What up fellas? i'm about to buy SonarX2 (in preference to Cubase7) despite the fact that there seems to be nothing but reports of more bugs and instability with 'some' users even in X2a; but my own logic does compel me to trust that a DAW which only supports Windows 7&8 has got a much better chance of future stability than a DAW which supports all OS's back to XP. Plus the Pro-Channel is hard to resist hehehe.

I just wish to ask if a new Laptop will work with SonarX2 out of the box without needing any special tweaks, meaning i am hoping that there is nothing particular i have to do to configure my laptop to ensure optimum performance with Sonar. Is Sonar designed to work on a standard Windows 8 off-the-shelf laptop without said Laptop needing special configuration?

My Laptop specs will be i7 2.2ghz. 8 gig Ram. Windows 8. Inbuilt sound-card (i only make electronic dance-music with softsynths so I won't need a dedicated third-party sound-card for inputs). Cheers.

godparticle



My Laptop specs will be i7 2.2ghz. 8 gig Ram. Windows 8. Inbuilt sound-card (i only make electronic dance-music with softsynths so I won't need a dedicated third-party sound-card for inputs). Cheers.

You're gonna need a third party sound interface (there are no sound cards per se for laptops anymore) if you want to avoid really bad latency.when playing your softsynths. Also, the built-in headphone output on a standard laptop is prone to ground hum and noise.

Your laptop is capable enough. The thing with soft synths is that it's particularily them, not audio recording, that requires low latency monitoring and good soundcard drivers, as they use a lot of CPU-cycles and memory. So in my opinion you do need a proper audio interface anyway. 

System Requirements Minimum system requirements
Windows 7 or Windows 8* (32 and 64-bit). XP and Vista are no longer officially supported. Future updates will not be compatible or install on XP and Vista as they are no longer officially supported. Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz / AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4 Ghz or higher 2GB of RAM 1280x800 minimum screen resolution 4.5GB for minimal install, 20GB recommended Broadband internet connection for download Cakewalk Publisher requires available web server space with FTP access *Windows 8 support will be available through a free patch later this year




You list a processor that has a lower minimum spec than what Cake state as required. You will also definitely need an audio interface. I used to run X1D with a similar set up as you are looking at and had nothing but problems. I then purpose built a new DAW specifically to run X2a with very few problems. I believe you will need something a little faster.

godparticle


What up fellas? i'm about to buy SonarX2 (in preference to Cubase7) despite the fact that there seems to be nothing but reports of more bugs and instability with 'some' users even in X2a; but my own logic does compel me to trust that a DAW which only supports Windows 7&8 has got a much better chance of future stability than a DAW which supports all OS's back to XP. Plus the Pro-Channel is hard to resist hehehe.

I just wish to ask if a new Laptop will work with SonarX2 out of the box without needing any special tweaks, meaning i am hoping that there is nothing particular i have to do to configure my laptop to ensure optimum performance with Sonar. Is Sonar designed to work on a standard Windows 8 off-the-shelf laptop without said Laptop needing special configuration?

My Laptop specs will be i7 2.2ghz. 8 gig Ram. Windows 8. Inbuilt sound-card (i only make electronic dance-music with softsynths so I won't need a dedicated third-party sound-card for inputs). Cheers.

While you do not need the inputs, you DO need to pick up an external audio interface and here's why - the audio interface will do all the work of converting the digital files into analog sound, for output, rather than making your processor (CPU) do all of that work.  If you do not have an external audio interface to do all of that conversion, your system will nearly CERTAINLY give you bad sound quality - with lots of drop outs, crackles, and pops.


Look for an inexpensive audio interface that does not have much in the way of inputs and pre-amps and such, and you will be happy.


The i7 CPU should be fine for Sonar processing, despite the 2.2 GHZ spec, and you have a decent amount of memory too.


But, you WILL have to configure your new laptop for audio processing, primarily in getting rid of all the crappy software they throw on, and you will also want to adjust things like Power Management settings for USB devices, and that sort of thing.  Keep in mind also that any antivirus software that comes with the new laptop will only be a trial, usually 30-60 days, so you will want to do something there - there are quite a few free antivirus software programs out there to pick from.  I happen to use Avast and like it.  Others use Microsoft Security Essentials (or whatever it is called these days), and others use AVG, and lots more.


Bob Bone

Welcome Godparticle!

I can't believe you're going to have any problem with an i7 - the system should fly.  With all due respect to Phil67, my understanding is that an i7 of any speed rating will be a lot more powerful than an Intel core duo E8200 2.67GHz (as per Cakewalk minimum spec) which I believe is a pretty old chip.

Two points though.  Firstly, you will definitely need an external audio interface as others have stated.  Secondly, I believe you will need to apply the X2a patch in order to get full Windows 8 compatability.

All the best,

Simon

If getting an external audio interface is a budget issue, try downloading ASIOforall and use it as a driver first. It will dramatically improve latency with your built-in soundcard. If you're not doing anything too taxing on the CPU/RAM, it should suffice.

If you're going to be using lots of plugins, then watch out. Suggestion is to dual boot your notebook and use a dedicated boot partition just for DAW. Make sure you have nothing else installed on that boot partition - no microsoft office, no antivirus, no games etc. I've been using this setup for years using lots a lots of instances of Kontakt (with very heavy sampling streaming usage) and lots of plugins without problems. Of course, like most people, I do use an external audio interface and an external HD.

Guys, i really appreciate the feedback, especially the separate partition suggestion. But as concerns the external thirdparty soundcard which you all seem adamant about, my own experience says otherwise; the DAW i am currently using and 'without' a thirdparty soundcard currently allows me to achieve no latency whatsoever when playing back 26 tracks of audio and pre-recorded loops and additionally still play and record softsynths in realtime simultaneously with negligible latency (near-zero). I use the WaveRT option in my soundcard preferences inside my DAW and this seems to give superlative performance; does that mean the WaveRT driver is responsible for this good performance, and will that be available to me inside Sonar, or is it my DAW that is giving me this top-notch low-latency performance, meaning, if i can get this sort of performance on my current laptop setup without a separate soundcard then why wouldn't i get the same low-latency performance inside Sonar without the need for a thirdparty soundcard.

My current Laptop specs are a second-generation i7 2.0ghz with 8 gig ram, Windows7, and inbuilt Laptop soundcard. I mix my tracks down internally so there is no need for me to worry about the cheap inbuilt soundcard converter performance. This current setup gives me next to no latency as I already mentioned.
My next Laptop which i will buy in one weeks time will be even more powerful than my current one and will have the 3rd generation (Ivy-Bridge) core i7 running at higher speed 2.2 ghz and does outperform my current one by 1500 points in the PC 3D floating-point Benchmarks, and Windows 8 is meant to be even more efficient than Windows 7 by Cakewalk's own accounts, so unless there is something wrong with Sonar's internal processing i would think that i should be fine.

Mainly i was wanting to know about optimizing an off-the-shelf laptop with Sonar, will it need any specific configuration and optimization to the Windows 8 settings, or assuming that my laptop specs are up to the task, will Sonar in most cases work fine without me needing to configure Windows.

If your experiences with the integrated sound chip are that positive, then....enjoy music making.
This the second time ever I hear someone's happy with the integrated sound circuit.

It's mainly the soundcard drivers that are to thank/blame for the latency (plus PC resources, of course).

If you are not going to buy a good third party audio/midi interface, please don't waste your time buying the laptop or X2.

Synths need that third party interface more than someone recording straight audio ... but it helps for both. 

Synths will have intolerable levels of latency if you attempt to work with the factory built-in soundcard. 

Everyone above this post has said it..... and I also echo it.  The lappy can handle it... the soundcard chip in it, can't.

Plain and simple.......You need the interface.