Is Sonar X3 Live-ready?

lol Bapu-
 
 
SONAR is not ideal for a live show if you want to do things like insert synths, plugins, edit etc.
 
SONAR is an amazing studio DAW machine. It was not built to be used live liek the program called "Live" lol.
 
Ableton Live is king for this...
 
 
Lance

Oh yes definitely. My typical songs consist of;
1. A bass track (audio)
2. A drums track (audio)
3. An extra drums track ( audio)
4. A harmony part track (audio)
5. Another harmony part track (audio)
6. Miscallaneous ( audio)
7. A live input for vocals ( fx type sounds)
8. Maschine (played and edited live, so midi)

Everything is pre split into sections/loops of course, so I can jump to the chorus or verse of a given song at any time, mix the bass in or out, etcetera. Keeping the track order between songs means I can select an entire song from the browser, plunk it in, and have roughly the same mix. While everything keeps playing. It's super flexible this way and I usually don't really need to edit midi synth parts while performing live ( I also play keys live), I tend to focus more on fx and mix, dj-ish.

I used Sonar 7 live for quite a while.  It was Sampletank based for my sounds.  I use 3 keyboards live and set up a templet that routed one to channel 1, one to channel 2 and one to channel 3.  I then made combinations in Sampletank that I could access through the drop down menu that had the sounds I needed for a particular song.  I didn't actually do a lot of "fancy stuff". they were mostly bread and butter set ups.   I made up four files, one for each set, with the drum tracks for each song set to begin at a marker with the song title, along with a tempo map.  I could then use the marker drop down to find the beginning of the song and would use the Sampletank templet to change my sound set up.   I use patch changes to change the settings in my vocal plugs and just had my voice going through Sonar.
 
My bandmate (well, duo mate) had a direct line to the mixer with his voice and played his guitar through his amp.  We needed to use a separate mic input for him, so he could act as the front man if I needed to change Sampletank combi's, because it would make huge noises if I was changing combi's and my mic dropped out until it was loaded.  It wasn't perfect, but it worked for us.  I would only need to change files between sets.
 
I've been playing around in X2 to use this same system in the new computer (I'll be getting X3 in the next couple days).  I'm exicited because with the new machine (now in 64 bit, 4 core with 16 gigs of ram) I can load much more complex sounds and the mic doesn't drop out, and loading a Sampletank combi doesn't create any unwanted noise.  Everything is sooooooooooooooo much faster, too.  We've only done a few shows since I started moving into the new machine, but so far, so good.
 
I'm sure I will be able to do much more now that I actually have a computer that can handle a large load.  I'm looking to get something similar going with 24 bit sounds,,, etc. 
 
 
 
 

Glad it helped you, ActiveAxE.   I'm REALLY psyched about having the groove matrix built into Sonar.  I've been poking around with Live 8 Light, which I got with my Focusright 40, and it's nice, but with the groove matrix built into Sonar, now, I think we have most of what we need to make it work live with Sonar.  I prefer Sonar's workflow in general.  I don't know how fast a big file is going to load, but I'm pretty sure I could do a file per song, if I wanted.
 
Watch the dancing poodle while I change my file... lol
 
I think with Sonar now, you have the option of working in loop based creation through the groove matrix, and the familar landscape of a linar option, too.  It's like Project 5 and Sonar got married and had a superstud kid that's growing up before our eyes. 
 
 
ETA,,, one other thing that I'm able to do now is run Winamp in my taskbar and make playlists for music during breaks.  I can even play along with them in Sonar running them at the same time.  I'm in heaven,,,