Upgrading and other cosmos-altering decisions

R

robn

A Muse Zen
I'm currently running Cakewalk 9.03...I've been looking into buying some plug-ins but now I'm wondering if upgrading from 9 to Sonar might not be a more cost-effective move, since FX1 and FX2 are part of Sonar. Are the FX1 and FX2 effects decent in Sonar or would I be better off with a 3rd party plugin? All this talk about excessive dropouts is making me a little nervous about upgrading.... I'm running this under Windows 98....would latency improve if I move to W2K? What is the advantage of WDM drivers? Seems like I read a post that mentioned not being able to name your tracks in Sonar....true? Here's my setup:

Pentium III@933mHz
IWill Motherboard
256 MB PC100 Mem
(2) 7200 RPM Maxtors
SB Live! (for MIDI)
Delta 66 (for Audio)


Thanks !!!
 
in my opinion the new cw/Fx plugs in Sonar are a nice upgrade to the stock v9.x plugins, there'a a bit nicer interface, more/better presets, etc.. They certainly aren't any more efficient cpu-wise, but adequate for many tasks.

With the exception of Reverb, for which I've yet to find a suitable pc plug-in from anybody yet.
 
I'm running Sonar on a system similar to yours -
PIII 933-Mhz
512Mb-133 Memory
1 5400 RPM HDD
1 7200 RPM HDD
SB Live (Value) with WDM drivers
Win ME

I haven't had many problems. I can run 15-20 tracks with a lot of plug-ins. I get an occasional drop-out, which usually I can fix by running the Compact Audio function in Sonar.

Sonar, IMHO, was well worth the $99 I paid to upgrade from CWPA9 - however, not necessarily for FX-1 and 2. FX-2 (Tape Sim) is relatively worthless as far as I'm concerned, and the dynamics package in FX-1 is not as good as many others on the market. However, the automatable FX that come with Sonar are decent, and the fact you can automate them is great. Also, Sonar has a better interface, along with record and playback metering in the Track View. And the non-destructive clip editing is also quite valuable.

If it's just plug-ins you are interested in, look at Waves Ltd. But you might want to look at Sonar anyway for other advantages.
 
Thanks to all who replied!!!

heinz: I've heard good things about Waves and Sonitus (Ultrafunk) plugins, you might check them out for your reverb...

AlChuck: I must have misread the post then...you wouldn't figure they would change that anyway...

dachay2tnr: yep, your system sounds alot like mine...are you using the SB Live for audio? What does the WDM drivers buy you? I wouldn't be upgrading to Sonar just for the FX, but it does make sense budget-wise since I'd be laying out some cash for plug-ins anyway...just wanted to get a feel for how the FX1 and FX2 stack up against others...guess I'll download the demos and check it out for myself....agree with you that the FX2 package would have a limited appeal to me...
 
Actually I do my recording on another system (733-Mhz PIII with a Delta 1010 installed). We use Sonar on that system as well (again with Windows ME and again without any problems). I use my home system (described above) primarily for subsequent editing of the files and for playback.

The WDM drivers are supposed to buy you better latency. I have read posts from people getting <10ms latency with the Delta WDM drivers and Win2000. With my SB Live I am only able to get to 200ms latency without any problems. However, it's not an issue for me. Primarily latency becomes important if you're using an external midi sequencer or real-time monitoring - I'm doing neither.

One catch, if you use WDM drivers for one of your cards you need to use them for both - you can't mix and match MME drivers with WDM (actually you can, but you have to use them in MME mode which defeats the purpose).
 
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