daveny5

I'm sure the developers at Cakewalk do their best to make Sonar as stable as possible, but there are so many hardware platforms out there (motherboards, CPUs (Intel, AMD)), desktops, laptops, memory (DDR, DDR2, DDR3), soundcards (built-in, PC Card, USB, Firewire, serial, S/PDIF), operating systems (Windows XP, Win 7 and Win 8 plus Windows running on MACs) and plug-ins (many of which are homegrown), its impossible to make an application that 100% stable with all these different variables.

Fair enough ... but ... how 'bout they publish the specs of the system they did test Sonar on and say, "Sonar is guaranteed to work on this setup because this is what we tested it on." Hmm ... maybe they can't because then they'd have to do the right thing and refund people's money when it doesn't work the way it was advertised. There's things wrong with X1 that just simply won't work on any system anybody runs it on anywhere.

Cakewalk does publish a list of minimum requirements to run Sonar, but that doesn't stop people from trying to run it on lesser equipped computers. Yet whenever someone has a problem or a crash, they first blame Sonar. Maybe they should be looking a little harder at their equipment, other software running, plug-ins, and Sonar configuration to find an answer. More often than not that's the culprit.

Cakewalk lists generic specs that are meaningless. They say it runs on x amount of RAM but no specifics on what type, how fast, which manufacturers they tested, it runs on XP/Win7 etc, but no specifics about service packs, system adjustments etc. Their list of tested sound cards is so outdated it's a joke. These are all critical in the performance of a DAW, yet all we ever hear is, it's your system, try something different. Well, wait a second ... Cakewalk puts in writing all we need is 4GB RAM and an XP or Windows 7 system. They need to step up and say, "Ok people, this is what we tested it on, it works great, go buy it, or you are on your own with no warranty." And THEN ... when it doesn't work on the system they 'tested' it on, give the people their money back.

I'm not saying to say Sonar is perfect, but no one should be crashing all the time because of Sonar.

I agree ... but it's happening. Do you really believe that myself, and the many many others who come here all have rogue systems? As Mike said, you can tell when Sonar is going to crash. You can feel it because things start acting sluggish, you click an icon or button and there is a delay from when you click to when they activate, the Pro Channel starts to become unresponsive, or enables itself, and many other things. My M-Audio Fast Track Ultra works flawlessly with Sony Sound Forge, CD Architect, Studio One, Reaper, yet all the 'boi's keep chanting, it's your drivers, it's your drivers. Well wait a second ... if the drivers work with 3 wav editors, 4 other DAW's, Winamp, Windows Media Player, Format Factory, my DVD playing software, why is 'my' drivers that are the problem when running X1? Maybe the folks at Cakewalk should check out why the problem leans toward X1 rather than dumping the issue on the 3rd party vendor telling them to dance around Cakewalks flaky code?

X1 has been the worst release of any Sonar they have put out. I can't believe that even a fraction of what's wrong with it will be fixed in X2.

There are two ways to approach this the first is simple, order one from Jim. The other is do the research here and find out what others use and don't have constant crashes. Build your machine with parts that they use. Paying attention to quality.

When dealing with memory don't mix module brands or add to your initial install. Get the full amount and be sure its matched. Get the very best you can afford and than test it thoroughly.

Get a large enough power supply that is of good quality to power all your auxiliary gear.  Not just the motherboard.

Get a motherboard that has a track record on this forum that works.

You need to make sure that the MB is going to meet your needs for USB connections and firewire too. That it is known to be of high quality.

The hard disk subsystem should be capable of handling all your HD needs now and in the future.

Take time and design your system with high quality parts including the case.

Graphics card does not have to be the most powerful around but it should have at least 1 Gb of graphics memory and I would recommend that it also support cuda cores.

You do all this and it will ensure a solid working DAW.

Its what I did and I have no complaints.