This is my first ever DAW

Was going to go down the Steinberg route, but after reading many articles on the Internet eventually decided on SONAR.

Seems like I chose well

Really impressed with: All of it

Things I am craving: More time to read the damned manuals - better knowledge/understanding - but I'm getting there.

Sorry this came from another of my post, but realized it belonged here.

I've liked Cakewalk from day one and always came back to it off and on. The win 3.1 version is what I cut my teeth on.

Here's the deal...
I gave up on computers for music a few years ago...CRASH@#$%^ nuff said, not easy to do, as I am a midi guy and a computer nerd. Fast forward a few years, moved onto dedicated music computer based systems, namely the Tascam SX-1le, Akai DPS 16, MPC 4000, etc. I even went back to the ATARI and Cubase, as this system is very reliable (though, not bug free). I stuck with hardware synths, samplers, drum machines etc. For the record, I am still actively using these items. However, (here's where Sonar 6 and now 7.0.1 come in)...

I have chosen to give computers (namely PC and MAC, though more PC than Mac) another go, not just the PC, but mainly SONAR! Why my sudden change of heart, SONAR is beyond incredible. Yeah, I said it, absolutely an incredible bit of kit. Well, truth be told, Arturia is the biggest culprit in my going back to SONAR. See, I, like most sequencer owning musicians, have an addiction to gear, synthesizer gear, modular analogue synth gear. Therefore, I seen the Arturia Moog Modular V and had to have it. Hence the need for a PC or MAC and a host sequencer. I had SONAR 2.0 packed away and thought this was the easiest, and cheapest way to use MMV. Well, it wasn’t long before I seen SONAR 6.0 this year and again HAD TO HAVE IT hahahahah. Because Sonar 2.0 was very reliable and was, actually fun to use, the investment into 6.0 was an easy decision. Now with 7.0, my laptop is at Sweetwater as we speak, getting tweaked and being loaded with 7.0.1. To sweeten the set-up, I’m having my Novation SL 25 ReMOTE set-up as the main controller.

The thing that pushed me back into using Sonar is the fact that softsynths and midi data can be turned into audio directly, no recording, just convert. This alone made me a true believer (Stan Lee says it best).

ORIGINAL: Bristol_Jonesey

- better knowledge/understanding - but I'm getting there.

Welcome Colin,

Cakewalk is a great company.

Be sure and check out the SONAR 7 Videos...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1166216

Previous videos here...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=925376

I am looking forward to getting my upgrade to sonar7 from 6 producers edition ( boxed version), allthough i aint produced a full track yet, i have been experimenting,
i have also used ableton live since version 4, and becuase of this good but lazy learning i am finding it hard to arrange in sonar 6, a lot more fiddly, despite trying to understand this snap to grid, i am still having problems lineing up audio and midi clips, basic i know.
but in live the grid is their and also easy to change and drop clips to the nearest time line, in sonar it just wont line up as i want, then this remove silence adds some confusion when shifting audio and midi clips, obviousley it is something i aint doing wright despite many'many hours and days etc , but my point being in live its a doddle, so this has been my downfall/offput.
i first purchased sonar 6 thinking i could use the instruments in live amongst other temptations sonar had to offer, but many are dxi so , my plan backfired, i tried live as rewire slave , but not sure if it is for the best, confusing my learning advancements in sonar with this.
but off what i do know is: sonar rocks, I prefer the look, and i feel a lot more confident with sonars preformance in quality, it feels like a pro studio and it is,
i get really excited with it for most parts, its just this editing comparision after useing live i cant take too it, i will not give up until i suceed mind you.
and the step sequencer in the plugin form is just what i need, to help me on my way untill i can master the formentioned,
all the plugin additions and mastering suite too, and what first grabbed my attention with soanr 6 was the audio quality, so i was happy to copy my tracks from live to sonar for the final mix and mastering stage i noticed a difference with plugin quality straight away.
i am hooked, sonar keeps pulling me back to learn it methods, roll on to some future hits.

what i would like to ask, is their any other method of card payment ie debit card etc, or payapl etc, as i can not get use of a credit card so i can upgrade online to 7, as i want to get my hands on this sometime from next wednesday.

or

I switched from Cubase to SONAR around 1998? However, I will be switching to something else real quick if someone from SONAR doesn't respond to this "motorboating" issue very soon. I have sent emails, talked to phone support, cussed and discussed this on the forum.

Wake up!

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1166968&mpage=1&key=

ORIGINAL: sqye

.

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



.

ORIGINAL: JASON_GRAY

I am looking forward to getting my upgrade to sonar7 from 6 producers edition ( boxed version), allthough i aint produced a full track yet, i have been experimenting,
i have also used ableton live since version 4, and becuase of this good but lazy learning i am finding it hard to arrange in sonar 6, a lot more fiddly, despite trying to understand this snap to grid, i am still having problems lineing up audio and midi clips, basic i know.
but in live the grid is their and also easy to change and drop clips to the nearest time line, in sonar it just wont line up as i want, then this remove silence adds some confusion when shifting audio and midi clips, obviousley it is something i aint doing wright despite many'many hours and days etc , but my point being in live its a doddle, so this has been my downfall/offput.
i first purchased sonar 6 thinking i could use the instruments in live amongst other temptations sonar had to offer, but many are dxi so , my plan backfired, i tried live as rewire slave , but not sure if it is for the best, confusing my learning advancements in sonar with this.
but off what i do know is: sonar rocks, I prefer the look, and i feel a lot more confident with sonars preformance in quality, it feels like a pro studio and it is,
i get really excited with it for most parts, its just this editing comparision after useing live i cant take too it, i will not give up until i suceed mind you.
and the step sequencer in the plugin form is just what i need, to help me on my way untill i can master the formentioned,
all the plugin additions and mastering suite too, and what first grabbed my attention with soanr 6 was the audio quality, so i was happy to copy my tracks from live to sonar for the final mix and mastering stage i noticed a difference with plugin quality straight away.
i am hooked, sonar keeps pulling me back to learn it methods, roll on to some future hits.

what i would like to ask, is their any other method of card payment ie debit card etc, or payapl etc, as i can not get use of a credit card so i can upgrade online to 7, as i want to get my hands on this sometime from next wednesday.

or

saying all this and the bit about editing and not being able to move my audio accurately enough, i have just discovered how easy the snap to grid is to use, at last.
quite simpily i was not applying snap to grid, becuase i thought it was just for time stretching samples etc, but i realise now it actually snaps your moved or added piece of audio to the nearest timeline,
its funny how simple solutions can sometimes stare you right in the face.

i have also read here via other members stating that if you know what you are doing as a producer you should not have any problems switching and finding your way around a new daw, but this is not tha case, it does help, but it does not help you locate the right tools and what they are called if daw has chose its own name for said proscess, so for me its more where to find the right tools for the right job within Sonar.
i am getting their
one now added to my learning, and many more to go

I am a musician and have been using Sequencers since the early 80s. Sequencers like Opcode... ughhhh, E-Logic...riddled with problems, Logic 5 on the MAC... I hate the MAC. Why can't I use my delete key to delete a character? MOTU... is good company but their software is too difficult to work with. The GUI was designed by an engineer for an engineer. Nuendo on my PC... it crashed half the time it was initializing and then it almost always crashed right when I was in the middle of a project. I could never get anything serious going with Cubase or Nuendo although I liked their GUI. I was always skeptical about buying any product from a company called “Cakewalk”. It was kind of a joke with musicians in the New York area in the 80s. Quite frankly, Cakewalk’s product offerings back then looked terrible… although I never had a chance to try them (perhaps too bad for me!)

Needless to say, I finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago and bought Sonar 7 Producer Edition. I have been using it for about 3 weeks now and all I can say is WOW! It is almost everything I have always dreamed of in a sequencer. I am currently scoring the music and sound effects for a children’s audio book. I have already created 48 tracks (20% midi and 81% audio). I am using a dual core 3.2Mhz PC with SATA drives, two Muse Receptors for the orchestra and Ivory, twin 24” monitors, Yamaha 10SM monitors, and an RME Fireface 800. I am also the following soft synths: Z3tA+ ( a great synth), Atmosphere, Kontakt, B4II, OP-X Pro, Real Guitar and Rapture LE. I have tried everything thing I can to get this puppy to crash, but it just won't let me down. I love the GUI. Sonar 7 seems to anticipate my every move and reacts accordingly. I purchased a video tutorial and spent some time with it and really got a jump start, but I also found that the Sonar tutorials were excellent and demonstrated most functions in a very friendly way.

Sonar 7 has quickly become my dream synth/sequencer/mastering studio. I don't think I could live without it knowing what I know now. Just a great job Cakewalk, you hit the ball out of the park with Sonar 7!

15 years ago I used tape. 10 years ago, it was ADAT. 5 years ago - Pro Tools LE. I'd been interested in a more fully featured DAW for some time, and decided to watch various forums. I've been watching forums, and reading reviews ever since jumping into the DAW world. I found Pro Tools to be absolutely idiot proof. No instructions necessary even for deep audio/MIDI editing. I wanted a laptop based DAW, and I knew that Pro Tools LE was an easy place to start - but it wouldn't work unless you use Digi hardware (what a pain). I was curious about Sonar 4 after reading positive reviews from Craig Anderton (his endorsement speaks volumes to me). At first, I found it too be too cumbersome (I definitely needed the book). This led me to neglect Sonar in favor of Pro Tools simplicity. It wasn't until Sonar 6 PE came out that I decided to commit to switching. I built a new PC around Sonar 6 PE. I finally forced myself to learn it. It immediately occurred to me that either I was an idiot for not seeing how easy it was to use, or there were significant improvements to the interface since v4. Even though I just switched to v6 over summer '07, I couldn't resist the features added to V7.

I Started out with a Fostex VF 160 but it was too confusing for me cuz I was 16 and only knew how to work my Boss DR 202 with the black and orange pads, haha . After I got bored with that I went to Reason 2.5 and then 3, but I switched over to FL Studio 5 PE because of VST support. I had a producer I was working with that used Cubase 3 for one of my songs and I didn't really like and I was looking though a Future Music magazine and saw an add for Sonar 3 PE. I really liked the look of it and remembered Cakewalk from a recording I did at my uncle's house on Guitar Tracks 1 so I had him get it. Test drove it on 4 songs and he fell in love with it as did I cuz he made me sound great though Sonar so I was sold on the program since then. Now it's been a few years and I've got into production seriously and want to make a career out of it and I had been using FL Studio S PE for the last year or so with SampleTank 2 XL and a few other VST's . I also have Pro Tools M Powered, but I quit using a week after I bought it because I couldnt have as many pulgins running as I wanted so it's collected dust but then the week I decide to play around with it along with NI Battery 2 and some sample Cakewalk drops Sonar 7!!!! HOLLY ****!!!! sorry... but you guys blew me away with all you brought to the table. Then to top it off you had the competitive offer thing, oh yea you know I upgraded from Pro Tools M Powered 7 to Sonar 7 Studio Edition for my birthday this month and it was because of all the VST plugins you gave me with it I love RaptureLE and plan to upgrade and I also love Audiosnap. So thank you Cakewalk you guys gave me tools that I will never grow out of with version 7 I would like to see a better Session Drummer though, I mean in the quantize presets you have the MPCake??? why not a drum machine with pads??? you know like the FPC cuz that thing is super easy to use and map out across the mixer and thats what I would love to see the most other than that it's perfect!!!!!

ORIGINAL: ivanSC

Well sort of. Been using Amiga 1200 with Bars n Pipes Pro for donkey`s years & still do, in with a Fostex Standalone hard disk recorder.

Over the years I tried all the PC main contenders & it wasnt till Sonar 3 came out that I saw something approaching the ease of use of BPP.
I now have Producer 6, but STILL not converted to recording in the box. Mostly I use Sonar to master down to CD, which may seem like overkill, but I still don`t entirely trust my audio to a computer which runs anything produced by Microsoft.
Vista? Puh-LEEZ! Maybe if it ever gets to SP2 or 3.

As an update, I recently decided I needed another audio interface so I could work on my music in France when I am there.
Initially bought an M Audio Fast Track USB, thinking it would be convenient and lured by the promise of trying out Pro Tools for free - only time I have ever actually run it myself was on one of the very first systems in Nashville back in 1980something.

Man it sucks! So did the interface & I now have a Emu 0404 to go with my 1212m and of course a nice shiny new SonarLE to go with versions 3 5 & 6 Producer that I already own!
Fast becoming a Sonar Stronghold....