Why Does Sonar Not Get The Respect Of Other DAWS?

RE: Why Does Sonar Not Get The Respect Of Other DAWS? (kp)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:05:31 GMT

2 - Not quite the same, but close...

Help->Quick Start, tick the "Show this at startup" and click the "Open a Recent project" button every time as this'll default to the last project

Or Alt-F-1 loads the most recent project.

And if you've got a big project with something like a full BFD kit in, the last thing I'd want is for it to autoload!

RE: Why Does Sonar Not Get The Respect Of Other DAWS? (aj)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:39:21 GMT

Hmmm. A couple of things (well, more than a couple)

1. The discussion on pause was interesting. As the author of a (free) control surface plugin for the BCR2000 that has proven reasonably popular with Sonar users (go to sourceforge and search) - and which I couldn't live without (which is why I wrote it in the first place) - I hadn't really considered the now time issue. As you can set markers on the fly this issue hadn't really bugged me but then I do have jog wheel functionality in the plugin and that really DOES make life easier when auditioning pieces of material. But Sonar is a bit cumbersome in terms of overall transport control - being able to set multiple loop points and switch around them would be handy for instance, but I know of no way to do that.

2. Until I played with a certain product whose name begins with 'R' I hadn't realized how handy it was to have your most recent project automatically reload whenever you start up. If you can do this with Sonar I don't know how - and it is a very 'musician friendly' concept. (I can be tuning the guitar while it loads, not having to wait and press alt+F and 1 or what have you....

3. I can't understand why Edirol haven't exploited their relationship with Cake much more fully. I think ACT is a potentially good idea but it is not 'full duplex' and therefore of limited utility. If Edirol produced a range of keyboards and control surfaces that were cost-effective and tightly integrated with Sonar, then Sonar is now a viable option to the 'all in one' ProTools hardware and software offerings, but at present the relationship seems very arms-length. An Edirol control surface designed for Sonar could be a thing of beauty.

4. Regarding the Mac. I can see the appeal. Macs are much more standardised than PCs and although I'm not a Mac expert, I'll bet OS/X is much smarter handling audio peripherals. For instance it drives me completely mental that if Sonar crashes my external USB (Edirol) audio interface will be left in a state that often leaves it either (a) non-functional for audio and MIDI, but if I disconnect the USB cable and plug it back in, it'll work again (but with the wretched monitor switch turned back on by default... grrrr!) OR (b) as for (a) but MIDI has now gone somewhere weird and a total reboot is necessary. This is a total creativity killer and if Macs are more resilient to this kind of thing, well, you can see the appeal.

RE: time to start over. (kp)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:49:22 GMT

Isolating a plug-in is easy...it just kills performance. You can run a dll in a separate process (like Rewire or fxTeleport, but one process per plug-in and on the same machine) but the overheads of interprocess communication are going to be way too high for audio work (latencies, overall CPU usage, memory usage).

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:28:04 GMT

ORIGINAL: sms

This particular case had a happy ending - I uninstalled the plug-in and all was well with the project again. But that's not the optimal solution. And the saving crashes were happening during the save process (and not when initiating it), so every save corrupted a file (this was clear, since the files went from ~3MB to 800kb or 900kb.) That could have been a real nightmare had I not noticed it.

I do appreciate that the intermingling of so many technologies from so many vendors has to be a nightmare. Plugin-related crashes are all about that, and since many of the crashes I've had end with an error box that tells you what plug is at fault, I've been able to figure out what to nuke in order to work around the problem. That's still not good, of course, and I don't know if PT or Cubase or whatever suffer from similar problems, so I'm not making comparisons. I just wish it would stop!

Thanks to all for your suggestions, by the way.

I can confirm that Nuendo3 (as well as Cubase3) suffer the same problem with Plugin Crashes. DonÂ´t know about Cubase4. I had exactly the same problem on Nuendo with Waves Sound Shifter and also NI Kontakt, strange lockups, and the Nuendo project file size was decreasing, channels muted without pushing any button etc. At a certain time the project file was completely broken and unusable.

Both Steinberg and Cakewalk should work out a way to isolate plugins so only a plugin can crash but not the whole application.

RE: time to start over. (mgh)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:46:51 GMT

CW have a pretty close relationship to MS, i guess due to their windows-only platform, and willingness to embrace vista. so i'm guessing they got some ins on the vista/longhorn codes at an early stage. i remember reading something by?Noel from CW, saying that as early as Sonar 5 they were changing things to make Sonar Vista ready...
funny then that Dim Pro isn't vista ready yet, then, eh?!!

RE: time to start over. (dappa1)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:12:13 GMT

I am aware that Vista has been reworked from the ground up. Is this the reason why many companies are struggling to support it. And if I am correct, that means codes have to be written to meet the standards of the new operating system. Does this then mean that Sonar 6 which is compatible with Vista are still using old code on a new operating system?

I am not a computer proghammer so could some one clarify this point for me.

Thanks!

RE: time to start over. (sms)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:46:36 GMT

My system itself is quite stable - no blue screens ever, nothing but Sonar and a few system processes and services running, rock-solid drivers (M-Audio D44, which has been around so long that I doubt there's still a bug left in them). I get the very occasional glitch or pop, but only when pushing the system to its limits, so that's not instability but simply pushing the system to its limits.

This particular case had a happy ending - I uninstalled the plug-in and all was well with the project again. But that's not the optimal solution. And the saving crashes were happening during the save process (and not when initiating it), so every save corrupted a file (this was clear, since the files went from ~3MB to 800kb or 900kb.) That could have been a real nightmare had I not noticed it.

I do appreciate that the intermingling of so many technologies from so many vendors has to be a nightmare. Plugin-related crashes are all about that, and since many of the crashes I've had end with an error box that tells you what plug is at fault, I've been able to figure out what to nuke in order to work around the problem. That's still not good, of course, and I don't know if PT or Cubase or whatever suffer from similar problems, so I'm not making comparisons. I just wish it would stop!

The other instability issues --the audio engine blowing up or simply not kicking in-- aren't related to plugins, as they happen to me even in projects with no plugs at all in them (which is every project during the initial phases.) The blow-up might have to do with disk I/O, since it mostly happens to me when loop recording a part - after a fair number of loops, sooner or later the machine gun effect kicks in. Then again, maybe it has nothing to do with I/O - under those conditions, you'd expect a drop-out and not this. And the engine refusing to start seems totally random to me, though it surely isn't. It's not a show stopper, and it's fairly infrequent, but it ain't fun.

Thanks to all for your suggestions, by the way.

RE: time to start over. (droddey)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:31:02 GMT

[quoteI have 61 versions of the song I'm currently working on. Not because I've made 61 mixes (God forbid!), or added 61 parts, but because I save projects with incrementally-numbered names every 30-60 minutes in order to minimize the effects of Sonar's all-too-frequent crashing. At this very moment I've faced 14 straight crashes, most when I try to save the project, due to a plugin (which has never given me trouble). Even worse, I can't remove the plug because when I try to delete it Sonar crashes again. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The way that vst/dx type plugs work seems to be that the vst or dx interfaces provide a mechanism by which the plug can tell the host app that it's configuration has changed and which the host app can use to ask the plugs to save their state when it's closing down. SONAR seems to use some MFC based generic storage mechanism, which I think is a huge mistake but that's another whole discussion. Once that get's whacked, you can have these types of problems. If you can find out from the plug maker what file they save their config in, you can probably delete it and get back going again. If it's stored in some common Cakewalk provided file, you might have to delete the whole thing.

RE: time to start over. (droddey)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:28:14 GMT

If you are having those sorts of problems, you definitely have a system stability issue. If it's not just an audio card hardware/driver problem, and it could well be or some other hardware issue, then it's probably a combination of SONAR with the particular set of plugs you are using. Unfortunately, given the state of all PC operating systems these days, OS X included, if the DAW isn't based on separate DSP cards, then it probably going load the plugs into its own process address space, and that's a recipe for problems. SONAR and all of the plugs all probably have bugs in them, but it's only when they are combined in some lethal combination that those bugs become a problem.

But clearly SONAR in and of itself is pretty stable. The thing is, if anyone has a very stable setup, then SONAR must be very stable. It won't happen just by accident. Given that quite a number of us have very stable setups, that's even more proof. If you don't, then it's probably not SONAR per se that's the problem. If the machine in general is completely stable, then it's probably audio card hardware or driver related or plugs. The only way you can really figure these things out sometimes in the end, is divide and conquer. Make a copy of your project that fails and turn off all plugs and use SONAR long enough that it would have normaly had a problem. If it survives, then clearly it's a plug, so start turning them back on until you get a hit.

It's painful and tedious, but mostly there's no other way. If you are a developer (and aren't using a product from some paranoid company like Waves) you can invoke the debugger when there's a crash and get a reasonable idea of where it happened based on the call stack. Cakewalk should implement a stack trace mechanism in the case of failures. This isn't terribly hard to do. We have done so in our product and the benefits are enormous for post-mortem diagnosis, and it has zero cost until it's invoked.

RE: time to start over. (keith)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:47:35 GMT

ORIGINAL: sms
Sonar's audio engine also blows up frequently, exploding into ear-splitting machine gun noise for no apparent reason. The Stop Audio Engine button normally fixes that, but it's still unacceptable. And the audio engine also tends to go on strike occasionally, refusing to play audio for no apparent reason. Everything moves, but nothing plays.

It sounds like you have some serious problems there... I've never had anything close to what you describe with M-audio, RME, and even onboard audio. I've had pops, clicks, krispies, an occasional glitch or studder, but not total metldown. You should start a seperate thread to have people help diagnose your problems... Could be audio driver, plug specific, or something else entirely. Also, if you suspect a bad VST plug, you can simply move the plug out of your VST folder and SONAR won't find it the next time you start the project.

RE: time to start over. (sms)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:06:16 GMT

Stability is so important...

I know many people have no problems. And many more do but decide politely not to go on and on about them here. But the problems are there. Maybe they're all the fault of evil plug-ins, or maybe they're all Sonar's fault - what matters is it's Sonar that crashes.

I have 61 versions of the song I'm currently working on. Not because I've made 61 mixes (God forbid!), or added 61 parts, but because I save projects with incrementally-numbered names every 30-60 minutes in order to minimize the effects of Sonar's all-too-frequent crashing. At this very moment I've faced 14 straight crashes, most when I try to save the project, due to a plugin (which has never given me trouble). Even worse, I can't remove the plug because when I try to delete it Sonar crashes again. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Sonar's audio engine also blows up frequently, exploding into ear-splitting machine gun noise for no apparent reason. The Stop Audio Engine button normally fixes that, but it's still unacceptable. And the audio engine also tends to go on strike occasionally, refusing to play audio for no apparent reason. Everything moves, but nothing plays. I'd go over my outputs, check my speakers, and so on and so forth, to no avail. Finally I realized that if I start and stop play quickly 10-15 times I can normally get the sound going again. But for goodness sake, it shouldn't act like my old '77 Toyota Corolla with the dirty carb.

I don't do much recording of other people, but today that's exactly what I was doing, and my God was it uncomfortable dealing with this instability with an audience. If I made my living doing this, getting rid of Sonar would be the very first thing I'd have to do. And that's a pity, because with the exception of the instability and the 1995 MIDI functionality I love the program. But this is a true show stopper.

If someone "big time" is trying Sonar out and it crashes on them just once, they'll probably uninstall it in short order. In any field, total or very near total reliability is a requirement for professional use. But reliability costs money, as has been pointed out here. Maybe Sonar's just not up to snuff for the big time, and changing that --at the expense of things like adding softsynths and thus attracting new entry level folks-- would not be a money-making proposition.

And please, don't get me wrong - I love Sonar (for the most part). But I also suspect that there are a lot more problems with things like instability than people admit to, just because we're all nice folks, we all love Sonar (maybe a little too much in this case), we think Cakewalk are stand-up guys, and we want Sonar to succeed.

RE: time to start over. (dappa1)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:16:16 GMT

I have learnt 1 or 2 things in midi and hey it aint half bad. Mixing vocals wow! and thats on 6xl i used Cubase but Sonar does things that impresses me.

RE: time to start over. (themidiroom)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:50:13 GMT

ORIGINAL: kubalibre

ProTools never had to care about looks, I guess. They were on the market first with HD recording and become a kind of "standard". Well,
I think the interface is not that bad, itÂ´s not "pretty" but when I started using it for audio mixing it was relatively easy to learn.
PT is just a nightmare for composing/producing music. Practically no useful MIDI implementation. So the PT PC is getting dusty....

I somewhat agree with you. They have improved the midi in Pro Tools, but I haven't cared to use it very much. I do all my sequencing and composing in Sonar on a separate PC. Everything seems to work better that way. The only problem I have with Sonar is getting it to sync via MTC. It almost always locks up.

RE: time to start over. (hockeyjx)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:40:36 GMT

Your audio PC should be for the EXPLICIT PURPOSE OF RECORDING! People always want one machine to do it all, but I have been of the mindset of having seperate drives: one for audio, one for everything else.

And as other have mentioned - go to a site like TweakXP and disable everything you can! No internet, no print spooler ...no NOTHING! This is by far the best way to have a horse that's going to be stable and able to handle the burden of multi track recording with many software add-ins. Having a low end HP with 30,000 junk programs and services with a low-end audio card is only going to frustrate you and curse Sonar, when in fact, YOU are the ding dong. Sonar isn't Solitaire for God's sake man!

And as to why SONAR doesn't get mad phat props, my opinion is a mix of what those have said previous... part marketing, part Windows stigma; it wasn't ever adopted as the standard because for a bit, they lacked behind. But now Cakewalk is, IMO, getting ready to lap the lead dogs. I think by SONAR8 (I know we haven't even heard about 7 yet), that they have a true chance to be the defacto leader and TAKE OVER THE WORLD! (or at least be the clear cut best DAW program!).

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:37:58 GMT

ProTools never had to care about looks, I guess. They were on the market first with HD recording and become a kind of "standard". Well,
I think the interface is not that bad, itÂ´s not "pretty" but when I started using it for audio mixing it was relatively easy to learn.
PT is just a nightmare for composing/producing music. Practically no useful MIDI implementation. So the PT PC is getting dusty....

RE: time to start over. (themidiroom)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:27:32 GMT

ORIGINAL: Ognis

Great assessment! I agree with all that. Esp about how the website doesn't look very good, and Sonar's menu's "look" outdated. Actually, the website looks outdated too. But, like you say, I'd rather have the money go to dev, than to a fancy website, and buttons, but then again, I'm already a user. As to Sonar 7 killing Cubase 4, it's already started " />

Interesting comment. I'm not sure about the other apps, but Pro Tools has had the same look for many years. I think their tarket market hasn't been concerned about looks.

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:26:56 GMT

Well, so we all agree that the features are not the reason Sonar would not get the respect.

First of all (if IÂ´d be in the Marketing division of Sonar)

1. Polish the whole Cakewalk website -> you have to give your company a good looking face for your potential customers. more than 70% of possible customers research via the web. Think about first impressions!
2. Create an own Sonar Site, clearly divided from all "homestudio" and "semiprofessional" products. Very important! YouÂ´re paying a special price for this piece of Software so you want to get a special info/support/user community.
3. Target your client group and coordinate with your competitors in all areas of advertisement
4. Know the right people to put the right infos out into public... at the right time
5. (DONTÂ´T HATE me for that) Put the pricing a little up, right between Logic and Cubase

6.-99:
well no more insider Infos, have been working for a Games Company having done the very same thing for a completely different product...hey CW if I would live in the US IÂ´d probably apply for a job... " />

RE: time to start over. (Ognis)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:04:20 GMT

ORIGINAL: kubalibre

IÂ´m a Nuendo User, and I use it for composing and Sound Design for a living in Germany. I think about crossgrading to Sonar and have been testing for over a week every now and then, and it is just great. Everytime I try something new, IÂ´m getting flashed by "Wow, Sonar can do THAT?" or "I have been requesting this feature in Steinberg Forums for years".

Actually I donÂ´t care about if Sonar gets the respect of the "professional" audio community or not, first I also didnÂ´t know anything about Sonar, just thought well another "B-List" Sequencer... but if you come to the point where you are just not satisfied with the Sequencer you use (in my case Nuendo) you take a look what else is out, and I want to stay on PC platform because it performs perfectly well as I can configure and build my own killer system, also at a fraction of the price of a decent Mac.

To come to Sonar again, if Cakewalk (or we as users) care about respect of the Software, Cakewalk should probably spend more attention on a fancy Software interface, fancy Sonar Logo, more professional and structured looking Website (this one is a rather badly structured, good enough for me but probably not as good as Digidesigns or SteinbergÂ´s site), and put just more ads in Pro Magazines.

But: I rather have company spending money for development (which must be the case, because Sonar is really really good, and IÂ´m sure Sonar 7 will be great) than a company wasting too much money for marketing.

2 things which could be improved at Sonar are 1) Midi features, and 2) the overall ergonomic Design (menus look to me a bit more "Office 2003", like, but it works, so just a nice to have feature)

cheers!
A Sonar 6 Fan

Great assessment! I agree with all that. Esp about how the website doesn't look very good, and Sonar's menu's "look" outdated. Actually, the website looks outdated too. But, like you say, I'd rather have the money go to dev, than to a fancy website, and buttons, but then again, I'm already a user. As to Sonar 7 killing Cubase 4, it's already started " />

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:03:26 GMT

Just donÂ´t buy the cheapest RAM and board.. I personally go with Server class hardware (Tyan Server Boards, Multicore CPUS, ECC RAM) which equals hardware on the expensive Mac ProÂ´s - the result is a stable machine. After all, since Macs are running with Intel CPUs and Bootcamp, Mac seems to me like a PC in a Mac costume anyway ;)

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:58:45 GMT

Agreed. If your PC is configured well, it runs rock solid. You have to have a little more knowledge which components to put togehter, but hey... for me, better than having an overprized non customized out of the box thing where I donÂ´t even know how to fix all the bugs.

RE: time to start over. (boseyman1)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:52:00 GMT

ORIGINAL: samson7842

I'm going to say something that could get me killed in mixed company; I want to go back to Mac. And, I wish I could take Sonar with me. I spend as much time troubleshooting as I do making music on my PC. My Mac just worked and I didn't have to be a "Techie" to get through a project. I have very limited time and energy and I hate having to waste them figuring out why my PC keeps acting up. If I cared to learn that much about how computers work, I would take classes. I want create when I want to create. End of story. If Cakewalk started making Sonar PE for Mac, I'd be the first one buying it.

I rarely have to troubleshoot my PC setup. I used to waste hours on my Mac. I am surprised to hear you are having such difficulty. Sonar is a basket of fruit compared to Logic, Digital Performer or Cubase on the Mac. This forum usually answers all, why not be more specific about your problems......

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:49:53 GMT

BTW, I think Sonar 7 will be a Cubase4 Killer " />

RE: time to start over. (kubalibre)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:47:15 GMT

IÂ´m a Nuendo User, and I use it for composing and Sound Design for a living in Germany. I think about crossgrading to Sonar and have been testing for over a week every now and then, and it is just great. Everytime I try something new, IÂ´m getting flashed by "Wow, Sonar can do THAT?" or "I have been requesting this feature in Steinberg Forums for years".

Actually I donÂ´t care about if Sonar gets the respect of the "professional" audio community or not, first I also didnÂ´t know anything about Sonar, just thought well another "B-List" Sequencer... but if you come to the point where you are just not satisfied with the Sequencer you use (in my case Nuendo) you take a look what else is out, and I want to stay on PC platform because it performs perfectly well as I can configure and build my own killer system, also at a fraction of the price of a decent Mac.

To come to Sonar again, if Cakewalk (or we as users) care about respect of the Software, Cakewalk should probably spend more attention on a fancy Software interface, fancy Sonar Logo, more professional and structured looking Website (this one is a rather badly structured, good enough for me but probably not as good as Digidesigns or SteinbergÂ´s site), and put just more ads in Pro Magazines.

But: I rather have company spending money for development (which must be the case, because Sonar is really really good, and IÂ´m sure Sonar 7 will be great) than a company wasting too much money for marketing.

2 things which could be improved at Sonar are 1) Midi features, and 2) the overall ergonomic Design (menus look to me a bit more "Office 2003", like, but it works, so just a nice to have feature)

cheers!
A Sonar 6 Fan

RE: time to start over. (aaronk)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:20:55 GMT

All I've done is, 1) installed XP SP2 fresh from scratch (with internet unplugged). 2) Installed every music ap / soft synth I own + controler and interface drivers - and thats IT - NOTHING else. 3) Go into system services, and turn off EVERYTHING not needed (which would be well over 3/4 of the listed items). 4) Make sure everything internet related is OFF, and plug the ethernet cable back in (for when I might need it - but, in 2 years, I havent turned the net on yet). 5) NEVER, and I mean NEVER - did I say NEVER, get ANY update from microsoft - NEVER.... Maybe if you follow those 5 steps, your system can be a rock solid tank like mine.

XP is indeed quite stable, even without your precautions. My system is a Dell PC, XP SP2 pre-loaded, connected to the Net, every MS update installed automatically, a few minor system tweaks for audio, a few services turned off simply because they bugged me, various promos and freebies from Dell taken out, again simply because they bugged me. I only use software/drivers from reliable companies.

XP itself has never crashed. I've gotten exactly ONE BSD (most likely a looping bug in SONAR, not an XP problem).

I use XP at work, as well, and that computer hasn't crashed a single time.

Your note about the Net points to one problem: people who use their PC to connect to the Net, and download lots of crap or visit less nice websites, are probably clogging their machines up with all sorts of viruses, spyware, etc. One needn't live like a monk to be healthy, but if you spend your nights in smoky bars picking up anything that'll go home with you, you should expect some coughs, sneezes, warts and itching.

RE: time to start over. (Ognis)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:47:52 GMT

lol midi, I'm really not, I just have a "bad way with words" " />

RE: time to start over. (themidiroom)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:45:54 GMT

ORIGINAL: Ognis

not trying to say "hey, mine's better than yours", I hope I don't sound that way, I'm just trying to help.

I knew you were a snob, just admit it. " />

RE: time to start over. (Ognis)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:27:58 GMT

I'm going to say something that could get me killed in mixed company; I want to go back to Mac. And, I wish I could take Sonar with me. I spend as much time troubleshooting as I do making music on my PC.

Odd how for some problems like that can be a constant hassle. And for others, there is nearly never problem one. I for instance haven't had a "PC" problem, in an extremly long time (I don't even remember how long ago it was), and even then it was no big deal. I haven't had a problem with Sonar in a long, long time either, and even when I did (other than that damn save "button"), it was my fault for changing a setting or something. As far as stability goes, I couldn't ask for anything more. In all honestly, my computer/sonar, simply couldn't be more stable. All I've done is, 1) installed XP SP2 fresh from scratch (with internet unplugged). 2) Installed every music ap / soft synth I own + controler and interface drivers - and thats IT - NOTHING else. 3) Go into system services, and turn off EVERYTHING not needed (which would be well over 3/4 of the listed items). 4) Make sure everything internet related is OFF, and plug the ethernet cable back in (for when I might need it - but, in 2 years, I havent turned the net on yet). 5) NEVER, and I mean NEVER - did I say NEVER, get ANY update from microsoft - NEVER.... Maybe if you follow those 5 steps, your system can be a rock solid tank like mine.. - not trying to say "hey, mine's better than yours", I hope I don't sound that way, I'm just trying to help.

RE: time to start over. (soundrage)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:06:04 GMT

ORIGINAL: samson7842

I'm going to say something that could get me killed in mixed company; I want to go back to Mac. And, I wish I could take Sonar with me. I spend as much time troubleshooting as I do making music on my PC. My Mac just worked and I didn't have to be a "Techie" to get through a project. I have very limited time and energy and I hate having to waste them figuring out why my PC keeps acting up. If I cared to learn that much about how computers work, I would take classes. I want create when I want to create. End of story. If Cakewalk started making Sonar PE for Mac, I'd be the first one buying it.

I completely agree

PC's have gotten quite reliable but the Mac heads will never let that die.

If Cake ever wants to play in the Digi (Mac) sandbox Sonar will have to run natively on Macs...period.

For me? I don't care if they ever run on Mac's but I've got to say them new iMacs look pretty cool!

RE: time to start over. (CJaysMusic)

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:16:18 GMT

ORIGINAL: samson7842

I'm going to say something that could get me killed in mixed company; I want to go back to Mac. And, I wish I could take Sonar with me. I spend as much time troubleshooting as I do making music on my PC. My Mac just worked and I didn't have to be a "Techie" to get through a project. I have very limited time and energy and I hate having to waste them figuring out why my PC keeps acting up. If I cared to learn that much about how computers work, I would take classes. I want create when I want to create. End of story. If Cakewalk started making Sonar PE for Mac, I'd be the first one buying it.

They do (kinda, sortsa) with bootcamp you can run sonar on a mac. To your point, what kinda problems are you having. If you just do alittle research or ask questions about soundcards and pc's before you buy (and graphic cards) Your pc should be running great with Sonar. In the past 14 months, the only thing that went bad in my pc was a hard drive and a sata cable and this just happened a few weeks ago. So, from my experience with soanr and a pc, its very very stable. Maybee you just have a few things that are conflicking with eachother and is probably easy to fix. Im no pc geek, what i learned came from this room. The only thing i change every now and then is my latency and I/O buffers, thats the only thing i play with (with my computer)
Cj

RE: time to start over. (samson7842)

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:05:18 GMT

I'm going to say something that could get me killed in mixed company; I want to go back to Mac. And, I wish I could take Sonar with me. I spend as much time troubleshooting as I do making music on my PC. My Mac just worked and I didn't have to be a "Techie" to get through a project. I have very limited time and energy and I hate having to waste them figuring out why my PC keeps acting up. If I cared to learn that much about how computers work, I would take classes. I want create when I want to create. End of story. If Cakewalk started making Sonar PE for Mac, I'd be the first one buying it.