Nate74
HR4FREBR
I started with Cakewalk probably a dozen or more years ago as I left the analog world. I upgraded to Sonar 6 Studio at some point and then to Sonar Producer X1. I only record my own bands and personal demo material so I'm far from a power user. I record actual instruments with microphones and don't do the virtual instrument thing or MIDI, etc. I started recording back in the day with a 8-track reel-to-reel, a 16 channel mixer, and real outboard effects. And to this day, I still think about recording that way. I'm mostly likely using less than 5% of the capabilities that Sonar Producer X1 has to offer.
That being said, I feel like sometimes I spend more time dealing with stability issues with Sonar than I do working on music. I've probably got it so messed up with countless installs and uninstalls, it may never be right at this point. I've taken to periodically exporting each individual track out of song files as .wav files just for when the program decides it wants to crash and not let me back in, I can start a new project and import the audio files from my backup. This adds about an hour to most sessions which seems ridiculous.
As I read the Cakewalk forum, here and elsewhere, I see lot of people with various stability struggles and it gets me thinking are there other DAWs out there that are just more stable or do they all get messed up like my version of Sonar seems to be?
I'm not a computer guy so when I read things about the need to do clean installs of Windows on new hard drives or issues with registry entries, etc. I just want to run for the hills.
I just want to be able to record up to 16 channels into my DAW, do some editing, adds some effects and make my mixes.
Should I look at a different DAW? Do I have too many VSTs in my effects folder? Is Sonar salvagable with out major IT efforts?
Any thoughts and guidance would be much appreciated.
That being said, I feel like sometimes I spend more time dealing with stability issues with Sonar than I do working on music. I've probably got it so messed up with countless installs and uninstalls, it may never be right at this point. I've taken to periodically exporting each individual track out of song files as .wav files just for when the program decides it wants to crash and not let me back in, I can start a new project and import the audio files from my backup. This adds about an hour to most sessions which seems ridiculous.
As I read the Cakewalk forum, here and elsewhere, I see lot of people with various stability struggles and it gets me thinking are there other DAWs out there that are just more stable or do they all get messed up like my version of Sonar seems to be?
I'm not a computer guy so when I read things about the need to do clean installs of Windows on new hard drives or issues with registry entries, etc. I just want to run for the hills.
I just want to be able to record up to 16 channels into my DAW, do some editing, adds some effects and make my mixes.
Should I look at a different DAW? Do I have too many VSTs in my effects folder? Is Sonar salvagable with out major IT efforts?
Any thoughts and guidance would be much appreciated.