I had an awful experience with X1, and X1a, and X1b.

It was only when X1c came along that I could even use it without all sorts of weird things going on, including BSOD's, the dreaded "Sonar Has Stopped Responding" and lots of other minor niggles.

This cured most of my problems and X1d seemed to be the icing on the cake

I'm definitely glad I hopped on the Sonar bus when I did (well actually if I had waited one more month I would have ended saving a ton of cash because of all the deals and the free upgrade but I try not to think about that) because as a new user all that crap would have been extra harsh and I would have been quite peeved.

Beepster


You know what would be nice is if maybe Roland/Cakewalk started building (or contracting out) Sonar boxes that are geared completely towards running Sonar effectively. Sadly I'm sure they'd probably charge far too much for them.

I've often mentioned in these forums that I truly believe one of the main reasons why Sonar is so stable of me is because I use a computer integrated specifically for audio from PC Audio Labs. They even test the machine with the software you use before they ship it out. I've also used computers integrated for audio from Rain and ADK and have had equally good results. (The other element that seems to really help stability is choosing carefully among plug-ins). So, in a way, there already ARE computers that are integrated specifically for running heavy-duty audio applications. Windows comes tweaked and all that too.

I hate sounding like a "Sonar X2 works great for me!!" Polyanna, but...Sonar X2 works great for me. I've been pushing it really hard for about a month now on several projects, and yes, there have been occasional issues but I've been able to either solve them or come up with a non-obstrusive workaround. I really think this has more to do with the hardware than anything else.

Any modern DAW, including Sonar, is a precision machine and needs a precision computer to run properly and consistently.

Beep, I worked for a long time in 8.5.3 after I decided that X1 was - on my system at least - practically unuseable.

And this system, albeit running under Win XP32, had run flawlessly on all previous versions. 

It was professionally built by Carillon in London and I don't recall a single crash until X1.

Tell a lie - 8.3 was a little bit flaky, but then 8.5.3 came along

Sonar X2 works great for me too (except minor issues, like the bad display of the peak markers in the clip pane).
It is installed on a laptop HP DV7 (i7 720 QM processor and Win 7/64).
So, it is a mass market computer, but i use it only for Sonar (no internet, no antivirus, etc), and every unnecessary feature or device is desactivated (blue tooth, wi fi, internal sound device, etc), and i take care with the IRQ my sound card is plugged on.
And also, I am very careful with plugs (for me external plugs are less and less useful, since the included plugs are now covering almost all my needs - the PC4S, 1176, Concrete Lim, Breverb, Sonitus, PC2A).
When i read about very strange issues i don't have at all, i also think that it must have something to do with hardware (and software conflicts or compatibility).
For me, X1, and now X2, have been great improvements of Sonar (i began with Sonar 4 studio).
Wish it will be the same for you all !...
Thierry
Nice, France

@Craig... Yeah, I hear that. I decided on buying Sonar before I built my system so I went over to their handy little recommended computers page to see what I needed. That was the first time I heard of ADK. I unfortunately could not afford one of their systems so (and I feel a little weaselly about this but all the system info is on their site) I copied one of their builds as best I could. I literally scoured the internet for all the parts they used and then research my beeples off to find suitable replacements for the stuff I couldn't find (the motherboard and RAM were the only things I had to substitute). It was a little rocky at first but after I called Cake and they gave me some optimization info everything started working reasonably well. I highly recommend anyone thinking about updating their system to take a good hard look at that recommended systems page and ADKs system building pages. It is likely why I've had so much luck even as a total beginner. I had never even built a computer before and didn't know jack about system building when I started. It was a pain but you gotta do what you gotta do when you don't have the cash to just pay someone else to do it for ya. Cheers.

@Jonesey... I really think I would have liked 8.5. Maybe even more so than X2 as far as just general stuff but X2 has so much more useful tools. Once I get set up in my new room I'm going to go into full production mode. I think once I hit my groove I'll be able to crank out a few albums a year. No joke. The learning curve is pretty much over and I can pull songs out of my butt no problem. Can't wait. Cheers.

Good luck Beep.

Looking back at 8.5.3 now, I'm one of those that now believe the old gui to be absolutely hideous, with myriads of undecipherable, similar looking icons all over the place. By contrast, X1 & X2 simply look professional.

But no doubt this comment will stir up another fest/nest of some sort.

Yeah, dudes need to calm down around here. It's been getting kind of dumb these past couple weeks. Maybe everyone's getting grumpy because summer's over.

Summer over? it never even started here in the UK. I only did about 5 track days this year. The weather was so bad I didn't even do my first one till July. It also rained at some point on every single one.

Bristol_Jonesey


Good luck Beep.

Looking back at 8.5.3 now, I'm one of those that now believe the old gui to be absolutely hideous, with myriads of undecipherable, similar looking icons all over the place. By contrast, X1 & X2 simply look professional.

But no doubt this comment will stir up another fest/nest of some sort.

Not by me.LOL    I think you have the idea of X1 /X2 down to a fault. Well done.