of the numbers!

Zungle: I'm glad you've taken the time to test Customer Service and posted your results!
As for Samplitude, I would say its greatest asset is its Audio Editor. That, is far superior to Sonar.

Tomhan: I'm not one to believe that all DAW's sound the same even though the numbers are the same. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other. It just means that one does not sound the same as the other. One example is that of converters. Not all 24-bit converters are created equal even though they are all 24-bit.

Kenny,

there were/are no hard feelings at all - and there will probably never be any! Sometimes when we write quickly on such a forum, the way we communicate may seem to be provocative.
I was just curious because I do have Samplitude 8 Professional and Sonar 6 PE amongst others all from about three weeks ago, and I'm still struggling 24/7 with each program's respective quirks. I haven't noticed any differences in sound only because I haven't had the time to do that kind of comparison yet. I needed Sonar for its MIDI capabilities which Samplitude lacks by a large margin, and I needed Samplitude for its precise audio editing. So much the better if Samplitude sounds better! Of course, if Sonar had similar audio handling, I would never have considered Samplitude.
You were more than correct when you mentioned the film/tv industries. I work in this industry. Sonar can do the job, albeit at a much slower speed than with Samplitude, but, the latter does not have the MIDI capabilities of the former - which is a must in this industry unless your called John Williams. However, neither can do the work from A to Z anyway. The final product needs to have full video capalities and DVD autoring. This is where Sequoia and Nuendo come into the picture.
Many people use Pro Tools, not because it is better than the other programs, but because many facilities started with this program and continuously upgraded with it throughout the years that it(Pro Tools) just became an industry standard. That, of course, is slowly changing.

Oops, my Turkey is calling. Have a Merry Christmas Kenny!