Leap of faith: From Sonar X1d to Cubase 7

  Hi guys,
 
Well, I've been using Sonar since Sonar 7, and last year when X2 came out I decided to wait and see and not to upgrade from X1d - at least immediately. Let me explain why.
 
X2 seems to be very buggy. I've been reading this forum and found out that it would be unwise to upgrade. I'm in the middle of recording/mixing and I don't want to upgrade only to find out that my projects doesn't work anymore. I think it's just too risky. I'm almost done with mixing our debut album but I've decided not to upgrade when it's finished. Instead of upgrading I've been thinking to try Cubase 7. Why? Well, let me explain you why. :)
 
First of all, If I buy a new DAW I don't want to install any LE/DEMO version of ANY kind of music software or plugins. If I found out that I don't need them, they're still on my computer part of that DAW. To put it simply: I think Cakewalk should develope their own plugins/reverb/ampsims, not to promote third party plugins as part of their DAW package. If I want to buy third party plugins I know where to find them.
 
I don't want to pay $100 for improved Smart Tool or touch screen support. I can do all my audio file cuts and clips with X1.
 
So what else Sonar X2 has to offer?
 
Breverb. I have ValhallaRoom, ValhallaVintageVerb and ValhallaShimmer. They're great. One day I will purchase Altiverb.
 
Overloud TH2. I have Amplitube.
 
Upgraded mastering tools. I have T-RackS Grand.
 
Session Drummer 3. I have Superior Drummer 2.0.
 
True Piano. I have Reason 6.5 with Abbey Road Keyboards.
 
ProChannel Console Emulator. I have Waves Abbey Road REDD, T-RackS British Channel and I'm thinking of buying Slate VCC.
 
And what comes to ProChannel, I purchased every ProChannel module there is only to find out that I don't need them. I prefer T-RackS' compressors and limiters.
 
And last but not least: I don't want to buy a DAW that is not stable.
 
So, why I should upgrade to X2? To get buggy DAW and LE software I don't need? Thanks, but no thanks. I think Cakewalk should rethink their concept of DAW. Now it seems to me that they didn't spend enough time beta testing and they kinda rushed an unifinished product out to be released. And I've said it before but I say it again: please keep the future versions of Sonar free from all those third party software and plugins.
 
When I'm working I want to record music and work with stable DAW - not to report crash bugs to support. Don't get me wrong: I use Sonar X1 daily and I think Sonar X1 is the best DAW I've ever used.
 
Edit: Paragraphs with IE (hope it works).

J4R10

 I use Sonar X1 daily and I think Sonar X1 is the best DAW I've ever used.

Then why change, either to X2 or Cubase 7? Just keep on using X1d until there is something you want in the other program.
 
Of course upgrading to X2 would be way cheaper than getting Cubase, and you may even find you are one of us that do not find X2 very buggy. I find X2 a big improvment over X1. X2 and X1 can happily co-exist on the same PC.
 
Its easy to find similar comments about Cubase 7 being too buggy to use, here is one selected at random http://homerecording.com/bbs/user-forums-brand/cubase-user-forum/cubase-7-nightmare-352073/ and I am sure you will find plenty of satisfied customers too.
 
And just because there is bundled content if you do a custom install you can choose not to install a lot of it. And there is always the Studio version if you are just interested in the core program.
 
 

Most people find X2 to be stable.  If you have read otherwise in forum, it is because forum is a place to ask questions about failures and not necessarily successes.  So the view is distorted by its nature.  Also, 95% of all issues of instability are not actually X2, rather they are the OS, interface driver not set up (and optimized) correctly or in some cases older plugins.  This is true of all DAWs.  Jumping from one DAW to another DAW will not solve these issues.  People Jump around only to sometimes come back, realizing it is their system, not the DAW software that needs to be changed.

Glyn Barnes


Well Cubase 7 contains LE software - except they call call it SE

HALion Sonic SE

HALion Sonic SE is a streamlined version of HALion Sonic, Steinberg’s premier VST workstation

They also use third parties, Voxengo for one (That's not a bad thing IMHO)


I can see where you are coming from but don't full understand you logic.

 
Oh crap!
 
When I purchased Sonar 7 five years ago it came with Dimension LE. I upgraded to Pro and couple of months later Sonar 8 was released with Dimension Pro. Nice timing. No mercy...
 
But I think it's weird that first they had this deal with NI and now they have this thing with Overloud. What next? Some other developer, maybe? I think it's best to let the customers decide what third party LE plugins/software they want to install - and yes, it's good if there is an option to install or not to install them (didn't know that).
 
This current marketing tactic is not working for me, obviously.

Hi all,for me X2a is the best Pro Daw on the market (for me) and my clients preferred several times the Sonar prjs over Protools prj for the more definited and dimensional sound (maybe 64bit FP workflow?).The last....the Cubase 7 aspect is reaaaaally ugly!!For me.Best

To the original poster - as other have stated, best of luck if you decide to search for greener pastures.  Any such choice bnrings potential for issues, so I would suggest you do some forum reading to determine the kinds of things that are lurking with any other software you are considering.

As far as X2a goes, there are a great many folks who are running with X2a as their production go-to recording software.  As one person posted above, lots of times folks do not post when things are working, but only when they are confused about something or think they may have some sort of bug.

Certainly, there are quite a few posts in this forum about crashes and glitches and audio dropouts and such, but MANY times, if not most times, those issues are in fact caused by things like:

Installation issues (not installing Sonar with the run as administrator option.

Audio interface driver issues - drivers may not be available for either Windows 7 or Windows 8, or a particular driver version is unstable.

Mis-match of sample rates between Sonar and the interface.

Background software running on the computer that conflicts with the operation of Sonar.

Choosing a driver mode that has problems on a particular computer. Sometimes WDM works best, and most times ASIO works best.

In the above cases, these are generally solvable, except where there are driver issues that are beyond the ability to alter - such as no drivers available for Win 7 or Win 89, or stability problems with a given version of a driver.

If you look at the threads for the above kinds of issues, you will find that in most cases those issues are resolved, and are not at all attributable to Sonar as the cause of the issues.

There ARE some bugs present in Sonar, and that is true with any software, but I believe that many of those also have work-arounds available.

So, again best of everything to you for whatever you decide.  Please KNOW that there a giant bunch of folks here in this forum who will go to great lengths to assist you or anybody with whatever questions or issues are presented in posts.

Bob Bone

Hi Bob,

Yeah, I think I've been quite a lucky what comes to issues with Sonar (X1d). Of course DAW get more unstable when you have all those CPU hungry third party plugins all over your project but that is something I can live with. BTW: there seems to be some issue with WaveShells and Cakewalk Plug-In Manager. I wrote about that on the other forum, but I'll copy/paste it here later.

I have Windows 7 (x64) and I've optimized everything to get the best out of it. I have Windows 7 on SSD; Sonar, Reaper, Reason + plugins on other SSD; all the sample files on external HD, and my recorded audio drive is "regular" 100 GB HD. Everything is working nicely. So that's why I'm not into upgrading. Why fix it if it ain't broke? :) 

But you never know. As I said, it's a leap of faith. I have never used Cubase. I've heard that Nuendo is really stable but that stability costs a little bit too much. When I've finished with my current projects, I'll download the trial version of Cubase. Maybe I'll stick with X1, maybe I wait 'til the X3 is released. I know it costs a little bit more to upgrade from X1 than upgrade from X2, but that's how it goes.

All I wanted to say is that I think X2 is not necessary must-have upgrade. I think they should have released it as a free update for X1d users - without all those LE's and name it X1.5

J4R10

All I wanted to say is that I think X2 is not necessary must-have upgrade. I think they should have released it as a free update for X1d users - without all those LE's and name it X1.5

Well - it's certainly your prerogative not to buy an update. I personally find X2 to have been great value, and a very solid release and I am very happy with X2a. 
So this is really just another - it should have been free - thread. I want it - but I don't want to pay for it.

vintagevibe

Brando

J4R10

All I wanted to say is that I think X2 is not necessary must-have upgrade. I think they should have released it as a free update for X1d users - without all those LE's and name it X1.5

Well - it's certainly your prerogative not to buy an update. I personally find X2 to have been great value, and a very solid release and I am very happy with X2a. 
So this is really just another - it should have been free - thread. I want it - but I don't want to pay for it.

X2 is a great value and there some nice touches but there are still a lot of bugs.  I'm looking at Cubase 7 simply because I need a different tool set that Sonar doesn't provide.

Knock yourself out and buy whatever you like. Best of luck with it too. I was replying to a direct quote from the OP who after saying he was jumping to Cubase, said the above.
I have always believed a user can and should use whatever DAW they want to use, though I never understood why people feel the need to come back here and tell SONAR users about it except for the need to feel vindicated in their choice.
The OP has his opinions about X1 and X2, and Cubase which he/she is certainly entitled to (as are you). I only jumped into this thread with the intention to respond to the single line comment made by the OP which was a question about the perceived value of X2 - which I felt compelled to say, is great value here and well worth the price I paid.
Peace. 

Conspiracy theorists unite!
In the old hardware days I wouldn't have considered a hardware limitation (lack of polyphony in a monophonic synth, or lack of a routing option on a mixer) to be a "bug". But something that has crept into the conversation in the DAW world - is the notion of "bugs" - which sometimes are a lack of features, an inefficient workflow (in the viewpoint of the user) or (sometimes) an unfamiliarity on the part of the user with the correct method (as intended by the programmers/designers) - in addition to real "bugs" and deficiencies.

I can't imagine any DAW producer deliberately programming in "bugs" to propagate business. I think sometimes "features" aren't as well received as the designers intended, and sometimes they don't work as well as intended in the real world. Sometimes more bugs creep into the process especially when a lot of changes are attempted.

Bugs may be there but I haven't found any real show stoppers in X2. In fact X2 has performed consistently better here than X1 did.


Rauhaa
 

Hi all,a bit out of thread but is reality of facts that many Sonar user(legal copy i hope)problems can be solved by learning to use the program and reading the manual.This is the difference between professional or not.Best

Edit: Duplicate post courtesy of IE9.
 

Brando
, though I never understood why people feel the need to come back here and tell SONAR users about it except for the need to feel vindicated in their choice.

Peace. 

I never understood why people get so defensive when they hear that others want to leave Sonar and why they feel the need to comment about it.