Depends totally on your needs.

Do you want Midi IO?
How many audio IO channels (are you recording yourself, bands, orchestras?)
BUDGET?

Bristol_Jonesey


Depends totally on your needs.

Do you want Midi IO?
How many audio IO channels (are you recording yourself, bands, orchestras?)
BUDGET?

I work almost exclusively with MIDI. So audio channels aren't as important as MIDI to me. Eventually I'd like to start recording audio, but by that time I'll likely just invest in a desktop computer that I'll customize for music recording. Budget can be up to about $300 or so. Any ideas?

>>But, X2 was set to scan   >>-c:\program files\cakewalk\vstplugins [not (x86)]  >>and  >>-c:\program files\vstplugins\garritan  >>I changed X2 to match X1. 




It is generally a bad idea to include the 32 bit scan path in the x64 version of SONAR. What this will do is include all the 32 bit plugins AND the 64 bit versions unnecessarily cluttering up the plugin menus and taking longer to scan. Also you will get redundant entries in the menus. If you have a 64 bit version of a plugin its is far more preferable to use that rather than the 32 bit version since that requiires bridging.
If you only have a 32 bit version of a specific plugin you could add just that one plugin to a specific folder and then add only that folder to the scan path for X64. That way you aren't including all the redundant 32 bit plugins.

A better audio interface would open up new possibilities for you, but that's not your problem.

You will probably find that your old projects open OK in 32-bit X2. There should be no problem installing it alongside the 64-bit version. There is no problem running X1 alongside X2, either, so a viable option is to finish up current projects in X1 and then shift to X2 for new projects. That's actually a standard strategy, especially among professionals who can't risk interruptions when paying clients are there.

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk
]

Yes.  When you run the installer you get the option between 32 and 64bit.  You can have both installed simultaneously.  I think we've figured out something important, as Studioverb is not available in the 64bit version (if I recall correctly).

Hi Bill. Okay, I have an urgent issue now! I started a brand new project in X2. I'm again using GPO and a few other plug-ins that come with X2. I worked on the project for five hours last night. After stopping for the night, I saved one last time, and closed the program. Just to test, I opened it back up and I got the same "not responding" symptom that I was getting when trying to open my X1 project in X2. I CTRL+ALT+DEL the program closed and tried again. This time it opened just fine. Now it's the morning and I keep on trying to open my project but it will not open. I've tried ten times! This project is something I'm working on for my school's culture festival and I have to be able to access my work. What in the world would be causing my projects to intermittently (though more often than not) not open??

Please help! Thank you.

skitch_84

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk
]

Yes.  When you run the installer you get the option between 32 and 64bit.  You can have both installed simultaneously.  I think we've figured out something important, as Studioverb is not available in the 64bit version (if I recall correctly).

Hi Bill. Okay, I have an urgent issue now! I started a brand new project in X2. I'm again using GPO and a few other plug-ins that come with X2. I worked on the project for five hours last night. After stopping for the night, I saved one last time, and closed the program. Just to test, I opened it back up and I got the same "not responding" symptom that I was getting when trying to open my X1 project in X2. I CTRL+ALT+DEL the program closed and tried again. This time it opened just fine. Now it's the morning and I keep on trying to open my project but it will not open. I've tried ten times! This project is something I'm working on for my school's culture festival and I have to be able to access my work. What in the world would be causing my projects to intermittently (though more often than not) not open??

Please help! Thank you.

I noticed something else strange about this issue. It appears that when I try to open my projects that use GPO, they won't load until after I use CTRL+ALT+DEL to close Sonar X2. After I close the program, I get the graphic on screen of the GPO plug-in instruments loading. It's as if Sonar X2 being open is getting in the way of the GPO instruments loading. 

An aside: I was able to get my project open on a fluke this morning. I kept it open all day and worked on it throughout the day so that I wouldn't risk not being able to open it again. I finished that composition and exported the audio (SAFE!), but still have four more compositions to get done within the next few days. I'm really worried that I won't be able to reopen up my projects once I get them started. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this may be happening, or why I can only very rarely manage to get everything open and loaded?

Thanks for all of your help everyone!

Just a thought.... Are you using the latest version of Aria player? 1.50? That's the version i am using and have no problems aside from projects always taking a bit longer to load. 

I hope you get it sorted

Bibs

wizard71


Just a thought.... Are you using the latest version of Aria player? 1.50? That's the version i am using and have no problems aside from projects always taking a bit longer to load. 

I hope you get it sorted

Bibs

Thanks for the reply. I actually didn't have the latest version installed. But, I downloaded and installed it and am still having the same issues. It's so frustrating that I can't use this program. I wish I could figure out why it seems like I'm only the only one that's having these issues :(

Well one step closer to solving it now hopefully. May be worth contacting garritan?

Bibs

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

So, this might seem obvious to the professionals, but it took me forever to figure out. It turns out that when X2 what scanning for VST-plugins, it was looking in both the x64 and the x86 folders (so, both 64-bit and 32-bit folders). Now, this in and of itself isn't a problem per se - in fact, I still need it to scan a 32-bit folder in order to find my Cakewalk Sound Center World Instruments expansion - but it was trying to find, and possibly run, both the 32 and 64-bit version of GPO at the same time. For some reason I was able to get it to open even while it was doing this a couple of times (seriously, two times out of a hundred attempts), but this is obviously not the way it's supposed to function.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice on here. I definitely learned a little bit about how X2 works from this whole fiasco. Most importantly, now I can composer with a little peace of mind again :)