Why is Sonar SOOO Different? (Waves v9 and Eventide H3000 plugins)

First of all let me say that I love Sonar.  I have used it since version 3 - and was so convinced that I would stay with it I bought the VS-700C so I could have a highly integrated control surface.  Now for some of the lesser desirable difference between Sonar and other DAWs.

The Graphics UI appears to be different than that of other DAW's:  I had a couple of old Waves plugins that always were a bit different.  X-Ray has never liked them and refused to make them invisible.  When I moved to 64-bit Sonar for X1 I was pleasantly surprised to find that if I used JBridge X-Ray worked properly with the Waves plugins.  Skip forward to this week.  I ran across a deal offering Wave v9 Mercury bundles for over 60% off.  I decided to treat myself and bought the entire Mercury Bundle.  Surely things would work better now that v9 has gone to 64-bit and had several years of updates since the version I had (v5).  Nope.  I'm in worse shape.  I find that X-Ray still doesn't work with ANY of the v9 Waves plugins!  And even mouse movements are jerky and require multiple attempts to move the full range of a fader or knob.  Everything is 64-bit - no JBridge to get in the middle to make X-Ray happy.  Obviously Waves is different than most plugins.  The Waves plugins are the only ones that I have that seem to have these (GUI and mouse movement) problems.  Is there some sort of long standing feud between Waves and Cakewalk such that neither is interested in getting their products to work together?  We still have the VST3 issue to contend with that prevents certain Waves plugins from working completely.  Waves could have implemented sidechaining differently and stuck with VST2 but didn't - and Cakewalk appears to have no plans to ever move to VST3.  Until one of them changes some of the Waves plugins won't work completely.  Admittedly Vocal Rider and Bass Rider are still partially usable and still somewhat useful.  

I probably wouldn't have even made a forum entry (I have never been one to complain in the forum) but also this week I purchased Eventide's H3000 Factory Plugin.  I had heard it on a friends DAW (non-Sonar) and simply bought it without trying the demo.  My mistake.  When you reload the project the plugin does not work until you reload a preset.  So the best workaround is to make ANY setting you use in a project a preset and then reload that preset manually every time you open the project.  It appears that Sonar is the ONLY DAW that has this problem.  From the Eventide forum...

"I have been able to reproduce the issues you're having with Sonar.  This problem is actually different from the issues that we were seeing in Cubase, and we don't test against Sonar in house, so we didn't see this one.  I'm looking into it and will let you know when I have some more information."


There is another Sonar user active in that thread having the same problem.  Some of the things that make Sonar different I really like.  This isn't one of them.


If anyone has found a workaround to either of these issues please post.

Thanks,
Don

Hi Danny, Thanks for the comments. 

The comments weren't meant to be a threat that I am leaving for greener pastures. I really like Sonar and plan on sticking with it. Just a couple of little things had me wondering why it seemed that Sonar ( as good and as popular as it is) seems to be left out of the main stream with plugin developers to some extent. I'm sure the Waves GUI could have been fixed by Waves or Cakewalk. Since it works for other DAWs it would seem that the fix would probably need to come from Cakewalk. 
 
As far as the Eventide thing goes I'm sure that Eventide will figure it out. It was just one more case of something working with most (or all) of the other DAW's and for some strange reason Sonar was unique. 

I work by day as a engineer working with both hardware and software so I understand and sympathize with the people trying to make all of this work together. I admit I have not looked at the VST spec. I would have thought (make that hoped) that it would have been specific enough after multiple revisions such that plugins and DAW's working to that spec would be compatible. 

I agree with you that the Waves stuff is trivial and worth putting up with. I may have to make more/better use of screen sets. It's just that that cute little lever on the VS-700C is staring at me and begging to be used. The only thing I have found for it to do is X-Ray control (its default function). 

I guess as you pointed out I was venting a little - but I certainly am not saying that Sonar is horrible and threatening to leave if this isn't fixed immediately. Nor am I a fanboi. I recognize that all DAW's have problems and I believe Sonar is definitely worth sticking with. 

I sympathize with your UAD-2 problems. That would really stink. Hopefully it is resolved before long. Luckily there getting to be more and more decent plugins that are starting to give UAD-2 a run for their money in audio quality. Are you finding there are some UAD-2 plugins that are worth you booting up an alternative DAW to use? Or do you simply use an alternative plugin to the UAD-2 plugs? 

 Don


(edited to fix Firefox formatting problem.)

bobgassert


My Waves V9 Plugs have been doing fine .... 

Hi Bob,


The Waves V9 issues aren't huge.  I'm a little curious...Do you not use X-Ray - or it works correctly with the Wave plugins for you?  Do you see jerky movement of the controls if you try to work them quickly over their full range?


Thanks,
Don

bobgassert


I don't have X-Ray...

Hi Bob,  Actually X-Ray is a Sonar function so you have it - it doesn't sound like you use it though.  It is a nice way to get the plugins out of the way to see the Console/Track/whatever view without having to move anything.  I have found it to be a very handy feature.  It is certainly not a must-have feature.  It is less handy if you use two monitors or use Danny's practice of docking the plugins and using screensets.  I actually didn't use to use X-Ray at all when I used two 24" screens.  I switched to a single 30" display and started using X-Ray.  I liked the large screen and the workflow.  Maybe it's time to look at going back to two displays.  I'll probably try tweaking screensets first.

Regarding the Eventide problem.  I thought the recent change fixed it on both PT and Cubase.  And only Sonar was left.  Maybe not.  Interesting about the Slate plugin also having problems with presets when they first came out.  I wasn't aware of that.  I now have all of the Slate plugins but it must have been after it was fixed.  To make up for that apparent good timing, I bought the Slate VCC plugins two days before Sonar came out with their own Console Emulation.  I guess it's nice to have choices - but to be honest, with these old ears I have a hard time hearing what either one are doing to the mix.  To many years in my youth standing in front of loud amplifiers and a beast of a drummer who didn't think he was giving a good performance unless he broke a stick or two.

Don

Not a waves user but is there any reason why you don't want to use Jbridge with them now if X-ray is important to you?

Just set them to use jbridge in their properties panel accessed from the plugin manager.

Hi Karl,

Thanks for the comment.  As John said,  the Waves V9 plugins are 64-bit. That was my primary incentive to but V9.

To be honest I actually did try to use JBridge with X2 64-bit and the V9 Waves plugins.  I thought I had remembered reading something on the JBridge web site about being able to use JBridge on 64-bit plugins on a 64-bit host.  I  remember at the time thinking - Who would ever want to do that?  

I guess I had remembered it wrong.  All I could find on the JBridge web site was that you can use JBridge to run 64-bit plugins on a 32-bit host.  The ability to use X-Ray isn't the most important issue around.  I'll find a way to work with it.  Sonar has a lot of positives to outweigh any negatives that I have run into.

Don

everything cool here and x ray working , edit the xray exclude file and voila ....