• SONAR
  • The verdict: X2a is not good. Unstable and buggy as all heck (p.7)
2013/02/05 16:43:04
miguelito
when it comes down to editing and final mixes I think that might just be a more comfortable solution

 
FWIW: I've always been of a mind to learn one bit and get really good at it...enough so that the DAW becomes transparent to my workflow. I had high hopes for X2, conceptually it seems right on the money but it does seem kind of quirky and a bit of a let down after all the X1 growing pains we went through. I agree with you that by the time we get to X2d we should have a right nice DAW.
 
In the meantime I've come to modify my view of the 'learn one bit' philosophy and C7 looks good enough for me to consider it. Still won't have the talent button though...lol
 
Regards,
2013/02/05 17:17:26
guitardood
musicroom


Bub


Beepster

I think it's all the Win8 stuff. It'd be interesting to see a comparison of the problems people are having on WIn7 vs. Win8. I don't think I've seen too many complaints from the Win8 crowd since the "a" patch. Should have been a dual release so us 7 users didn't have to be in the petri dish as well.
It's not the Windows 8 stuff. This kind of behavior has been going on in Sonar since X1's initial release. Maybe the Windows 8 crap made it worse, but it's not the cause of it.

James is not one to post up here like this. He spends 99% of his time down in the song forums.

So please ... listen to the guy. Listen to all of us ... we're not making this stuff up.

Seriously, I feel for anybody who is gets halted when working. I know it has to be maddening. I hope cake finds the cause and corrects this for you and the handful that is having problems.  BUT, just because mine and other users report no problems, that does not make us fanbois or any other derogatory name thrown out here by the angry. My system works and works great. I'm not embarrassed by that. My sincere hope is for the ones having problems to get cake's support to get them corrected yesterday.

I don't mean to offend.  Nor do I wish to start another argument, but.....   All of the "I'm having no problems, it must be you or your setup" type posts are about as helpful as a heart attack.  Just slightly better than having a bunch of "me too" type posts.   It sounds like the guy is having legitimate problems.  When people post their "I'm not having any problem" posts you come off as either  fanbois or braggarts, the equivalent of posting "mine works, neener neener".  To be perfectly honest, someone coming here, already frustrated with bugs (or in some cases, perceived bugs), is not interested that YOUR setup works great.  He/She are hoping that someone else may have had a similar problem and has either found a work-around or an actual solution.  Whether or not they've contacted tech-support does not matter, especially when the common solution tech support offers is to reinstall.

Most people here complain about the occasional flame-baiters, but did you ever stop to think that the reason they come here to aggravate is that folks here get aggravated?   In the 'godparticle' post, that kid is probably having the time of his effing life knowing that he set off everybody here.

While I'm on the soapbox, let me say this.  The biggest problem with Sonar, IMHO, is Microsoft, Microsoft Windows & Microsoft's sub-par (and in many cases, crippled) development tools that lend to writing crappy code with library routines that go off the deep end without any provocation.  Library routines that I might add are specifically counted on by programmer's to be better than beta-versions.   Most definitely due to the egomaniacal power trip that Microsoft has been on for the last 15 years.

I've been a Cakewalk/Sonar user since Cakewalk v1.0 on my Compaq sewing-machine sized portable with my Roland MPU-401 and Roland MT-32.   Most of the tracks on my Soundclick page (http://www.soundclick.com/ChuckFletcher) were done in Sonar (or more specifically Pro Audio 9) with my Les Paul Studio, a Tom Scholz Rockman and a Roland JV-30).  I am the quintessential fanboi and have been for quite some time.  I'm also a computer systems programmer for over 25 years.  Suffice to say that my resume as a programmer is longer that most of these argument posts and reads like a slimmed down version of War and Peace.

Many people like to blame the Hardware/Drivers.  Total BS.  The problem is Microsoft and their entire kernel/driver architecture.   All the driver manufacturer's get the same documentation from microsoft, the same libraries from microsoft, the same architecture from microsoft, and all share a uncanny similar flakiness.   I personally blame the common denominator, Microsoft.  Pardon my crudeness, but I would gladly donate my left testicle for a version of Sonar on OSX.

I've recently jumped ship to a Hackintosh with ProTools 10 (yes, I purchased both OSX Lion and ProTools).  Not very happy with some of the problems with ProTools.  Their delay-compensation (or lack there-of despite it being touted as a feature) being the biggest problem and pretty much a deal-breaker.  I do at least like their grid lines and snap-to-grid capabilities as well as their nudge capabilities to slide my off tracks back into the rhythmic space in which they were recorded. One thing that works a little bit better than Sonar's.   Next, that I have 3 motu 2408mk3's, a 24/IO and 2 8pres and can only use 32 of my 118 inputs in ProTools.  Not necessarily  use record only 32, but you can only have 32 active which makes patching in outboard gear a huge pain when you need to use it.  Kind of a deal breaker also.  As soon as I can, I'm going to plunk down the dough and try DP8 next.  It looks pretty impressive, but unfortunately they do not have a free trial.

From an OS standpoint, I will say this: my system is EXACTLY the same hardware/mobo I was using under Win7 (and even still can boot to Win7 & Sonar) runs flawlessly under Lion.  The only problem with the hackintosh (though a bit of a misnomer since the only real hacking was in getting it to boot initially) which I couldn't hack was getting the mobo's internal sound device functioning.  Why is it I can run an operating system that was specifically not designed for my hardware with rock-solid stability than the OS which was written specifically for my hardware?  I don't have the answer, but logic suggests that the problem is in fact Microsoft.  My components consist of a Motu PCI-424, 4 UAD-1 cards in a Magma PCI Chassis with a mid-line NVidia card driving dual monitors.   The system has never been more stable.  I even have an advantage over an actual Mac in that there is not a current Mac on the market that would allow me to continue using my 4 UAD-1 PCI cards with the magma chassis and I would otherwise have to upgrade to the UAD-2 platform which I don't really need at this time.

All that being said, I've not abandoned Sonar completely otherwise I wouldn't be lurking in this forum any longer.  Also, there are still a few very knowledgeable and helpful folks here that offer plenty of advice, much of which could be applied to any DAW and are valuable resources for whom to be very grateful.

My recent dissatisfaction with Sonar which led me down the dark path towards PT is that my mixes have been translating very muddy to other platforms.  Despite have a dbx DriveRack to tune the monitors (hardware equivalent of ARC).  Despite room treatment.  It's not my ears as my mixes did not have this problem with previous versions of Sonar/ProAudio.  It almost appears, to me, that the mix busses are compressing rather than clipping as they should.  The biggest fail though was my attempt to get some help here.  Much of the advice put the onus of the muddy mixes on my engineering skills.  While I didn't respond negatively and took what was said in stride, it was not quite as helpful as I what I had been used to from the folks in this forum.   A good rule of thumb should be to, at the very least, read a poster's post IN IT'S ENTIRETY before chiming in with from-the-hip advice that is not helpful and in many cases irrelevant.

For anyone wishing to diss my creds, here is an album which I was both co-producer and primary engineer: http://www.gizzae.com/Roots.html  It didn't sell very well and they are now providing the tracks on the band's website, but here is the CD-universe link for anyone who would like a physical CD with the great artwork that they commissioned: http://www.cduniverse.com...ctinfo.asp?pid=7700049

This album was partially recorded on two ADATS which had to be SMTPE syncd (absolutely painful) into Sonar 7.  The horns and some vocals were recorded in my studio through Motu 8pres (SM57's for the horns and a Rode NTK2 for the room ambience on the horns and the NTK2 as the primary for some vocals and a CAD M9 for the rest of the vocals) into Sonar 7.  All tracks were mixed in Sonar 7/8.  They were sent out for Mastering to a very highly acclaimed mastering engineer here in Chicago.  Hindsight being 20/20, perhaps there is a bit too much compression on the horn sections, but the mixes are very far from being muddy.

For those whom I've offended, sorry as that was not my intent.  For those whom I've complimented, you know who you are and are very much appreciated.

Best,
guitardood

P.S. Here's a copy of my first PT mix, a cover of Santana's Samba Pa Ti (bear in mind, despite my handle, I'm no virtuoso and still need a lot of work on the vamp solos), but the overall mix sounds leaps and bounds better and was created with a lot less additional EQ than on X2.  http://www.musicpreview.c..._cover_Samba_Pa_Ti.mp3
2013/02/05 17:17:34
TS

I am afraid it is the same hard way with all the DAWs (updates, bugs & issues, patches, and so on).
For example :

http://download.steinberg.net/downloads_software/Cubase_6_and_Cubase_Artist_6/6.0.7/VersionHistory_IssuesSolutions.pdf



2013/02/05 17:34:12
WDI
Roots guy sounds like Bob. Nice! Sounded good streamed from my iPad iToy to my apple tv iToy so listening on my stereo system. 
2013/02/05 18:45:49
Mosvalve
TS




I bought my first PC in 1984  (a Compaq AT286 !),


Wow! the Compaq At286 brings back memories. I used to repair them among other brands. You must have been rich to by a PC at that time. Was it a dual floppy or 10mb hard drive?
2013/02/05 21:04:49
Paul P
My first real PC was a CompuPro S-100 system back in 1981. It was huge. Two cases a couple of feet square, each at least 6" high. Z80, 64K static ram, CP/M. One of the cases was just to house two 8" 256k floppy disk drives.

Anybody remember Jerry Pournelle and Byte magazine ? "Buy an S-100 machine and you'll never be obsolete !" Well, he was Wrong. 10 000$ wrong.

My next system was immensely more powerful. A 1990 Compaq DeskPro 386/25e with an Intel 386, a 20mb hard drive and windows 3.1. That thing was a beast.
2013/02/05 21:47:22
deswind
I wonder if Cubase 7 is having as many posts of problems.  I am on 8.5.3.  I can get Cubase 7 now for about $380 on a special.  Sort of tempting.

update - so I looked at the Cubase forum - all sorts of problems reported there as well.  I guess I cannot trust forums to know what it will be like.

Frankly, I still have problems with 8.5.3 but I have learned to live with them.  While it is not perfect, it is a great program. 
2013/02/05 22:14:30
sharke
guitardood

For anyone wishing to diss my creds, here is an album which I was both co-producer and primary engineer: http://www.gizzae.com/Roots.html  It didn't sell very well and they are now providing the tracks on the band's website, but here is the CD-universe link for anyone who would like a physical CD with the great artwork that they commissioned: http://www.cduniverse.com...ctinfo.asp?pid=7700049

This album was partially recorded on two ADATS which had to be SMTPE syncd (absolutely painful) into Sonar 7.  The horns and some vocals were recorded in my studio through Motu 8pres (SM57's for the horns and a Rode NTK2 for the room ambience on the horns and the NTK2 as the primary for some vocals and a CAD M9 for the rest of the vocals) into Sonar 7.  All tracks were mixed in Sonar 7/8.  They were sent out for Mastering to a very highly acclaimed mastering engineer here in Chicago.  Hindsight being 20/20, perhaps there is a bit too much compression on the horn sections, but the mixes are very far from being muddy.

Great sounding stuff! As for the horns being too compressed, I always thought the horns in Reggae/Lover's rock were very compressed sounding anyway, it's the style no? I'm thinking for instance of the horn parts in John McClean's beautiful "If I Gave My Heart To You" for instance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1wwtaG61k


I love the tonal balance of this kind of music...bright sounding with a nice heavy low end. Reggae style mixes have always impressed me. 


2013/02/05 22:24:42
Philip
Awesome thoughts all!  Thanks for sharing your specific issues, Danny!

Troubleshooting and work-arounds exist.  I'm a noob ... 853 -->X2a and have been proven wrong on some of my evil bug-reports of X2a.

Octa-capture SoundCard's latest firmwear-drivers ... fixed my jilted brain fast.

I will say, Jim: I can about guarantee God will overcome this annoying obstacle swiftly ... as you troubleshoot much better than most of us.

(Last night, I became madly in love with the enveloping abilities of X2a ... being an obsessive-compulsive ... with  envelopes.  Only relatively minor bugs on my motel lappy ... so that was a blessing)
2013/02/05 23:04:02
guitardood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1wwtaG61k
sharke


guitardood

For anyone wishing to diss my creds, here is an album which I was both co-producer and primary engineer: http://www.gizzae.com/Roots.html  It didn't sell very well and they are now providing the tracks on the band's website, but here is the CD-universe link for anyone who would like a physical CD with the great artwork that they commissioned: http://www.cduniverse.com...ctinfo.asp?pid=7700049

This album was partially recorded on two ADATS which had to be SMTPE syncd (absolutely painful) into Sonar 7.  The horns and some vocals were recorded in my studio through Motu 8pres (SM57's for the horns and a Rode NTK2 for the room ambience on the horns and the NTK2 as the primary for some vocals and a CAD M9 for the rest of the vocals) into Sonar 7.  All tracks were mixed in Sonar 7/8.  They were sent out for Mastering to a very highly acclaimed mastering engineer here in Chicago.  Hindsight being 20/20, perhaps there is a bit too much compression on the horn sections, but the mixes are very far from being muddy.

Great sounding stuff! As for the horns being too compressed, I always thought the horns in Reggae/Lover's rock were very compressed sounding anyway, it's the style no? I'm thinking for instance of the horn parts in John McClean's beautiful "If I Gave My Heart To You" for instance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1wwtaG61k


I love the tonal balance of this kind of music...bright sounding with a nice heavy low end. Reggae style mixes have always impressed me. 
Thanks Sharke.  It was a great project to have been involved in.  I was blown away by the two different horn sections who sat and in three or four rehearsals, wrote their parts on the fly.   I even had to pull a trick out of the bag on one of the Sax solos.  The song Freedom Time had a sax solo recorded on the ADAT's that had the first part sounding great, but the middle solo needed some polish.  We had the guy come down and re-record the whole sax part.  He nailed the solo, but he could not recreate the magic on the opening part.  We wound up playing back the ADAT version through a monitor which we then miked up the same as we did for his live performance to try and get the two disparate pieces to blend sonically.



Sonar, btw, performed phenomenally.  Each song was about 75 tracks.  The only synth stuff on those tracks were the obvious synth sounds.  Everything else was live performances, including a ton of percussion.   I was using a single Firewire 400 drive to stream all 75 tracks and Sonar7 and then Sonar8, did a wonderful job.  A few minor problems and a few crashes requiring reboot, but I would give Sonar an AAA+ rating for it's part on the project.


I wasn't really fishing for compliments and truly wanted to make a point, but thanks again for your kind feedback.


Best,
guitardood
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