Migrating for Ableton Live ...

Hello!
I come from Ableton, is there a place I could get a migation guide? Like an how to of the basic? I know Live has the best UI, so it is hard to compare other GUI with it, but I am really lost! Too much button/menu/widget that take too much space. 


Well, sorry, I guess I will have to get use to it because Ableton and my UAD card doesnt looks to be cooperative.

So here some question:

How can I make a 3 way cross over? ( I usually use the EQ3 or 3 autofilter in 3 different instrument rack chain )

Is there something like an effect rack in Sonar?

How can I make parrallele (NY style) compression?

Is there something like the Utiliy in Sonar to narrow or widen the stereo field? ( I use unison and reverb on my hard synth, narrowing the stereo field of a track, make it sit perfectly in a busy mix, and expanding the stereo is perfect for hithat loop with autpanning).

is there an autopanning or do I have to make it by hand by automation?

Is there a way to have an adaptive grid display? Now, it looks like the gird only display beats.



Much important how can I adjust the start of a loop?

Use case:

I usually track my synth OTB in my gear rack. I track 8/16 beats long loop. ( The sound loop so it record the tail at the beginning of the clips and I adjust it in the arrangement view for the first pass).

Now, it will have latency, has the audio interface has to reencode the sound. How I work around it very easily ( less than 30 sec by track) is to open the clip view, zoom on the first note (if the clip start at 1.3.1 for example) then adjust the start of clip by the amount the note is off. Very easy with the adaptative grid and it is bread and butter job.

I tried to do it in Sonar with no success, even after RTFM, I always RTFM.

If the clip start at 1.1.1 it's easy, but for clip that start later, I have no idea how I can calculate the latency.


Thank you very much for your help! I am very lost!

Oops, unfinished sentence there.

Regarding the effects bin... you probably can't see it if you haven't dragged the track height to show all the track header contents. It's on the right hand side of each track header. Right click in it to get a list of all plug ins (you can also drag and drop plug ins from the browser).

Proj3ktDharma,

I think you'll find that those who are not fully familiar with both Live and Sonar will have a hard time responding or may not fully understand the 'differences'.

Sonar and LIVE are, as you may know, *VERY* different both in terms of workflow, routing flexibility, and user interface, and in other areas as well.

I think it would be safe to say there's no "straight forward" migration path.   What many do, however, is open the Live Project and a new Sonar project.    This allows you to copy and paste some (not all) of the data from Live to Sonar.

BUT because Live has 2 modes (session view / arrange view) it gets complicated.    For example, if you wanted to copy the "MIDI" data linearly from Live, you'd have to be in arrange view and make sure that the entire dataset was available there.

Same applies to copying audio -- but the easier way would be simply to export the WAV (or other format both apps could read).  This is generally how I've done it.

All the above applies to migrating existing projects.

IF, however, you're simply looking for how to do things on fresh projects, well frankly that is where it will become more obvious just how different Sonar and Live are.  And spending some time with the manual would be highly recommended ;)

Keep in mind that MANY of the "functions" you may wish to do (NY parallel compression as example) are easily doable in both apps with very much the same "basic" technique.

Using NY Parallel Compression as the example ...  you would create a BUS in Sonar and approach it as an "AUX" (SEND to it).  You would then place the compressor in this bus.    Then you would create the SEND on EACH track that you want to add this compression with the SEND pointing to that BUS.   The track OUTPUT would go to the mains (or another output bus like the Master Bus or Drum Bus, etc) and the AUX (compress) BUS would go to some output as well.

(Sonar has really good/flexible BUSSing system, and you can add as many as you need when you need them).

You could also send a group of tracks to a BUS (let's say a DRUM BUS) with its output to the Master Bus-- then create a SEND on that BUS to another AUX BUS that will house the compressor; and that bus would then go to the Master Bus, etc.

These are just simple examples.

Routing is obviously variable depending your needs, but the general approach is basically no different in LIVE or Sonar:

Track or Bus data gets "sent" to an AUX (bus).  The AUX bus has the compressor as an FX (the FX bin in Sonar).  The source and auxes get routed appropriately or as desired for control (master bus, etc).

Sonar does come with a lot of its own plugins that would be useful -- but Live excels in this area, so I wouldn't expect the same results or variety or flexibility from Sonar's plugin sets (though some are very good).

"Channel Tools", as one example, handles your question about narrowing/widening the stereo field - and does a LOT more.  It's actually an incredibly useful plugin.

But the point I think I would stress most is that Live and Sonar (as I've said earlier, basically) are kind of two different animals.  Live is unlike almost any other DAW out there (and it's so widely used in major artists productions, etc).   It's routing flexibility is superb (though tricky).

Sonar does have a very different workflow, so don't expect to find some of the things you've gotten used to in Live.   They are hard to find in almost any other DAW as well.

Sonar, on the other hand, has lots of other types of strong features, though   It seems some of the biggest complaints (other than bugs) from many users (including me) has more to do with the GUI approach than the actual feature set;  and there are those who feel Cakewalk has made some bad choices/decisions about how they handle their long time customers -- but those things are not major hurdles in any way, really.

One other concern that some/many (not all) have discovered is that Sonar X1 seems to be very "picky" about what hardware/configuration it runs on.

I have nothing but trouble with it on my MAIN DAW (which runs 3 other major hosts without issues) but when I run it off an i5 Windows 7 based laptop I get MUCH MUCH better results.

BTW - Sonar is much better with handling Latency (I think) than LIVE at this point (though the latest version may improve on that) so the fact you're doing OTB I think you'll like Sonar's utilities for managing external devices indeed.

One last thing - if you haven't noticed yet:  Sonar is NOT gapless.  Live and almost every other DAW is.  SO that may throw you at first, but if it's not a showstopper for you (coming from Live which excels at being gapless), then you'll be ok probably.

So - good luck in your new DAW journey ;)

pwal


rewire?

Caffeine?

The Sonitus Surround is definitely an autopanner! R

Proj3ktDharma,
you should change your topic because we don't know where you're migrating actually...
from or for Ableton...