Interesting to know SONAR can see and use so many cores, but............ Well, I can't honestly see any reason or practical purpose for having so many cores outside of being capable of running servers hosting 100's or 1000's of users at a time.
In fact if I wasn't so heavily into video editing I wouldn't have even bothered installing an 8 core FX-8370 to power the extra heavy lifting for running CPU crunching video FX, transitions, and rendering in SONY Vegas Pro is really the only software I have on my computer where running an 8 core makes a huge and noticeable difference in processing and eliminating a quick build up of GUI latency when adding and running multiple audio and video FX.
Accelerated graphics cards help, but not nearly as much as you would think.
The 8 core has a much more significant impact on my workflow and project mix down rendering times. What used to take hours now takes minutes.
As far as SONAR performance is concerned, the differences between my old ancient AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (3.4g/Hz) 4 core CPU was almost disappointing and certainly would have been a waste of money if it hadn't been for what it did for Vegas.
That Phenom was a true monster for it's day. I had it over clocked and running Windows 2000 Pro very stable and smoothly at 3.8 g/Hz which was unbelievable ridiculous speeds at the time.
BTW, overclocking an unlocked CPU won't make SONAR run better, and I highly advise against OCing even if you absolutely KNOW and understand how to set and tweak your BIOS out for it.
I crashed and burned both the CPU and chipset out within a month on my first attempt stupidly and foolishly trying to reach 4 g/Hz. But the 2sd build rocked steady for 5 or 6 years(?) until I simply pulled it for an upgrade.
My favorite #1 thing I love about AMD based computers over Intel is their much user friendlier ability to swap out CPU's and memory for serious and noticeable upgrades for older systems. I used that Phenom II 965 in 3 different motherboard upgrades and upgraded for faster memory and buss speeds and kept running it up to Windows 7 Ultimate when I finally got up the nerve and took the wonderful, wonderful SERIOUSLY noticeable plunge to x64 computing.
It wasn't until this year until AMD changed their CPU socket and chipsets to support their new Ryzen architecture which I'll most likely upgrade to in a year or so.
I don't think the prices will drop much being they are already so much less expensive that comparable Intel's. (Thank you unmovable Intel brand junkies, LoL) My only reason for waiting is because my Ryzen upgrade will require an all brand new complete new soup to nuts component computer build, and I only build new computers with at least several months of research in seek of the best and finest components available.
I'm not in any hurry, being I always use the best and finest components available, this 12 or 13 year old machine is still in the top 23% power performers bench test according to PC Matic's weekly world rating, and
can still hold it's own or outperform any current preassembled big box computer machine I am actually aware of.
I've been using PC Matic for at least 10 years now for system maintenance, and run it one a week and it keeps my computer running like new, and
I will swear by it.
This quest for speed and never ending pursuit for "gimmie more" is indeed an addiction.
OK that being said, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for someone to buy Cakewalk because I have a strong feeling Gibson Brands doesn't have any intentions of selling the technology, which is still very much alive and well at this very moment the heart and soul of a great new and exciting product called the
Tascam Track Factory.
It's currently being targeted and marketed directly the artist, singer, songwriter, and performer types who couldn't give a rat's arse about core balancing, or any other computer geek stuff including how many cores computers have and or the inner secrets of DAW's work and or how to improve or add more stuff to them.
SONAR which has been in (over?) development for 30 years now ships preloaded on a tiny Intel i5 NUC preconfigured and optimized by industry leading professionals, GAURENTEED to run flawlessly on a trimmed and optimized Windows 10 OS.
It comes with everything an artist, singer, songwriter, and performer types need, plus a plethora of things they'll most likely never use or even know or care to find out are there.
All they care about is being able to pull it out of the box, set it up, and start recording their stuff in about 5 minutes.
'Tis a beautiful thing indeed, surprisingly simple to use as well as being a real money maker for all involved.
Being the forward thinker I am, I already have distributed business cards to local music retailers that sales people are more then happy to give anyone buying a Tascam Track Factory and telling them that if they have any problems figuring out how to use this thing, and or take your music projects to a higher professional level mixes and mastering, get in touch with Steev for lessons.
After they sell it they don't want to know any more about then Gibson does about SONAR users problems trying to run DAW on a God only knows what kind of computer or configuration that is typically ill suited to run a DAW on, and how many users are ill suited to understand or comprehend where these problem are stemming from.
I charge $35 for a lesson, most people don't need more then one with a Track Factory bundle, and I've been giving lessons and booking mixing sessions as well as fixing and building computers and workstations for years now so I'm popular enough in the area to make a living..
A MUCH better and more stable living then working in the local sweatshops or relying on trying to keep a band happy & together for club gigs and merch sales.
It's funny how life can take such 180 degree turns isn't it? I used to give lessons to supplement my income, whether it was working in a garage as an auto mechanic, or the lead guitarist or bassist in a rock & roll band, and it's completely the other way around.
I also started my multi track recording career on a Teac 3340 tape machine in the very early 70's and for decades now I have proudly and very successfully mixing in Cakewalk, and started studying recording and producing music digitally directly to SONAR 4 Producer, the first trustworthy solution for recording multi track directly to computer's hard disc. That's the time I took a leap of faith and sold my Tascam DA-88's
Much thanks Berklee Music home study courses, they where absolutely instrumental in helping me understand the leaps and bounds of jumping from analog pond into the enormous seemingly endless digital ocean of freedom of non linier recording on a seeming unlimited number of tracks and FX processing.
And thanks to Berklee I realized many, many things, that would have taken many more years to learn by trial and error, or maybe never learned at all.
#1 lesson was always be conscience to take the shortest signal path and use the least amount of processing to NONE at all get the job done cleanly and properly.
This is also true with analog recording, but with analog gear there are lots of wires and snakes of wire running to and from mixing consoles, patch bays, inboard FX and racks full of auxiliary FX, and racks of outboard FX, and then finally to the recorder.
#2 Just because you "can" doesn't mean you "should". The DAW, gear, and processors you use isn't nearly as important as the talent, knowledge, and skills you have and acquire to understand what they can do, and to use them properly and in the place and chain they were intended to be used in to record a great sounding song.
OK so the first rule of rock and roll is there are no rules. And yeah that attitude is great for creation, but absolutely horrible for pulling off successful engineering purposes.
Knowing the differences between the types of FX and being intimately familiar with the limits of what they do and how they do it is really the only way assure trouble free recording.
Yes you can use Track FX plugins on Busses and Buss FX plugins on Tracks successfully, but only if you KNOW and understand the rules before breaking them
Yeah you can use Ozone, which is a suite of multiple MASTERING processors on every track, but Ozone gobbles up a LOT of CPU processing, and that seemingly harmless idea will most certainly give you serious problems very early on. In fact Ozone isn't even intended to be used on a DAW's master buss.
And yes I know iZotope says you can, and it's typically OK to do providing to don't have to many FX plugins running on too many Tracks.
But where Ozone really shines and polishes things up is when used with MASTERING sound editors software, like Audacity or Sound Forge, or any other sound editing software designed specifically for traditional mastering.
And while SONAR has some really good high quality mastering plugins which works really great for one song at a time on YouTube, Band Camp, Sound Cloud or Reverb Nation. As great of a DAW as SONAR is, all DAW's are ill suited for mastering multiple songs, mixed and strung fluidly together for a Demos or Albums destined for A&R deal placements through services like MusicXray.com where ready to publish unpublished finished products are an absolutely must, or mastering Red Book CD authoring.
I have never, nor have I ever known any artist who ever achieved a decent well paying publishing/placement deal, or any money at all from trying to sell music and be discovered on free to upload websites.
It takes the proper amount of MONEY, investing, and WORK to achieve SUCCESS!
There really are no accidents, coincidences, and or luck involved for success, it's all built upon hard work.
And to quote the Mighty Quincy Jones; "THE ONLY PLACE YOU'LL FIND 'SUCCESS' BEFORE 'WORK' IS IN THE DICTIONARY, and that's just because of alphabetical order."
SONAR ISN'T DEAD, IT HAS COME OF AGE AS IT'S FINISHED COOK'IN AND JUST CALLED TASCAM NOW! Something I find amusing, because I started my recording career out with Teac, Tascam's parent company, and I shall be ending it with Tascam.
The only THING that has died around here is the very faulty concept that living in a constant state change and development could actually be a good thing.
Cakewalk's ongoing attempts to try to please everybody has created an enormously fat and over bloated hard disc spacing wasting DAW on it's journey from v4 to Platinum.
And even though Cakewalk has produced the most affordable widely used and feature rich DAW in the world, it still can't unseat Pro Tools as the industry standard.
But I believe that's really only because of "Opinion" based on marketing securing Apple's vise like grip on the entertainment industry.
The fact of the matter is, DAW technology has refined, matured, and grown to the point today where they are all really, really, GOOD AT WHAT THEY DO.
I have long come to the realization that the real reason honest to goodness is why SONAR is my personal absolute favorite is because it's the DAW I am most familiar with.
BTW, here's a fun fact, SONAR Professional was actually priced $25 dollars less than "owning" a flat out full license version of Reaper, you don't need to take my word for it just go to their website and
read the fine print boys and girls. And I'm also thinking as good as Reaper is, and indeed it is, it's more on par with SONAR Artist (feature wise) then it is with SONAR Pro.
But that's not why Reaper is my personal least favorite choice, it's because Reaper is to me the least familiar DAW. I don't know anyone who actually knows enough about what there are doing with Reaper, and as a SPLAT user, I have no incentive to learn, because I'm confident that SPLAT will continue to serve me well for the rest of my life, which, turning is turning 65 next month. But a very young, healthy, and active 65 with a very childish attitude who doesn't even have grey hair yet.
Just old enough to know there's no reason to believe SPLAT will instantly become useless or even less supremely powerful just because Gibson shuttered the Cakewalk Store..
I also see no reason to believe I won't easily make it to a very healthy 75 years old, how ever, I seriously doubt I'll be recording and making music past 5 years from now.
Right now I'm pushing hard to do as much as i can before I turn 70, at which point I fully intend to retire, put my feet up on the coffee table and say; "Screw all Ya'all, I've gave it my best shot for 62 years and done my part, now lets hear whatcha got for me.
Now while I've seen a handful of I would never want to live without great new features and workflow improvements over the years with SONAR, and although I'm not sure, I feel easy to assume that these improvements I really like so much happened and included with Professional, like automatic take lane assignment that makes comp editing all so much easier and much more fun, and really cool MIDI editing features and improvements to name a few.
But I'm think'in 90% of all what else is included is stuff I'll never use, nor even care about even learning how to use.
I don't need all these loops or plugins designed to destroy pristinely recorded drums to make them sound like a drum machine, and I certainly don't need Cakewalk Command Center wasting countless 100's of gigs of HD space with monthly FULL SONAR VERSIONS downloads in the subscription plan.
I was wondering one day how come my boot drive was mysteriously growing and filling up. Strange because both SONAR and Vegas are set up to store all projects and audio/video data files to save to their own slave drives.
When I found I had about 24 FULL COMPLETE SONAR VERSIONS, couple full Rapture Pro versions, couple Rapture Session versions, blah, blah, blah.
I decided, even though I don't mind and wanted to support my favorite DAW's future success with hard earned annual cash donations, I don't really need anymore free stuff, and I no longer wanted to renew my subscription plan that was bulking up C:/ drive.
So who killed Cakewalk? Was it me, or was it the user/subscribers who can't get enough, who insist on constant change, improvements, more free stuff, and all for free or at a discounted price.
Come on, we all knew and took advantage of Cakewalk's blowout sales when they were about to release a new version.
And I'm sure we all skipped version from time to time, didn't we, and how many of us NEVER paid full retail price for their upgrades?
?Hmm?
Well guess what boys and girls? Gibson don't play that game.. In fact as every guitar player knows, Gibson isn't afraid to make large money that'll give out gasps and wide eyed sticker shock whilst pricing guitars.
Do they make the best guitars in the world? I guess that's a matter of opinion and point of view mixed with brand loyalty.
All I can say is I've played very few Gibson guitars I didn't really like, but I've never loved any Gibson as much as I love my made in Japan Fender Strat, wasn't exactly cheap when I bought it new in 1984, which still shines is still in unbelievably great and original condition for what's it been through. But still a lot cheaper then a new Les Paul...
And that being said, I've played a many very expensive American made Strats that I've hated!
Brand loyally has never been what it's cracked up to be, either are guitar amps with old tubes, but that's been a long and frustrating topic of conversation I have with a few fellow guitarists/friends who refuse to plug into my Line 6 Spider V120 and give it a test spin. While everyone agrees it sounds as great as a 64 Fender Deluxe, or a 69 Marshall Plexi or what ever and or pick and choose use what ever type of stomp box you want from a smartphone or tablet it to assign to the line 6 pedal board which hooks to the amp with any standard Cat5 internet wire, they refuse to plug into it because it has no tubes or dozens of old noisy stomp boxes scattered all over the floor.
I love going to jams, setting up and tuning my guitar in less then 5 minutes, then cracking a beer and watch them spend and hour cursing, screaming, running around replacing 9 volt batteries, and trying to find patch cords and guitar cables that aren't too noisy and still work.
I don't even need a guitar cable any more, the V120 is wireless ready and has transmitter that stays charged for at least six hours of constant that I know of, and it automatically mutes itself when it turns on or shuts off by plugging or unplugging it from the guitar. Really cool for switching guitars. The V120 also has very good acoustic guitar presets.
But this Tascam/SONAR marriage is just too cool to hear much more whining about, LoL there's certainly nothing "ARMAGEDDON" about it.
It's very new school tech much in vein like the Line 6 Spider V120. In pack it from the box, plug the Keyboard, mouse, and audio interface and maybe something like an X-touch DAW controller or what ever into USB slots, run an HDMI cable to a monitor or TV set, boot it up and start recording.
No huge SONAR downloads, no driver problems, everything is pre configured, tweaked, optimized, and tested before it is even shipped to you buy Tascam, which has been trusted in the business of recording decades before Cakewalk was ever even a whimsical thought and has THE BEST promise to keep SONAR ALIVE well into the future.