SONAR XL Quickie Review...

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UncleThumpy

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Here's the Review:

Short and sweet as I don't want to spend to much time away from my new obsessive compulsion to play with SONAR...more items will get posted as I run into them.

The platform:

This review involved a:
BX Chipset Motherboard
PIII 600E (coppermine) that was not overclocked.
392 Meg of cas3, PC100, plain Jane RAM
Two ATA-66 Drives. One for Windows ME/SONAR and one for SONAR audio data.
Windows ME Upgrade on a clean install.
nVidia Gforce2 MX Video Chip (AGP)
Echo Audio Gina24
SBLive! Value
3Com Ethernet card (Generic clone?) I'm lazy, and have never had a problem, so I leave it active.

Everything has the most recent drivers as of March 25 2001, but *NO WDM DRIVERS*. They aren't out yet for my hardware, but if the basic performace is any indicator, then SONAR /is/ improved when compared to CWPA9.03.

The install:

*Important* This really is a "1.0" product. It is /not/ "Pro Audio 10" , and the readme and the YELLOW CARD that comes in the box has stuff you /need to read/. (Like the need to uninstall FX1/2 before installing SONAR.) The RTFM/README file is very big, and contains a bunch of known issues. *READ IT FIRST!*

The Install went without a hitch. Disc in, Logo Up. Click Install. It reboots (for DirectX 8 [I didn't write down which part, and can't recall]] and then continues the install once the DirectX component is installed.

The installer was way more flexable than I've ever seen from Cakewalk. This may be due to all the extra's that came with XL.

No problems at all. Took about 7 minutes including reboot.

SONAR profiled my old CWPA install and seems to have migrated everything that I use during an average session. (I've only had it about 6 hours...) Audio profiling proceeded and I was up and running.

The Look and Feel

Beauty. Smooth. It took me about 30 minutes to find everything I usually use in the interface, and yes I actually looked at the manual in a few cases. The tutorial is good. I did keep looking for things in the wrong place, but that's /my/ fault. The "new and improved" track view is sweet sweet sweeeeet. I run 1280x1024 and it feels like I have much more real estate than before. The track zoom tools are non-intuative (they look similar to before, but act a bit differently) but again, it's just my Pro Audio-centric view. I'll get used to it.

The Basic Performance

Audio track performance is better than CWPA9.03. I got better response in the system, while paused and while in playback (!) than ever before. Drive usage seems the same (14 different audio loops playing back together gave me about 9% disk usage) but the new cakewalk effects seem much improved! All 14 tracks playing back with separate reverb settings and chorus only brought my cpu up to 18%. Playback with no effects brings cpu up to 3%. (The vector control in the track view is awesome btw, both for audio and midi.)

It looks like the folks over in Cambridge /did/ perform some more magic.

The Add On's Performace

I attempted to use Tassman. I will not be attempting to use it again till I have WDM drivers. Some monophonic patches kicked my cpu up as high as 60%, and the latency was around 300ms. I haven't had time to tweak it, but I ran Tassman's Demo as stand alone before I installed SONAR, and it was usable in realtime via midi. NOT A FAIR COMPARISON...I KNOW. But still...I'll wait for WDM drivers (Hello ECHO AUDIO!!! WTF?!?!)

I haven't even loaded disk two of teh package yet. More review finding coming over the weekend.

The Wrap Up

Hours of use: ~4.
Number of Crashes: 2. And they were /hard/. Reset button stuff, none of this CTRL-ALT-DEL.
Was it worth it? Oh yeah baby.

It looks like a major overhaul. Not just a cosmetic one. If you have PA9 or Pro suite, are happy with it and don't need DXi...wait for a few patchlevels. Being the geek that I am, I'll stay on the edge won't look back.

-L
 
A thought...

Here's the readme for those who want to read it ahead of time...
 

Attachments

I Thanked DS for the review and realized
later that it was you. Sorry...Anymore info?

How's the midi side of things..have they
changed the views, Piano, Event, etc

And how in the world did you get it so fast?
I called Cakewalk today..it hadnt left the
warehouse yet..i ordered weeks ago


I would like to tweak on my puter
some more maybe you can help me
out

The system:

PIII 750 ( not overclocked but would like to try)
Abit BE6 rev 2 (MB)
256 ram ( just purchased another 256 pc133 Sdramm)
pny which they say is Cas2.5
ultra ata 66 hard by quantum 6.4 (system HD)
ultra ata 66 HD by Maxtor 20.0g ..i installed the
whole cakewalk program on this drive..not just
the wavedata folder..you think it makes a difference?
Motu Pci 324 audio card w/2408 interface

i saw a big difference going from the PII 450 to
the PIII 750. I dont want to touch the PIV

Also running Windows SE
Any info you can provide would be
appreciated.
 
More Review Fodder...this chapter: loop editing!

Ok I've been playing loop-boy all evening and wonder if Cakewalk will be sued for basically duplicating ACID within SONAR...it's really cool.

After actually reading some of the chapter on looping in the manual, I have to say that SONAR makes using loops so easy that a one-legged wombat with half a brain could use them and sound like a pro.

Import a rhythm track. Who cares what tempo...doesn't matter (much). I imported an uncleaned audio track from my "Burning Grooves" audio CD (I don't have the CDROM). It was at a tempo of 119 bpm. The file I imported it into was at tempo 100 bpm. Ok so there it was on the track, and not in time. I double clicked the audio and it opened into the loop construction window. By some magical method, (i assume by scanning the peaks and guestimating) it told me that the loops original tempo was...119.32! Cool! So then I clicked the "enable looping" button and dragged a slider up to show me where cakewalk thought each beat fell. It drew nice little lines over top of the audio showing where it thought each beat was. It was pretty close! I dragged another slider up label "transient detection" that increased the sensativity to spikes in the wave form and viola! The wav looped just like an ACID loop. I could manipulate it just the same, cropping and "painting" the loop wherever I wanted it and best of all, when I change the file tempo, the loop tempo changes to match...WITHOUT CHANGING PITCH! It's sweeeeeeeet! It's not /perfect/, but I havn't even read more than a couple pages and I'm not expert in handling loops. If you slow a loop down too far, or speed it up too much you get artifacts (like double kicks), but the looping tool is so immediately useful, that I can't believe Cakewalk isn't explaining to uneducated users (like me) exactly what it means when they say "can use ACID-ized loops".

Totally awesome. I would have bought it for the looping alone even without the DXi additions. That's it for now, more later this weekend.

-L

PS elbenj: I haven't done anything with midi other than play with the panning and effects controls in the track view (like vectoring them around with automation, and /that's sweet too/) and I've opened most of my current working files and they translate/play just fine.

How did I get it so fast? I ordered two weeks ago from the website as an upgrade to Pro Suite, and I live 4 miles from Cakewalk's Cambridge Office (really). It arrived fedex. Just lucky I guess.
 
DXi/SoftSynths/Tassman and You!

One of the things /I/ certainly misunderstood were the limitations of softsynths with regards to WDM drivers. Get ready for a happy surprise!

I had played with the Tassman demo and then the full Tassman that comes with SONAR XL in real time and yeah there was a pretty annoying latency there...since I don't (yet) have WDM drivers for my audio cards.

This morning I tried sequencing with them...guess what. no Latency! The latency only exists if you're using them in real time. (I read this in the manual this morning and had to try it) I took one of the demo songs (Flyin' Machine) and assigned the bass-line patch to Tassman. No latency, right on the mark timing, in sync with the rest of the song. Totally usable as a sound source. CPU usage about 40% but hey that's not a problem (I chose one of the mono moog patches). I just recorded the track down to a dedicated audio track while twiddling all the knobs on Tassman to giving me nice sweeping filter and subs rolling in and out (the setting changes in real time have no latency I could detect) and them I removed the Tassman plugin to get my cpu cycles back after laying the track down. Simple, easy, fast. I had always been apprehensive of softsynths and hardware modelers. Not any more! Bring them on!

The way it works is a little odd, but very flexable once you understand it:

You need two tracks. One midi track (say, a bassline) and one audio track (empty).

You select the effects option in the /audio/ track. Listed there are the effects and all the DXi synths. Choose Tassman. It will come up and you can set you patches and knobs.

Once you have got Tassman up in the audio track, click over to the track settings on your midi track (the bassline one.) In the midi port options you will now see Tassman listed! Select it and set the appropriate channel, patch, bank whatever. (For Tassman, channel one and ignore the patch info for now.)

That's it! The midi track will play back through Tassman ( or whatever DXi synth you want) in correct time. Realtime latency is still there, but sequenced playback is fine.

So if you don't have WDM drivers yet, no big deal. Just lay your sequenced tracks down with some general synth patch, the switch the playback over to a DXi synth once the midi is down.

Very cool.

Side note: I had thought that I would need another output pair for each DXi synth I used. Not so. It all runs out whatever port you choose and will happily share with the other SONAR audio outs. (This may have been obvious to you all, but I wasn't sure.)

More later on!

-L
 
Mine still hasn't arrived... boo hoo.. I cab't play with it until I get my taxes done anyway, but I want to hold the box and flip through the manuals...
 
Mine was sent to South Dakota where it is there waiting for me! Man o man I can't wait to move!
 
Hey Alchuck, I used to live in San Mateo in the 60’s. My aunt and uncle owned the Kingswood apartments on whatever street it was. I played keyboard in a band, had a girlfriend, Corvette, Triumph Bonneville, went to CSM, worked for the PacBell and partyyyyyyd.
 
how about one yall guys wit sonar copy it and send it to me i'll pay for shipping and the CD
 
TEACHER,

WHY WOULD I WANT TO SPEND $100 ON IT AND THEN GIVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE?????????????????
 
damn,,,,

Although I can't say whether or not a piece of software has ever been passed along to me, I certainly wouldn't advertise it. If I'm not mistaken, isn't it a federal offense, like the little warning you see at the beginning of movie rentals? Someone pipe in before this guy winds up in trouble....
 
yeah, I don't wanna be holier than the pope, and I'm sure in no time Sonar will be "available" on the web for all, but I won't use a bootleg version, noooooo
I want to make coffee and sit in my comfi-chair and stroke the box, drool on the manual, smell the CD and.....sorry, got carried away.
I will be good and finish my coffee now..
 
Marketing Problem with LiveSynth Pro.

There seems to have been a little misunderstanding with one of the DXi Synths called "LiveSynth Pro". Apparently it was originally listed as the full version, but was switched to a 30-day time limited demo. After much hoo-hahing in the sonar newsgroups LiveSynth offered a 50% promotional code for users who pre-ordered thinking they were getting the whole thing. It reduces the price of the upgrade from $51 (which already includes a 20% coupon found in the SONAR Box) to $36 bucks. Very nice, seeing as LiveSynth is just a couple guys trying to start a company.

FYI LiveSynth Pro might be important to all you SoundFont users out there. It essentially lets you load soundfonts into memory (limited only by the amount of memory you have) and play them back tightly coupled with SONAR. It's a simple, but /very/ useful tool, especially if you don't own a sound card that supports sound fonts.

For example, I own an SBLive (value) which supports loading soundfonts, but I would have to run the outs from my SBLive into my mixer and back into my Gina24 to record them. No big deal, but LiveSynth Pro lets me bypass the SBLive and mix directly in SONAR, as well as apply any vector controls and effects inline. Very nice and cheap.

-L
 
cuz ur nice guy that wants to help someone out? i would like a copy of the manual too...heh
 
Dude...

Relax man,

Take the requests for warez to A.B.S.U and quit asking here. It just pisses everyone off. Or is that the point? You trawling?

This place is for people who use cakewalk and associated prods, but more it's for sharing our experiences with it and helping each other. Swapping hacked copies of software has a huge following /located in other forums/. Ask those types of questions there. Hang here and contribute, but don't ask anyone for warez.

I'm not yelling atcha', and I have no control over you, but you're not making any headway asking for free copies here.

You got any music online we can hear? What kind of tunes do you bang out? That's the kind of stuff I'm interested in.

-L
 
relax fellas yall so touchy acting like u never borrowed MSOffice or a MSwindows version from a friend
I do i have music online and i do have a question
critics say my drum patterns sound thin so i wanna know how to make them "THICK"

www.mp3.com/beatmakers there's some beats

also tell me what forums Warez convos are accepted so i can leave those question there
 
Sorry if I came across as harsh.

I can understand needing to create and being low on funds when it comes to the tools, but I'm totally legal and licensed now, and I think everyone should try to be too.

Having said that...

You know what a newsgroup is? Usenet news? All I'll say is check out a group called "alt.binaries.sound.utilities" It's a forum similar to this bbs, but the subject matter is what you're looking for.

As for "how" to get to it, figure it out on your own. It's not hidden. I just want to maintain my own perceived (and admittedly slightly hypocritical) pretense of looking the other way.

I listened to your tunes, and posted a reply to your "Thin" question in the other thread. Sound good man...looks like you earned a little mp3 payback cash. Apply it towards buying the software, and your tracks will sound even better.

Good luck.

-L
 
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