New Sonar 5

[Mr T]

I have just upgraded from Sonar 4 to Sonar 5. Whilst trying to save a song it has frozen on me once. Even though I use NI guitar Rig and a virtual drums plug-in which uses a lot of processor power it has worked fine after 2 weeks use (although a little slow sometimes whilst opening a song!). I was wondering how many others out there have began using Sonar 5 without upgrading their processor to 64-bit and changing to Windows XP Professional x64 and if they have encountered any problems?

[laptoppop]

I've started using 5, and its working out well - but various users have reported issues here and there. However, for a major release, its doing pretty darn well. Cakewalk has already committed to releasing a patch for the issues they know about - and is working on it now. However, I'm voting with my time -- I just started main mixing on a big project and I chose to do it in 5.0 instead of 4.04 because of the productivity enhancements.

Just to be clear, you do NOT need to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system to use S5's 64 bit mix engine. Just check the box in the audio options area. In many ways, full 64-bit computing is not quite ready for prime audio time. To get it to work, all parts of your computer have to be ready -- all plugins, all drivers, etc. Only a few sound interface makers have even released 64-bit drivers. Its still early.

-lee-

[Myriad_Rocker]

I love it and I have not had any problems with it!

Sonar 5PE
Sound Forge 8
CD Architect 5.2
BFD w/XFL
Kontakt 2
Trilogy
Waves
Ozone
Other various things...

[punkin]

Mine arrived today...I haven't had a lot of time to mess with it yet but I did open one of my bigger project (38 tracks). I'm not up to 64bit hardware yet but it seems to work so far. I'm really just posting this to help keep track of this thread...I'll post again after playing with it a bit more.

[sile2001]

I've gotta say I'm fairly impressed with the new engine. I was recording a battle of the bands this last weekend, and half-way through the finale song by the host band, the user interface just totally halted (due to something else I did...not Sonar's fault). Froze. Wouldn't respond to anything I did. So I let it just sit there frozen until everything was done, and then terminated the process (pretty much the hardest shutdown/crash a program can go through). Started it back up, loaded the project, and it had STILL been recording the audio, even with the UI frozen. I didn't lose a single second of audio. That's freaking good right there...

[guttadaj]

I am still on 4SE, but I just went to a MusicTech workshop last week where Cakewalk presented SONAR 5PE and Project5. Man, I was blown away by the things 5PE could do and would love to get my hands on it once $$ issues will allow. That V-Vocal thing (like Antares Autotune) looked to be worth the price of admission right there! I'm not saying I wanna go nuts with it, but it did seem to really be able to smooth out little glitches here and there too, which Lord knows I could use! The improved MIDI FX interfaces looked much better and easier to work with. Plus, the native VST support got me pretty pumped up. Maybe I'm better off waiting until a patch or two comes out anyway - well, at least that's what I'll tell myself while I can't afford it! LOL


-Jeff

[K-dub]

I, unfortunately, had a VERY tough time taming Sonar5. S4 was running beautifully, but after my upgrade to S5, seizures and breakdowns were common.

Ultimately, I upgraded my bios, and reinstalled Windows XP, and it's been as stable as sunrise.

Which brings me to a point, if you're having trouble. What I discovered is that even after I upgraded Windows and the bios and EVERYTHING, I still hadn't gone back to some of my soft synth manufacturers and dl'd the latest updates for some of my stuff.

After all I'd done, I STILL was having some S5 glitches. In the ensuing research, I did eventually discover that I was deficient on the synth program updates.

Once updated, S5 kicked into pure sonic bliss.

The lesson? Make sure EVERYTHING in your system is updated ... both hardware and software.

Hopefully it will help you as much as it did me.

Best,

Kev.

[Dogman]

Mine puked on me a couple of times today while doing some mixdowns. The first real problems I have had. I didn't lose anything, but it was still frustrating.
Ed

[punkin]

k...so I was wanting to like it...every time I've upgraded with sonar in the past I've been a very happy camper. I simply couldn't say no to the SONAR 5 upgrade price...it seemed so reasonable, I'm thinkin not so much right now. BTW...my point of reference is SONAR 4.03 Producer version

It's like SONAR 4 with a little refinement...like it should have been before plus a few frilly bells'n'whistles. But,...there's a big "but" in there because it is a bit clunky...it stalled during the install. Later I wanted to reinstall since I opted out of one of the VSTi options, it locked up again.

At least twice today it stalled horribly during a simple play back. I donno...I'm thinking I'll go back to version 4. I'll keep mucking with it but I don't trust it right now.

[moskus]

To me upgrading was worth the money: It's even more stable (if possible) and the new convolution reverb is awesome!