godparticle

Ho ho, Sonar users have battered wife syndrome...ROFL: and yet they continue to say oh no, everything's fine. Denial is so insidious.

stevec if you think Mixcraft doesn't have PDC then you need glasses. And tell me who uses a controller for anything other than the active track, 1% of musicians? Thought so.

sharke


He has something of a point, although perhaps expressed in a style that would be suited more to a teenage argument about Justin Bieber on YouTube. 

I mean I quite like Sonar, at least I'm sticking with it for the time being, because I've made an investment (both time and money) in the software and I certainly can't afford to be writing off hundreds of dollars and spending more hundreds on another DAW right now. I certainly like it a whole lot better than Pro Tools, which was far less stable for me and couldn't even run a moderate sized VSTi based project without throwing up errors all the time. 

However, if you asked me whether I'd drop $400 again on Sonar if I could go back in time, I'd probably say no. It's not that I don't think that Sonar doesn't have the potential to be the best DAW in the world, because it does. It's just that it doesn't feel like a $400 piece of software. There are too many sloppy design flaws, inconsistencies and plain oddities for that. Hell, I get pissed with the design flaws and bugs in Microsoft Outlook, and that only cost me $100. I can turn the other cheek when dealing with freeware, but these days when you shell out this much for software you just expect it to be so much more polished and stable. Sonar, to me, feels very much like it's still in beta. 

A small example of that was when I posted a while ago about automation for PC FX chain off/on not working unless the ProChannel in question was actually open in the console (or selected in the Inspector), and someone from Cakewalk (Noel?) said that they were aware of the issue, but that it was just too much of an issue to fix, and that fixing it would break other things. This is, I have to say, inexcusable. I have also suffered the same problem with the automation of the arpeggiator's off/on. It wouldn't work unless the track in question was actually selected. This is beyond a bug, it's the selling of an unfinished product that has been shipped part way through its development phase. Perhaps this didn't bother me too much because I'm still a bedroom hobbyist - but if I'd built a commercial studio around Sonar, I would be as mad as hell. 

Yes there are workarounds and hacks to some of these problems, but they are major productiveness killers and leave a bad taste in your mouth when you're using a piece of software you've invested a lot of money in. 

It just seems a bit odd that if you buy hardware that is faulty or doesn't work as advertised, you are entitled to a refund. If you buy software that gives you the same kind of problems, there is no recourse. I really don't know why. 

Anyway I'm not one to moan and complain about Sonar on a daily basis - for me it's performing quite well, a huge step up from Pro Tools, and I am enjoying making music with it. Do I think it's worth what they charge for it? Definitely not. I'd expect a far more polished product for this kind of money. 

To the OP, you're obviously going to come across as a bit of a dick with the tone you're taking. To be honest it's a tone I hear very often from arrogant 20-something EDM producers who are eager to prove themselves. You say you are making tunes that are rocking the clubs, well how about putting your money where your mouth is and posting links to some of these tunes so we can judge for ourselves. Otherwise we're just going to presume that you're full of it. 

sharke

Bub

Since it's 32bit only, I wonder if I can Rewire it in to Sonar and use all my 32bit VST's?

Why don't you do that with Reaper? I used to rewire 32-bit Reaper into Pro Tools and it worked great.

godparticle


Oh really CakeAlexS, and yet my rowing boat just tore your battleship to shreds; to many kinks and navigation potholes in that battleship of yours by the looks of it.

stevec if you think Mixcraft doesn't have PDC then you need glasses. And tell me who uses a controller for anything other than the active track, 1% of musicians? Thought so.