Hello,
 
I am heading towards a multi-touch Windows 10 setup with a 32” multi-touch screen. FL Studio and Sonar are the two DAWs that have invested resources in the multi-touch technology. I favor Sonar X3 (or soon X4) because it has ARA for Melodyne. I really like FL Studio 11 and will implement all this when V12 is released.
 
So the question is, is there any advantage to using FL Studio as a VSTi inside Sonar X3? If you are using FL Studio as a VSTi in any DAW have you found this combination useful. Use it mostly for midi or audio or for both?
 
Is it better to use VSTi or rewire?
 

I don't know about FL Studio's VSTi or rewire implementation but they both probably do about the same thing. You may be able to get more than 16 channels out of rewire, that may be an advantage depending. The only real difference is whether you want to run it inproc (dll as a VSTi) or multi-proc (exe as rewire). Running it as a VSTi also has the advantage of not having to manage multiple projects (one for FL, one for Sonar), the VSTi settings are stored in the Host (Sonar). Running FL Studio as a rewire device may give you more flexibility. Experiment with both and see what works best for your application.
They both do essentially the same thing but differently.

Fl studio is much better used as a vsti more stable and Easier to get things routed,downsides include no routing audio from sonar to fl studio and many of the keyboard keys are given to sonar "only" so if your accustomed to using hot keys in fl studio for speed this will probably become a issue fast.
Other then that working them together is a dream having the best of both worlds,mostly I'll do some work in fl studio getting all the setup stuff and some of the idea for the track started in fl then open fl as vsti in sonar and go from there,this seems to work the best because as I've said sonar will take a lot of the hot key functions away and starting fl in sonar empty well...try it youill see what I mean.fl shines at midi programming but falls short in a lot of audio editing areas not that it can't just sonar dose in two clicks what fl takes 8 clicks,in some cases automation is also easier in sonar for similar reasons yet fl automation is hands down the more flexible but can become very disorganized if your not careful about your color coding and or naming everything as you go.automation is really purely situational depending on what you need.

Sorry for the double post...  Double removed, Karyn  I forgot to mention also when you save in sonar also save in fl studio sonar will save its own version of what's in fl and will open that but I've found not all the time but once in a while sonar will miss some detail and if you don't remember it may be gone,best bet make sure fl is set to auto save regularly they don't always like to play together remember both programs rely on windows integration sometimes they use the same recourse and causes a crash.

i was getting crashes while rewiring FL into Sonar (x64 versions), so vst is the way to go (as suggested by the FL people)

Thanks for all the help:
 
From the responses it seems that Sonar/FL Studio VSTi is a good combination.
 
Best to use FL Studio as a VSTi in Sonar rather than rewire. Rewire sometimes crashes.
 
Many or most or all of the FL Studio as a VSTi hot keys will not work. Work on FL studio first and later open it as a VSTi on Sonar so to have all the hotkey function.
 
The FL studio project will automatically be saved by Sonar, with an occasional error.
 
Waiting to Sonar X4 and FL studio 12 and Windows 10 as it will improve the multi-touch implementation.
 
Question: I wonder if can drag and drop or copy and paste between FL Studio as VSTi and Sonar, in both directions. How about midi copy and past between them.

You can drag and drop audio between FL and Sonar. You can drag and drop a MIDI clip from Sonar onto a Channel in FL. That's as much as you can do between the two. No dragging MIDI data from FL to Sonar, you have to save the MIDI file in the Piano Roll and drag it from Sonar's Browser.
 
One thing to note is that Sonar has full keyboard focus, and I don't think you can change it. So you won't have any shortcuts at your disposal when using FL inside of Sonar, which pretty much makes FL useless by killing its quick workflow. I prefer doing everything I need to do in FL then exporting the stems, but to each his own.

 
I have two monitors perhaps get the keyboard to focus on either?
google: keyboard focus monitors windows
will this work?
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1275&bih=1094&noj=1&q=keyboard+focus+monitors+windows&spell=1&sa=X&ei=QtCLVJn-B4miNr7XgdAL&ved=0CBwQvwUoAA 

I have two monitors myself, but that's not any different from using one monitor and locking a program to one half and the other program to another half. Either way FL is running inside of Sonar, so Sonar determines whether it gets access to the keyboard. Sonar allows you to give a plugin keyboard focus but that doesn't work in FL's case.
 
I'm not sure what you're trying to show me, that's just a Google search.

FidelityMusic
I have two monitors myself, but that's not any different from using one monitor and locking a program to one half and the other program to another half. Either way FL is running inside of Sonar, so Sonar determines whether it gets access to the keyboard. Sonar allows you to give a plugin keyboard focus but that doesn't work in FL's case.
 
I'm not sure what you're trying to show me, that's just a Google search.

I suspect that you are right that Sonar disables FL Studio but then again there may be a way to go around all that.
 
Reaper problem:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=76223
 
A partial solution Reaper
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=88944
 
here http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=91036 it states to use
Autohotkeys http://www.autohotkey.com/
 
There is more on Google:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22fl+studio%22+vst+OR+vsti+hotkeys+OR+%22hot+keys%22+focus but I am not good at detecting what may work in Sonar.
 
Perhaps Sonar X4 will fix this. Giving multi-touch focus to VSTs and VSTis should also allow the qwerty keyboard to shift the focus to the plugins.