Pearls / crumbs of wisdom for Cakewalker returning (to X3 Studio) after 10 years?

Back up early and often.
Make sure you know where your audio files are. Use Per-project audio folders.
Know that there are bugs in the software - not necessarily fatal ones, but things that can confuse you - I'm thinking specifically of cut-n-paste bugs. Hence:
Use a scratch project to test how features work. Explore each feature so you know what to expect when working on your "real" project.
 
 

Happy Holidays,
 
If running the 64 bit version of Sonar, In my experience, the setup is more stable running 64 bit plugs. This required me to do some plugin house cleaning but I believe this got rid of a few  "ghost in the machine".  Welcome to X3 and enjoy..

lingyai!  Haven't heard from you in years!  Glad to have you aboard... You'll love X3...
 
The comping is exquisite!  Super tools, lots of ways to use.
 
Track Templates.... a godsend!  I'm getting heavily into Spitfire/Symphobia and X3's track template system is a critical thing to get into from the beginning!  Everything from vocal settups, including sends to your favorite verb/delays...in one second you're off makin' music.  Just spent the past two xmas days solo setting up 2 16 channel templates with Kontakt libraries which can be brought up and tweaked to a new song in seconds....
 
X3 is sooooo powerful if you can get power user stuff down you'll spend most of your time creating awesome music!  
 
The Forum.... it is amazing.... very knowledgeable people here always respond quickly...mark any quieries for "instant notification" to carry on near realtime conversations...Also, read/go throught Craig Anderton's Blog/tips pegged at the top of this forum.... it's a goldmine!

This for X1 but it is just as useful for X3. Welcome back!
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2382979

Sonar comes with BitBridge, and you can use JBridge as well, BUT you still may encounter issues with some 32-bit 3rd-party plugins when using them in a 64-bit Sonar.
 
Most folks have been moving to using only 64-bit plugins in a 64-bit Sonar, and once this transition is made many many problems seem to go away.
 
When particular 32-bit plugins are needed - and they don't work well in 64-bit Sonar with either BitBridge or JBridge, then you might want to consider working on that particular project in a 32-bit instance of Sonar.  That would avoid having to use any bridging software, BUT you then wouldn't have access to any 64-bit plugins for that project.
 
I would suggest that AS you learn, you also experiment with the techniques you are learning, so that you aren't trying to keep too many new concepts in your brain at the same time.
 
In other words, if you are learning about Quick Grouping, set up a dummy project and play around with what you need to do in order to get familiar with Quick Grouping.  This way, you will find it easier to get your head around things incrementally, and that should be easier than trying to learn it all at the same time - then try to apply all of the concepts at the same time.
 
These user forums are a GREAT resource for working through issues, and for when you get stuck trying to understand some of the features.  The folks in the forums really work hard at helping other folks.  I learn things all the time, and it motivates me to try to help others when I can.
 
Welcome back - you will REALLY like the incredible things you can do these days with Sonar, and with plugins like Kontakt and all the available libraries for it.
 
I also recommend you spend some time learning about setting up Track Templates.  They are incredibly helpful time savers and super powerful.
 
Bob Bone
 

SONAR is a very sophisticated program, it will take you a while to master it. Fortunately you can get the basics going fairly fast. What I'd recommend is just to plunge in, and when you can't figure something out, do a search in the help file...sort of "learning on the installment plan."
 
Of all the tutorials, I highly recommend the one on compling. Comping is great, but it's not done the way other DAWs (or even previous versions of SONAR) did it so you need to go through the tutorial to have the proverbial light bulb go on over your head.
 
The major sources of incompatibility with SONAR are third party plug-ins, interface drivers, graphics card drivers (including the "HD Audio" ones that may be automatically installed and are superfluous), and non-updated elements that need updating.
 
The main copy and paste bug to which I think Stickman is referring is that you can't copy/cut and paste bus envelopes.
 
Don't ignore the "old" plug-ins. The Sonitus plug-ins are great, and the old synths still make some wonderful sounds. I don't see a synth like Psyne II getting much love, but it's a very flexible and useful synth.
 
 

lingyai
I really appreciate the hospitality, seems like a great community.

The people here are amazing. I've learned a whole lot from the community and when I've had questions, I've usually been able to get an answer. Many people consider this forum one of SONAR's most impressive "features."
 
There's also a lot of knowledge that goes beyond simply SONAR to include hardware, software, techniques, etc. It's well worth visiting the other forums...I had "SONAR forum tunnel vision" until the forums got re-shuffled, but now I'm finding there's a lot of general knowledge floating around in here.