problems and annoyances with sonar ??

[BudmanRocks]

Originally Posted by Danny Danzi

Agree with Tony B in just about all that he's said. For the most part, Sonar is a very pro piece of software. Most of the issues come in 4 forms....user error, audio misconfigurations, wrong drivers and consumer soundcards.

There is not one pc that I wasn't able to make Sonar run nearly perfect on. There are tweaks that are important within your os as well as Sonar itself. Tweaks if you use WDM, tweaks if you use ASIO, tweaks for MME....you have to select the right driver for your system and you need to sometimes have your system configured correctly for it to work.

For example, if you use the internet and a billion chat programs and loads of other things and when you press ctrl/alt/del you see more than 40 things running, your Sonar experience could be a rough one. However, if you use it as I do on a dedicated recording pc you can totally tweak your OS for audio and it will be a perfect experience. When I boot up using XP, there are 24 things running on my system using less than 178mb of RAM. That's pretty killer and makes Sonar a breeze for me. I use it over 50+ hours per week recording projects at 24/48 from 20 tracks to over 100 tracks with numerous plugins.

I recommend at least Sonar 8.3.1 or the new 8.5.1 as they are 2 of the most stable and reliable versions I have ever used. Like Tony, I too have been with Sonar since Cakewalk 3 and was a beta tester for 12 tones for quite a number of years...so I know it well. I have just about every DAW program you can think of over here and have used them all extensively. Pro Tools for pc (stay away from it as in my opinion, it's pretty bad.) Pro Tools HD for my mac (this is the way to go if you want PT) Paris Audio, Sequoia, Logic, Adobe Audition 3, Nuendo, Cubase 3 through 5, Reaper, Abletone Live and Audacity to name a few I have here.

Sonar in my humble opinion is the best of the bunch. Not because I'm biased or connected with it, but because for me and how I work, it is the DAW that gives me everything I need and I work in it much faster. It has enough plugins and VSTi's to create a song from scratch without playing an instrument physically. The onboard sounds, samplers and plugins are fantastic, it rocks for midi, it allows for sidechaining as well as external effects usage and has an improved Audio Snap that will allow you to literally quantize your audio just like midi.

The stock V-Vocal that comes with it blows Antares in the dust, and it's a snap to arm a track and start recording in under 10 seconds. There is a bit of a learning curve as there is with most professional recording programs, but to me, it's a very easy learning curve IF you try to incorporate what you know about recording already, and stay away from the additional bells and whistles that may intimidate you upon opening it.

That's another thing...it's fully customizeable so if you don't want to see something, you kill it. Set it up completely for what you use and how you work. The hardest part about using Sonar is the initial set-up for someone that doesn't have a clue about how DAWs work. I'd be more than happy to talk you through setting it up if you have any issues. Once it's set up, it will work like a dog.

For Vista, your best bet is to use a good soundcard that has the right drivers for it. If not and you're currently stuck with a consumer card, ASIO4all will be your savior and those drivers work perfectly on all my Vista boxes that don't have pro soundcards.

I can't say one negative thing about Sonar or the Cakewalk staff. They bring you patches for bug fixes in a timely fashion and care about their customers. Most times, bugs that are found in the program will not effect everyone. For example, as much as I feel I know the program, I may use 60% of it. The other 40% that I don't use may be where the bugs may be...so for a guy of my usage, I won't even see them. It all depends how you use the program. So if you read about bugs or annoyances, keep in mind some of the guys that report these things are power users that may be using stuff that you may never use, or people just having a go making stuff up.

If you need to record, create midi, mix, use plugins and softsynths, I have found no bugs with the stuff that comes with Sonar. You may have a few issues here and there with 3rd party applications and plugins from time to time, but even those seem to get fixed in a timely fashion.

That said, I sincerely believe all the audio applications available right now are fantastic. I could create the same project in each one of them and post my results and you'd not be able to tell which was recorded where. However, as we work in this field, you get your own work ethics and necessities that you need available on the fly and they have to be useable to you to where you understand them.

This is where Sonar has been a blessing to me. All the stuff I need to use works perfectly and is right there for me at the touch of a button. For some of the others programs, yes they too can do what Sonar can do, but I sometimes have to use work-arounds to make things work...or there is longer time needed to do something, or a long way around etc. Time is money...the right DAW is like a soul mate in a sense. You sometimes have to kiss a few toads before you find the princess....I happened to get lucky on my first toad. Good luck with whatever you decide.

What he sed. Sonar Rocks for me. I also use Cool Edit Pro 2.0. That is what I started with. It is also a great program for certain things. I'm just know starting to do the midi thing. All I have mostly done is record audio. I play guitar and write songs and record my friends. I just ordered a Presonis Faderport yesterday can't wait till it gets here. I hate doing automatiom with a mouse. What do you think of M-Audio Monitors. Got a pair of BX5A's a while back and they blew my Sonys away.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Danny & everyone else have covered most of what there is to say about Sonar, but for what it's worth I just thought I'd add my $0.02... Been running Sonar for about 2 years now - Started with 7PE, now up to 8.5PE. Overall I've found it to be an excellent program that is pretty much self-contained. Even if you never bought any other software, provided you have the ears & the skills, I feel you could pretty much do all your recording & mixing in Sonar & get pro results. With that in mind, it is a professional-level program that is DEEP. It takes a while to get your head around it's workflow, but once you understand it's internal logic, things become more intuitive. Having said that, one of the things I've struggled a bit with is multi-track drum editing in Audiosnap - Sonar's version of Elastic Time / Beat Detective. I can get some excellent results, but it takes a lot of time & effort. I'm hoping the new version of Audiosnap in 8.5 is better, but after experimenting with it a bit since I got it recently, my initial feelings are that it's still a bit clunky. Overall, I'm happy with Sonar, & generally I've found it to be quite stable. May I suggest that you follow these steps outlined here for optimizing your computer to run for music?
PC Musician: XP Tweaks For Music
Alter Vista

I did it, & I haven't looked back. I've got a reasonably fast Dual-Core machine thats about a year & a half old running Windows XP home & it plays really nicely with Sonar now. Hope this is helpful.

[Danny Danzi]

Hey fHumble, are you running 8.5.1 yet? Audio Snap for multi's is a breeze due to transients being auto-applied per recording new tracks and opening up old ones.

For example, you know how when you record something, the wave file caches in about 2 secs? It takes a few seconds longer in 8.5.1 (which will be fixed in the next update) but that's because Audio Snap transients are being applied all over the project so that when you open it, all tracks are taken care of.

The same happens if you open a project for the first time in 8.5.1. Even if you use the same picture cache folder as 8.3.1, it will redraw al wave files for the first load up due to audio snap transients being applied all over the project. So if you don't have 8.5.1, it may be something to consider as I feel it does a much better job on multi's. As a matter of fact, I've not used AS too much until this latest version. Really good on converting audio to midi as well. The accuracy of it scared me. LOL!

[newkid]

Originally Posted by fHumble fHingaz

Danny & everyone else have covered most of what there is to say about Sonar, but for what it's worth I just thought I'd add my $0.02... Been running Sonar for about 2 years now - Started with 7PE, now up to 8.5PE. Overall I've found it to be an excellent program that is pretty much self-contained. Even if you never bought any other software, provided you have the ears & the skills, I feel you could pretty much do all your recording & mixing in Sonar & get pro results. With that in mind, it is a professional-level program that is DEEP. It takes a while to get your head around it's workflow, but once you understand it's internal logic, things become more intuitive. Having said that, one of the things I've struggled a bit with is multi-track drum editing in Audiosnap - Sonar's version of Elastic Time / Beat Detective. I can get some excellent results, but it takes a lot of time & effort. I'm hoping the new version of Audiosnap in 8.5 is better, but after experimenting with it a bit since I got it recently, my initial feelings are that it's still a bit clunky. Overall, I'm happy with Sonar, & generally I've found it to be quite stable. May I suggest that you follow these steps outlined here for optimizing your computer to run for music?
PC Musician: XP Tweaks For Music
Alter Vista

I did it, & I haven't looked back. I've got a reasonably fast Dual-Core machine thats about a year & a half old running Windows XP home & it plays really nicely with Sonar now. Hope this is helpful.

Thanks.
I had printed that one site already.
Will check the other one.
Have some other tips from pc sites.
Between them I should get the most that xp can provide with a minimum of useless stuff slowing the pc down and interrupting the real work i want the pc to be doing.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Hey fHumble, are you running 8.5.1 yet? Audio Snap for multi's is a breeze due to transients being auto-applied per recording new tracks and opening up old ones.

For example, you know how when you record something, the wave file caches in about 2 secs? It takes a few seconds longer in 8.5.1 (which will be fixed in the next update) but that's because Audio Snap transients are being applied all over the project so that when you open it, all tracks are taken care of.

The same happens if you open a project for the first time in 8.5.1. Even if you use the same picture cache folder as 8.3.1, it will redraw al wave files for the first load up due to audio snap transients being applied all over the project. So if you don't have 8.5.1, it may be something to consider as I feel it does a much better job on multi's. As a matter of fact, I've not used AS too much until this latest version. Really good on converting audio to midi as well. The accuracy of it scared me. LOL!

Thanks Danny, I've only just gotten it, so I'll definitely check it out.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Danny, you sound like you'd be the guy to ask about this... How do you go about tightening up multi-tracked drums with audiosnap? I've been using the slicing method, as I found this results in the least amount of artifacts in the audio (at least in Sonar 7 & 8 it did). I haven't really been able to produce satisfactory results with the time-stretching methods so far, but perhaps you have some suggestions you could share... Thanks fH

[Danny Danzi]

To be honest fHumble, I've not had to do this too often so unfortunately, I'd not be of much help. For the most part, when I have had to use Audio Snap, it's been to quantize some stuff here and there. I zoom in really tight, remove the excess parts of the wave, apply audio snap and it usually quantizes it just like it would a midi for me. I do it per instrument/per track though because usually, you just have a kick or a snare that isn't quite on or maybe a hat or ride bell etc.

Where this has really been helpful to me is back-up vocals. I usually do a huge layer on the first chorus of a tune and then paste that layer all over where the chorus will be. From there I apply audio snap and it will compensate for any paste mistakes I may have made....you know, a few increments off here and there. I cut my clips up really tight so when I do quantize them using audio snap, usually a 16th puts me right in time. As long as I use a tempo map and know where 1 is, I never have a problem.

I've never had to time stretch anything, but I have used the "turn audio into midi" many times. For example, if I don't like a kick drum or something and would rather use something other than Drumagog, I can apply audio snap and turn the kick into midi. I then paste it into a new midi track and bang...new kick drum on the midi note of my choice that can be fed into several different modules. I'm no audio snap guru I'm sorry to say, but most of the stuff I've had to use it on has been a pleasant experience with little or no trouble at all.

To me it's a lot like quantizing midi. You can't just quantize an entire track, know what I mean? You have to work in sections etc and see what works best for the track. If you do a search on youtube for audio snap, you may find some killer vids from a guy named Seth that works for Sonar. I know there was some webinar he did recently that shows him messing with an entire drum kit, so maybe search for that and see how it helps you out. Sorry I can't be of more help man but unfortunately, Audio Snap isn't one of the features I use too often in Sonar.

[fHumble fHingaz]

To me it's a lot like quantizing midi. You can't just quantize an entire track, know what I mean? You have to work in sections etc and see what works best for the track.

Yeah, this is what I have found to be the case too, both of midi & audiosnap. I actually vary the swing inside drum fills to create more realism.

Thanks for that Danny, I'll check out Youtube... Apologies to the original poster for hijacking your thread briefly.

[newkid]

Originally Posted by fHumble fHingaz

Yeah, this is what I have found to be the case too, both of midi & audiosnap. I actually vary the swing inside drum fills to create more realism.

Thanks for that Danny, I'll check out Youtube... Apologies to the original poster for hijacking your thread briefly.

No problem

Just don't call me librarian, whompy, or one of those other names.