My highly subjective Sonar review

Background

I've been using Sonar as my main DAW for the last four years now. In the past I tried Pro Audio 8 and positive memories of it's intuitive and easy interface made me buy Sonar. Before Sonar I used Cool Edit/Adobe Audition and Cubase. In those days I used 99% audio tracks only and Cool Edit/Audition was good enough for that. Computers were slower but Cool Edit could do live pre-mixing and thus help run very large projects.
Five years ago I began to need MIDI features, too. I tried to learn Cubase but it always felt messy somehow. Pro Audio and Cool Edit were much more straightforward to use, Cubase looked more cryptic. I looked other alternatives and finally Sonar felt a natural choice to me; it was like coming back home to Pro Audio but with all kind of exciting new features.

I don't like dongles. ProTools LE is too light for me and HD has a hyper expensive hardware dongle. It's not important for me to use the industry standard. I can understand that 10 years ago HD system was a wise choice for professional recording studio but today you can serve your customers with several other alternatives. ProTools - DONGLE. Cubase - DONGLE. Sonar - NO DONGLE.

This week I have tried to install Melodyne beta editor with no success. Something is wrong with my iLok driver and Melodyne installer can not find my codes. Did I already say I don't like dongles?

Recording a rock band

I record and mix rock and metal bands. In that genre audio editing is far more important than MIDI stuff. Basic tracks:

- drums 10-16
- bass 1-4
- guitars: anything between 2 and 80
- vocals: 1-40
- other audio: 0-80
- MIDI instruments: 0-2

Audio capabilities are definitely the most important part of Sonar in this case. MIDI is just nice to have. All kind of raptures and beatscapes are just curiosities.

Plugins in normal use:
- Sonitus Gate: perfect gate. Does not crash and has all the functions I need. I use this everywhere.
- Sonitus EQ: good basic EQ that never fails. Is it really 100% bug free?
- Sonitus Delay: basic choice as vocal delay before 8.5.1. Sometimes this causes audio engine dropout with ugly +9 dB output and it makes me think of other Delay plugins.
- PerfectSpace: years ago my PC could run only one instance of convolution reverb. Today I can add a dozen of these and CPU usage meter is still sleeping. I use this not only as a reverb but also as a guitar/bass cabinet simulator.
- Sonitus Compressor: good enough EQ for basic tasks.
- VC-64: I used this before but not anymore. Maybe the GUI is not attractive enough. And the EQ section was a bit buggy in 7.xx versions.
- Waves RComp: bass, drum bus. Alternative to VC-64. Never crashes.
- Waves REQ: alternative to VC-64. Never crashes.
- Waves RVox: quick & easy vocal compressor/expander but now the PX-64 has replaced this.
- GuitarRig3 Full: demo guitars, additional guitars, keyboard fx etc.
- Waves GTR3: I'm not as excited as Paul Reed in the ad video but this is an OK alternative for GuitarRig
- Voxengo Sonicformer2: almost always in my Master Bus. I dig the GUI and it's sound.
- Voxengo Elephant: master limiter if needed.
- TC Powercore: MegaReverb, ClassicVerb
- LiquidMix: mostly for drums
- VX-64: stunning vocal processor! This is GREAT! Thank you Cakewalk for this super plugin!
- PX-64: not bad either but I still use Sonitus Gate and other compressors & EQ's. I'll use this more in the future.
- V-Vocal: for quick & dirty corrections. Unsafe to use and it wouldn't be the first the to see Sonar crash if V-Vocal is open. Don't even dream to open several instances at once.
- AudioSnap2: still too buggy. I loaded 8.5.1 and the first thing I tried was AudioSnap2. Sonar crashed in 2 minutes. Nice welcome greeting to new version? Multitrack drums are still corrected manually here. Works OK with easier material.
- Celemony Melodyne: saves so much recording time when singer sings out of tune.
- Antares Autotune: used in demo mixes but if something must be corrected then Melodyne is used. And Autotune has problems with my machine's iLok :-(. Did I already say that dongles suck?

Drum Bus and Parallel Compression Bus are usually compressed by External Insert compressors. Reverbs are sometimes EI's, too. I would use them more but there is a latency correction bug that prevents me from using External Inserts during tracking phase. It's not fun to move the clips manually to their correct places if External Inserts happened to be used during recording :-(. But at least the latency calculation works now in playback mode and it is sample accurate.

OK.. now it's time to mix the song and band wants to add some odd sounds to the intro. I open Rapture and the band begins to explore sounds - I go to make some more coffee.

- Hey, we need strings and piano, too.

No problem, thanks to Dimension Pro. And customers are still happy :-).

- What program is this DAW?
- Sonar. It's the best.
- Never heard. Why don't you use ProTools?
- There's nothing in ProTools that I couldn't no with Sonar.
- Yeah, it seems very [add here any positive adjective]!
- Nowadays it's not the program but how you use it.

This is part of such a typical conversation during sessions if there are any home studio guys in the band.

Worst moments with Sonar:

- 8.0 pause problem. The first time this happened was during an important recording. Customers did not get very confident feeling of my equipment.
- Crashes during tracking phase: if during drums/bass/rhythm guitar tracking I say to talkback: 'Hey, you should practice this song for few times until we try to record this'. Band usually agrees. And I reboot system and hope that crash did not mess the hard disk because CHKDSK may take so long to recover.
- Crashes during vocal recording: even more imporant than with the other band is to keep good atmosphere for the singer. Crashes and waiting do not serve this.

I use Sonar a lot more than most users here. In 50 hours a week I get more crashes than average user in a season. Sonar forum has been great help for me: for example, the 8.5.1 Master Bug Thread gives me tips on things to avoid in order to keep my DAW running. I have tried to optimize the system for audio use and it's working flawlessly 99% of the time. Analog recorders couldn't do better, I doubt. Cakewalk has improved Sonar all the time and even if there are bugs I know they will be fixed soon.

But yes, the worst was the 8.0 pause problem last year. It made me calculate the cost of a HD3 system. But after the update I emptied the shopping cart. I saved 10 000 €.


Moments with Sonar:

Yesterday I had to record a 10 sec TV ad soundtrack from scratch in one hour. In 40 minutes I had composed, recorded and mixed the background music for the speech. I used SessionDrummer3 and a couple of Dimenstion PRO instances. I recorded the speech and compressed it with VX-64. The mix was instantly ready and customer was 100% satisfied :-).

Earlier this year I mixed a metal band that used a bit more overdubs than bands normally use. There were 145 tracks and many of them were in stereo. 48k/24 bit and over 100 active plugins. I managed to mix the EP. Sonar was thinking:

- They are all insane. Where do they need 50 vocal tracks? Humans have only 2 ears. I have 56 ears and 56 mouths!

I replied to Sonar:
- I heard that!

Singer asked:
- What?
- Eh, nothing... I mean, I heard a flat note in the vocal. You should probably take some lessons.


Conclusions

I spend more time with Sonar than with my girlfriend. I can not marry my girlfriend. I'm already married with Sonar. I want that Sonar is worth it.

You've done good job with collecting all the known bugs in the same place.
Odd things tend to happen when girlfriend transforms to wife.  I woudn't take the risk ;-).

10 things why Sonar is better than woman:

1 Sonar does not quarrel.
2 Sonar has more inputs.
3 It's easier to mute Sonar.
4 Usually Sonar is more music to ears.
5 Sonar don't require quality time.
6 You can have a new Sonar every September.
7 You don't need to talk with Sonar before using it.
8 Whole band have their own inputs into Sonar at the same time.
9 You can change Sonar's properties easily.
10 You can turn off Sonar anytime you want.

Next part of My Sonar review
Warning: this is not just a Sonar review.


Drum Editing
When you record bands you'll meet all kind of drummers. I have been lucky to record true professionals. 'Oh well, there's nothing wrong with my equipment after all, studio's drums sounds just great'.

Good drummer will not only play well in time but he/she can get good, balanced sound out of the kit. Of course this is subject to every instrument but drum recording can be problematic with a drummer that has not yet realized that you don't have to hit cymbals as hard as you were trying to kill an alien.

To use or not to use metronome? If drummer does not feel comfortable with metronome there is no sense to use click. However, the initial tempos may be taken from metronome. In this case it's still possible to get decent drum takes that have good, relaxed live feeling.

Some drummers can follow the click but they are 'chasing' it all the time. Sometimes metronome must still be used (because of tracks that require accurate timing). In this case drum takes must be edited before tracking can continue with other instruments. Now we need time editing.

I put all drum track in Track Folder named 'Drums'. After drummer has leaved studio I can do some corrections. Usually it's not good idea to let the drummer (bass player or especially singer) look editing of their performance. Ego... Anyway, I see grid of perfect time and a lousy drum take.

I have set Nudges this way: Num1 and Num3 move clips 2 ms, Num4 and Num6 10 ms. I don't use Num7 and Num9 because I can not remember their settings. I go to the beginning of the drum track. I zoom kick drum and snare drum so that their time offset is easy to estimate on the screen. When I see hits that are too far away from the ideal time (not necessarily absolute time) I split the Drum Folder with 'S' key and move the selection (right side of the split point) left or right. Editing can be done without playing back the result – you can actually see the groove :-).

Sonar's group handling is not suitable for drum editing prior 8.5 but now it is it's very good idea to group the whole folder before making splits. 8.5.1 can finally create new group from split selection. Somehow it's odd that this essential feature has been implemented in Sonar so late. But nevertheless, now it works and at least my standard of living has been improves 3% by this feature.

You must be VERY careful with the cross-fades. Usually best split position is just before the next hit – there is least amount of signal amplitude in all tracks. But if edit is made to a place where strong cymbal hit is still active it may be difficult to make a transparent cross-fade. Sometimes I even listen the edit before moving on ;-).

After 50 or 100 edits it's the last time to save the project with a new name. Sonar's operations begin to slow after tens of multitrack splits. After 100 or 200 edits new split operation may last for seconds. Restarting Sonar may give temporary help but it may be mandatory to bounce the drum tracks to give Sonar a cleaner project to handle.

Now it is time to ask if there is any sense to edit lousy drummer...? Why not hire a professional? Unfortunately, bands are social groups and it's not easy to replace a band member in studio.

Odd things in Sonar

These are in no particular order.

I drag drum clips and mouse pointer goes out of the Sonar window unintentionally. I release the mouse key and Sonar begins to copy drum WAV files SOMEWHERE. But they don't appear on the Desktop. Where are the clips going???

Almost any keyboard key can be used as a shortcut. I have Finnish layout in my keyboard. I don't know if this is the reason why '<' key does not do anything. It would have been just perfect shortcut for Export Audio. File Menu shows that it is assigned to Export Audio function but it don't work. '§' key does not work either. Odd.

Frustrating things in Sonar [:@

When something is fixed, something else gets broken.

8.5.1 has been a great upgrade. It is not just an update. But there is one BAD bug that causes me continuous harm: the bus input gain trim setting is not always working. In some cases Sonar just omits it and pushes stuff thru at 0 dB level. This is all but great because all my project are set so that bus input levels are usually not zero but something else. Guess what happens when a drum bus level is suddenly raised 8 dB? The mix will be distorted but it may also damage your ears and speakers. Odd that they don't release update faster for this kind of bugs. (Workaround: assign bus to new output, then back to original → input trim is activated. But this does not heal broken speakers and ears!)

Great things in Sonar

How much does cost the OMF feature in ProTools? Unbelievable that it's not included free in the program. I have been so used to Sonar's OMF import/export capabilities that I did not realize that it is not included in the industry standard.

Unlimited tracks, 64 bit audio engine, support for DX, VST, Rewire, great user community, no hardware dongle, nice GUI, good multicore support (special thanks for improving this!). I could write a long list of thing I really dig in Sonar but most of the features are so obvious that I don't get them in my mind at this moment. As somebody wrote in this Forum: those who don't have problems with Sonar are busy doing their work happily and they don't come here to complain about issues.

Additional content is great for songwriting. Dimension and Rapture are now my power duo as synths. I don't bother to use my older NI plug-ins anymore in new projects. Beatscape – it may be a great synth but in my opinion it is not cool for all Sonar users around the world to use the same grooves in their songs. Yes, they sound professional and they are great for songwriting purposes but I fear that those 'radio ready' grooves decrease people's interest to compose their own, personal stuff. It's like audio world's Big Mac Menu – it will replace local specialties.

Long post, thanks for reading :-).

This may seem strange to say this, but in all the years that I've been using Sonar from the earliest version, I have had very few crashes (knock on wood), but crashes appear to be a common thing from what I read on the forum.

Regards

hey
you might be interested in this month's Sound on Sound mag, it has the first in a series on tracking/mixing metal and some video interviews with Russ Russell and Andy Sneap
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov09/articles/metalvideos.htm

nice review, though why you would need 50 vocal tracks and only 2 midi seems a bit odd to me...lol

> nice review, though why you would need 50 vocal tracks and only 2 midi seems a bit odd to me...lol

Rock and metal bands that trust on guitar wall do not need many keyboard tracks.
But sometimes there can never be too many background vocal tracks in the choruses :-).

Part 3
My Template for new projects

I have created a custom template for new projects. It contains ready patched drum tracks with their basic effects, half dozen buses and few soft synths. My favorite drum machine is XLN Addictive Drums – it's light, loads fast, sounds pretty good and it's easy to handle. Template includes pre-programmed drum track: 4 measures of count-in, then few minutes straight comp.Version 8.5.1 brought SessionDrummer3. For demo purposes, it is at least as good as Addictive Drums. AD sounds a bit 'plastic' compared to great Steven Slate sounds. Now it may be time to change the drum machine in the template!

Bus section of my template for new rock projects:


Master
LP64 (off)
Voxengo Sonicformer2 (better balance preset)
Voxengo Elephant (off)

Drums
RComp
LiquidMix (off)
External Insert to SSL Bus Compressor (off)

Metronome
Sonar's Audio Metronome comes here.
Output to two separate physical outputs on RME Fireface (the other via Send Pre).

Bass
Waves RComp

Guitar 1
Sonitus:fx EQ (off)

Guitar 2
Sonitus:fx EQ (off)

Solo guitar
Sonitus:fx EQ (off)
Aux sends to reverb and delay

Lead Vocal
VX64
Aux sends to reverb and delay

Background vocals
Sonitus:fx EQ
Waves RComp
Aux sends to reverb and delay

Keyboards
Sonitus:fx EQ (off)
Sonitus:fx Compressor (off)

Delay ¼ (muted)
Sonitus:fx Delay (off)

Slapback delay (muted)
Sonitus:fx Delay (off)

Vocal Reverb (muted)
PerfectSpace (off)
TC Powercore ClassicVerb (off)

Reverb (muted)
PerfectSpace (off)
TC Powercore MegaReverb (off)

Snare Reverb (muted)
PerfectSpace (off)
External Insert (TC Electronic) (off)
TC Powercore ClassicVerb (off)

Parallel Compressor (muted)
LiquidMix (off)
External Insert to SSL Bus Compressor (off)

Notes:
LiquidMix and External Inserts are not activated to avoid problems during tracking phase. LiquidMix itself works very well but if Sonar crashes it will not always restore by just restart but it will need total reboot of the system.
All buses are not necessarily used in every project but they can be removed by just a few mouse clicks.
I keep Sonicformer2 almost always on. LP64 is on only when mix is exported.


Basic Tracks
Folder 'Live'

Source Mic
Kick Drum Beta52 or D122
Kick Drum outside MD421
Kick Drum ambience TLM103
Snare Top SM545, MD441, MD421, SM57 or SM58
Snare Bottom SM545, MD441, MD421, SM57, SM58, C451 or MK012
Hi-Hat MK012, C414 or C451
Overheads C451B/ST (stereo pair) (XY or A-B)
Room C414B-ULS stereo pair (A-B, ORTF or XY)
Far Ambience Some large diagram condenser mic & ribbon (mid/side setup)
Even more far EV RE-11, MD421 or large diagram condenser mic
10” Tom SM57
12” Tom MD421
14” Tom MD421 or Beta52
Bass DI Radial Passive DI
Bass Mic MD421
Guitar1 DI Radial Active DI
Guitar1 Mic SM57 & MD441


Monitoring during tracking
Sonar does nothing. All monitoring is handled by the RME TotalMix.

--
May be continued... Now it's time to make some pizza :)

panup

Audio To Midi trigger plugin, please!

Everybody does not have Drumagog. When you find that the Kick Drum track recording quality was poor or not suitable in the context it's time to do some triggering. Sonar could have a plugin that triggers a MIDI note at set threshold to an internal virtual MIDI port.
Just dreaming..?

Just wanted to let you know that Audio Snap has been able to do this since at least Sonar 7 (maybe even Sonar 6, when it came out).
 
I agree with you about everything else.  Although I usually oppose this and rather they spend time improving workflow (like automation), new plugins that emulate popular hardware from Cakewalk would be a welcomed addition.
 
 
Take care!

Jose7822
Just wanted to let you know that Audio Snap has been able to do this since at least Sonar 7 (maybe even Sonar 6, when it came out).

Funny that there are this kind of 'hidden' features in the program I was not aware of.
Maybe I should take a look at the manual before trying to use it ;-).

Thanks!

Hi Panup,

What audio interface are you using?

How many audio tracks can your setup record simultaneously?

Regards

- Sonar should be able to handle AVCHD.

Sonar uses the codecs on your system for video playback. So all you need to do is install a codec for this and Sonar should be able to handle it.

mgh

 
no, i was thinking more of the mountain of drum replacement which goes on. i guess if you use Drumagog then this is handled in a different way. very informative stuff you are writing though. have you tried the Superior Drummer Metal add-on pack? that looks tasty!

Nowadays I rely on the acoustic sound of the drums, thus less and less triggering is needed.
I haven't tried SD Metal add-on pack yet but may I'll take a look.  But first I must use Sonar's Oceanway set option...

So much gear, so little time :-).

Thanks Musicroom, you're welcome. :-)

Edited...

(remind me not to try and use quotes any more...I got into a real mess using this forum's software that i had to re-edit 5 times and i can't take it any more....sob, sob)