As a hobbyist composer I started off with cakewalk express way back in 1999. I then moved on to home studio 2002. I've been focusing more on the technicalities of music composition than on the technology that enables it. Last year I upgraded my mixing knowledge and figured out that I've been using an outdated version of Home Studio. Last month i entered this exciting world of plug-ins and learnt how music is made these days. Obviously i felt the need for a robust DAW that would help be improve my productivity as a composer and mix engineer. I did a research on industry standards and it didnt take me long to figure out that Sonar is one of the top five in the industry today, though it is on the lower end of the spectrum (protools, cubase, logic and live being the others). Since I was already familiar with home studio i decided to stick to Cakewalk. The only downside that i see is that Sonar is not available for Mac. Most of the professional studio run on the Mac. So if i decide to move to Mac in the future, the dependency on Sonar is going to be a problem.I hope Cakewalk fills this gap.

I bought the Sonar 7 Studio Edition recently and is very exciting to learn a new feature everyday, be it the Step Sequencer or the Audio Snap...its fun working with Sonar!

ORIGINAL: arkiruthis

Hoooo boy... where to start. Suffice to say I've made a bad mistake.

SONAR 7 was perfect, aside from a few issues. However, given the lack of a demo, I was swayed by the possibility of getting Cubase 4 very cheaply... just to settle my speculations that it might be better at some things. The opportunity came up, I had a bonus that month... and decided to leap for it.

I won't bore you with the details, but I was amazed to find:

1. You can't read VSTi note names from Drum Machines like RMIV, Battery etc. Odd, given Steinberg created the VST format!
2. The MIDI editing is actually worse in many respects. SONAR's Smart MIDI Tools for the win!
3. Nothing even comes close to ACT.
4. The score editing 'improvements' are nothing to write home about. Symbols like marcatto etc. just have options to affect velocity. That's it. You can't assign crescendos to CC1, CC7, CC11 etc.
5. No mousewheel scrolling.

On the plus side, it does have a MIDI arpeggiator that actually works. (Cakewalk, the MFX Arpeggiator needs a FIX, not another glossy graphical tweak, heck, the one in P5 works, can we not have it in the flagship??)

Yeah... I know.... I should've known. But in this instance curiosity killed the cat. (but at least it's sellable...)

*points finger at Cakewalk forum and puts on ghostly voice*

"Beeeeeewaaaaaare...."

Just going through the same operation and managed to pick up Cubase 4 really cheaply my motives and no pun intended are having a Motif Rack ES and also getting an 01X, so greater integration between the DAW and hardware is something I am looking for. I'm keeping an open mind at the moment but it will be interesting to see on future releases what I actually do. Sonar 7 works fine for me and to be honest I do not use anything like its full potential so if 8 comes loaded with more bells and whistles I might just give it a miss. More bells and whistles meaning possibly more problems. Cubase 4 has at least one more update so I shall be interested to see how that works out and also interested to see what is planned on their next release.

I will certainly keep Cubase 4 mainly to use for obtaining a decent upgrade price on future releases. Despite Steinbergs apparent problems I do not honestly believe that they are sitting back and giving up on the race. May the best DAW win as competition is good for the end user I just think its premature to declare Steinberg the loser and certainly not in our real interests that it is.

Lastly apart from the fact you can sell Cubase it does give you the option of switching platforms, possibly no big deal for most people but just having the choice or option is a major bonus for those considering doing so.

Gerry

Hi Gerry,

I've actually opted to hold onto Cubase Studio 4 for much the same reasons. It offer's an easily accessable upgrade path should Steinberg amaze everyone, but it's looking rather slim. They are blatantly going to miss the next 4.x update before pushing out a version 5. Likewise, Sonar 7 does so much for me now that I'm not sure quite what they could add to v8 to tempt me. To be honest, some bug fixes to problems that are annoying me (glitches with the tabbed view, "follow snap settings" greyed out in dock view, envelope issues etc.) would make me upgrade to 8 in itself.

Cubase is currently just not installed any more. I can't do with the distraction of 2 hosts when I have a song in my head and debating which to use. Currently boxed up with dongle & manual and looking pretty in my bookshelf (and stopping some huge art books from falling off the edge... ).

But it's also £25 to transfer a licence, so I'm best keeping it in a bookshelf for now.

ORIGINAL: Gerry

ORIGINAL: arkiruthis

Hoooo boy... where to start. Suffice to say I've made a bad mistake.

SONAR 7 was perfect, aside from a few issues. However, given the lack of a demo, I was swayed by the possibility of getting Cubase 4 very cheaply... just to settle my speculations that it might be better at some things. The opportunity came up, I had a bonus that month... and decided to leap for it.

I won't bore you with the details, but I was amazed to find:

1. You can't read VSTi note names from Drum Machines like RMIV, Battery etc. Odd, given Steinberg created the VST format!
2. The MIDI editing is actually worse in many respects. SONAR's Smart MIDI Tools for the win!
3. Nothing even comes close to ACT.
4. The score editing 'improvements' are nothing to write home about. Symbols like marcatto etc. just have options to affect velocity. That's it. You can't assign crescendos to CC1, CC7, CC11 etc.
5. No mousewheel scrolling.

On the plus side, it does have a MIDI arpeggiator that actually works. (Cakewalk, the MFX Arpeggiator needs a FIX, not another glossy graphical tweak, heck, the one in P5 works, can we not have it in the flagship??)

Yeah... I know.... I should've known. But in this instance curiosity killed the cat. (but at least it's sellable...)

*points finger at Cakewalk forum and puts on ghostly voice*

"Beeeeeewaaaaaare...."

Just going through the same operation and managed to pick up Cubase 4 really cheaply my motives and no pun intended are having a Motif Rack ES and also getting an 01X, so greater integration between the DAW and hardware is something I am looking for. I'm keeping an open mind at the moment but it will be interesting to see on future releases what I actually do. Sonar 7 works fine for me and to be honest I do not use anything like its full potential so if 8 comes loaded with more bells and whistles I might just give it a miss. More bells and whistles meaning possibly more problems. Cubase 4 has at least one more update so I shall be interested to see how that works out and also interested to see what is planned on their next release.

I will certainly keep Cubase 4 mainly to use for obtaining a decent upgrade price on future releases. Despite Steinbergs apparent problems I do not honestly believe that they are sitting back and giving up on the race. May the best DAW win as competition is good for the end user I just think its premature to declare Steinberg the loser and certainly not in our real interests that it is.

Lastly apart from the fact you can sell Cubase it does give you the option of switching platforms, possibly no big deal for most people but just having the choice or option is a major bonus for those considering doing so.

Gerry

Was your comparison made between Sonar PE and Cubase Studio?

ORIGINAL: Gerry

Was your comparison made between Sonar PE and Cubase Studio?

Yes, just Cubase Studio (and I know it's unfair to compare to Sonar PE in it's range), but I didn't really feel there was much in the full Cubase that would appeal to me. I really thought the Score View in Cubase (which was apparently updated) as advertised would allow more depth with regard to MIDI than it actually transpired.

I'm very fond of Geniesoft Overture (who used to work with Cakewalk, oddly), as you can have keyswitches for Kontakt Instruments and mod wheel data for libraries like Garritan Personal Orchestra actually represented as score symbols on the staff which keeps everything wonderfully clean. I guess I'd hoped that Cubase's new Score View with Midi Meaning would be similar, but it transpired that the MIDI Meaning was limited to note lengths and velocities.

There's no music shops round here that demo Cubase and I didn't know of anyone who had a copy I could look at so I jumped on the opportunity to get into Cubase.

Spent tonight composing a song with Sonar and I'm really happy with it, so I don't really know what to do with Cubase other than hold onto it.

Hmm there is one hell of a jump from Cubase 4.1 Studio to Cubase 4.1, look at the VST plugins as an example. http://www.steinberg.net/1050_1.html

Anyway I guess its all about what you want and how you work, what I do know is that Sonar 7 PE will remain on my PC as for future upgrades I suspect not.



Gerry

Oh Wow! I started with Cakewalk Ver 1. Although I have produced thousands of pieces of music over the years and I use Cakewalk almost every day, I cannot imagine using anything else! I have tried other programs, and there s nothing like Cakewalk (Sonar). Its' the best!

Howdy.

I'm a newly registered today but been looking at the forum for a while. Don't know why I never registered til now, but anyway....

I used to use Cakewalks Guitar Tracks when I got my first PC many years ago, slowly progressed through other programs and settled with Cubase for many years. It did what I wanted and I'd got a copy free from a friend who never got on with it.

But about a year ago I went to a friends house to do some recording and he was using Sonar5 (I think) Needless to say that I fell hopelessly in love with the program and with prior knowledge of other recording softwares over the years picked the majority up quite quickly. Only took me 2 days from seeing it work to deciding to buy myself a copy. Never gone back. Couldn't. It does everything and more. There's always something new to learn and it gets better every time.

I only really play around with stuff myself, nothing too serious, just making a little music that pleases me. I'm no Phil Spector or Brian Wilson but I can do what I do. Been having fun recording music since I first started learning guitar, first recording on to old tape recorders, playing one and playing along to overdub while recording on another. Those were the days, cheaps mics and loads of hiss, but it was recording. lol

From Tascam Cassette 4 Tracks to Digital Korg D8's and Yamaha MD8 to Cakewalk Guitar Tracks to Cubase To Cakewalk is my history. With a few sessions here and there on some equipment and software I couldn't even name. Gotta love recording.

....Also, while I'm here and typing away and thi is my introduction post (Cant find a formal Intro's Thread) This forum has the greatest wealth of knowledge I have ever come across for a specific subject. If I need to know anything about recording I always search here. Some of the people on here are fantastically generous with the information they share. So to one and all, thank you very much!

Cheers

Mr.Clean

ORIGINAL: Mr Clean

Been having fun recording music since I first started learning guitar, first recording on to old tape recorders, playing one and playing along to overdub while recording on another. Those were the days, cheaps mics and loads of hiss, but it was recording. lol

Hi there Anthony, welcome to the forums

I'm a Guitar Tracks user just passing through but your comment above just took me back to all those years ago!

I had two cassette players, an ITT and a stereo Fidelity radio cassette - the main problem was, I didn't own a mic and only the Fidelity had built in stereo mics. It meant playing back the recorded track through the other player which played at a slightly slower speed that the Fidelity - hence I had to tune my strings down about half a step to be in tune every time!

Great fun all the same - thanks for bringing that memory back for me.

Steve

Switched from protools on a mac to sonar on a pc...........the reason I switched to sonar is toooooo long to get into,but Im in a happy place now.