Sonar getting trashed on KVR...

(Shrugs)


People bash Sonar on here too.

I like Sonar X1, works fine for me. Now if I could only afford to upgrade my interface!

Why would I have to go to KVR to read about that, I can just check in here once a week.

pianodano
I went back through the  thread and it seems that many folks are really speaking their minds about how disgruntled they are with the direction Cakewalk has taken Sonar and with no concern for their longtime user base. One of the posters said it best when he pointed out that some dedicated users have been with Cakewalk since dos days and had previously supported the company because, at least at one time (or as he said, the Greg days) Cakewalk really listened to their customers. And he continued, "most of the people around nowadays don't know anything about that". Another pointed out what a wasteland the forum has become. For sure it doesn't appear to be hundreds and hundreds of users on board at any given time any more.
 
My own take is that Sonar Producer, though once  perceived as a professional recording product, has been cheapened to the point were they just about have to give it away. $49.00 for a "professional recording product upgrade". What a hoot.  

I've been around too and I recall the angst when Sonar came out. The difference was no one felt the need to bash it to extent we see now. As for CW listening to its customer base I recall lots of begging for a feature that never came. The countless threads on bugs that need to be fixed before a new version comes out. 
 
I also recall how slow it gets in the mid and late summer.
 
If you do your own research on what the threads were like when 8.5 appeared you may have a different perspective. The notion you spout is also old and has been said before. 
 
What you have done is take a snapshot in time and judge the forum on that very narrow data sample. It is accurate for that time frame only but you are way off when you try to interpolate it to include all the forum through all the times.  What you see now is nothing new.  

After reading the last few pages it started sounding like "blah blah blah".  One guy getting slammed because he was positive and that just isn't permissible if someone else is unhappy.   And then another stating the simple fact that SONAR is completely unsable... period.   Even ex-SONAR users were trying to point out how over the top it all was.  
 
Bring on the update/upgrade/whatever it is.  I'll be one of thousands using it (after the initial rush gives it the thumbs up  )

Mike you are too darn rational. We can't have that!
 
 

Yep, its a good thing. I am well thanks for asking. 

Remembering my beloved Tascam 4-track cassette portastudio I had in the mid eighties makes me appreciate the power we have nowadays. Remember the endless bouncing and sound degradation? Sometimes I think that some of the people doing the griping need to go back and re-acquaint themselves with the older technology for a while. Maybe they'll have a new found appreciation for what they're able to accomplish now.

The music industry is dead.  The music software sector is in shambles.  The economy continues to suck through every door.  The only people still on KVR have:  1. Nothing to do.  2.  No life to live.
 
Sonar X2 has some bugs..  Maybe..  I dunno.  I didn't upgrade.  I'm waiting to see what X3 is like.  I guess...
 
Well, to make a long story short..  I'm not banking on being a grammy winning producer.   So I've been busy doing other stuff.  If you want to blame somebody for me not upgrading to X2, please blame all the people who think Beiber, Gaga, Perry, and Kanye are actually musicians.  I see no way to make any sort of $ with music, ergo I canst not find a reason to keep my pro music software up-to-date.
 
Seriously, I can not think of any web board that is a, "looser den," like KVR.

KVR forums seem to have a strong bias toward EDM and electro music, and to be honest I don't think Sonar really shines for these genres, at least is seems to be lacking in a lot of respects compared to the ways in which programs like Live and Reason and Cubase appeal to that crowd. Maybe things will change in this regard in X3, or maybe not. 

i am the "fanboi" they let loose on.  kvr is a place that is no friend to Cakewalk.  but just try saying negative things about Fruity Loops, and you will feel the wrath of the Image-Line people and their minions.

I still think SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition was the best all arounder Audio and MIDI DAW ever.
 
Just a few little fixes that had been on the Cakewalk Do list for about 10 years and it would have been 99% there.
 
I used it for 8 hours yesterday and it still feels fresh. I had Fabfilter stuff on everything and it just works great for me.
 
Every time I look at SONAR X I think it looks like it was made to seem like Home Studio on steroids with an emphasis on drag and drop loop convenience.
 
It's hard to take Pro Channel seriously when you prefer to use top of the field dsp. The claim that independent efx gui windows is confusing cracks me up. Seriously. I think it's funny.
 
The audio tracking features have been downgraded with a clumsy use of display space. The elimination of layers and the crude adoption of lanes defied the acknowledgement that SONAR's layers were one of it's most powerful features... a feature that set it apart and above more popular DAWs like Pro Tools.
 
The friendly names audio input debacle is still a sad, sad joke. All the other DAWs do it the right way while SONAR users explain that never having "input 2" listed as "input 2" is not a big deal. Seriously. I think it's sad. 
 
I think SONAR's drum maps are really sweet. I think they are the best, but I haven't tried Cubase in a while.
 
I'm planning on buying SONAR X3 before I see what Cakewalk did to it. I'm going to approach it like I'm taking a swim at the North Pole. Pinch my nose and jump.
 
I've started wondering when Cakewalk will tell us that SONAR X will only install on Win8. When that happens I'm going to disconnect from the train. I hope X3 works on Win7. I hope I use it. I'm going to be bummed if it turns out to be a X2b+ stop gap meant as a holdover before the app goes Win8 touch centric in the next couple of years.
 
I've been using ProTools 11 native and it is fantastic. I never took the PT LE stuff seriously but the native stuff is rocking on my new DAW.
 
I still like to work in SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition because it has great MIDI tools and the audio works great but I've developed a plan to use less and less MIDI so as to make the most of Pro Tools audio production strengths because it feels like Cakewalk has simply abandoned any efforts to get to 99% and has decided to give away free stuff instead of servicing their top of the line product.
 
I'm ready to get it over with. Spending a couple K on PT, Studio One, and very soon Cubase 7 wasn't in the plans... but that's what happened when SONAR X left me wanting a program that reminded me of the best features in SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition.
 
I want to get back to spending my budget on nice microphones and tracking nice sounds with the comfort of knowing the DAW is just what I've hoped for these past two decades.
 
best regards,
mike
 
 

My guess is that the licence transfer admin overhead is considered not worth it - not necessarily correct, but not an unreasonable assumption.
 
That said, given that SONAR still doesn't have copy protection in any form (no dongle or Mac required!), I think that's a reasonable trade-off.

Jlien X
I hate to say this but I think we need to face the truth and understand why Sonar is bashed not only in KVR but also here in the Sonar forum and also in the S1 forum. While some of the bashing is due to user ignorance, there are at least two major complaints I hear a lot about Sonar.

1. It's very unstable on many computers (and other daws work fine on these computers)

2. You can't transfer the license

I think Cakewalk needs to change these two if they want to stop the recurring bashing and acquire new users. My X2 is mostly stable and I love the great features of Sonar and it's my best daw so I hope I don't get bashed by posting the above opinion. :-)

I'm afraid I have to disagree here....
Point 1 seems to fall in the relm of people really do not understand computers these days.  Anyone who is less than 30 years old has grown up in the Windows world.  Windows has always had bugs some have been fixed some remain....because of the complexity most people have learned to live with bugs or have blamed other software as the reason.  It was not until MS won their law suit with IBM that any product was sold in the us with defects in it with the promise that it would be fixed with a patch or a later rev.  I could go on for days here....
 
Point 2
I assume you mean Transfer the license to a different person...?  Wouldn't that be like assigning copyright for a song to a different person?  If this is not what you mean then I apoligize in advance.
 
I think "to face the truth" is that most people are ignorant to how computers work and how a piece of software fits into to "mix".  And I think that if there were statistcs keep on tech support issues we would find that 98% of the support issue are not about Sonar but about issues on the PCs that Sonar is installed on.
Generally speaking Sonar has always worked reasonable well through all versions and the 3 different PC's I've tried it on since I've owned it.
Lastly in my experience artist's do not make good technicians and visa=versa....And that how I face the truth.
 
Rafone

Jlien X
Thanks for your feedback.
Point 1: Doesn't that mean that even those who don't understand computers can use Studio One, etc.and isn't that a good thing?
Point 2: Sorry, my English isn't good. I wanted to mean that you can't sell your Sonar to someone. 
 

Point 1 Apples and Oranges.  Just becaue 1 piece of sofware works well on one platform does not mean that another similar piece of software will work the same way on the same platform.
Point 2.  For the same reasons that technically I can't sell some one a (You name the artist here) song.  The artist or in this respect Roland ownes the intellectual copyright on Sonar.