Tell me the Low Down on Sonar....???

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bloozguy

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I'm working on recording and producing my second CD with Cakewalk. I've been fairly happy with it, doing coffeehouse style folk and blues originals.

I get these emails every so often from Cakewalk pushing their Sonar software.

I'm just wondering if anyone can somewhat tell it in a nutshell why upgrading to Sonar would or would not substantially improve Cakewalk. What would I notice as far as convenience, sound? What does it essentially do?

I use Aardvark Direct Pro for my interface, and 9.0 Audio...

thanks....

bloozguy
 
First off you should probably check your system specs against cakewalks RECOMMENDED specs not the minimum specs and see if it's a good idea to upgrade with your present rig.
Second what do you feel you're lacking in your present setup?
I have sonar 2 and I am very pleased with it but I'm just a geek who loves toys.
IMHO the biggest advantage of sonar is the interface,much easier than PA9.

Goin' to summerfest?
 
acidrock said:
First off you should probably check your system specs against cakewalks RECOMMENDED specs not the minimum specs and see if it's a good idea to upgrade with your present rig.
Second what do you feel you're lacking in your present setup?
I have sonar 2 and I am very pleased with it but I'm just a geek who loves toys.
IMHO the biggest advantage of sonar is the interface,much easier than PA9.

Goin' to summerfest?
Click to expand...

Don't feel like I'm lacking...but, you know how that goes. A guy loves his guitar sound 'till he hears someone else's, then goes nuts adjusting to change things.

As for Summer fest....not sure. I've got quite a few gigs lining up myself this summer, plus I'm a visual artist and have things going as well. I'll be playing at Amherst's coffeehouse, "The Cellar" opening up for Alex Harvey (Delta Dawn, Rueben James, etc) on June 8th...and a gig coming up in Green Bay at their Art On Broadway sponsored blues fest with John Mayall headlining. Should be cool....

bloozguy

http://www.artlandishconcepts.org
 
Let me put it this way....

I have had SONAR for about 6 months. Recently, I was doing a session, and SONAR was messing up ( I had input monitoring checked for some odd reason, Dachay fixed it). Anyhoo, I went back to PA9 to salvage the session, and it was like going to a Black and White TV after having Color. The Interface on SONAR (I have 1, I guess) is worth the upgrade. Console view?? Give me a break, this is much better.
 
(You really should have a PIII 1GHz machine minimum, really more if you can afford it - You might want to upgrade the sound card too. Do as acidrock suggests and check the specs at Cakewalks site)

Once you get the sound card drivers set , build your drum track templates, create and save your layout views, play with 20 different core effects to see what they do, experiment with the 30+ synths available on the market that are DXi compatible, build your waves library, set up your keystroke macros for quick access to the various features, learn how to build quick drum tracks with session drummer, figure out how to monitor and record with 1.5ms (actual times will vary) latency, learn how to group buttons and sliders, figure out the automation features for sliders and effects, play with all the 1001 cool DXI or VST plug ins that add color to your sound then you will understand the hyper jump in professionalism that Sonar is over Cakewalk. WDM sound drivers alone make for a better recording environment that allows you to hear effects as you record. I don't remember Cakewalk being able to do this.

As you can tell from the list above, the learning curve is fairly steep. It has taken me about 6 months in my spare time to understand all of the features and technologies in Sonar.

Does it sound better, well yes, a lot better. With all the above and the plug ins I am making much more professional sounding recordings. Sweep 6 band Parametric EQs and Multiband compressors are worth the whole journey.

The most difficult part has been the educational part as I really wanted to write music and I find myself chomping at the bit sometimes having to understand all the new technology and wondering if it is a help or hindrance.

Would I do it again? Absolutely!
 
As Acidrock suggested, the biggest difference is in the Sonar interface. It's night and day with PA9 IMHO. Or as David aptly put it - like watching B&W TV after seeing color.

I also think the plug-in effects included with Sonar are much, much better than those that were included with Cakewalk. Plus, these effects are automatable, which is another great feature.

However, can you create great music with PA9? Most certainly!

The bottom line is that any recording software just allows you to store and manipulate the 1's and 0's. The quality of the 1's and 0's are going to be determined by your upstream equipment (e.g., mics, preamps) and the converters in your sound card.
 
thanks....

Perhaps certain styles of music require more conveniences that make up for a substantial difference too.

I was thinking of purchasing the Smart Loops percussion CD to add to my drumming capabilities.

For my present recording stuff of blues and folk work I'm doing, I made this year a large ceramic African percussion instrument called an "Udu"...and using a Shure 57 mic got a pretty decent percussion sound with that.

I'm thinking dollar for dollar, perhaps my next necessary investment is going to be a good studio mic...yet, perhaps one I could use on stage. Maybe an EV D267 or...the newer Shure KSM27...

You know how it is with computers. A hassle 'till you figure it out, and then you overcome them and get around even developing a working routine. I'm having a hard time admittedly trying to understand the advantages of Sonar as an interface. I mean, with Direct Pro...I just plug in the mic cords and assign 1/2, 3/4, or 5/6.

My system is a Pentium III PC with 256 RAM, and Soundblaster Sound Card, though I use the Direct Pro's set up for sound.

Well....thanks everyone for your input...not sure I'm convinced enough yet in a way that would make me disappointed with my current set up. That is, disappointed enough to want to do something more about it. I guess, if I were to walk into another's set up and see what they're doing...THEN I'd have that "holy cow!" reaction which would cause me to want to upgrade.

bloozguy
 
They were right...

  • SONAR won't be that difficult to learn if you master your CWPA 9... So, dig it deep (CWPA9) while you can before you jump into another leap...

    SONAR.
  • You don't know how really much it better, before you taste CWPA...

I use also P!!!, 256RAM, SBLive! card and XPHome... never let me down...

;)
 
Cakewalk 9 = Midi Package with some Audio Capability.:(

Sonar = Audio Package with excellent Midi Capability.:D :cool:

End of Story

Addendum:
I gave up a dedicated hard disk recorder as my primary tool for recording audio in favor of Sonar. I was with Cakewalk back to PA 5 and even though it had audio capability, I was very skeptical. It wasn't until Sonar came out, overhauled the interface and incorporated many of the features found in products like ProTools that I deemed it worthy of a justifiable option.
 
thanks again....

thanks Chuck.

Prior to Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.0 and Aardvark Direct Pro....I used a Tascam porta studio, and one Shure 57....

I now have one CD produced, working on a second...and have product when I go play out. So, evidently I'm doing pretty good with something that I understand here to be minimal at best.

At 47 years of age...I get together with my old band perhaps three times a year for reunion type gigs...but other than that I play coffeehouses. Guitars and harmonica.

Half what everyone is telling me here is yet over my head. I don't have a keyboard, nor play one...have no real use or need that I'm aware of for midi. I guess I want to learn how to produce better drum tracks, but I'm not maximizing what I have now. Is that easier with Sonar?

My main curiosity has been answered, as I keep getting emails from Cakewalk promoting their Sonar software. Perhaps someday. Not gettn any younger though, and I'm not planning on Nashville any time soon. Peace all....

Larry
 
if you want to have better drumtracks sonar includes the edirol vsc dxi which is a software synthesiser that includes multiple drumkits.
These drumkits can be activated via the session drummer included in sonar which you may be already familiar with from pa9.
there is also included in sonar2 a thingy called the drum brush to "paint " drum patterns with.
Sonar also includes a loop explorer which makes it very easy to work with loops.Once you start with loops it becomes very easy to get a decent drum track going.
GOOD LUCK!
 
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