Initial Reaction to X2: Not as Excited as I'd Hoped to Be

Mystic38


I dont feel this way at all..
I do not use Sonar for a profession, but time is still money and the very best of DAW simply gets out of the way and lets you work on the music... Sonar X2 does this much better than X1 and while it could be argued churlishly that the smart tool should have looked like this in X1 the first place, I will simply say that the efficiency improvements in usage alone makes this well worth the money for the upgrade.. not to mention rapture, breverb and rmix and the PC enhancements.

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk
]

Thanks for your feedback.  I'm sorry you feel that way.  However, I urge you to let the new stuff sink in a bit.  We put a lot of thought and research into the changes and feel confident that they make a powerful cumulative difference.  Maybe once you use X2 for a week or so, try moving back to X1 and you may see that X2 is much more ergonomic and intuitive.   

benjaminfrog


Hi, John. When you run the install from part 1, it unzips all the files to a temp folder. I don't remember the specific path; maybe someone from Cakewalk can chime in about exactly where it is. If you then copy those files out of that folder before you close the installer, the copies will not be deleted and you won't have to go through the unzipping process every time you want to run the installer, because you'll now have the setup.exe itself. Hope this makes sense.

You can get to where we create the temp folder by typing WIN+R to open the run command, and typing %TMP%.  Then hit enter.  A "SONAR X2 Producer" folder will show up.  But like Benjamin said, it will be removed when the installer exits.  So copy it out before then.

Jalcide


For me, the things they've added are pretty huge. It's about the synergy of them all working together (e.g., automation lanes and right-click lasso -- finally!).

The stuff they've focused on is very tactical (and that's a good thing). They focused on key workflow features other DAWs have had for some time. That sounds slightly negative, but wait, look where that puts Sonar! X2 has now effectively leap-frogged over many other DAWs when you compare some key, modern-requirements bullet-points.

First, a few meat-and-potato examples of showstoppers they used to have in X1 that are now addressed with X2 (missing features that if you were on another DAW you would not have switched to Sonar):
- Automation lanes. Huge. (Sonar needs to remove the arbitrary height limit on them though. Some of us need to dig deep into automation and the lane needs to be at least twice the height for this, imho. You'll need this for resolution-independent displays, too -- for future-proofing [Apple Retina display clones for PC are coming soon].)
- Right-click lasso selection of clips and automation break-points. This is huge. For many modern music styles, you would use this for everything you do in a session. This, in synergy with automation lanes, is so key to all modern DAW workflows.
- Selection mirroring between track and console. What a relief this is! Every DAW that I'm aware of did this. Again, you bump into this every second of your time in the DAW (all music styles on this one).
- Header of clip is clearly for dragging. This is super nice. Not all DAWs have this clarity. For those of us that use many apps, this is welcome. Sonar did not approach this intuitively, before.

Now a few showstoppers that *other* DAWs are faced with now that they can't point to the key (above) deficiencies that were in X1: 
- Cubase: eight insert limitation (only six of them freezable, so *six* inserts for all intent and purpose). I can tell you for EDM music styles this is HUGE. Look at some Morgan Page (award-winning EDM producer) videos on youtube and notice over a dozen creative effect inserts on many tracks. This is the norm, now. *crosses Cubase off my list* Also, Cubase does not have a full 64bit signal path. (it's ironic that the inventor of VST doesn't do VST right. also, Cubase is a crash-factory). Sonar has unlimited inserts effects, full 64bit signal path and does not crash like Cubase does.     
- Protools: in the native version the effect in/outs are not on a 64bit signal path. No direct VST support. *crosses of list -- i'm not using a plugin to load plugins* Sonar has a full 64 bit signal path even for its effects (I'm pretty sure?) and of course supports VST.    
- Digital Performer: even in 2012, they still don't have a linked midi clip type capability! *crosses off my list, and wtf MOTU?!* (get your act together, MOTU! I had this on drum machines in the 80's!). Sonar has linked clips (though a visual indicator of linked clips would be nice [Reaper does this best]). 
- Reaper: its "tools" approach requires too much keyboard interplay. It's snap/grid is not very sophisticated. No Smart Tools, here. Sonar has a really nice snap/grid set of tools in X2, even X1 beats Reaper on this point.     
- How many DAWs other than Ableton Live have anything approaching "The Grid" for doing live and/or time-unit-based remxing? Thank you. Clearly the future (and present) for many of us in electronic music genres. Sonar is the only DAW that is a DAW first and foremost, but that also has Ableton type features. That's pretty cool.

Sonar is positioned well to mop up the floor with only a few more items (core items, not bells and whistles), as i see it:
- Pre-buffer-optimized audio engine (Reaper does this best).
- True automation beizier curves (Logic does this best)
- N-deep nested folders for tracks and buses (Reaper does this best).
- Batch freeze.
- Area for creating song parts and display them in a prominent way (Cubase does this best and let's you rearrange them in a very elegant way).

The grass is not always greener on the other side.

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk
]

bobguitkillerleft


Edit: BTW the"title"of this thread is Absurd!-"X2 Underwhelming"its annoying to say thanks to an enterprising new forum member,whilst simultaneously bringing the stupid thread title more attention.

Agreed :(.  I considered changing it, but figured that would be a bit heavy-handed.  Mr. Benjamin, you're welcome to, or to permit me to...