Shea,

FWIW, I have a project studio in which I very happily use Sonar, but I make my living as a musician, and I often work in other people's studios. One of the studios I work in (about once a week) uses the latest version of Nuendo. I generally don't get to hear the final mixes, but what I do hear sounds fine. BUT ... there is almost NEVER a session in which some software "bug" doesn't rear it's ugly little head, be it dongle problems, HD archiving, midi glitches, etc.. In other words, valuable time is frequently wasted rebooting, etc.. The engineer knows I use Sonar, but we get along fine (which is very important in my line of work) because we don't argue about, or really even discuss our respective programs. (He doesn't hire me, the producer does, but he could easily make me look bad if he wanted to.)

My PERSONAL opinion, which I'm passing on to you just for your consideration, is that Nuendo is a fine sounding program with a lot of coding "warts". In other words, it's not very stable, and that would definitely affect my consideration of a software platform. On the other hand, my version of Sonar is VERY stable, and I use it quite a bit. (And what I record, seems to come out sounding very much like it goes in ... which is what I want.) That's just my opinion, but I think it should definitely be a consideration, considering how important workflow can be, especially when it's interrupted in a creative environment, and the clock's running.

I wish you good fortune in your studio business, but I've posted here so that you would be sure look at another aspect that's really important IMHO.

ORIGINAL: shea

Listen Guys,
All this scientific evidence that you are all throwing out, I don't see the sense to it atall because we are living in the real world. I will admit one thing, I am not scientifically minded, but I am in the music business for the past 30 years. Making a living from it is the only thing I am interested in and that is providing the best possible service and an end quality product to our clients. These clients are not interested in the scientific analasys of a wav file, they are only interested in what they hear in the final product.

When half a dozen good paying customers come to your studio, and insist on using Nuendo, simply because they know the final product sounds better, I would have to agree with them, but most importantly, I have to stand back and take note of whats happening here. I would have thought that I gave a good enough analasys of my observations and I was merely asking why, but so far I end up with 5 pages of scientific useless discussion because after all guys, the people who spend their money recording are only interested in what they hear in the final product.

Well sorry that you don't want all this scientific evidence arguin' with yer' ears! What exactly do you want us to say then?! Ok all try: Hey Shea, I asked my buddy down the street to give Sonar and Nuendo an A/B test. Here are the results: HIS ears have determined that Sonar's audio engine does INDEED sound BETTER than Nuendo's. There you have it folks, the final say! No need for more posts
Sorry Shea, but I always groan when I see posts like this. It's like me saying "Hey everybody, I don't mean to disturb you, but I have concluded that the color blue is in fact much more appealing than the colour red. I know because my eyes have determined as such! and don't try and argue with me with all your fancy science mumbo jumbo!" Stop. It's really annoying.
Having said that, I'm sure there are a lot of satisfied Nuendo customers out there who prefer their little toy to our little toy. It is possible to have two apps out there that are (arguably) equal to each other, but different from each other, thus resulting in different people using different systems for different reasons. They're not mutually exclusive.
And Shea, just because you've been in the music business for the last 30 years does not mean you've been doing a good job for the last thirty years. One thing is for sure, I would NEVER let a guy who says things like "well more people use Nuendo and it's more expensive so it MUST be better" anywhere NEAR my recordings. I'm sorry, but as soon as you tried to send mp3's to Ron Kulper for comparison instead of WAV files, it solidified my opinion that you are a hack. I hope you can see why everyone is upset with you. And no, just because you knock Sonar does not mean people will be against you. Remember the "envelope" saga. Thirteen pages of people agreeing (mostly) that there was a problem!

Guys, guys! Can't you see the obvious solution? Cakewalk should release the next version of Sonar (or better yet, make it a patch to 3.1.1) with a built in, non-changable 9 dB gain on the master outputs, with lots of hi-end eq and some nice limiting. (Like a built-in BBE Sonic Maximizer, and a multi-band limiter). It should make the panning laws be the loudest on the market.

Plus they should ship a free set of Mackie full range monitors and some Apologee-thingy AD/DA converters. Then they should ship it will all the plugins that will ever work with it. (I mean, why not?) Plus, they should give you a free DAW with dual AMD or Intel (whichever you pick, of course) with 8 GB of ram and 1 TB of hard disk space.

Then they should add a plugin that automatically makes guitar takes in tune. And a plugin that makes even my voice sound like Bruce Springsteen (or Michael Jackson, at my choosing). While they're at it, they should make a plugin that automatically makes my drum beats sound like they were made in pro studio.

And they'd also need a plugin that automatically generates hit songs for me.

And a plugin that actually makes me talented.

I guess they could just sell me a CD full of ready made songs, and then they could sell them for me, and I'll just make lots of money...........

This has been gone over millions of times.

Yes it has, but the two soft pieces are so compelling that it makes for great post and threads.

The "audio" is the same.

The audio engines are *not* the same, but are very similar.
However upon my testing I am beginging to think that most of what people are hearing are differences in the Sound Card DACs.

Take for instance the XG instrument definition in Cubase.

We are talking about audio...not midi. Unless I misunderstand you...

ORIGINAL: Ron Kuper [Cakewalk]

I didn't receive the files yet, though it's possible my spam filter ate them


Hello again folks
I started this thread and I now want to end it. I would like to thank you all for participating in it (insults and all). It has obviously created alot of attention, a lot of replies without resolution, in my opinion. With any argument, I believe there should be pros and cons, which would probably have given us a resolution, but this was not the case here, it was all one sided. Can you just give me a couple of moments here to finally give you my observations and conclusions.
Surly as a man who decided to use the sonar seq to make a living, pay for it ,and continue to do so, im entitled to my oppinion.

First of all there were some very informative and well mannered replies and I have learned a lot from them, but there was one in particular that I was not impressed with. Could I ask, with the highest respect, what Ron Kuper's postion in Cakewalk is? Because, I can't for the hell of me understand how anybody employed by a reputable company like Cakewalk, would have the audacity to make a reply like this to a paying customer, which was an absolute insult. I DO NOT send spam mail!! (An apology will be accepted) And for the record, no reference or test results, was made to the two files I have sent him, or no reference to the simple midi-file set-up that I posted on this thread. Could it be that neither of them were in Cakewalk's favour? Hence the "no reply". Can I say, at this point, that this is not being on the defensive, because to be honest, I have quite enjoyed the thread.

As for people questioning my ability and my knowledge as a musician engineer, I do not understand this. Where I live, we understand that people who are very knowlegable with scientific analysis of any subject, work in Universities and Laborotaries. Hence, my belief that an engineer, musician, or producer working in recording studios without this knowledge, does not make them hacks as somebody stated,or unqualified for what they do.

As for this audio engine discussion, we all must admit, that Sonar's audio engine needs attention regardless of it's quality. The gapless position is one of them, and if this thread has in any way influenced Cakewalk to pay attention to this, then this thread will have been worth it.

As for myself I did not come here to knock Sonar, Sonar wll always be my main sequencer. Yes, I have checked Nuendo, and it is by no means in the same league as Sonar as far as work flow is concerned. The export feature in Nuendo is a mess, compared to Sonar's bounce and export features. I will be the first person to go out and buy the next update.
Perhaps, I haven't done Sonar's advertising and it's strengths any favours, but again, neither did some of you. I didn't ask for an argument! Can I finish by saying that I hope that there will be no animosity and I would like to think that in the future, I will be able to post my problem on the site without recriminations.

Shea

I DO NOT send spam mail!!

Relax, man. He was just saying that your mail might have been mistakenly dumped by a filter--that's all.....
CAA

I wonder if Ed McMahon was trying to reach me during that period...

My standard line is that Spielburg was trying to reach me.....
CAA

I just have to 'teach' people computers and software

IMHO,, this is what governs user results,,, frustration or creativity?

IMHO,, I respectivly use sonar and cubase , I don't compare the two, they are both extremely intuitive and alot of fun to use, to think how much one pays for these programs is unbelievable, it's a dream come true,,, Years ago it wasn't even a thought to own one of these apps, then the thought became a reality,, offering musicians a highly creative tool to compose music,, I appreciate everything these apps have to offer, times are changing and we are the one's changing with it,,, so relax and be creative and thankful that we even have these tools at our disposal. Our "intentions" are what govern the results of our work

Could I ask, with the highest respect, what Ron Kuper's postion in Cakewalk is? Because, I can't for the hell of me understand how anybody employed by a reputable company like Cakewalk, would have the audacity to make a reply like this to a paying customer, which was an absolute insult. I DO NOT send spam mail!!

That has to be the most foolish thing uttered thus far (other than the veiled accusation that I was calling you a thief). This definitely beats sending MP3s to prove a complaint about audio quality.

What frickin' planet do you live on to think that Ron was accusing you of spamming him? Some of us have entire COUNTRIES blacklisted in our spam filters! Don't you think it might be possible that his spam filter was set aggressively, and your message might have hit one of the multitude of rules many of us have?

Have a beer (or your opiate of choice) and chill.

Could I ask, with the highest respect, what Ron Kuper's postion in Cakewalk is? Because, I can't for the hell of me understand how anybody employed by a reputable company like Cakewalk, would have the audacity to make a reply like this to a paying customer, which was an absolute insult. I DO NOT send spam mail!!

My position is Vice President of Engineering.

Of course you don't send spam, I didn't mean to suggest that. I use a kind of spam filter that only accepts emails from a "white list" -- senders which I have certified as legitimate. So for me to get an email from a new person that I've never received mail from, I literally have to be on the look out for it, then browse thru my spam filter's quarantine folder to find the message that might be from this new person.

I get 200+ spams a day. So it's likely that the day you sent your message I accidentally deleted it along with all the other stuff in my quarantine folder. Sorry for doing that. If you don't mind resending it, please let me know what the subject line will be and I'll keep on the lookout for it.

And for the record, no reference or test results, was made to the two files I have sent him, or no reference to the simple midi-file set-up that I posted on this thread. Could it be that neither of them were in Cakewalk's favour? Hence the "no reply".

As I said, I'm looking for analytical understanding of how the 2 engines differ. Listening to 2 MP3 files won't tell me that -- I don't know what the Nuendo project looked like vs. the SONAR project. If they sound different, then I'd like to understand why, because in theory the 2 apps shouldn't be different.

I did a test with simple audio files and plugins, and produced WAVs the were bit for bit identical. I'm working on a more complex project involving soft synths, and we'll see where that goes.

I can tell you a few things I know so far about the quality of Nuendo:

[1] When you export audio it fairly regularly inserts some msecs of silence at the beginning.

[2] It's export code seems to be about twice as slow as SONAR's.

[3] If you import an SMF, and the SMF starts with CC events, it seems Nuendo won't render them. A CC event that lives exactly on a clip boundary in Nuendo gets "eaten", you need to expand to clip to make the event renderable. This particular bug was really stymying my efforts at a soft synth test, because Nuendo was rendering the MIDI incorrectly.

If I'd been pummelled, message after message, the way Shea has, I think my head would be spinning.

Perhaps, or maybe you would have made a moderate effort to back up the "20-40% better" claims and not dismissed scientific FACT regarding digital audio as "mumbo jumbo."

Ron seriously wants to examine deeply and resolve this issue once and for all. Shea was asked for identical wavs; he sent mp3s. I made a comment on the cumulative price; he accused me of calling him a pirate. The email "misunderstanding" happens; he accuses Ron of calling him a spammer.

Yes, many of us took him to task-- all we wanted was objective proof of his claims. Many thoughtful posts gave potential reasons (e.g. panning law differences in each host) for these discrepancies, and they were either dismissed as overly-scientific junk, or ignored altogether. This behavior has all the earmarks of a troll, yet we continue to press for information, because if his claim is even remotely true, we want Cakewalk to address it.

Shea, I think, has shown an admirable restraint in staying civil and taking the high road.

Really? Shea has the Vice President of Engineering running experiments on his behalf -- on the basis of a forum post, no less -- and not only does he have no idea who the VP is, but he tosses out a monumental "insult genade" for thanks. If anyone has taken the high road, it's Ron. Good for him!

Don't forget a thingy that makes thumpin' bass that gets everyone moving out on the dance floor.

this is all that really matters!

All audio data in SONAR is stored using 32-bit floats. When we sum 2 values together, they stay in the float domain and don't get rounded or truncated. The only rounding happens at the very end of the chain, when the samples are converted back to integer for streaming to the driver. This is the processing stage where dither is typically applied.

Ron,


The underlined part of the quote sounds like what I was referring to. If I understand you correctly, it would seem possible that the the conversion of the samples for streaming output might produce data that is different from what is on the HD.

I know you're time for these little experiments is limited, but it would be interesting to see if a digital capture (via spdif, AES, etc) nulls fully with the original file on the HD. It would be easy enough to do with one wav file.

If there is a complete null in this case then it could not be argued that Sonar's output differs from what is captured on disk. Maybe I'm wrong but this might be the proof that the entire Sonar signal chain is sonically neutral.

BJ

ORIGINAL: waltern

Shea, I think, has shown an admirable restraint in staying civil and taking the high road.

Huhhh????? Are we reading the same thread? Shea states that as a matter of fact that the Audio Engine in Nuendo is superior than Sonar.When pointed out by experienced users of both platforms that the claim is baseless he flat out ignores those claims,when asked for proof he again ignores those requests,when pointed out by the programs creator that his tests refuted those claims he still holds fast to his claims,when pointed out that experienced Nashville engineer Lynn Fuston had already done those tests between all DAW's he simply ignores those links as well,to top it off he claims that most peoples responses are insulting to him.I'll tell you what,if that's the high road I regress.