sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/09 22:09:53
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People tout Sonar's deep feature set, which is a draw I suppose - if you need all of those features. Most people don't. For example, I'm a heavy MIDI user. Most of my projects are 90% MIDI based, at least they are until I bounce synths to audio. And I do some pretty intense MIDI editing. Despite this, I haven't yet tried a DAW in which the MIDI capabilities weren't good enough for my needs - and that includes Pro Tools. If I did a lot of old school external hardware MIDI based stuff then I'm sure my needs would differ. Ditto with full orchestral scores. But if your "heavy MIDI use" involves writing parts for soft synths, then quite honestly the MIDI in most DAW's is good enough.
Likewise with most of Sonar's features. My projects are large and complicated to the point where Sonar stops functioning as a fully working DAW - which of course I've documented a lot - but nonetheless I'm still using probably less than 50% of Sonar's features.
Most people will cite the DAW they know and love to be the "best DAW ever." Sonar certainly has some great features - little things like Auto Track Zoom, for instance, are great design. As is the ProChannel. But it's when you start using other DAW's that you realize that they have great features which Sonar doesn't. And quite honestly, the people who use those DAW's intensively would probably say the same thing about them as people here do about Sonar. You cling to the best features of a DAW, and develop workarounds for the stuff that's missing. I'm sure that people who use Logic extensively would say that it's an untouchable DAW, and if they tried to migrate to Sonar they'd find a lot of stuff lacking and/or missing. Look at Rain, who still posts here occasionally. He was a long time Sonar user, migrated to Logic, and never turned back. Says he thinks it's light years ahead of Sonar.
If you ask people here if there is anything as good as Sonar, take people's replies with a pinch of salt. Features that are invaluable to one person might be completely superfluous to your workflow. I used Sonar for 6 years and never used the Matrix or the Step Sequencer. I never use screensets, and never found a need to use mix recall.
When choosing a DAW with a feature set that you don't fully utilize, it's also worth thinking about how that DAW is developed. A DAW that has every feature under the sun requires a lot more ongoing development, and the development/debugging of features that you will never use happens at the expense of the development of features that you do use. Important to consider, that one. Is there a DAW which has a smaller feature set which you'll use more fully? If so, then you're buying into a piece of software that is being developed more along the lines of your requirements as opposed to the requirements of people who use the software completely differently to you.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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Jeff Evans
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/09 22:28:24
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☄ Helpfulby sharke 2018/02/09 23:03:30
Well said Sharke. At last a reasonable view. I feel the OP is short sighted to say the least. There are plenty of DAW's out there that can do the job.
People are too quick also around these parts to forget about the things that other DAW's actually do far better than Sonar ever did as well. They are numerous and for example Studio One has a raft of features that are far superior than Sonar. Things that Sonar could just never do. Also the midi implementation is far better than most realise.
Be prepared to switch to a new DAW and put the work into learning it. Stop being lazy about it. OK you have been using the same DAW for 30 years. Big deal. Let it go and learn a new one. In a short space of time you won't even remember the DAW you were using. You will become super proficient at the new one. Learn the new key commands too rather than trying to map Sonar commands to the new DAW. For a given DAW the key commands are often carefully designed and work very well. Especially if you want to get one of the specially designed Editors Keys QWERTY keyboards which are excellent.
You will still get the job done very well. Amateur or professional. Who knows even better.
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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.
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/09 22:38:15
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☄ Helpfulby sharke 2018/02/09 23:05:51
sharke
If you ask people here if there is anything as good as Sonar, take people's replies with a pinch of salt.
Exactly, it's a bit like going to the FORD dealership and asking them which is better, FORDs or Chevy's (I wonder what answer to expect?  ) Same with statements like " If you're looking for a replacement for Sonar that's almost an exact "feature-for-feature" equivalent, there isn't one." That statement is true and can be made for practically any DAW, not just SONAR, as they all have features etc that others do not. I swiched to Studio One 3 - 2 1/2 years ago or so, haven't looked back, do not miss anything from SONAR. Still was a SONAR Platinum lifetime member, well until Cakewalk went belly up, but really haven't touched it appart from checking in every now and then to see whats going on, but absolutely no desire to use it as such, to be honest I can't stand looking at it now days, it looks old and quite ugly to me now, and certainly feels old and tired to me, and with the flakeynes, the quirks, the bugs . . . no thanks, especially now that nothing will be fixed, updated or added. It's not until you get away from SONAR until you realize how unstable, how flakey etc it really is, not until you experience something else, and I don't mean trying something for a couple of hours or a couple of days, I mean give yourself the chance to become comfortable with another product, forget the ways of SONAR and the SONAR thinking/mentality, learn and go with the ways of the new DAW, then the reality will sink in, as has been seen by many people making posts about their new DAW and the realization they have come to, and how they wouldn't come back to SONAR even if it was resurected. SONAR will quickly fall behind, ( as far as I am concerned it already was, there is a reason it wasn't very popular outside these forums) it's already started, no ARA2, the upcoming Midi enhancements, as time goes buy new plugins etc with new tech won't work, new tech, new and or changed standards etc etc, with no fixes or updates being made it wont take long before the list becomes quite long.
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abacab
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/09 23:21:49
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DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ...
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paulo
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 11:06:06
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I've only properly looked at Studio one, Samplitude and Reaper and although some nice things in each, found them all to be lacking something that outweighed whatever it was that I liked about them. If azslow properly pulls of his opening of cwp's in Reaper project then I will probably get that as back up in case the day comes that I can no longer use Platinum.
I like to revisit old projects and also have many unfinished projects that I'm not going to be spending hours and hours transferring to a new DAW, so the way I see it is that I'm going to have to keep Sonar going anyway, so why not just continue using it?
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TPayton
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 12:49:21
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Are there any soft drinks as good as Dr. Pepper? All DAWs do pretty much the same thing, but they look and feel somewhat different. All carbonated beverages can make you burp, but they do taste slightly different from one another.
Is there another DAW as good as Sonar? Sure. They all can record your burp, but may taste slightly different from one another.
Mixcraft and Studio One are tasting pretty good to me right now. I tried to convince myself that I loved Sonar, but I never really did. I just continued using it because my first music software was a Cakewalk product. I even have a "lifetime" update to Splat. I am loyal almost to a fault. But I am not a fan of wading through endless software options, which is what Sonar seemed like to me. It makes getting things done cumbersome.
So, with apologies to those whose world seems to have come unraveled with the demise of Sonar, I shall move on to something else, get my nose out of manuals and tutorials, and possibly get more accomplished.
Last one out don't forget to shut off the lights.
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 13:19:35
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sharke
People tout Sonar's deep feature set, which is a draw I suppose - if you need all of those features. Most people don't.
I totally agree to that sharke! Well, I would even go further and claim that there is no one really using all of Sonar's features. And that is the reason why I believe we don't need all the new features of other DAWs that are coming in the future. Me for example, I am not at all interested in this new " MIDI Polyphonic Expression". Out of 10 new features I am probably only interested in 1 and even that may show later on that it's not worth the time I spend to learn it! This was also true for me with new features in Sonar in the past. On the other hand I am convinced that features are not the whole thing! IMHO the design and workflow of a DAW is even more important. And in that area Sonar is really advanced compared to the other ones I tested. These are the actual things I am missing in other DAWs, e.g. the clear structured export dialog, comping with lanes, ...
... many years before ...
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sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 14:30:22
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It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 14:59:51
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sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.
Really? I found that some manuals of other vendors are even worse! But I agree that Sonar's isn't the best.
... many years before ...
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abacab
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 15:27:57
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sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.
It wasn't just the lack of a decent manual. Judging by what I see on the internet, not much interest in reading manuals anymore. Just look at all the various DAW video training courses popping up on places like YouTube, Groove3, Udemy, ADSR, etc. It seems that the most popular DAWs by far rule this domain. Tons of content for them. But it is hard to find anything professionally produced recently regarding Sonar though. Well there was that stuff back in the X2 days... but how many years ago was that??? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKRYWdEpbc5PgUgvrNuSvVyfv5qkll0qj It may have helped Sonar's longevity and marketability if Cakewalk had invested in video training more seriously.
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kitekrazy1
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 16:05:20
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marled
sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.
Really? I found that some manuals of other vendors are even worse! But I agree that Sonar's isn't the best.
I think the lack of a manual when Reaper came out stunted it's popularity. Tracktion use to sell one. CHtlutl or whatever has terrible documentation. Manuals are the hardest thing for developers. Some hire 3rd party to create one. I still like the .chm format over pdf.
Sonar Platinum, W7 Pro 32GB Ram, Intel i7 4790, AsRock Z97 Pro 4, NVidia 750ti, AP2496 Sonar Platinum, W7 Pro, 16GB Ram, AMD FX 6300, Gigabyte GA 970 -UD3 P, nVidia 9800GT, Guitar Port, Terratec EWX 2496
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 16:23:00
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abacab
sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.
It wasn't just the lack of a decent manual. Judging by what I see on the internet, not much interest in reading manuals anymore.
Agree! Regrettably! abacab
Just look at all the various DAW video training courses popping up on places like YouTube, Groove3, Udemy, ADSR, etc.
It seems that the most popular DAWs by far rule this domain. Tons of content for them. But it is hard to find anything professionally produced recently regarding Sonar though.
Well there was that stuff back in the X2 days... but how many years ago was that??? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKRYWdEpbc5PgUgvrNuSvVyfv5qkll0qj
It may have helped Sonar's longevity and marketability if Cakewalk had invested in video training more seriously.
Videos?! I always hate looking at a long boring self-manifestation video when I just want to know a small thing. Videos are just well for an introduction, but they do not replace a manual at all.
... many years before ...
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sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 17:13:56
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Yeah videos are crap when you just need a specific piece of information in a hurry. But the Sonar manual has frustrated me a lot in that regard. All too often you're sent on a wild goose chase of what appears to be the link you want, but it's just a page full of other links and inevitably you'll end up clicking back to where you started. At one point I started a list of errata and things that were just plain wrong, but I gave up. I think a lot of the manual is outdated in that it was probably relevant at one point but they forgot to update it with the program. At some point I think they should have taken the documentation for earlier versions offline, because Googling stuff frequently brings up documentation for X2 and X3 with nothing for Platinum, even if you put Platinum in the search query. This had to be confusing for newbies as subtle changes are made all over the program which confuse you if you read outdated docs.
I think one of the best manuals I've read was for the first version of Geist. Clear, accurate, well illustrated, well organized, to the point. The Bitwig manual is great too, and I had no problems with the S1 manual when I demoed it. I think some of the worst manuals I've read are for Melda's plugins - I bought MRhythmizer years ago and still haven't used it because the manual was so confusing (doesn't help that Melda stuff is very "unconventional" in its look and functionality). The Jamstix manual was pretty bad as well, although I got where I wanted to be after reading it 3 times.
Yeah I think Cakewalk really dropped the ball in not providing good training videos for newbies. I recall the YouTube video that was posted here a couple of years ago by a half drunk guy who ranted for 20 minutes about how baffling Sonar was to a beginner, and even though he got panned on here I think a lot of what he said made sense. He just wanted to install the program and get a basic guitar track going, and yet none of Cakewalk's "Getting Started" videos showed him how to do that. I wonder how many people demoed the program and ended up going with a DAW by a company that actually helped them through the baby steps in a clear, newbie friendly way.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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pwalpwal
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 17:17:35
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marled
Videos?! I always hate looking at a long boring self-manifestation video when I just want to know a small thing. Videos are just well for an introduction, but they do not replace a manual at all.
videos suit business, because they're a lot quicker/cheaper to churn out than proper documentation
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abacab
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 17:46:22
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marled
Videos?! I always hate looking at a long boring self-manifestation video when I just want to know a small thing. Videos are just well for an introduction, but they do not replace a manual at all.
I agree... but the masses of modern consumers probably do not. I always download a manual for anything I use, skim it from cover to cover, and use search to look up any topics I have questions about. But the next generation has been raised on videos ... Just look at the quantity newbie posts on forums from folks who could not be bothered to do a Google search. You think they will ever crack a manual open? Ha! I think the fate of a consumer software product lies in how well a product manager and marketing team can reach out to this new demographic. Cakewalk failed to do this effectively, apparently. But I will give them credit for attempting to reach Steam users, but that was probably not broad enough exposure. Cakewalk's competition has this one figured out... And for better or worse, for a company to grow and profit, they must keep bringing aboard new users. Times have changed, and we are getting older... I will leave it here with one final comment on the topic. It matters little how good a DAW actually is if nobody knows about it beyond the loyal users. Word of mouth only goes so far. Eyeballs on YouTube? FTW!!!
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kitekrazy1
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 18:02:40
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abacab
marled
Videos?! I always hate looking at a long boring self-manifestation video when I just want to know a small thing. Videos are just well for an introduction, but they do not replace a manual at all.
I agree... but the masses of modern consumers probably do not.
I always download a manual for anything I use, skim it from cover to cover, and use search to look up any topics I have questions about. But the next generation has been raised on videos ...
Just look at the quantity newbie posts on forums from folks who could not be bothered to do a Google search. You think they will ever crack a manual open? Ha!
I think the fate of a consumer software product lies in how well a product manager and marketing team can reach out to this new demographic. Cakewalk failed to do this effectively, apparently. But I will give them credit for attempting to reach Steam users, but that was probably not broad enough exposure.
Cakewalk's competition has this one figured this out...
You are from a different generation where people actually read things. Sometimes you see a lack of 3rd party tutorial videos is because the developer does a great job on their own. Image Line is great at this. Google is not always reliable. I watched a video from a developer that said tutorials slow down the process of doing. Even the Waves site one guy said just start out with the presets. Unfortunately Cakewalk with their frequent updates made it difficult for 3rd party to create resources. Sonar Power was always great but that stopped. The best tutorials I've comes across came with project files. Sony was the best.
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 18:09:48
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abacab
I will leave it here with one final comment on the topic. It matters little how good a DAW actually is if nobody knows about it beyond the loyal users. Word of mouth only goes so far.
That is not only true for DAWs, it is true for everything (albums, songs, political opinion, ...).
... many years before ...
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sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 18:23:37
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I don't know why the need to pooh pooh videos in general though. They have their place and are definitely better than a manual for certain things. Sometimes it's just much easier to get how to do something when you see someone else doing it on screen. Manuals can be confusing and even counterproductive if they're not written well. There's nothing worse than reading something in a manual that is ambiguous or creates more questions than it answers. There's an art to writing manuals that I think most software developers just don't have. And a technical manual is going to look far more useful to a technically minded person than a newbie. People forget how confusing a brand new piece (or type) of software is to a complete beginner. Technically minded people are usually pretty bad at understanding what a newbie does and doesn't know, and they make erroneous assumptions about the reader's level of knowledge which causes confusion and frustration. Video instructors sometimes do the same thing, but having the visual demonstration on screen makes all the difference.
Also, manuals are not often organized that well and present far more information to the beginner than they need. This is especially true with "reference" manuals the aim of which is to be as complete as possible. They're not written in a way which is conducive to learning, especially when the new user just wants to get up and running to the point where they can figure out the rest on their own. When reading a manual, you have to be good at separating the stuff that's relevant to you from the stuff that's superfluous to a beginner. I recall learning how to program in C from a book that turned out in later chapters to be great, but man were the first few chapters a confusing PITA to read, unbelievable for a book which claims you don't need prior knowledge. They contain stuff like this:
"When appearing in an expression, char and short, both signed and unsigned, are automatically converted to int or, if necessary, to unsigned int. (If short is the same size as int, unsigned short is larger than int; in that case, unsigned short is converted to unsigned int.) Under K&R C, but not under current C, float is automatically converted to double. Because they are conversions to larger types, they are called promotions."
As a beginner, you're left wondering how much of this stuff you really need to know now and how much you should come back to later. I find manuals to be full of unnecessarily confusing stuff like this, and in many cases videos are the best way to go for a beginner.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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abacab
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 18:26:39
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kitekrazy1
marled
sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.
Really? I found that some manuals of other vendors are even worse! But I agree that Sonar's isn't the best.
Tracktion use to sell one.
To their credit, Tracktion has them posted up on their website now for free, along with some videos. It's not bad, covers a lot in a logical, easy to understand way. at 463 pages, it's a bit slimmer than the Sonar manual. https://www.tracktion.com/training/manuals Now they just need to update the manual to include ALL new features! But they better hurry, with their version 9 due to be released soon. In beta now...
DAW: CbB; Sonar Platinum, and others ...
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abacab
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 18:47:16
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sharke
I recall learning how to program in C from a book that turned out in later chapters to be great, but man were the first few chapters a confusing PITA to read, unbelievable for a book which claims you don't need prior knowledge. They contain stuff like this:
"When appearing in an expression, char and short, both signed and unsigned, are automatically converted to int or, if necessary, to unsigned int. (If short is the same size as int, unsigned short is larger than int; in that case, unsigned short is converted to unsigned int.) Under K&R C, but not under current C, float is automatically converted to double. Because they are conversions to larger types, they are called promotions."
As a beginner, you're left wondering how much of this stuff you really need to know now and how much you should come back to later. I find manuals to be full of unnecessarily confusing stuff like this, and in many cases videos are the best way to go for a beginner.
The best intro video courses on C programming are available free from Harvard's online version of ' CS50: Introduction to Computer Science', offered through edX. https://www.edx.org/cours...science-harvardx-cs50x The on campus lectures are all videotaped, so you can watch online, follow along with the exercises and projects, and fill your head with all sorts of ints and chars...
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Jeff Evans
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 19:50:50
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paulo
I like to revisit old projects and also have many unfinished projects that I'm not going to be spending hours and hours transferring to a new DAW, so the way I see it is that I'm going to have to keep Sonar going anyway, so why not just continue using it? I think this is good advice. Especially if you like to revisit a lot of older projects. Unless Sonar is going to magically stop working I would have thought staying with it is actually the best thing to do. Personally I prefer to not revisit projects and once they are done and dusted I tend to put them to bed. So moving to a new DAW works OK for me. Simply continue on with new projects in that. The Studio One manual is not fantastic either. I think it is OK up to a point and it seems to cover a lot of things but the problem with it at the moment is it is very out of date. There have been a raft of new things that have been implemented that are simply not in the manual as yet. I found Groove 3 videos on Studio One to be excellent. Even starting right back with V 1.5 and working up to V2 and so on. (note you have to watch the first ones because all the basics covered there are simply not covered again. All the basic features are still present in the latest version) There is always the Explained level followed by the Advanced levels etc.. They are very well organised in terms of learning e.g. crawl before you walk before you run etc... There are tons of specialised videos on it now e.g. Recording and Editing in Midi etc.. Once you see this you realise that the midi features in Studio One are way above what you may have originally thought. Studio One does have one very good thing going for it and that is a complete third party website totally devoted to it such as Studio One Expert. This is very good indeed. Not only do they have ton of training videos on there but each new update often comes out with a video on that site. There are lots of short videos too on how to do this and that. We are lucky in that regard having that extra site. The Presonus site is also pretty good too in terms of free video training. They also cover the very basics very well too.
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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azslow3
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 20:24:19
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abacab
The best intro video courses on C programming are available free from Harvard's online version of 'CS50: Introduction to Computer Science', offered through edX. https://www.edx.org/cours...science-harvardx-cs50x
I know most people will disagree, but I think the ONLY way to really understand C programming language... is first learn the commands of PDP-11. Without that, it is impossible to understand WHY C is what it is. Note that: a) learning processor commands/addressing is simple (normally done in parallel with assembly language, easier to read/write/remember and has one to one relation). Just ~100 commands, and all are simple. b) x86 commands/addressing will not help to understand C...
Sonar 8LE -> Platinum infinity, REAPER, Windows 10 pro GA-EP35-DS3L, E7500, 4GB, GTX 1050 Ti, 2x500GB RME Babyface Pro (M-Audio Audiophile Firewire/410, VS-20), Kawai CN43, TD-11, Roland A500S, Akai MPK Mini, Keystation Pro, etc. www.azslow.com - Control Surface Integration Platform for SONAR, ReaCWP, AOSC and other accessibility tools
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sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 20:39:42
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Depends on what you want to use C for. In my case I just needed to write a simple app to help calculate the invoices for my business from Google Calendar data. Total overkill for sure, and I could have done it a lot quicker in Python, but I was feeling a bit nerdy at the time :)
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 21:00:50
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azslow3
abacab
The best intro video courses on C programming are available free from Harvard's online version of 'CS50: Introduction to Computer Science', offered through edX. https://www.edx.org/cours...science-harvardx-cs50x
I know most people will disagree, but I think the ONLY way to really understand C programming language... is first learn the commands of PDP-11. Without that, it is impossible to understand WHY C is what it is.
Note that:
a) learning processor commands/addressing is simple (normally done in parallel with assembly language, easier to read/write/remember and has one to one relation). Just ~100 commands, and all are simple.
b) x86 commands/addressing will not help to understand C...
azslow3, I agree with you that it is helpful for learning C (IMHO for any programming language) that you have learned or better worked with an assembly language that has a one to one relation to the processor commands. But it does not have to be PDP-11, there are other ones like MVS assembly that work also great for general computer understanding.
... many years before ...
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 21:09:31
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Concerning intro videos for DAWs I agree that for the first step they are valuable. And I find myself that the Sonar intro videos are not that bad as some people say. As I a started working with Sonar only 3.5 years ago I still remember that the videos helped me a lot to find my way.
... many years before ...
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azslow3
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 21:56:37
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marled
But it does not have to be PDP-11, there are other ones like MVS assembly that work also great for general computer understanding.
Sorry, I was not writing about general computer understanding. But about "C" programming language. It directly match PDP-11 set, since it was developed as a high level assembly for PDP-11. And that was my point. There is some irony in that: x86 has several features which PDP-11 does not, while PDP-11 has own distinct features. Once it was clear that x86 takes the lead, it could be expected that a new language is written for it, to match its features. Yet that has not happened
Sonar 8LE -> Platinum infinity, REAPER, Windows 10 pro GA-EP35-DS3L, E7500, 4GB, GTX 1050 Ti, 2x500GB RME Babyface Pro (M-Audio Audiophile Firewire/410, VS-20), Kawai CN43, TD-11, Roland A500S, Akai MPK Mini, Keystation Pro, etc. www.azslow.com - Control Surface Integration Platform for SONAR, ReaCWP, AOSC and other accessibility tools
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sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 22:43:14
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What about learning computer science in general. I remember watching the infamous MIT "structure and interpretation of computer programs" course that they did for Hewlett Packard (probably on YouTube) and they used Scheme (a variant of LISP) for that, and it seemed like a great way to teach the basic concepts of programming without getting too bogged down in the specifics of syntax. That course is great btw if you can find somewhere to watch it.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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sharke
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/10 22:45:50
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abacab
sharke
I recall learning how to program in C from a book that turned out in later chapters to be great, but man were the first few chapters a confusing PITA to read, unbelievable for a book which claims you don't need prior knowledge. They contain stuff like this:
"When appearing in an expression, char and short, both signed and unsigned, are automatically converted to int or, if necessary, to unsigned int. (If short is the same size as int, unsigned short is larger than int; in that case, unsigned short is converted to unsigned int.) Under K&R C, but not under current C, float is automatically converted to double. Because they are conversions to larger types, they are called promotions."
As a beginner, you're left wondering how much of this stuff you really need to know now and how much you should come back to later. I find manuals to be full of unnecessarily confusing stuff like this, and in many cases videos are the best way to go for a beginner.
The best intro video courses on C programming are available free from Harvard's online version of 'CS50: Introduction to Computer Science', offered through edX. https://www.edx.org/cours...science-harvardx-cs50x
The on campus lectures are all videotaped, so you can watch online, follow along with the exercises and projects, and fill your head with all sorts of ints and chars...
There are some really great college lectures online. The "Programming Paradigms" series that Stanford has on its YouTube channel (lecturer Jerry Cain) is particularly good, I learned loads from it.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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marled
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/11 09:17:46
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azslow3
marled
But it does not have to be PDP-11, there are other ones like MVS assembly that work also great for general computer understanding.
Sorry, I was not writing about general computer understanding. But about "C" programming language. It directly match PDP-11 set, since it was developed as a high level assembly for PDP-11. And that was my point.
You're right. I have not expressed me clearly. I wanted just to say that if you learn an assembly that has nearly a one to one relation to the processor commands, then you have got a kind of a visible imagination what is going on in a program in a computer. And this helps you for learning any programming language, especially C and C++.
... many years before ...
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tenfoot
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Re: Is there a DAW as good as Sonar?
2018/02/12 13:10:18
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Matron Landslide
I swiched to Studio One 3 - 2 1/2 years ago or so, haven't looked back, do not miss anything from SONAR.
Gotta say Matron, after 4 months of intensive use (8-10 hours every day), incredibly without a single glitch or crash, I am starting to wish I had too! Melodyne ARA is flawless, and project loading is unbelievably fast, just to name a couple of favourites. The plyaylist was my tie to Sonar, but so easily solved 3rd party. Still, I dont want to be too critical. The old girl was good to me for a very long time, but it does prove the devil you know is not always better than the one you don't :)
Bruce. Sonar Platinum 2017-09, Studio One 3.5.3, Win 10 x64, Quad core i7, RME Fireface, Behringer X32 Producer, Behringer X32 Rack, Presonus Faderport, Lemure Software Controller (Android), Enttec DMXIS VST lighting controller, Xtempo POK.
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