I had Reason and wanted a VST host and a way to record audio.

I got a hooky copy of Cubase SX  and a hooky copy of Sonar4Producer and tested them back to back. I know it's wrong but at least I bought the full version when I had decided what to go for.
Sonar4 seemed so much more intuitive and easy to use than Cubase so I bought Sonar5Producer as that was the current version at the time.

The other guys in my band are Mac & Logic users but I didn't want to buy a Mac and I'm so glad I didn't.

We still manage to swap stems and make music together....they view me as quite odd that I should have a PC and a PConly DAW.

I don't think Sonar is necessarily better than other DAWs - I just found it (v4/5/6/7/8.5) more intuitive than the competition...I have X1 and that is less so than previous incarnations but I have bought in to the Sonar family now and it'll take something even more drastic than X1 to make me invest in a Mac and Logic!! - which is really my only alternative, given what the rest of the guys use.



i did have the original Cubase on an Atari 1040 STE back in the day.......i wonder if anyone is still running that?

I'm saying that coz the other guys swap whole projects between them....which throws up another set of difficulties as I don't think we all have the same plugs...

You are right....but the pressure is on for me to migrate to Mac/logic and all the same plugs as the others......

I started with Sonar 7 because it was well reviewed, cheaper than Cubase and the Forum was active.

You get stuck in a rut although this spring I tired several other DAWs out of frustration with X1 bugs and general interest. Cubase 6 was cool but it didn't work any better than X1 does now. PT is silly with all those expensive lock ins. Who cares?

Sonar is part of the system I have that works for me. It's awesome for power and flexibility and being a rebel I hate iLok and any kind of dongle.

However, I keep researching other products more for interest than anything else. Love threads like this one.

I was in Best Buy I think...maybe Staples....can't remember. I saw Cakewalk for sale and had heard from people "it's so easy to use, it's cake!"

I bought it...version 3.0 on floppy disks. It installed, scared me to death due to all the new stuff I wasn't familiar with, and there it sat on my pc for about a year until a bud of mine who was really into the whole pc recording thing taught me a few things. Once I got the bug, I was totally hooked and have only missed Sonar 3 and 4 because at the time, I was still running Windows 98 SE and wasn't in the mood to install a new OS or buy a new pc. Heck, that one I had...I STILL have and STILL use and it has Sonar 2.2 on it to this day. LOL!

But while I was getting into the whole Cakewalk thing before Sonar came out, from the Cakewalk Newsgroups (we didn't have a forum, you had to subscribe through your email program and the entire database of conversations would download to your inbox lol) I got to be friends with quite a few guys and one of the guys that worked for Cake. He asked me to be a beta tester and sent me the coolest T-shirt (which I still have and wear) a frisbee and a hat..which of course I still have too. LOL! I stayed on for a few years but got my undies in a bunch when one of the releases we tested extensively was released loaded with bugs to the point of it being horribly unstable. I'll spare you the details on that...

Several other companies were throwing stuff out there too and I was curious to try their stuff. Pro Tools was something I was never interested in because I didn't have a MAC. One year, they release a free Windows version that gave you 8 tracks of recording. It was absolutely horrible on all counts. Their excuse was "yeah, well it was made for MAC, we're just starting to get this Windows thing together".

From there I tried Cubase 3.0 at some point but had to completely reconfigure my system to make it work and that bothered me. Cake/Sonar (though it had a few quirks like it does today) just seemed to work for me and we always had a newsgroup or forum where the dudes on there knew nearly as much as the tech support guys....who weren't as active as you see today. It was strictly peers doing most of the work and a tech guy by the name of Michael Nicholas. Between Michael, Jim Roseberry, Rip Rowan (I think?), and a few others, there was basically no issue they couldn't solve.

I started using Cool Edit which was cool, but it lacked midi options. As I learned more about pc's, I started buying any program I could get my hands on. But I always seemed to go back to Sonar even though some of the others had some really cool options. When I got tired of having people not wanting to work with me because I didn't use Pro Tools, I broke down and bought a MAC and spent over 10k on stupid PT cards etc. Then new Cubase and Nuendo came out...then I got into Paris Audio which was really a killer program that I wish someone would have bought and continued to support...then I got Logic for my MAC. Absolutely the most difficult program to use of all time...and it didn't come with a manual. You had to print 9 trillion pages of it out! Powerful and really cool, I just had problems getting it down. I did get it down eventually and use the later version today once in a while, but my heart still belongs to Sonar. Reaper came out and I was giving my all to it. Though I think it's one of the best DAWS out there and the best bang for the buck, sometimes I found it too cluttered with options and routing as well as a major dislike for the interface regardless of what skin I used. I just felt like I was using cheap software...like the earlier versions of Pro Tools....how it looked like a cross between Windows 3.1 and DOS. LOL! Ok, Reaper doesn't look that bad, but I just never took to the look of it.

Anyway, years later and just about every program ever made here in my studio, Sonar is still the one for me. It's not like I haven't tried other programs at great lengths....because I have. But there's just something about Sonar that keeps me coming back. Bugs and all (just like the others have as well) it's just my soul mate for everything "recording." :)

-Danny

backwoods


Great stuff Danny.  I remember one of your posts you said you used a cracked copy for quite a while.

Yikes did I actually admit to that on here somewhere? I must have really been angry about something. LOL! I don't think it was a crack though. I think it was a borrow. I remember I bought a release of Cake that just didn't work for me at all. Crashes, lock ups, all kinds of stuff. As a matter of fact, that particular version of Cake was the only version I never did a complete project in. Then low and behold, a new version came out that supposedly fixed all that stuff. My bud bought it and said how great it was, but I was stull fuming about the other version I bought that just would not work on my system. I even called tech support and everything.
 
So he installed his copy on my box...so I guess you can say "paid for by someone else" or "borrowed". LOL! I've definitely used a few cracks in my time, but I don't recall Sonar being one of them. I'm not just saying that because I'm on the Sonar forum. I must have said it though if you remember it....*I* just don't remember it yet I remember all the other cracks I've tried. Most were "try that I DID buy" or uninstalled, a few others were...well you know, let's just say I spent obnoxious amounts of money on certain plugs and programs that just got worse as time went on....they made you install weird drivers and dongles...the stuff never worked right, tech support was horrendous and non-existent, and due to all this protection stuff and issues due to protection, I was the one that felt like I was being punished for buying software. I felt they stole from me, I returned the favor.

Ted P and Bruce.....hahahaha....there was one other guy.....started with an M.....darn....wait.....Morten!!!! Remember him? Were you Rain back then too? I was MAJICHANDS during those days on the newsgroup. :)

Danny Danzi


Ted P and Bruce.....hahahaha....there was one other guy.....started with an M.....darn....wait.....Morten!!!! Remember him? Were you Rain back then too? I was MAJICHANDS during those days on the newsgroup. :)

Oh My! Now that you mention it, yes I do remember -  Morten Saether.  My nickname was Nightbird back then.

I was a Logic user until Apple acquired Emagic.  I had a copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio that I got from I don't know where and began to use it.  It was cool so I stuck with it.  And here I am with X1 Producer and still digging CW.

For me, the decision came down to Cakewalk vs. ProTools.  I tend to gravitate towards industry standard technologies - figuring (out of ignorance sometimes) that if lots of people are using something (e.g. most major studios using protools for years), then its' functionality should more than meet my relatively basic needs.  Plus I tend to work 90% in audio (very little MIDI and soft synths), which I later found ProTools to be quite good for, however I chose Cakewalk for a few reasons:
 
1 - I've always been a 'PC' guy - I typically received a new one every few years for work - Cakewalk was / is the premiere platform for the PC.  ProTools was only MAC at the time and I had no desire to learn the MAC OS and hardware just for a DAW and have to purchase a new MAC every few years when I was already getting a new PC every few years - I'd use the new PC for a DAW and the older PC for personal / work purpose.     
 
2 - Open platform - Cakewalk supported standard VSTs and audio interfaces - I wasn't tied to using one particular brand of audio interface hardware.
 
3 - The forum  - this forum community is fantastic and that means the world to me.  Regardless of which platform you choose - it's frustrating if you have an issue and can't resolve it quickly.  The community on this forum is responsive and uber-helpful.
 
Hope that helps.
Russ
 

I started with Sonar 4 way back in the day.  I researched before I bought it, and the reviewers pretty much all praised it over other software.

I stayed with it since CW tries to keep on adding more features (although sometimes a little before they quite work).  Some have said negative things about Sonar since Cakewalk keeps releasing updates as if it's a bad thing to try to fix problems. Other DAW makers don't seem to release as many updates, and their software, despite being more expensive than Sonar, just doesn't work that well.

believe it or not, I chose sonar based on the forum. 

I had/have a copy of Cakewalk Express Gold which came with a soundblaster Live! PCI soundcard, but I didn't really use it, just played around with it.

when I went to buy a DAW, I bought Magix Music Maker (can't remember the version), bought a soundcard with Abelton Live Lite 4 on it, had a keyboard with cubase le on it, but settled on Sonar Home Studio 4 based on the forum and the available help.

and even if it weren't for this wonderful forum where everyone is always happy and gets along with everyone...I still like sonar's features better than those others that I've tried and thus I've upgraded each time based on what I liked using.

Rico Belled talked me into trying it after slamming him with tons of questions, and I never looked back!

Rip, Ted Perlman, Bruce Richardson and Ethan every now and then.

 
I miss talking with those guys... along with Lionel Dumond, Morten Saether, Pete Leoni, etc.
CompuServe based Forums!  

Rain

Twigman

...the other guys swap whole projects between them....which throws up another set of difficulties as I don't think we all have the same plugs...

You are right....but the pressure is on for me to migrate to Mac/logic and all the same plugs as the others......

As long as one opts for exporting wav files, rendering synths, etc, there's no reason to switch really. You might as well stick to what you know best as long as it works for you...

And unless you collaborate with those people on an ongoing basis, swapping files back and forth all the time, the workaround is ok.

When you are collaborating, nobody cares which software you are using.  It's the end results that count.

 Oops.....Double post.