Have used Cubase from the Atari days many moons ago, and aside from an odd gripe here or there, was never that upset with the product, in any guise - aside from SX1.

However, that started to change +12 months ago, when Steinberg decided to release a version and omitted telling people of a certain lack of DX plugins being usable. This has been covered ad nauseum, however I did stop and consider where my money was going. Regardless of the politics involved and who was responsible for holding this info back - (yes, it was held back, not missed), it made me reaslise that I do not want to continue to work with a company that has no regard for its customers loyalties etc. Instead of listening to what the majority of users wanted, they implemented other changes such as a Media library and a new preset system. I know all users will have their little gripes on small changes, but that was a large one for me. IMO, badly implemented at best, and so annoying at worst. AT LEAST leave the old option open or make it optional. Side chaining? Nope, is only on the horizon in a few weeks. Proper grouping etc. and flexible routing? Possibly on the way also, FINALLY.

Yes, granted, Apple/Emagic have done the same with Logic and p@ssed off many of their users - no news of changes, and hardware involved too.... However, I have never been an Apple user, so it hasn't effected me. If I had been, then I would be looking to swap company. No doubt someone will be thinking that each company will disregard customers at some stage. Probably, but Cakewalk looks good from what I have seen so far....

The matter is, all DAW software sequencers do pretty much the same thing. And althought a learning curve will be needed to switch, if you have a background in one, that learning curve should be easier in another. What's more (as I have found out this morning after having finally got to use 6 PE) is that there are many options that allow you to see and play like the competitors. The fact that 6PE is customizable in viewing terms, and that the Key Bindings allow me to imitate the Cubase workflow, that saves a lot of time already. With Sonar 7 PE on the way as an upgrade - (actually, that's a long story too!), the midii editing will also be improved. Some of the functions I have found are so helpful, that Cubase hasn't. Am feeling pleased with the outcome so far. Have only been working with soft synths at the moment, but so far so good. Aside from the following:

My system and soundcard are working fine with Cubase, and have been. However, when first recording a soft synth (such as Atmosphere), there's an AUDIO DROP OUT after a bar or so.... Happens every other time......

Is there something obvious I am missing? Have checked the usual culprits - nothing running in background, usual DAW tweaks...latency settings adequate...

Anyhoooo, back to the topic. Am truly hoping that I can switch successfully, and am able to do all I could with Cubase. One important aspect is the people you deal with on forums also. Steinberg introduced USB key policy which meant that the numbers of registered users went down (surprise there then!), however, with a few exceptions, the Cubase forum now has lost any form of - not sure how to say it - friendliness? The piracy police (of which there are a few, and smiley faced about it also) always annoyed me if I am honest.... Greater than thou was often the effect they showed, and I am not condoning piracy. However, the atmosphere here seems so much warmer and helpful.

Hope I don't end up eating my own words.....

Congratulations to Cakewalk for a great product, and listening to those that use it (well, as much as they can anyway!)

A piu' tardi,

Speranza

I am an analog convert from the good 'ol Tascam days. I started with a 4 track cassette and eventually moved up to a Roland VS-1680 on which I recorded my first project, my own original band, 'Blindseven'. It was quite evident the wave of the future was DAW, but I was, honestly, a little gun-shy. Then came an opportunity to use a friend's PC set up with Cubase SX. They(Triplever) liked what I did with the Roland and I told them I would do it for pizza and beer so I could learn this new beast and hopefully get enough experience to finally make the jump with my own system. To make a long story short, Triplever went on to get signed from the recording I engineered and produced on an Indy label. It was a distribution deal, so they actually used my recording! Lucky me! I was now on the hunt for a PC and software for myself. I searched Craigslist often, and happened to run across an individual who was not only selling his decked out PC, but it had Sonar 5 PE already loaded!!! Along with Waves Platinum bundle and several other sweet plug-ins. All for a measley 300 bucks!!! The PC has XP Pro SP2, 4 GB RAM, Pentium 4 3.2Ghz and 120 GB Hard drive. All I needed now was an interface. I did some research and decided on the Phonic Helix 18 Firewire. I really liked the 16 tracks recordable at once feature. Drum tracks were now a cinch. I am recording my first band, 'Impulsive Aggression' and things are running smoothly except for ONE small detail. When I export audio to make a CD, the volume is much lower on the burnt disc than the playback volume. It is at least 3-6 Db's lower. I tried everything I can think of, including making sure all volume sliders on WMP were up. I tried all the different sources, ie., main outputs, buses, complete mix, and no difference. Other than that, I am completely satisfied with Sonar, especially the bounce to track option which Cubase didn't have......Sure hope I can figure out the volume to disc bug-a-boo.....

TK

I've been using Cakewalk's Guitar Tracks Pro 2 for about 3 years now, and recently purchased a guitar/keyboard midi interface that came with Live Lite 5. Live maybe someone's cup of tea, but I wasn't impressed. So I decided to stay with Cakewalk, and just recently purchased Sonar 6 PE. I am impressed. While I still have alot to learn about Sonar, there is enough simularity to GT Pro 2 to allow me to at least to make some noise with it. I would also like to say that part of the reason I chose Cakewalk was this forum, (where I have been lurking for months). Any question's I had concerning Sonar were answered right here. Now I'm waiting for the Sonar 7 upgrade.

Ha! I don't remember posting on this thread! Hehehe

I started out on Sonar Home Studio XL, never had any problems with it, hardly had to refer to the manual. I recorded 12 songs in 3 months. Sonar performed flawlessly on my old pc running Win'XP

I have also used Wavlab for mastering but I don't plan on using that anymore! I did thought about other apps such as Cubase, Live, Reaper, (perish the thought) (shock horror). No doubt I will never switch to anything other than Sonar 7PE.

At the moment my gear is in disarray! I sold all my Keyboards, guitar and h/ware, the rest is packed away in storage in Australia since moving to the USA (Legal Immigration through marriage = two years) UGH!! I feel like my life has been on hold for too long.

I plan to start from scratch! I already got a new guitar and keyboard, been using them to write new songs! Soon I plan to purchase (custom build) a new PC, buy new hardware (audio/midi interface and mixer) and finally Sonar.7PE and by then it will include all the latest updates and run solid as a rock.

Sonar.7PE has all the right stuff (all in one solution) to produce fantastic high quality productions. My priority at this point in time is focusing on the "Songs" because to me that is most important.

All my old gear (Shure microphones, loads of cables, h/ware effects) will be passed on to family in Australia.

i just started producing not too long ago..but i started with Cubase SX3. that dongle stuff was annoying. and i heard way too many good thing about sonar 6 so i got it..no im about to have sonar 7 installled!!

I tried to make a long story shory short but I couldn't. This is a summary of 20 years of switches.

I was a user of Steinberg PRO-16 on the commodore 64 in 80's. For the time it was a pretty good piece of equipment, very solid timing.

I then had to move to a new country and I switched to a hardware sequencer, the MMT-8 from Alesis. That was a fantastic piece of hardware which is still in my studio.

I then got a PC for writing my BA thesis and since MPU401 interfaces where sort of cheap at that point I got myself a copy of Master Track Pro, which I used for a while, but I don't really remember completing a single project with it, maybe because I had to write my thesis.

I then worked briefly with the Atari, to finally settle between Cakewalk (when the company was called twelve tone systems) and Master track pro. MTP got eventually ditched as Cakewalk had: Swing Quantize!!

For a long period I went into a swing between Cakewalk and Cubase 2.8, checking feature by feature, until I got over the years eventually got sold to Cubase which at the time was better featured than cakewalk (at that time I had to print lots of scores) and went on to become a pro user, knowing every possible shortcut and trick. Until Cubase VST... the software quality started to become flakey, I suffered from many lost projects, erratic clock, infinite crashes, and cubase support did not exist. I really spent little time recording music during that long period. I remember using most of the time the sequencer inside my Trinity Plus.

Next? somebody recommended to try out logic, and I fell in love. Man, I learnt that software inside out, I loved it, I could design my studio connections, the list editing was really good, the interface was fast, it didn't get in the way of making music, timing was super solid (I had an AMT-8 midi interface to go with it), it integrated with sounddiver which made my life with outboard gear really easy. Pretty much I was happy.

Then they pulled the plug.

Clearly it was time to move on, no way Apple was going to have my money. I started using Acid and again Cubase, SX this time, everyone else was, here in europe at least. But it sort of got too complicated at that point, the transition with previous version had not been smooth, and I found it too confusing, I used only the basic features. I had started toying as well with early version of Fruity Loops first and Reason later.

Eventually I couldn't handle the complexity of Cubase for the simple things I wanted to get done, so I was using my workstation sequencer and then recording only the audio into Cubase. I decided I could use something simpler if I had to do that, and what I really wanted were some clever creative tools without having to think to much... And I turned to: Fruity Loops when it became FL Studio.

FL Studio did at that point everything I needed for composing and coming up with ideas (controllers, chords, formulas, layers, etc..), I could always fire up another sequencer when required. I used it for a while, but there was one problem, I have quite a few outboard synths and FL Studio just doesn't play well with standard midi equipment, it doesn't recognize midi controllers (including sustain pedal) unless you set up a panel first where the controller gets mapped to an internal controller. It wasn't such a big issue but it's one of those things that slowly grows on you, and I saw it right there that it was complex to get a project completed totally in FL.

So, who else was left... Logic was gone, Steinberg had gone super complex with odd graphic interfaces, Live - I don't use that many loops...

Sonar started to get the features I needed besides being intuitive, stable, solid, fairly easy to use (but for a few things where the online help needs a serious overhaul), acidized audio, serious midi capabilities, the .cal language which I always liked... it was all there, and the things which weren't there could always be "rewired" in. As stupid as it may sound the tipping point for me was that it didn't require to stop the sequencer as much as it used to in order to get things done.

So at this point in my life, I'm with Sonar, that doesn't mean that I may not switch again in the future.

Cheers,
/R

I have used steinberg stuff since the Atari days. I will be honest and say that my friend gave me a copy of Sonar. I am currently saving up for version 7, cheaper, better support. I was mainly interested in the 64bit support, which pulled me towards your product and away from steinberg. Then I found out that there was no rewire 64bit support, but I just installed the 32bit vesrion and eventually converted to SONAR. I just need to save up another £100. I was very suprised how good it was

I used cakewalk for a number of years but also a number of years ago. I gave up music because of bad company but I still love it. Finally I decided to start again after talking to a co-worker who explained how easy it is to record and edit without loosing the quality I want.

Switching from Logic Pro 8, due to Steve Jobs strategy to sell Hardware instead of software ( He dropped the dongle protection so you can download Logic for free and then buy a Mac, I know Sonar has serial too but why in the Sonar case? ). We waited for three years and Logic 8 came with no new features, a lot of bugs and a new way of "workflow" which are easier to learn for beginners but slower for pros. Logic is now aming for the low end users, not pro. Sonar seems to be a good alternativ but I guess Sonar has still a lot to learn from Logic, especially MIDI stuff, the Audio stuff is way better in Sonar, that´s for sure.

.

i switched from pro audio 9 back around the turn of the millenium...

before then, it was Pro Audio all versions, before that - DOS days.....

long live cakewalk!!



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