Ian Ferrin

billp
CW/SONAR ... started out as a more traditional midi composer's tool, which is what I and apparently the OP want, has evolved into a very effective audio production tool, which is the more lucrative market. This is why the traditional composer's tool set -- staff view, and somewhat less so the PRV -- has languished for several versions.

Take a look at the "Features" panel on the X2 product description page on the CW website: Perform, Record, Edit, Mix, Master, Deliver. Nothing about composing in the traditional sense.

1 and 2 are design choices.

That's a pretty valid crit imo.  Do you have any idea if the other major DAW like Protools, Steinberg, FL Studio, or Ableton have kept their trad composers any happier than Cakewalk?  I actually see that CW at least tried to make a serious upgrade to scoring with the X series, quite flawed though it may be!  I don't write much serious stuff but I find that CW combined with Finale is pretty adequate.
  

 

Not to be a turd, but I'd have to say that Protools version 8 acknowledged traditional composers with the inclusion of notation.  And Cubase continues to make improvements for traditionalists with MIDI articulation in their score editor, not to mention their Chord Track in version 7.  I don't know, would you consider Hans Zimmer to be a traditional composer, or do you suppose he works primarily with audio loops and the PRV? 

It all depends on your work flow - do you want to flip-flop between programs?  Or do you start in one, finish everything and move your project to the next program?  I'd prefer to work in one application, and if I really want a publishing quality score, I'd export to something like Finale.

pbognar

Danny Danzi

jsg

pbognar

I would have to agree with JSG on this one.


The program is still Sonar.  Users are encouraged to "upgrade" to the next release.


Even if the the UI was changed and improved in X1, there is still an expectation that basic "views/editors" contained in the new UI will function the same or better than in previous releases - unless there is a new and easier way to accomplish the task at hand.


X2a updates the track pane in the SV and PRV.  IIRC these are attributes which were left behind starting in X1 and are making a return.  One would hope that other functionality of the SV will be addressed in future patches or releases.


Although with the departure of Brandon, Seth and others from Cakewalk, I'm a little concerned about the direction (if there is one) Sonar is taking.

 
I've got a feeling, which of course I could be wrong, but there's something going on with Cakewalk that doesn't seem right.  Sonar, up till X1, has always been one of the leading DAWS.  Sonar was the first to utilize 64-bit computing, and anyone who composes orchestral music knows how critically important it is to have access to far more memory than 32-bit OS's and software would allow.  My God, it's 2013 and Pro Tools STILL is not 64 bit!!!   The people who benefit the most from 64-bit systems are those that use large sample libraries and lots of soft synths, like myself. 

But since X1 things have gotten weird.  A stunning lack of attention to detail is how I described X1 when it first came out, some really good ideas implemented poorly. Even with X2a, there is so much that is just plain illogical--as I pointed out at the beginning of the post.  My guess is, in the rush to create a whole new interface but with the same functionality as before, many things got inadvertantly lost in translation, by translation I mean from the Sonar 1-8 interface to the new skylight interface. 

I am really rooting for Cakewalk.  It's a LOT easier for me if they would stay in business, listen to their user-base and fix things rather than adding more and more stuff.    Learning a new DAW will take me a very, very large chunk of time.  But I cannot use X2a, it's quirks, bugs and illogical aspects directly effect the way I work.  I realize loopers and audio engineers work differently, I am glad X2a is working for them.  When I work in Sonar I have 6 different windows open, one event list and 5 staff view windows filled with many staves.  It's the way I think, the way I hear and the way I compose.

When making anything, attention to detail is paramount.  In our insane world, where everyone is in rush, rush, rush mode, corners are cut and shortcuts taken that reduce attention to detail.  It's inevitable when people, companies and entire societies are in a big hurry.  Imagine if we all took our time in whatever we do (I am NOT referring to procrastination by the way)-- everything we do would be better. 

JG
www.jerrygerber.com

I sure can't argue with this post, Jerry. It's exactly the way I feel too. Let's face it, though Sonar may work for more people than it doesn't, if your particular work-flow is not making it easier for you to use X2, that says it all really. There's no reason for anyone to even doubt you, put up a fight or even try to teach you a new work-around.

Don't listen to Dave, someone pee's in his cheerios every day so he comes off like you are always the idiot no matter what. If 7 works, you stick with it. Even if you use that pc with that OS with that version of Sonar for the next 30 years....who wins here if it works, you get your music out and you aren't spending time messing with things? Right, you do. If I had Win 7 and Sonar 8.5 for the rest of my life until the pc died, I'm content with that. Innovation, evolution, new enhancements, all that stuff hasn't really shown me much to be honest because it takes a good 2 years or more before any of it works right to me.

When X1 came out, I hated it. It has forced me to work differently. This "differently" isn't really something I'm down with but I felt "I paid for this, I might as well use it." There ARE things in it that I like better, but there are far more things that I DON'T like that we're stuck with.

I've always said, one of the cool things with Windows was, they just about always gave you a choice with a new OS to where you could use "old style" if you prefered. I think we should have had those choices in X1 to begin with.

Also, and though this comment may seem petty to the majority of users who do not care for this feature, I think it was absolutely ludicrous to release a DAW with color functions visible that do not even work as well as the inability to change colors.

That's like buying something (no matter what it is) and seeing options for it that SHOULD work, they ARE there, yet they do not work. I'd be pretty upset if I was the owner of this company and saw that. Think about it for a second. You're the owner of the company or a "higher up". One day you evaluate your DAW and see options that are in it that don't work. It's wrong, period.

The whole "we'll fix it when we get to it" thing is just bad for business. I don't care what explanation there is, these colors should have been dealt with shortly after X1 was released and for sure by X2. If I wanted to really be a slave driver, they should have been fixed before X1 was released. How much patience do they expect people to have? Not only that, but there are still some old bugs floating around that just seem to get missed and really, that's not fair either. Especially to those who are religiously buying and updating every year.

I too am doing more steps to do the same things. I hate smart tool at times, I hate the whole grid system and how it never stays consistent, I can't double click on PRV at my time line and see what I'm supposed to see. It takes me somewhere else until I hit play, screen sets do not save my exact settings all the time...I can go on and on. There are issues with so many things I'm finding now.

Not show stoppers for me, but dumb things like K (mute) a clip after it's been v-vocaled and bounced and sometimes it still plays anyway. So you have to open take lanes and mute the lone clip. V-vocal bounce sometimes shows a muted clip, other times the muted original clip is behind the v-vocal bounce. These are all bugs that have been around since V vocal came out.

Part of this though, is my own fault. When a new release comes out, in a sense, we're all sort of beta testers if you look at it realistically. We shouldn't have to be of course, but that's just how it is for a new release. When X1 and X2 came out, due to running a business here, I'm always terrified to put them on my work boxes until I know they are pretty stable and won't mess with my well-oiled machine.

So, by the time I feel safe and start working with these on my real recording machines, by the time a major update comes out, we're 3-6 months or more after the initial release and I find stuff that I could have reported during the initial release that could have possibly been fixed. The problem there, some of this stuff is too buggy to take a chance with in a work environment.

Though it's not supposed to happen, one time I installed a new version of Sonar and it made stuff that was working perfectly in another version STOP working and it was a nightmare to remedy the problem. These are things we that are in business, can't take a chance on because time is money. I can't afford to be down for an hour let alone a few hours or even a day.

At the end of the day, when you've been here as long as some of us have, we have the right to voice our opinions. I've invested my time and money into this software since Cake 4. I say what I say because I want to see the company stay around and I don't want to change DAWs.

It would be all too easy for all of us to walk without saying a word on the forum and grab another piece of software. I don't think Cakewalk would want that. They welcome the feedback as long as it's not a rant for the sake of a rant, ya know? I think most of the things people post are credible. The bottom line is...something works in your realm and how you work, or it doesn't. If you think enough about that software to post about it, it shows you care. If you didn't, you'd not be here...you'd be getting work done on another DAW.

-Danny

Danny - you have some of the most respectful, knowledgeable and articulate posts on the forum.  Well done. 

Thanks pb, I really appreciate that! :)
 
-Danny

Bluexrysalis


  To stxx I've used both Sonar X2a and Protools 10.3 and Sonar doesn't blow away PT I'm sad to say. Sonar X2a has some serious bugs, when you try to export a mix with synths and audio, the timing is out in the exported mix so the instruments aren't synchronized, sometimes the difference isn't much but it's there, and other times it's pretty horrendous. This wasn't the case in Sonar 8.X, which seemed to work pretty well in terms of rendering. I saw that other people are having the same problems in X2. Exporting or rendering is a very basic function, and if Cakewalk can't get this right then there's no point using Sonar. In terms of workflow, and ease of use Sonar X2a is a vast improvement over 8.X so I have to disagree with the original post on this thread. Automation lanes are seriously better than the mess which occurred in Sonar 8.X with multiple automation envelopes on a track. I still find PT a lot more logical to use, that's my personal opinion on workflow having used every version of Sonar up to and including X2a. I'd also really challenge anyone on this forum to accurately hear the difference between a 64 bit audio engine and a 32 bit audio engine on a final mixdown, the only real advantage with 64 bits is it's much harder to overload it. The sample rate you use makes a much bigger difference than bit depth, especially if you go from 44.1khz to 48 khz and above. On most mid priced audio cards there's a big improvement in audio quality above 44.1khz and that's irrespective of the Daw you use. On high end audio cards you can still hear an improvement in clarity by using higher sample rates, and that's mostly because our ears perceive the missing high frequencies at lower sample rates, it's a psycho acoustic phenomenon, and not anything to do with the electronics in the audio card, or the DAW. After my latest battle to get Sonar to render properly I'm ready to totally give up on it. Sonar has big advantages over PT in terms of midi, and the fact that there are vastly more VST Synth plugins out there than RTAS. Sonar also is far more frugal on CPU cycles than PT, so you need a much more powerful computer to run PT. So until now my main use of Sonar has been for work with Synths / Samplers, but not being able to render something in time after upgrading to X2a is the last straw. You can add as many bells and whistles as you like to something but if it doesn't do the basic stuff well, then it's not worth wasting time or money on, in my opinion.

It's funny how we hear and experience things differently. Would you believe Blue, that everything you posted here has NOT been my experience? I've never had a problem in ANY version of Sonar exporting synths that are out of time. I've been a Cake user since it was on floppy disks and honest when I tell you, this has never happened to me. The only issue I've ever had with synths has been when I use the all in one audio/midi track. Sometimes it makes my tracks sound fuzzy to where I have to reload my sounds in my sampler and it works. So I don't use instrument tracks anymore. But nothing has ever exported out of time or anything.
 
Sonar is not rock solid but it's good enough to where I use it from 6 pm until 9-10 am the next day nearly 7 days a week. X2 has definitely thrown a few issues my way that I have never seen before, but it still works very well. I may crash 5 times per 7 days. Considering the hours I work and the size of the projects I do, that's not too bad. However, if I go back to X1 or 8.5, the crashes are 2 or less....and 8.5 hasn't crashed on me in years until today actually when trying to add a plug when audio was playing. So it definitely depends on your system, what card you run, how your file system is set up as well as how your pc is configured. If Sonar was as bad as you're sort of making it out to be, this entire forum would be complaining about the issue you mentioned. That's not to say what you're seeing isn't a bug, I'm just saying it may be something you need to report by calling the company. Far too many yell about things on the forum without trying to remedy issues with either we that frequent the forum, or Sonar Tech support.
 
As for your soundcard comments, I have to peacefully disagree. When you have a really good soundcard, you DON'T hear the differences in sample rate changes. Honest when I tell you, it's just not true. Try all the stuff you mention with an Apogee, Lynx, RME, Echo card or anything else that is $500 and above in price. You can barely tell the difference between 16/44 and 24/48 and if you can, try a blind test with someone else pushing the buttons so you can't see and you'll fail.
 
The thing you are hearing with middle of the road cards is...their converters are NOT as good as they lead you to believe. So when you take one of those cards to 24/96 or whatever, you WILL notice the difference due to the card NOT being a pro card. All my cards sound the same no matter what bit or sample rate I use. Honest, I'm not making this up. The difference is so subtle, it's not even worth mentioning.
 
One thing I have learned when using DAW software....always buy the most expensive soundcard and monitors you can afford. There is no substitution for quality in this field in THOSE particular areas. For other things...yeah, you definitely don't want to buy into any hype. But soundcards...$500 plus or you're better off buying an all in one recording piece and staying away from DAW based pc recording. That's just my experience though.
 
-Danny

when you try to export a mix with synths and audio, the timing is out in the exported mix so the instruments aren't synchronized, sometimes the difference isn't much but it's there, and other times it's pretty horrendous

Sorry, but I have never experienced this under any version of Sonar, and I come from 6PE, and believe me, some of my projects have a HUGE number of soft synths as well as multiple audio tracks.

You want to list your system specs? Try and get some resolution on this?