DeBro
bsantini99
Sonar was never the industry standard because it fell behind in key areas of improvement and failed to remain relevant to the music production of the day. Also, the interface became cluttered and the workflow inefficient. Noel and team made horrible decisions on the development and marketing strategy that brought us to where we are today.
Today's music is split between snap to grid, electronic based music with people who don't play instruments and people that do orchestration. People doing audio focused recording is a dwindling population which is where Sonar was mainly focused. Hopefully, the Bandlab folks will learn from these lessons and improve the daw in ways to serve the current music production scene and improve/streamline the interface.
This is utter nonsense. This is what I term the dumbing down of music making as an artform.
I do not find the interface of this DAW in anyway cluttered and the workflow inefficient. I'm very productive in it and making good music.
Upgrading from Sonar Professional, I have no complaints whatsoever. CbB detected all the tools from previous Cakewalk installs plus I got some extras and I'm happy with things as they are. LONG LIVE CAKEWALK.
Sonar was never the industry standard because the industry controls the narrative, and it is well within their best interests to keep the standards so prohibitively high [as in bone chillingly expensive] it remains outside the reach of the common musician/artists.
Talent does not control the standards of the industry,
MONEY DOES! The industry standards remain to be Pro Tools, as a result, although I much, MUCH, much, MUCH prefer to work in SONAR, simply as a means of survival I am much more intimately familiar with PT than I would ever
choose to be if I had a choice.
And I would most certainly rate PT 12 the absolute best and most feature rich technologically advanced version of PT to date as it
finally breaks into the world of x64.
And I would also rate PT 12
almost advanced as Sonar 6 Studio Edition, just around 10 years behind and still not as stable.
Now I am not in any way or means trying to imply that Pro Tools isn't an excellent DAW, but I am implying and pointing out that my experiences with both dictate that time and time again I have personally found my experiences with SONAR Producer/Platinum to be a much better, easier, and stable workflow with enough tools included in the box to take my work projects to the "ready for mastering" finish line.
MUCH closer than I could ever "afford" to achieve with Pro Tools.
Here's a fun fact... How many here in this forum today even far back as v6 know that Sonar can directly import and export project files directly into Pro Tools? Hmm?? Anybody???
Of course things like automation, FX plugins, and MIDI instruments won't be translated as PT used different methods of automation, different Plugins and instruments, nor does it have a fraction of MIDI support as Cakewalk, but all audio tracks and bussing does. And that along saves an enormous amount of time and effort which makes the workflow and set up for mixing sessions for collaborations between to two DAW's and platforms a much more smooth flowing breeze.
However Pro Tools won't open Cakewalk projects. Why? SIMPLY because AVID won't allow support for .CWB file extensions.
And that's simply all there is to it. No brain salad surgery nor complicated rendering algorithms. Simply batch convert all .wav extensions to .aiff or any extension Pro Tools understands and accepts.
But again, AVID doesn't like that idea.
Why? Because Pro Tools is in fact the #1 crowned ruler of the industry and as such has no interests in supporting any DAW that shatters the rules of the industry standards and at a mere fraction of the cost.
Another fun fact, for years now is Sonar projects are backwards compatible. But there are still the limitations of earlier versions of Sonar not being able to load plugins and instruments that it doesn't have.
OK, all that being said, I have downloaded Cakewalk by Bandlab and as pleased and excited as I ever was as a young child on Christmas morning with a perfectly smooth sailing upgrade from SONAR Platinum v 23.8.0.
It picked everything up right where I left off, same customized configuration setting, recognized all plugins and external MIDI gear and controllers.
All I had to do was remove some modules from the control bar that I don't use, and the only differences I've noticed so far is the name, the orange Icon on my desktop, and the really nice color changes in the piano roll window, and the warm and fuzzy feeling that my favorite DAW is still alive, well, and has a future.
And I fully intend to make a point to very happily contribute and support Bandlab starting in the very near future.
I can only imagine what others who had SONAR Artist, Professional, or older versions of Sonar are experiencing or will experience with the added powerful plugins. What a great gift!
Thank You Meng!