SONAR HS4 pc requirements

[notCardio]

Yeah, I've read the specs, but in the real world, is anyone using SONAR Home Studio 4 on anything less than a 3 GHz P4 with 1G ram? Just wondering if I could get away with using a 2.8 P4 w/512 M. For those of you who have used other packages, does it seem to need less or more juice than the others out there?

Thanks

[LfO]

I'm running Sonar 4 on a 1GHz 512 RAM box, and it chugs along fine. Of course, as soon as they release a new version, they obliterate all documentation for all previous releases, so I can't tell precisely what the minimum "requirements" are, but I THINK this is right about at them. It runs favorably compared to the older copy of Home Studio I'd been running. So, in short, I'd guess you sitting pretty.

EDIT: For clarification, I'm running "Sonar 4 - Producer Edition" - the naming scheme is getting strangley ambiguous.

[dachay2tnr]

Originally Posted by Cardioidpotent

Yeah, I've read the specs, but in the real world, is anyone using SONAR Home Studio 4 on anything less than a 3 GHz P4 with 1G ram? Just wondering if I could get away with using a 2.8 P4 w/512 M. For those of you who have used other packages, does it seem to need less or more juice than the others out there?

Thanks

Home Studio is like Sonar Lite. It should run fine on that machine.

[notCardio]

Originally Posted by LfO

I'm running Sonar 4 on a 1GHz 512 RAM box, and it chugs along fine. Of course, as soon as they release a new version, they obliterate all documentation for all previous releases, so I can't tell precisely what the minimum "requirements" are, but I THINK this is right about at them. It runs favorably compared to the older copy of Home Studio I'd been running. So, in short, I'd guess you sitting pretty.

EDIT: For clarification, I'm running "Sonar 4 - Producer Edition" - the naming scheme is getting strangley ambiguous.

Is that a 1 GHz P4 or a P3?

And has anybody heard of anyone successfully using a Celeron? I'm thinking of a laptop too. And do you think any of these would limit my ability to use any plugins, or more importantly, a DXi softsynth with it?

And just for the record, I posted this here instead of the computer forum because I specifically want to use Sonar HS4.

[LfO]

Its almost certainly a P3, though I'm not at home and can't check. I use at least a couple of softsynths in every project, and an average of about 2 effects on every track. When I get up around 35+ tracks, things start slowing down and dropping out. So, your limit should theoretically be higher than that.

[acidrock]

You could get by with half of what you've got.

[DavidK]

I ran Sonar 1 on a Celeron 566 with 192mb RAM for Years.

I just got an AMD Sempron 1.8 GHZ 512 RAM, I am running SONAR 3 producer with great success. Current project is up to 17 tracks with plug-ins, no problems whatsoever.

[notCardio]

Sorry to sound incredulous, but you're running SONAR 4 Producer on a 1 Ghz P3 with half a gig of RAM, and your getting 30+ tracks, a couple of plugins on each, while simultaneously running a couple of softsynths? Really?
And that's 30+ audio tracks? Because I've got a machine just like that already that I got for something else that I assumed would be too underpowered to use any currently available CW products. What kind of soundcard do you have? Right now it has a SB Live drive in it, but I've got an M-Audio Audiophile PCI sitting in a box that I can plop in it. WinXP (not Pro, unfortunately) and Reason 1.0. I've got LiveSynth Pro that I want to install on whatever I put HS4 on.

You may have just made my day.

[LfO]

Well, I made my post from work, and it turns out I did overestimate a bit - I'm at home now, so I'll give you the REAL skinny:

Intel P3 - 996 MHz
512 Meg of RAM
Win XP - Pro, SP 2

Sonar 4 - Producer Edition

Example Project 1:
18 tracks total

8 tracks = 4 softsynths (MIDI and Audio track each)
FL Studio w/ 14 internal drum/sample tracks
StringTheory
Korg Legacy Polysix
Korg Legacy Wavestation

8 standard audio tracks
4 MIDI tracks

13 VST effects (mostly Sonitus EQs, compressors and reverbs) (also, there are a few more out there, but they're on frozen tracks, so I don't count them)

This project is at its limit - it chugs along fine until the 4th softsynth comes in 3/4 through the song - at that point it hiccups, and drops softsynths. This only started after adding the most recent, umm, maybe 2 audio tracks and 4 effects? Before that it could handle the whole shebang.


Example Project 2:

38 tracks total

4 tracks = 2 softsynths (FL Studio again, and Korg LegacyCell - currently "frozen")

6 MIDI tracks

28 Audio tracks

13 active (non-frozen) effects.

This one runs fine all the way through, but only after freezing the LegacyCell (which is a REAL CPU hog) and a couple of audio tracks. At most, 16 audio tracks are "playing" (by which I mean there is audio data present) at a time.


So, I did overstate my case, but the most sensitive factor SEEMS to be CPU (which you have no lack of), and I think this is pretty good performance for the minimum requirements.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm using a Lexicon Omega (USB 1.1) for audio, and MOTU micro lite for MIDI.

[notCardio]

Project 1:

You have 8 tracks from the (4 stereo) softsynths that you have recorded as audio. You have 4 tracks of MIDI from the 4 softsynths (I guess I don't really understand why you have audio AND MIDI from the same softsynth, but I'll save that for another time). The you also have 8 tracks of audio from other sources (guitar, vocal, etc.). That would make a total of 20 tracks-16 audio, 4 MIDI. So where did the 18 come from?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to make sure I understand how this all works. I'm not exactly what you'd call MIDI-proficient.

And this is what you're able to play while mixing down to two tracks on the pc, correct?

[LfO]

When you add a softsynth, by default it creates two tracks (I think that's default - its what I've got it doing regularly, anyway) - one audio and one MIDI. The MIDI track is the input to the softsynth - it drives it by sending note, velocity data, etc. The audio track is the output of the softsynth - where you add effects and control panning volume like any audio track.

I guess I double-counted a couple of MIDI tracks - there are the 4 for the softsynths, and 2 others driving hardware synths.

Yep - these play as described in realtime - the second project without a problem. and the first as I described. With this much load, there are some delays in screen redraws - i.e., if you try to change the gain or pan on a track, it might take a second to happen - it keeps its priorities strait, though, and degrades this before it degrades audio performance.

[donger]

It depends on what your trying to do. I ran sonar 3 producer edition on a P3 550mhz with 256mb of ram. I easily ran 10+ tracks with eq on all of them and compression on most. Im not saying this is the best setup but I got by. When I got my P4 3ghz and 1gb of ram it open a whole new world of effects and softsynths. Actually being able to run a quality reverb in realtime was a blessing

[notCardio]

Thanks guys!

One more thing, what sort or registration does HS4 use? What kind of hoops am I going to have to jump through to get it working if I put it on a machine that isn't connected to the net? Or what if I want to put it on a second machine (like a laptop) just to see if it'll run on it?

I guess I should have put this in a separate thread, but I figured WTF.

Thanks again.

[DavidK]

Originally Posted by LfO

i.e., if you try to change the gain or pan on a track, it might take a second to happen - it keeps its priorities strait, though, and degrades this before it degrades audio performance.

Wow, thanks for this tip

Something like this happened to me.

So, basically when stuff like this happens, I am approaching the limit, does that make sense?

[LfO]

Cardioid: Sonar 4 only required the serial it was shipped with, if I recall . . . don't know about HS in particular.

David: Yeah, that's the impression I get from overloading my system too often