Sonar X3 Producer Ability to Mix on a Commerical Audio level Conversation

This week I took a project that I was working to a professional engineer to mix and he was using two Yamaha Commercial 02R96VCM Digital Mixing Console http://yamahacommercialaudiosystems.com/product_detail.php?prodID=1018  using it with one of the latest HD Protools versions.  He is an old head who has been using Protools back with it was called Music Tools or Studio tools don't quote me on that I am trying to remember from memory. So I asked about the mixers and he said for years no out of the box DAW could mix on the level of these digital yahamahas until one of the later versions of ProTools HD.  He said it is the closest he has seen.  So that I got me to thinking for the more seasoned Sonar X3 Producers how would you rank X3's ability to mix at a Commercial Level?  I guess I need a lesson in what is the advantage of digital mixing Console over a DAW and I personally hate to hear anything about Protools being the best just because more people use it in the bigger studios.  Look forward to your thoughts and responses

Karyn
The "professional" engineer was simply trying to justify his huge fee by convincing you that his mix will always sound better than yours because he is using expensive "professional" gear.  And he's been in the business since before ProTools was even Pro...  So he must be right...
 
 
He's not.

He did not charge me for this session but I have seen these same mixing consoles in big church audio departments also.

Sanderxpander
There is nothing the 02R does that is significantly better for the stated application. In many studio applications I would label it as significantly worse. He sounds like a relatively old school guy. Perhaps he was simply uncomfortable with other software when he tried it.

That is quite possible so X3 producer is just as good or better than the latest HD version of Protools?

BMOG

Sanderxpander
There is nothing the 02R does that is significantly better for the stated application. In many studio applications I would label it as significantly worse. He sounds like a relatively old school guy. Perhaps he was simply uncomfortable with other software when he tried it.

That is quite possible so X3 producer is just as good or better than the latest HD version of Protools?

Personal I'd say X3 is way better than ProTools.   While you're inside the machine, it's all just numbers.  The quality of the sound is purely down to your audio interface.

By "commercial level", I assume you mean "quality". 
 
The biggest advantage of a commercial house is the experience of professionals who do this full time and know how to get the most out of the tools they chose to invest in. Big desks have been around for a while, but I don't see them as a requirement when you have unlimited tracks in Sonar.PT was one of the first to support professional requirements (mainly reliability for tracking) but at relatively considerable cost. Times have changed with advances in the cost of technology. There is always a strong tendency to fall back on incumbent "standards" such as ProTools but mostly because it just took less effort to pick something. (Thank you marketing.)
 
All tools require investment to utilize properly. The most important tool is your ears. (Or a professionals which is why I pay somebody for mastering.) 
 
As for "value for money", there is almost no comparison. I work across PT houses, analog only studios (yes they still exist) and Sonar. I kind of feel bad for people starting out on PT because they've been told it's the "professional" way to go only to see them struggle to get up to any level of productivity. I often find myself troubleshooting their rigs for issues that are really making me appreciate Sonar.
 
Don't get caught up in hype regarding gear. Do appreciate the experience of a professional as documented in their references. But do yourself a favor and appreciate the many, many examples of just outstanding performances captured on the simplest of rigs. 
 
 

The engineer was probably seeing the mixer as a system:
 

• Control surface
• Converters
• Audio engine

 
As far as SONAR is concerned, the  audio engine is as good as you can get with today's technology. The converters and control surface are of course external to SONAR. HD has high-quality converters but they are not proprietary parts, so a high-quality interface such as an RME will do an equal or better job.
 
There was a time when I mixed SONAR through a Panasonic DA7 digital mixer. That gave me a control surface but also, the EQs in that mixer ran at double the clock speed and simply sounded better than EQ plug-ins. But that differential became moot years ago.
 
I have nothing against Pro Tools, it works okay. I just find SONAR so much more versatile in so many ways that it fits my needs far better.

A big digital (so long as you don't have to dive through layers of menus to adjust anything) or analogue desk is more suitable for working in a live PA/sound reinforcement environment, but for handling/mixing recorded audio it has no advantage in principle at all over Sonar, especially if you have a control surface or touch screen.

Live sound engineering is quite different to a studio environment. Live you have to be ready to kill feedback quickly, adjust a mix on the fly and maybe put a series of bands on stage, all requiring a different mix, with no more than a 30 minute gap between them. Recording is a different job with different requirements.

There seems to be an incredible amount of nonsensical, unsubstantiated claims made by "pros," for instance noted loudmouth "Mixerman's" relentless claims that DAW's cannot sum audio properly without degrading it. And his past claim that ProTools "cannot capture the lowest octave of music." I think there's a lot of gear snobbery, i.e. people emotionally (and aggressively) attached to the gear they've spent years with, in much the same way that chihuahuas become violently defensive of their owners.

The placebo effect comes into it. People kid themselves that their ears are telling them something which cannot possibly be true (or which is beyond the realm of human hearing). For instance the many claims I've read that one DAW "sounds better" than another, and the thread we had a while ago from someone who swore that straight 16th MIDI hi-hats have a groovier feel to them in Cubase (or something). Personally, I can listen to something in the evening and think it sounds better than anything I've ever done, then swear it sounds like crap the following day. So I cannot understand these people who make such deafening proclamations about something which is subjective and/or subject to minute changes in perception.

There has been some great feed back in this thread!!!

That doesn't make anything untrue about the stated comparisons between the 02R and Sonar X3. The Yamaha is a good mixing desk. But it has a limited number of channels, in modern IT terms it has ancient FX algorithms and you can use any kind of hardware you want with Sonar. So the 02R literally has nothing over Sonar for the stated purpose. It's good hardware and it's better than a lot of hardware you could buy to use with Sonar but that wasn't the question.