Congratulations Cakewalk

I thought a little high five and congratulations were in order for the guys at cakewalk for the very excellent Sonar 8.5 producer version.  Wow what a peice of software.  I've recently compleated my audio and sound production degree and we are forced by our trade to learn Pro Fools somthing that i resisted and from the sidelines trumpted the virtues of Sonar 6 producer to anyone who would listen.  I thought that program was great little did i know that Cakewalk had improved that 10 fold and for that i take my hat off.  I have learnt to use Pro Fools 8 which seams to be heading in a Sonar dicrection in that not only are they trying to make a one stop shop with plug-ins for every situation and synths as well (not very good ones very begininner) but they have finaly moved from battle ship grey to a more colourful GUI making it more plesent for us artists.  But they have failed and they are still behind Sonar 8.5 they are however at the same level as Sonar 6.0 they have even started to implement  their own version of the audio snap pallette and soon Groove Clip Looping which we have had since Sonar 2 (this by the way is when i jumped on board the Sonar spaceship).  I have used all the major sequencers in some way or another over the last 9 years but nothing comes close to what Sonar has produced on saying that Cakewalk are spreading themselves thin that is are they now promising too much?  Dont get me wrong i love everything in Sonar but the Phase Liner EQ cannot be used in real time or you cannot change the EQ paramaters without audio drop out (small quibble may just be my machine) and i love this plug-in already (i have had the program for less than a week)  Plus the project 5 plug-ins that we got with the upgrade to 8.5 didnt come come with the velocity drum sampler, n-pulse, and the prohect 5 sampler, it also did not include the very excellent spectral transformer fortunatly i own project 5 and these plug-ins.  Finaly i was not so impressed with the tru piano plugin i thought we got seven gigs of samples with that the dimension pro samples of pianos are excellent so no need for this plug-in.  Quibbles though and as my original statement suggested 8.5 is excellent just when we do go to nine dont need to update the GUI too much you had this perfect at 6, fix those quibbles and just maybe a vari speed button as in Logic 9 all in all though 10/10

info@tomflair.com


still you compare apples and applepies...
no use at all to compare a highend accel3 system with sonar - cos sonar will look lame as an old fart :-)
or do you thing that you can run 160 tracks at 96 in realtime with tons of plugs without latency in sonar???
the real protoosl (not le) is much more the hardware as the program itself - and the protools hardware KILLS all other audiohardware - or why would almost all pro studios work with it - just to waste cash? protools is another league - thats a fact - but sine many cant afford it they feel the need to diss it ....cheers

Ok you are right in terms of latency but you are wrong in terms of protools being the best audio interface out there in fact i can name a number audio interfaces that are ten times better what you have missed is that it's the clock first, then the convertors and then the pre-amps.  In no way are the clocks in pro-tools or for that matter the convertors better than apogee big ben clock and convertors.  From my ears and mine are preatty good and this has also been a discussion that i have with my lectures and class mates the general consensus is that pro-tools can sound thin, compare this with my creamware convertors and they do not even come close.  Of course this is done by ear and once again i put forth the propistion that my ear is preatty good not only that i have over 4 years of training behind me.  As for protools being industry standerd there are two reasons this is the case one being that protools were one of the first to develop the concept of program and audio interface in one and secondly the audio industry is full of lazy boffins who believe that it's a good thing to be able to go from one studio to the next and be able to open up there session files and have it all there at your finger tips.  It could be argued that this is bad thing and this is why one of the reasons music is all starting to sound the same and boring.  Final thing i cant remember where i read this cakewalk have done some experiments using the most powerful cpu that they could get and put that into a computer with all the stockstanderd parts sata hard drives 4 gig of ddr ram and it was able to more that handle it's own against a protools HD rig were talking similar numbers.

dr.hash

info@tomflair.com


still you compare apples and applepies...
no use at all to compare a highend accel3 system with sonar - cos sonar will look lame as an old fart :-)
or do you thing that you can run 160 tracks at 96 in realtime with tons of plugs without latency in sonar???
the real protoosl (not le) is much more the hardware as the program itself - and the protools hardware KILLS all other audiohardware - or why would almost all pro studios work with it - just to waste cash? protools is another league - thats a fact - but sine many cant afford it they feel the need to diss it ....cheers

Ok you are right in terms of latency but you are wrong in terms of protools being the best audio interface out there in fact i can name a number audio interfaces that are ten times better what you have missed is that it's the clock first, then the convertors and then the pre-amps.  In no way are the clocks in pro-tools or for that matter the convertors better than apogee big ben clock and convertors.  From my ears and mine are preatty good and this has also been a discussion that i have with my lectures and class mates the general consensus is that pro-tools can sound thin, compare this with my creamware convertors and they do not even come close.  Of course this is done by ear and once again i put forth the propistion that my ear is preatty good not only that i have over 4 years of training behind me.  As for protools being industry standerd there are two reasons this is the case one being that protools were one of the first to develop the concept of program and audio interface in one and secondly the audio industry is full of lazy boffins who believe that it's a good thing to be able to go from one studio to the next and be able to open up there session files and have it all there at your finger tips.  It could be argued that this is bad thing and this is why one of the reasons music is all starting to sound the same and boring.  Final thing i cant remember where i read this cakewalk have done some experiments using the most powerful cpu that they could get and put that into a computer with all the stockstanderd parts sata hard drives 4 gig of ddr ram and it was able to more that handle it's own against a protools HD rig were talking similar numbers.

but i was never talking aboutthe converters anyway - i just meant the raw power of the core system with all its fast dsp chips...that is what makes prootolls unique - i just talked to a friend of mine yesterday who was a system with 3 cards and he said that he works with (the tracknumber i mentioned above) with 160 tracks at 96 and maybe 3-5 plugs per track and the system doesnt stutter a second or has any noticable latency - THAT is the strenght of prootools - the converter thing is another stopry (which one could argue about) btw...about prootools sound thin - well i am really no protools advocate but i guess its the old "**** in /**** out..." (nothing personal - its just the concept)
i am pretty shure that no actual mixengine sounds thin - they all sound great today...
 
btw. please dont forget that i am a happy sonar user :-) but i stick to my statement: protools core + accel cards is just "something elses"
 
regards

smoochy


pro tools is still around because the expensive hardware that exist was built around it and won't work with any other...  not really a choice if you ask me.   what would you do... replace a three hundred thousand dollar console... or keep using the daw that works with it?  it's a matter of being stuck with it. not to mention... those high priced studios with there mega expensive gear don't really have to use it if they don't want to.  do you really think that ocean way uses most of the featers of pro tools... when they have the real thing sitting in the rack?  not to mention their sitting on adda converters that most of us would only dream about... and no they don't use the protools converters.

 
did you actually read my reply ? whats this converter discussion here? no one talks about converters - its not hard to imagine that a ultra stable highperformance platform that can process tons of data is the choice of the pro guys - you pricing example is far beyond reality a very powerful pt system (NO without the converters) costs about 10k - which isnt THAT much if you consider all the hassle people have with their daws and all the tricks and tunings they need - and the new os, and all the other crap we have to eventually take care of - with pt - you stick the card inside the slot and you wont have to think about anything...if i had the money (and the need for that sort of setup) i wouldnt hesitate a minute to buy one - luckily enough i do not nedd 192 parallel audiotracks at 0% processor load - so please stop this pretty old and odd pt bashing (ok next week it will be logic - then cubase..etc .. its just the ever same repeating story here)
people who eventually have gear worth 5k and have never seen pt personally shouldnt be to wise about it...i wonder how much ofthose who say "pt isnt good" even dint know that pt-le is just the baby version of the monster app...
but whatever - if stating the false that pt is lame or whatever makes feel people better :-)
just try to record 64 audiotracks at 96/24 simultaneously with software monitoring through high quality fx in sonar - as the op said it right: sonar starts to freak out latenvywise just with ONE of those "mastering" plugs even just while playing it back  ;-)
so please check the facts about the systemcapabilities of pt before eventually whining about the colours in the gui...

 

smoochy


I'm going to have to admit... it is like apples and oranges.  as far as the functionality of pro tools hardware goes.  to make full use of sonar i have had to go to uad cars and such to reduce cpu usage.  and no there is no way you can do with sonar what you can do with protools... however i do beleive the actual software is a better designe....so the questune has to be asked... why doesn't cake walk make a pcie card hardware version as well?  to make better use or it's software. on that point pt has them all beat hands down

 
that indeed would  be a cool thing :-)

Dr. Hash I congratulate you on being able to see the usefulness of Sonar in these days for most of us. Word to the wise. We can be happy with our choice without denigrating another DAW.