Sonar 7: First Impressions / Bug Report

Hey guys!

I've been playing with Sonar 7 a little throught the weekend and all afternoon today. I must say this is a very cool release and has a lot of nice features but, as expected from a x.0 release, there are some issues I've encountered during my testing of Sonar 7. I will outline the problems I've found so far but please feel free to post your findings as well so that others can test and try to replicate these bugs if possible. The more testing we do the more stable Sonar 7 will be. So this is our chance to improve it. Here I go with my findings:


1- The Step Sequencer: As we all know, this is one of the key features of Sonar 7 and specially for those who work mostly with MIDI. It is very nice indeed but it's also a major CPU hog (or is it my system?). Just having one instance of SS was enough to slow down my system. Whenever I tried to input notes in the Step Sequencer it would take a few ms to show the changes. Playback is not very smooth either, specially when first hitting the Play button. Have you guys noticed this?

2 - LP-64 Mastering EQ and Multiband Compressor: These two are a very nice addition to the Cakewalk plugin library but, again, major CPU hogs. It seems Cakewalk is developing for Quad-Core systems nowadays . But seriously, I really liked the sound of these two plugs but I'm currently unable to use them . Cakewalk knows and has confrimed this issue so I hope it gets fixed soon.

3 - Hardware Inserts: NICE!!! This is something I didn't expect to see but I'm glad it came out in S7. I was really enjoying hearing my HW FX unit through a vocal track and messing with different settings. I even froze my tracks (in real time of course) and was very please with the results. It's very easy to set up, so easy that it makes me wonder what took them so long to implement this. The only problem I encountered was the Audio Engine Stopped message while switching from one computer to the other via a KVM switch while audio was playing back. Actually, there was something else...but I suspect it was my HW-FX unit's fault. Everytime I turned the input knob on my HW unit the input meter on it would jump to the clipping point. I have to admit that I haven't use this in a WHILE so it was probably due to dirty pots. I'll experiment with this some more.

4 - MIDI Tools: Another nice feature of Sonar 7. I was able to very quickly customize the new Smart MIDI tools to do what I wanted it to do because I only spent time customizing one . With all the cool features I added to that one button I had almost everything covered. I could probably figure out a way to use just ONE tool for everything, and I will. There are some crazy drawings features that were added but I need to experiment more with them. For example, there's an option where you can paint notes/controllers linearly. The only problem with it is that it makes strange noises and might even make your audio engine stop if you draw notes really fast.

5 - Sidechaining: A much needed feature, for me at least. I found it to be really cool and easy to setup. Cakewalk just knows how to make things....well....a Cakewalk. I tried it on a couple of tracks and it was very nice. The only thing bad I have to say about this new feature is that it might've introduced a new bug. This bug was first reported by Eric Hansen (a.k.a. Hansenhaus) and you can find all the details in this thread: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1163503 It is a reproducible one too.

6 - V-Vocal Pitch to MIDI: Great idea, but it's still not there yet. I tried it with different vocal and instrumental tracks and it just didn't do a good job translating any of them. The results were mediocre at best. The MIDI file would come out sounding different on a lot of parts. It also seemed like it was not able to translate the timing all that well either. For example, I created a V-Vocal clip on an entire ~2 min project of a cello line and converted it to MIDI notes. Somewhere along the song the MIDI file and the source track would be completely out of sync with each other. It was like the MIDI file had shrunk. Again, a nice idea but still needs a lot of work.

7 - ACT: Yeah, I know. This is not new to most of you guys but it is to me . This is not as intuitive as the other features of Sonar but it wasn't to bad to figure out either. Once you start playing with it you get the hang of how eveything works. The key point is not confusing MIDI Learn with ACT Learn which are two different things. Once you get that, everything becomes clearer. The only caveat I'm having with this is due to learning how to program things on my MIDI controller. I have figured out how to program everything but the buttons of my MIDI controller. I will mess with this some more. I really like this feature though....very awesome!

8 - Audio Snap: Haven't had time to mess with this one yet.

9 - Other Stuff: I loved ALL the new Synths that came with Sonar 7. I was not very impressed with Boost 11 though, but maybe I'll like it later on....I don't know. There are some little features that didn't make the Sonar 7 new feature list but one of my favorites is the ability to convert an audio track to Stereo or Mono just by right-clicking and selecting the option from the list (depending on the track of course). It makes things so much easier than having to go into the Bounce to Track menu. There are other ones but I can't remember them now. There's still a lot of playing pending with Sonar 7 as this is only the first week.



Anyways, I hope you guys can find other stuff that needs fixing in the upcoming patches. Please try replicating or trying the things I've done as to compare results. It would make things much easier to find the culprits for all of us.


Take care guys!