Just reading through the posts there and read the comment about Sonar being primarily aimed at Guitarists. That is such a stupid statement really. So does that mean Live is primarily aimed at performers and Reason is aimed at people who want to make music without buying any hardware?
 
OK maybe the music score isn't great and the emphasis is on improving the interface and features now. I would love it to have an offline editing mode where you can adjust things without running through the whole project in real time.
 
Especially when effects are specific to one part. I know it sort of does however it provide no preview of the audio and loses focus. I would love a button in the panel which allows you to do this and then select a track or clip you want to exclusively process whilst effectively bypassing the other effects.
 
So it can be use more like an audio editor works. You already have FX chains, so I think this would be a neat addition as you won't feel compelled to use a 3rd party editor for post production stuff.
 
 
 

sharke
A large part of the DAW market these days is kids who want to make hip hop or EDM or other electronic based modern styles in their bedrooms on their laptops. And I think where Sonar loses out is that before these kids have even chosen a DAW, they are searching for things like "how to make a beat" on YouTube and they're watching a bunch of cool tutorials which show how to do it easily using stock tools in DAW's like Ableton and FL. So by the time they've watched a few of those to whet their appetites, they've already made up their mind which DAW they want, and it's not Sonar.

Most of these kids are struggling to afford a DAW in the first place - they're often relying on their parents to buy it for their birthday or Christmas present, or they've saved up (that's if they're not torrenting it). So they're not really receptive to the idea that they're going to have to spend another $100+ to buy a plugin which replicates the functionality of what you can do in FL without spending another cent. Personally I'd love to see an addition like this to Sonar, even though I own some great 3rd party drum and sampling tools. I'd like to see some good tutorial videos out there competing with Ableton and FL and showing kids how easy it is to get a "banging" beat going in Sonar. God knows Sonar comes with enough drum samples in its library (at least I presume it still does).

That is the point I was trying to hammer home for so long in this thread back when I originally made it. LOL. Glad to see it wasn't totally lost on everyone.

Yes of course, there are different editions of Sonar. However none really offer that instant gratification like reason, live or fruit loops studio.

Not even cubase offers that..I think you can make music in almost any daw with a bit of imagination,

Anderton

sharke
A large part of the DAW market these days is kids who want to make hip hop or EDM or other electronic based modern styles in their bedrooms on their laptops. And I think where Sonar loses out is that before these kids have even chosen a DAW, they are searching for things like "how to make a beat" on YouTube and they're watching a bunch of cool tutorials which show how to do it easily using stock tools in DAW's like Ableton and FL. So by the time they've watched a few of those to whet their appetites, they've already made up their mind which DAW they want, and it's not Sonar.

I agree that what you're describing is an extremely likely scenario. If SONAR could add features that help people make/compose music, and do so in a way that would be comfortable to both the "beats" people and the more traditional recording folks, I think that would help retain existing users and possibly even get some new ones (specifically, the people who find "beats"-oriented programs overly limiting past a certain point).
 
To me, programs like FL Studio are designed more for a "composer" mentality whereas SONAR, Pro Tools, etc. are designed more for a "player" mentality.
 

This is what I feel is not being drummed home about Sonar out there in the marketplace - that it is (or can be) the best of both worlds. It's what attracted me to it in the first place. I wanted to make electronic music, but I also wanted to record and edit guitar parts. After much back and forth between demoing DAW's (and a shortish spell with Pro Tools) I felt most at home with Sonar. I don't think many kids are demoing the full range of DAW's though - they're not even really looking into it thoroughly. They're just going with the ones they see their favorite producers using, and the ones they see in online tutorials. Those tutorials are quite persuasive. They see something cool being done, and they want to replicate it with exactly the same tools in the video. They're not thinking "hang on, maybe I could do that with Sonar if I employ a couple of workarounds." 

Over the years, Cakewalk has introduced a lot of "almost tools" or they were badly timed. Cyclone was potentially a great junglist instrument, but it came after that movement started dying.  Beatsscape LOOKED like the MPC style tool in demand at the time, but was just a clunky and not useful.  I do realize the challenges involved with providing what several of us have indicated since such integration likely requires changes on a core level.  In the meantime , Sonar still has awesome tools and effects. still not 100% it's possible, but i think if i set up the right templates, I could make it not so frustrating.  Just will take initial work to setup.

sharke

Anderton

sharke
A large part of the DAW market these days is kids who want to make hip hop or EDM or other electronic based modern styles in their bedrooms on their laptops. And I think where Sonar loses out is that before these kids have even chosen a DAW, they are searching for things like "how to make a beat" on YouTube and they're watching a bunch of cool tutorials which show how to do it easily using stock tools in DAW's like Ableton and FL. So by the time they've watched a few of those to whet their appetites, they've already made up their mind which DAW they want, and it's not Sonar.

I agree that what you're describing is an extremely likely scenario. If SONAR could add features that help people make/compose music, and do so in a way that would be comfortable to both the "beats" people and the more traditional recording folks, I think that would help retain existing users and possibly even get some new ones (specifically, the people who find "beats"-oriented programs overly limiting past a certain point).
 
To me, programs like FL Studio are designed more for a "composer" mentality whereas SONAR, Pro Tools, etc. are designed more for a "player" mentality.
 

This is what I feel is not being drummed home about Sonar out there in the marketplace - that it is (or can be) the best of both worlds. It's what attracted me to it in the first place. I wanted to make electronic music, but I also wanted to record and edit guitar parts. After much back and forth between demoing DAW's (and a shortish spell with Pro Tools) I felt most at home with Sonar. I don't think many kids are demoing the full range of DAW's though - they're not even really looking into it thoroughly. They're just going with the ones they see their favorite producers using, and the ones they see in online tutorials. Those tutorials are quite persuasive. They see something cool being done, and they want to replicate it with exactly the same tools in the video. They're not thinking "hang on, maybe I could do that with Sonar if I employ a couple of workarounds." 

I did actually think about a work around when looking at and demoing daws, I figured I could use the free tx16 sampler to chop my beats and play them back pretty easily. It actually works a treat but a tightly integrated built in sampler would be much more preferable.

Same as you I want to work with electronic styles and also interested in sampled beats, I've demoed most of the main daws aside from studio one which I ruled out because vst support costs extra which for me was a major turn off but they do all include a sampler with drag and drop and the ability to easily map a sliced sample to keys or pads with one click. Even Ableton lite can do this and that's almost free, in fact I don't even think you need to map slices in simpler, they are already assigned when you slice.

As for people mentioning cyclone, it's old as the hills and I'm convinced cakewalk only include as a filler. It doesn't seem to work properly, integration is poor and its function has been superseded and improved upon by the matrix view anyway. It really is good for nothing.

ljv, i agree that extra for vst support in studio one is silly. The 32 bit thing is equally silly. I'm sure you are aware the flagship program includes midi support and 64 bit as well, but everyone cant afford flagship program

Anderton

sharke
A large part of the DAW market these days is kids who want to make hip hop or EDM or other electronic based modern styles in their bedrooms on their laptops. And I think where Sonar loses out is that before these kids have even chosen a DAW, they are searching for things like "how to make a beat" on YouTube and they're watching a bunch of cool tutorials which show how to do it easily using stock tools in DAW's like Ableton and FL. So by the time they've watched a few of those to whet their appetites, they've already made up their mind which DAW they want, and it's not Sonar.

I agree that what you're describing is an extremely likely scenario. If SONAR could add features that help people make/compose music, and do so in a way that would be comfortable to both the "beats" people and the more traditional recording folks, I think that would help retain existing users and possibly even get some new ones (specifically, the people who find "beats"-oriented programs overly limiting past a certain point).
 
To me, programs like FL Studio are designed more for a "composer" mentality whereas SONAR, Pro Tools, etc. are designed more for a "player" mentality.
 

Maybe they could tie in a basic sampler, with a real integrated wave editor.  I think all users would welcome an enhanced wave editor tool, which could be useful to the "players", as well as the beat producers.
 
Then allow it to tie in directly to Matrix View.  Take your waves, slice them up, and drop them into Matrix cells in one smooth process ...

shawn@trustmedia.tv
where can i download BeatScape? i own it... - s

As far as I can tell, Beatscape only shipped on the Sonar 8 and 8.5 DVD-ROM installation disks.  It came on it's own separate disk.

abacab

Anderton

sharke
A large part of the DAW market these days is kids who want to make hip hop or EDM or other electronic based modern styles in their bedrooms on their laptops. And I think where Sonar loses out is that before these kids have even chosen a DAW, they are searching for things like "how to make a beat" on YouTube and they're watching a bunch of cool tutorials which show how to do it easily using stock tools in DAW's like Ableton and FL. So by the time they've watched a few of those to whet their appetites, they've already made up their mind which DAW they want, and it's not Sonar.

I agree that what you're describing is an extremely likely scenario. If SONAR could add features that help people make/compose music, and do so in a way that would be comfortable to both the "beats" people and the more traditional recording folks, I think that would help retain existing users and possibly even get some new ones (specifically, the people who find "beats"-oriented programs overly limiting past a certain point).
 
To me, programs like FL Studio are designed more for a "composer" mentality whereas SONAR, Pro Tools, etc. are designed more for a "player" mentality.
 

Maybe they could tie in a basic sampler, with a real integrated wave editor.  I think all users would welcome an enhanced wave editor tool, which could be useful to the "players", as well as the beat producers.
 
Then allow it to tie in directly to Matrix View.  Take your waves, slice them up, and drop them into Matrix cells in one smooth process ...

 
Ironically enough, the simple "tracker" program OctaMed which I used to make Aphex-Twin style beats in the early 90's, made it easier to edit waveforms and chop beats than the stock Sonar tools. Even though I was having to take the loop size in bytes, divide it by 8 and then sit and work out the start/end points for each slice in bytes (with a calculator)! 
 
Geist has beat chopping right. You just load a sample with "slice" selected and it automatically slices at the transients and distributes the slices to its pads, grouping them in terms of kick/snare/hat etc. You can adjust the transient sensitivity to get more or less slices, or you can choose to divide the loop up into equal parts. It then recreates the loop perfectly in its step sequencer, applying small offsets for any hits that come slightly before or after the beat. 
 
Kontakt is the industry standard sampler, but when it comes to chopping up loops (which is a major part of sampling culture), it's overly complex and fiddly. Cakewalk really wouldn't need to go overboard on a stock sampler, just a few chopping and mapping functions along with some basic settings for each pad (like pitch, velocity sensitivity, maybe a simple filter, and ability to select an audio output).