Monkey23

mike_mccue


FWIW, I suspect that PT waited until they understood PDC in the native landscape.  

That was their excuse for not having a fast export/bounce option. They said there were too many bugs/lost artifacts etc. But I'm not buying it. Has anyone really noticed a difference between a fast bounce and a real time bounce? Doubtful. 

"That was their excuse for not having a fast export/bounce option. They said there were too many bugs/lost artifacts etc. But I'm not buying it. Has anyone really noticed a difference between a fast bounce and a real time bounce? Doubtful. "

Well, actually in SONAR we have people frequently discover that their soft synths and delay efx sound different with fast bounce, slow bounce, and real time performance.

That's the thing I see in PT that attracts me... it's designed so that the operator doesn't have the guest waiting on them or complaining about weird functionality. It anticipates those awkward moments.

I acknowledge that AVID enjoys a luxury of IMPOSING a particular work flow on you, but seeing how that work flow has been so closely modeled to what evolved during 80 years of analog studio work it doesn't seem to unreasonable to conform to a model that has already demonstrated so much success... particularly with regards to how it serves the relationship between operator and guest.

best regards,
mike

I would say complain after a number of weeks.. not 5 minutes after installing
much like how I hated the new MS mail thing instead of OE.. but I got used to the other thing..

and like it or not, from what I saw from the new one.. the old interface was cluttered compared to other things I use

it's peoples right to complain if they feel so, but well I'd give it a bit of time.. just my 2p's worth

How was it cluttered? I see nothing change, except it is twice harder to assign Input/Output because now you have to expand the track view to even get to your I/Os hiding behind Volume, Pan and other stuff. And who decided to put another 3 buttons under M, S and R buttons? That is clutter.

Monkey23

Monkey23

mike_mccue


FWIW, I suspect that PT waited until they understood PDC in the native landscape.  

That was their excuse for not having a fast export/bounce option. They said there were too many bugs/lost artifacts etc. But I'm not buying it. Has anyone really noticed a difference between a fast bounce and a real time bounce? Doubtful. 

I have noticed a difference for a few plugins, sometimes fast bounce/freeze/export has resulted in noticeable problems for me. I find it generally becomes a problem more so when you're using softsynths and a number FX plugins on top of that

mike_mccue

Freddie H


Yes Mike. I'm not trying to offend you and I don't know but perhaps you should cross-grade (down grade) to a DAW that are the opposite to SONAR X1. Out date!

You find it here-----> http://www.avid.com/us/products/family/pro-tools


Best Regards
Freddie

Freddie,
I find your inability to deal in facts offensive.

But I love you and have a sweet spot in my heart for you.

Your uninformed testimony is beyond annoying... it undermines your credibility as a technician... and it undermines SONAR's credibility as well.

I trust that you are a sincere artist and I relate to artists. I have lots of friends that I love most dearly whom live in a world of superstition.

Can we be friends at that level?

Freddie... you're the man!!!!

all the best,
mike

Okay Mike.
 
So can someone tell me what is so great with Pro TOOLS? 
 
After years and countless of horus behind PRO TOOLS HD I haven't seem to find it? (Nice GUI Though)
What do you all think you can do in PRO TOOLS HD that you can't do in other DAWs? I'm very curious?
IMHO the only thing you will find is limitations and a overprized price TAG! 
  
 
1. Work with VST-MIDI (TDM- they need to have a own standard too)?  No crapiest in the business
 
2. Still x32bit no 64bit support = Only use 2.8 GB RAM MAX per Pro Tools project.
 
3. Ram Limits = You can forget being a POWER-USER working VST-Is (TDM-plugin) like Kontakt, EAST WEST, Vienna Instruments, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX, Trillan, and other large Sample libraries...
 
4. Record Audio, Yes you can but only use max 96 Audio Channels. 
All other DAW:s on the market you can record audio aswell like SONAR, Cubase, REAPER, LOGIC, NUENDO, STUDIO ONE.  In those programs you can use Unlimted Tracks!!!
 
5. Icons? No= bad work flow. You read pictures faster then TEXT! You all should try it!
 
Do I need to continue?....
 
 
Regards
Freddie
 

Thanks Freddie H!!!

mike_mccue


I doubt that my *mini me* can keep up with the facts here. But some of you will probably appreciate that one company may have simply held off offering a feature until it could get it right... while the other company simply kept their customers in the dark about the problem.

What do I know?

Oh c'mon you have got to be kidding. All new love is blind I guess. They didn't have it in their lowly versions in order to fence that feature away from the high-end versions. They only support their own plugin format for god's sake that they themselves created. You really telling me you buy the fact that they couldn't figure out how to delay compensate their own plugin format until now?

mike_mccue


"That was their excuse for not having a fast export/bounce option. They said there were too many bugs/lost artifacts etc. But I'm not buying it. Has anyone really noticed a difference between a fast bounce and a real time bounce? Doubtful. "

Well, actually in SONAR we have people frequently discover that their soft synths and delay efx sound different with fast bounce, slow bounce, and real time performance.

Now you know as well as I do that this is almost always due to anomalies in how the plugin works and it's generally caused by plugins that disk stream samples. It happens in all hosts that have fast bounce and SONAR handles it better than pretty much any.

It's also something that rarely happens especially these days.

Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk
]

mike_mccue


I doubt that my *mini me* can keep up with the facts here. But some of you will probably appreciate that one company may have simply held off offering a feature until it could get it right... while the other company simply kept their customers in the dark about the problem.

What do I know?

Oh c'mon you have got to be kidding. All new love is blind I guess. They didn't have it in their lowly versions in order to fence that feature away from the high-end versions. They only support their own plugin format for god's sake that they themselves created. You really telling me you buy the fact that they couldn't figure out how to delay compensate their own plugin format until now?

How loud is the silence here that the PDC issue Mike mentions wasn't declared as an issue in 8.5.3? despite being flagged up by Mike (he says) at least, yet it seemingly receives a bug fix in X1?

I've certainly had an issue there where by trying to purposely introduce a sample accurate delay at the bus stage of the signal has seemingly caused a fight state between delay plug and PDC which caused midi to be triggered late and thus not sounding consistently, I originally put this down to the plug facilitating the delay causing the problem but could this too have been the issue that Mike is outlining here?

mike_mccue

John


Mike if you look at X1 as the first in a line of new products not unlike when Sonar came to be you may find it worth sticking with it.

I like you am looking at X1 as a downgrade from Sonar 8.5.  Yet it has far greater potential then staying with the way Sonar was.  We just need to get CW to bring back the great things about Sonar to this new program.

No version 1 of any new offering will meet all our needs. Give it time and with the help of this forum I do believe we will get most of what we want.

John,
I think this a most realistic assessment.

I wish I could pay my upgrade fee and have Cakewalk acknowledge that it was done so with prejudice... so that they do not mis interpret the purchase as a vote of confidence. 

There something wrong with a system where I continue to pay for an unsatisfactory product simply because I don't want to wake up one day and find my past 15+ years of work trapped in an old version on some old operating system.

For the past few years I have continued to upgrade simply to avoid a nightmare in the future. I do enjoy the incremental improvements... but I'd would rather pay more for even more improvement. Maybe X1 will be the foundation for a better SONAR... my problem is that I feel the culture within Cakewalk has dismissed many of it's long term customers' interests.

The decisions seem calculated and well thought out... Cakewalk has very competently alienated many of it's most die hard customers.

I think as has been suggested that  Cakewalk is making a gamble to hit it big with the broadest base of customers. It seems to me as if there is some residual memory of selling organs on Saturday afternoon by playing slick riffs in a crowded shopping mall.

best regards,
mike

What changed so much in X1 that it's not "Pro" anymore. I don't see a million icons on the Pro Tools tool bar - and Logic probably has the most stripped down UI available. Both those programs seem to be considered "Pro". People said the same thing about Logic's UI when it changed - oh it's Garage Band now.....and look at its positioning now...stronger than ever.

I've talked to so many producers and songwriters over the years who felt SONAR's overwhelming UI made them feel stifled and distracted and hid the the wealth of features underneath. We've made an attempt to bring everything to the surface and make it better organized.

Yes there are some shortcomings which we will do our best to work out over the next couple patches. It already being worked on and discussed. We're not turning a blind eye...or deaf ear...

This dramatic conclusion that we've abandoned the pro user and Cakewalk's culture has changed and Roland is making it only good for newbs, etc is just perhaps a bit reactionary and frankly not the case. What has changed sooo much that you can't do what you used to do. There are a few things we need to address, but there  are many things that make life easier as well. Sure I was thrown at first too, until I got used to it. I don't think it's really that hard if you open your mind, take a deep breath, and spend some time. Sure there will be some frustration...I get that.

The fact is that "Pro's" regularly express to us that they want a simplified workflow, less clutter, less starship cockpit experience from their music software - that massive customization doesn't necessarily supersede good out of box standard experience that doesn't get in the way of creativity. That's not to say that we don't think customization is good and that we won't increase the level in X series SONAR, but I think we needed to kind of reset things and start over.

mike_mccue


Thanks Brandon!!!

Please let some of your Cakewalk colleagues know how I feel, which is to say that I think SONAR was almost the very best thing going but....

and have a great day!!!

I'm off to make music and tweak my X1 colors.

And remember everyone... it is always a good idea to spend the time to listen to your bounce before you send it off to someone.

Everyone at CW is reading and hopefully learning from you guys - and you included Mike.

And let me say Mike, I'm sincerely bummed that you're bummed. I wish more people felt it was 90% perfect

Anyway, if you'd like to give a list of things that particularly darken your DAW world I'd be happy to merge and add them to the complete list. Maybe we can improve things for you over time. But if you've lost faith in us and/or feel we've grown apart and are ready to move on, well I understand that as well.

Anyway, as always, let me know if I can help somehow. My job and intention here isn't to force any of you to like X1. It's only to help transition people to a hopefully better way and likewise learn how we can improve things on our end to serve the SONAR community as a whole in the best way possible.

"I've talked to so many producers and songwriters over the years who felt SONAR's overwhelming UI made them feel stifled and distracted and hid the the wealth of features underneath. We've made an attempt to bring everything to the surface and make it better organized."

Brandon, I hear you on this. But you guys have an incredibly powerful package. We both know it can be more that PT. I know that.

Cakewalk's real challenge will be to educate their customers about the power. Cakewalk will never get around that.

People (including myself) only know what they know. What they don't know is mysterious sometimes troublesome.

The same complaints will follow this program simply because it is such a huge and powerful program. The poeple that don't know about the features will still complain that they don't know about the features.

You know that I am personally an advocate of the idea that Cakewalk should increase the budget for the tech reps to get out in the street. You guys should be out there spreading the word even more so than you do.

 I'd love to think you got more time sweating it out in tracking sessions with a rhythm section and diva... one where you would quickly see that SONAR doesn't have a workflow.

Cakewalk has doe a good job of catering to the band in a box entrepreneur and that is possibly why it has been able to get away with the lack of work flow for so long. Cakewalk has been working with a user base that has transformed the business. That's pretty cool!

The thing is, if you want to sell to greater public... it ain't a bunch of computer geeks. It's folks with acoustic guitars, living room pianos, a small trio of strings. That's what's on the horizon. Those are the folks who's work flow was never properly established at Cakewalk.

Did you know that with one keystroke I can turn the metronome on and off in Pro Tools while it's playing or recording? No busses, no extra hassles.

That is work flow my friend.

I am telling you that if Cakewalk simply led the way by example and showed people what work flow is then I believe that the tiresome conversations about being confused about what to look for when and where in SONAR might be mitigated a bit.

That has been a luxury Avid has enjoyed. They simply conformed to the work flow of a tape based studio and people got to work. If you want to complain about some factual detail about PTs misgivings you are taking on a 80- year old tradition.

Unfortunately, Cakewalk just spent the past 5 years trying to woo the push button instant groove crowd and that seems as far removed form work flow as things can get.

Cakewalk is still in a position to publish the best DAW on the planet... but I am not getting the message that Cakewalk has the confidence to see that as a fact.

all the very best,
mike

mike_mccue


"I've talked to so many producers and songwriters over the years who felt SONAR's overwhelming UI made them feel stifled and distracted and hid the the wealth of features underneath. We've made an attempt to bring everything to the surface and make it better organized."

Brandon, I hear you on this. But you guys have an incredibly powerful package. We both know it can be more that PT. I know that.

Cakewalk's real challenge will be to educate their customers about the power. Cakewalk will never get around that.

People (including myself) only know what they know. What they don't know is mysterious sometimes troublesome.

The same complaints will follow this program simply because it is such a huge and powerful program. The poeple that don't know about the features will still complain that they don't know about the features.

You know that I am personally an advocate of the idea that Cakewalk should increase the budget for the tech reps to get out in the street. You guys should be out there spreading the word even more so than you do.

I'd love to think you got more time sweating it out in tracking sessions with a rhythm section and diva... one where you would quickly see that SONAR doesn't have a workflow.

Cakewalk has doe a good job of catering to the band in a box entrepreneur and that is possibly why it has been able to get away with the lack of work flow for so long. Cakewalk has been working with a user base that has transformed the business. That's pretty cool!

The thing is, if you want to sell to greater public... it ain't a bunch of computer geeks. It's folks with acoustic guitars, living room pianos, a small trio of strings. That's what's on the horizon. Those are the folks who's work flow was never properly established at Cakewalk.

Did you know that with one keystroke I can turn the metronome on and off in Pro Tools while it's playing or recording? No busses, no extra hassles.

That is work flow my friend.

I am telling you that if Cakewalk simply led the way by example and showed people what work flow is then I believe that the tiresome conversations about being confused about what to look for when and where in SONAR might be mitigated a bit.

That has been a luxury Avid has enjoyed. They simply conformed to the work flow of a tape based studio and people got to work. If you want to complain about some factual detail about PTs misgivings you are taking on a 80- year old tradition.

Unfortunately, Cakewalk just spent the past 5 years trying to woo the push button instant groove crowd and that seems as far removed form work flow as things can get.

Cakewalk is still in a position to publish the best DAW on the planet... but I am not getting the message that Cakewalk has the confidence to see that as a fact.

all the very best,
mike

All comments taken to heart Mike and yes there are areas of SONAR and ways in which we can do better. I certainly won't argue that. And true it's still about education and we've taken steps to making that a fundamental part of what we do with SONAR U, etc.

As we are discussing updates to X1 (and our way to X2), I think a fair amount of focus will certainly go into these areas. I know that workflow for certain kinds of professionals, including those working with "rhythm section + diva" () are to be looked at, just as UI, Tools, etc were looked at heavily in this release. The next major version won't be a program with 4 buttons and bunch of loops - I promise. Shoring up other areas of the program are part of the discussion and the forum is of course a valuable part of our plans.

But we do have to take into account many types of music production as it's a wide wide world out there as you no doubt realize.

So check out X1a and then the next patch and then whatever comes after. I suspect things will only get better for those feeling uncomfortable currently.

Wow, Brandon, your last comment...
 
(So check out X1a and then the next patch and then whatever comes after. I suspect things will only get better for those feeling uncomfortable currently.)

...is pretty damn exciting! I admitt that I was prett uncomfortable with all the changes at first, but X1 is really growing on me. I tweaked a couple of the key bindings and started digging through the tools and menus with an open mind and I was pleasantly surprised at how I started to feel about it.

Also, I am an audio guy, not a MIDI guy. I record, mix, and master live musicians and I run my whole production company with two other employees all around SONAR. I know SONAR has a lot of stuff geared towards the MIDI stuff, but all the audio tools I need are there. I am totally happy with SONAR and I feel that my demographic (audio only, with real musicians) is important to the company and not left out.

I am really starting to love X1, it certainly is exciting and has my thumbs up! Thank you Cakewalk!