I'm considering switching from Digital Performer and would like comments from people who have experience moving projects from DP to Sonar.  I was a Cakewalk user a long time ago (for DOS), but used Mac tools ever since.  Because of the cost of a new Mac, I'm considering switching back to Sonar on PC.  But I have a lot of DP projects to convert.  How smooth is the process?

-- Brian

I am writing to tell you about an extraordinary man...His name is Frank McCarthy...He is 86 years old and was the musical director for ABC in Chicago and worked with Oprah for 20 years. I spent the weekend with this man, my friends father and he showed me and played me the Rock opera he has produced using Sonar.
 
This 86 year old man converted from old analogue to sonar digital and wrote ALL the music, plays ALL the instruments, and sings ALL the parts...he is creating for a musical review but I was so blown away by him singing all the parts it reminded me of the genius of a Peter Townsend and told him he should launch it as a CD just as is...
 
I told him I would contact Sonar on his behalf and perhaps they would be interested in using him in their marketing...What a story...between working on music he was building a stone fence with 150 pound boulders and refused to except help from us younger guys who were put to shame by this guy on all levels...
 
Obviously at 86 time is of the essence although I wouldn't be surprised if he lives to 160...lol...
 
He began this musical only about 4 months ago and it is now complete...His 81 year old wife Coleen, says he will wake up in the middle of the night with a lyric idea and go downstairs to his studio and record the parts...
 
I URGE Sonar marketing and PR to interview this man immediately and help him to help you bring the world a truly inspiring story...The music includes rock, rap, and everything in between...
 
Please contact him...I will provide you with his contact info in a private email.

Hello everybody I was a happy user of Logic, and I was so happy with it running on my Pc that I thought that logicwas inmortal, sadly one day Logic and Pc broke down (an apple was the evil ) and because I was young and naive I told myself: `Don´t worry kid. You only have to maintein your Pc....´. That was my first mistake, when I swichted to Windows 7 everything was so bad with my Logic 4.7 copy that I was frustated. I tried Live, Reaper, Cubase but they didn´t sound well to me, or the effects were not very musicla to me, or the design of the interface frustated me... one lucky  day my local seller told me about the new Sonar 8, I tested it and my mind was blown away, the audio manage is superb, the sequencer fits perfect with my workflow, the effects are great and only one word can be used with it: It sounds great, you can work as musician or as engineer. Thsnk you Cakewalk, thank you Roland.....You have a new converse.

I am currently trying out the demo of SONAR 8 with a view to switching from Cubase 4 Studio.
 
Why am I thinking of switching?
 
Firstly I have driver issues with my Echo hardware, it just has not worked with Cubase 4 since version 4.1.1 and we are now on version 4.5.2. The Echo drivers have gone from version 8.3 to 8.4 and now 8.5. Neither Echo nor Cubase appear to be taking this seriously, the problem still persists with ASIO TIME OVERLOAD as soon as you open a project.
 
Secondly Cubase loves to crash, the times I have to reboot my PC because the application just hangs for no good reason e.g. opening a VSTi instrument...well it is just getting too much!
 
Support...so many bugs in Cubase 4 and what do they do? They ditch it and bring out Cubase 5!...great
 
Things I have noticed with SONAR,
 
It works fine with my Echo Layla 3G sound card, latency is low and there is no crackling/distortion.
 
Sometimes the audio engine stops when opening an EWQL Play VSTi...but clicking on the 'Start Audio Engine' icon brings the sound back...something which would have required rebooting my PC with Cubase.
 
It hasn't crashed once yet and I have been stressing it out with several EWQL instances and other soft synths.
 
All I need to know is , are there any crossgrades available to go from CS4 to SS8.5?
 
  [EDIT] Testing is done, SONAR 8.5 Studio ordered!
 

I hereby renounce my Cubase citizenship. I have been sitting on the decision whether to upgrade from C4 to C5, or from Sonar 7 PE to Sonar 8.5 PE. I have officially decided on Sonar for the following reasons: Dimension Pro is included in the upgrade and sounds great. The Sonar step sequencer puts the Cubase score editor to shame in the ease-of-use category. Cubase has completely lost focus on those of us who actually write music, and don't need "loop mash", whatever the hell that is supposed to be for. Sonar runs fine on Windows Vista, which I am currently stuck with. I have not been properly convinced that Steinberg has achieved this, but I don't want to find out. Did I mention that Sonar sounds great.

I seems to me that Sonar is associated / marketed at people that make music in traditional bands and guitar based music.  I like the partnership with roland because it seems some of the plugins etc are designed to offer more unusual sounds and tricks.

Maybe most of your market in the US is bands wanting to record (and of course, thats great) but here in the UK a huge proportion of people use computers to make electronic / dance music.

With the next generation coming along do you think it could be time to promote to these markets? I may be able to help! People seem very suprised when I say I use Sonar. I've tried others but I always go back to it.

Pete (Bristol, UK)

I can not honestly say that I have made the full move to Sonar as yet but will be giving it some serious thought over the next few weeks as I learn how to use it.

Over the years I have learned the basics of many audio softwares out there. This has been because 1) I have/still work in the music industry sometimes, 2) I like to learn new things, 3) why not?

Each has their good and bad points. The last one I was/still using is Logic pro 8 what I must admit has I have using Logic the longest. I have found Reason has the best user freindly softsyths. Ableton has a great timestreching thing for audio and a few other tricks but of course this is my own opinion. I haven't tried every music making software out there but I do hope that there will be one that combines all the best bits from all of them out ther and make into one.

So far the only bad point I have found with Sonar is It aint easy to use without first reading or watching a video on how to use it, this can be a good thing as well as a bad thing, also I can't find any short cuts for copy, paste and cut. I have been reading about Sonar and keep seeing things about bugs, haven't come accross any as yet.

I will say that I love the sound I get from Sonar (the brass and strings instruments are excilent for sounds that come in the standard package) and when I installed my copy it worked straight away, something that doesn't really seem to happen I noticed in recent years, always something needs tweaking before you can start.

I am hoping that I can find a DAW that will have and do everything I want it to without having to rewire or import/export.

One otherthing what I like so-far with Sonar is It can use instruments from other software like cubase, wish it was possible to use some of the bits in Reason in Sonar aswell. Also Cakewlk has the best forum I have ever used.

Update- Taday I was playing around with Sonar and i must say dispite the fact I haven't really done anything on it I am begining to love it very much

mythicwave


I'm considering switching from Digital Performer and would like comments from people who have experience moving projects from DP to Sonar.  I was a Cakewalk user a long time ago (for DOS), but used Mac tools ever since.  Because of the cost of a new Mac, I'm considering switching back to Sonar on PC.  But I have a lot of DP projects to convert.  How smooth is the process?

-- Brian

Hi Brian,

I would just export everything from DP as OMF or as individual broadcast wave files. SONAR will then import all the files to their time stamp. It's not too much of a pain at all.

keep in mind though that things like plugin effects (unless bounced) and mix parameters will not be transferred, but you can then begin to mix and finish these projects in SONAR once the audio is all transferred and lined up.

You'll get plenty of help here on the forum when the time comes.

Thanks for the story and perspective T.

Cliff D.


I hereby renounce my Cubase citizenship. I have been sitting on the decision whether to upgrade from C4 to C5, or from Sonar 7 PE to Sonar 8.5 PE. I have officially decided on Sonar for the following reasons: Dimension Pro is included in the upgrade and sounds great. The Sonar step sequencer puts the Cubase score editor to shame in the ease-of-use category. Cubase has completely lost focus on those of us who actually write music, and don't need "loop mash", whatever the hell that is supposed to be for. Sonar runs fine on Windows Vista, which I am currently stuck with. I have not been properly convinced that Steinberg has achieved this, but I don't want to find out. Did I mention that Sonar sounds great.

Welcome Cliff. Hope you enjoy SONAR and find the forum an invaluable help.