Trial by LE
Well folks I've been sitting on the fence for so long I've lost all feeling in my legs. Opinion here has been so polarized that I've really been unable to make the decision to dive in sight unseen, without seeing it in action on my rig, and so far no demo has been forthcoming.
However, a thread here a week or so ago mentioned a trial version available as an OEM from a German magazine (KEYS) and since I happen to live in Germany, I tracked down a copy and for the princely sum of €5.50 I set myself up with a trial run on X1 LE -
yes, it does exist! (The magazine's not bad either - nice roundup of cool iPad audio apps, amongst other things)
Anyway. I have to say that while putting it through its paces on my system, it's been very stable - not a single crash, and fairly minimal weirdness. It's built on X1A according to the about page, and seems to be missing some functionality (track folders and grouping, clip effects...) - I've never used an LE version of Sonar before, so that was disconcerting - but otherwise would seem to be closely based on Essential. I trust those things are present and accounted for in Producer, which is what I would be upgrading to.
Based on this experience, I think I'm going to take the plunge. I like the workflow and the layout and overall look, though I'm not in love with the drab colors (I was not able to get panup's mods to work, nor Benstat's Sonar Plus, in case either of you were interested in whether they work on LE; I'm looking forward to trying them out on the full version). I understand there are still some issues even after X1b but I guess I'm in that camp of people for whom the new direction sits well, so I may as well get started. I hope remaining wrinkles are ironed out soon!
So, I may have more to say and/or questions to ask soon... wish me luck!