j boy


This is more about providing a product that meets specific user groups' needs rather than trying to be everything-to-everybody.  Pro Tools definitiely doesn't try to be that. 

Yes, that's why Pro Tools didn't add Midi a few years ago. And Acid and Live haven't added any traditional DAW features either.

drewfx

Crg


I find it strange that you got a Bluetooth to work with any DAW app. Sonar is not Fruity loops. Loop based recording... I've always had a problem with the concept that cutting-copying-pasting material into a track is recording. Sonar is much bigger than a loop editor, though it will do anything the other apps do in that respect. Sonar is the whole studio. If you find your other loop editors easier to use then use them but you don't understand Sonar yet or you wouldn't have knocked it. Peace.

I wasn't knocking Sonar. Like I mentioned in the first posting, I didn't really expect it to work. I wasn't really surprised that it didn't...until I fired up Reaper and it did work. Seriously, I doubt that I would be doing much mixing/recording using bluetooth.
 
However, I can pretty much guarantee that younger folks that open up their DAW program and see their bluetooth headset as an available audio device will eventually try to get it working. As a minimum Sonar should probably hide the device from the users. It shouldn't show it as an available device, allow you to configure it and then pop up a cryptic error when you click Play. I have no plans to switch to any other DAW. I just want to see it continue to improve and be able to recommend it without hesitation.
 
Peace,
-eB

two loop musicians are sitting on a stage...

one says...

what key are you in?

the other one says...

161.5bpm.

 So, the first one says...

I don't know that key why don't we just take turns, I'll go first.










I forget the punch line.

Glennbo
I use an RF based remote with Sonar and Reaper, where I can fully run the transport from across the room while on drums or tracking vocals, and even have one special BIG button that is my "do over" button that rewinds to the last punch in point, does an undo of the last attempted recording, and then punches back into record.  When I'm recording bass, guitars, or keys I keep this on my mixing desk, where I can hit the "do over" button the second I play a funky note, and I'm instantly back into record before I loose the groove.

How do I get something like that?

Rod

John


EB the more you explain yourself the less I find disagreement. I think the only thing I find fault with is the title of this thread. If that were not what disturbed me I would think you make a very good case for your points. Also I fully agree we need not look at forms of music as being less or more then other forms. Its the mastering of what ever form one chooses that matters. Poorly done classical is just as awful as poorly done pop music. Great music has no genre. What inspires and moves us is what matters and the ability for some to express their vision in ways that delight.  

Thanks John, I really wasn't trying to start a musicians vs. producers thread, which is what this seems to have morphed into. However, I can also say its been one of the more interesting threads that I've read in a while and I'm glad that I've been a part of it. 

I agree with what you have said as well. Regarding the title, I specifically chose it because I knew it might ruffle a few feathers. This thread wasn't started as a slam on Cakewalk in anyway. It was actually more about some of the 'regulars' making a big deal about essentially nothing (Twitter). 

As you see, I don't post a lot but I do browse the forums frequently. I was a bit ticked when I saw all of the buildup to Sonar 9 being over-shadowed by a bunch of techno-phobes whining about something as simple as Twitter. This got me to thinking that mainly mature, more 'set-in their-ways' folks are using Sonar. To be honest, lately that would be the impression someone would get it they spent a couple of weeks in this forum. Its not necessarily a bad thing, it keeps the signal-to-noise ratio fairly low compared to many other forums. However, its obvious that Cakewalk is trying to expand their reach and I think that should be applauded and not ridiculed.

Sonar also has to stay competitive with the other products out there from a feature standpoint. I brought up the bluetooth and tablet stuff because they are technologies that young people are embracing and will only become more prevalent in the future. I remember what computers were like 20 years ago and I can do stuff now that I couldn't even imagine doing on my Commodore Amiga or any computer of the time. I'm sure that in another 20 years we will look back on the days when computers had wires all over the place and the screens weren't touchable and be just as amazed. 

Low-priced laptops/netbooks with touch screens are increasingly becoming available, even Apple has all but announced an upcoming tablet-based computer. I will be truly upset if I see Logic or GarageBand running with a touch interface before Sonar. I've heard many people chiming in about issues with Sonar's envelope support. With Windows 7 right now you could basically draw any envelope you want with only your finger or a pen...when Cakewalk decides to embrace the technology. Tablet computing is not a fad, it justs takes people using one for a while to appreciate the freedom and fluidity. I noticed that someone mentioned the term 'scratchpad' earlier and that's exactly what it feels like you're using after awhile.

-eB

Rodar6

Glennbo
I use an RF based remote with Sonar and Reaper, where I can fully run the transport from across the room while on drums or tracking vocals, and even have one special BIG button that is my "do over" button that rewinds to the last punch in point, does an undo of the last attempted recording, and then punches back into record.  When I'm recording bass, guitars, or keys I keep this on my mixing desk, where I can hit the "do over" button the second I play a funky note, and I'm instantly back into record before I loose the groove.

How do I get something like that?

Rod

They're $49, made primarily for Beyond TV (which I have my entire house hooked up with), and with a little freeware program called "LM Remote Keymap", you can create templates.  The keymap program recognized what .exe program has focus, and you can literally program the keys on the remote to transmit different keystrokes, depending on the app.  Say one app uses the key "P" for play, and another uses "Spacebar" for play.  With templates, you can have the same play button on the remote transmit a "P" when that app has focus, and transmit a "Spacebar" when the other app has focus.  Anyway, here's a link to the Firefly remote.

http://www.snapstream.com/products/firefly/

Maybe we should just remind ourselves...whatever camp we're in...of what Ebony Blue said above: that most folks just want to be moved by the music, and let it go at that.

 
If the great composers had written their music for the unwashed masses, we wouldn't enjoy their masterpieces today, but just an endless series of cliches. The truth is, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were writing for the educated aristocracy in courts and churches and not for the masses of illiterate folks who couldn't name a single composer. Creative music isn't targeted to the people who use music to move their asses to a beat. Bill Evans was writing music for himself, not for the drunk who was at the Village Vanguard just to have a good time and couldn't tell him from Thelonious Monk. Sorry but you simply can't "equalize" all musicians and claim they're all deserving of the same "respect." Some people have real talent. Most don't. And I'm sorry, but someone who "writes" music by assembling pre-recorded loops created by someone else isn't more of a "musician" than a 12-year-old who makes a compilation for his/her ipod. If my opinion makes me a bad person in your eyes and you think it authorizes you start an ad hominem (and I'm not referring to the person I'm quoting), so be it, I certainly won't change it because of that.

PaPi, in practice I am with you. I sneer at record-scratching "artists" and lip-syncing models, too.

But philosophically, I ultimately agree with Ebony Blue. Music does not emanate from violins and guitars and pianos, only sound waves. It only becomes music in your head.

So if Bach is what gets your alpha waves revving, or hip-hop, or a babbling brook, the actual source of the stimulus isn't what makes it music.

The discrepancy between your viewpoints, I think, is that one is talking about music, the other about talent. Robert Fripp has talent, but I can't stand to listen to him. I'd rather listen to Dick Dale.

As usual I'm on Bit's wavelength here.  I am a classically (and session) trained player who has very strong views on the discipline of learning an instrument and the "language" of music composition versus assembling loops like lincoln logs into an interesting groove.  That said you don't know your Mozart at all, Papi.  He quite literally loved composing and playing for the "unwashed".  He wrote for little or nothing for the people's theatres and was an earthy "bar band player" of the first order.  Check your history.  As I alluded in an earlier post (and to add to what Bit has said) you seem to be talking about HOW the music is produced and they are just talking about MUSIC...no matter how it is produced.  And, no, I don't think anyone with a sentient brain would compare Britney Spears and Diana Krall at all...it would be like comparing a fish to a bicycle.  But there (unfortunately or fortunately) are those who like fish and those who like bicycles.  Go figure.

It always was your "dad's" DAW. In fact, more properly your grandad's. Look at the profiles of so many forum members. They talk about their grandchildren. Nothing wrong with that, but as a music professional the Cakewalk forum culture is just so hobbyist. Again, nothing wrong with that. Just not my cup of tea. Now that I've switched to a competing product, I see how much Sonar copies the innovators. And again, nothing wrong with that. Project5 was actually their most innovative product, and it got jettisoned. They're going to continue bolting junk on to Sonar until it caves in from the bloat. Gee - non-linear arranging. Haven't hear of that before. Except in Project5, Live, Cubase, and a few others.

If you watch the videos of people who really know and use Live like an instrument, especially with the new Akai controller, you see the state of the art in non-linear pattern-based sequencing.

Whatever. I'm just glad to be out of the Sonar yearly bolt-on subsription update merry-go-round. Ever notice how you wind up never using those neato features you paid $180 bucks for?

It always was your "dad's" DAW. In fact, more properly your grandad's...Nothing wrong with that.

For some reason, I keep hearing Jerry Seinfeld saying "not that there's anything wrong with that!"

But I do feel better knowing that it's not "looping", it's "nonlinear pattern-based sequencing". That almost makes it sound like science. Or jazz.

PaPi

yorolpal


As usual I'm on Bit's wavelength here.  I am a classically (and session) trained player who has very strong views on the discipline of learning an instrument and the "language" of music composition versus assembling loops like lincoln logs into an interesting groove.  That said you don't know your Mozart at all, Papi.  He quite literally loved composing and playing for the "unwashed".  He wrote for little or nothing for the people's theatres and was an earthy "bar band player" of the first order.  Check your history.  As I alluded in an earlier post (and to add to what Bit has said) you seem to be talking about HOW the music is produced and they are just talking about MUSIC...no matter how it is produced.  And, no, I don't think anyone with a sentient brain would compare Britney Spears and Diana Krall at all...it would be like comparing a fish to a bicycle.  But there (unfortunately or fortunately) are those who like fish and those who like bicycles.  Go figure.

You have a very Hollywood-esque idea of Mozart. Like the movie Amadeus were his real life.
The truth is, Mozart wrote *A SINGLE OPERA* for the Volkstheater (The Magic Flute) and only at the end of his short life, because he was desperately in need of money. In fact, he couldn't care less about the people who weren't educated enough to get his genius.
 
 
So then, he was quite a bit like you I guess.  So at least you've got that going for you.  Rock on Papi, ol pal.

EB,
I think you might want to re-evaluate the idea that the people complaining about using Twitter are technophobes. I guess I can only speak for myself, but there is no lack of technology in my life. In my home there are 6 computers in a wireless network, three computers in a wired network (both networks operate simultaneously) and media (satellite TV) and storage linked to the network. I have a Blackberry phone with bluetooth headset, wireless control surface along with wired control surfaces, MIDI Keyboards and Guitars, software of many different types, an espresso machine, and the list goes on. I drive a hybrid car, and have been contemplating the Nissan Leaf since it is all electric, at least for driving around town.
 
Although I am not what you would call an early adopter, I am not particularly set in my ways. Maturity in this case means confidence in my judgement, and the ability to separate the time savers from the time wasters. I understand the reality of business and how corporations view marketing. I also know that marketing does not add value to the product. It is merely a tool to disseminate image and information. That is not to say that I am not interested in the product and potential new features. Only that I don't see the need to check on it daily, to see incomplete versions, shifts in direction, or mistakes.
 
Paul

Natch, SNR!

Sonar
Not
Roland
?