Cakewalk Sonar Refuges: what's next?

[whyterabbyt]

Watched video on reaper. What an ugly GUI! Where are all the colors? I love the colors- I am a girl- the brighter is the better.

The front-facing UI of Reaper is skinnable (unfortunately most of the rest of it isnt, so still looks rather Windos95 fugly) so you'll find plenty of 'themes to gussy it up. Primarily there seems to be a choice of
(1) direct ripoffs of other DAWs' graphics, right down to inoperative buttons (!)
(2) 3D-renderered-retro-mixer wankfests for folk who never actually do anything with audio, but do love a proper PBR-shaded screwhead
(3) multicoloured nightmares that look like the aftermath of an orgy in a neon glitter factory.

Im assuming (3) is your best bet.

[xbitz]

cmon Hydra is not so bad Black+Orange always win




IMHO

[GaryG]

With Reaper, I've stuck with a slightly modified version of the Konzentration skin, so minimal and clean yet can pick up track colours so nice and tintable.

And.... this has turned into a Reaper thread... well done WR.

[whyterabbyt]

And.... this has turned into a Reaper thread... well done WR.

i feel tainted now.

[tapper mike]

Jump into Mixcraft. The water is fine.

[Jim Roseberry]

Sonar Platinum will continue to work fine... as least for a good while.
Make sure you've got an up-to-date backup of your C: drive (just in case).

Although the shock of the announcement does leave things in a tail-spin, you might want to wait... and see exactly how this all shakes out. Cakewalk will likely be sold. If so, the product line (or very similar) may continue.
It doesn't make logical sense for Gibson to just end Cakewalk... when it could be sold to generate some capital.

At the very least, you have time to thoroughly check out other DAW applications... and make a smooth/graceful transition.

[fmr]

Sonar Platinum will continue to work fine... as least for a good while.
Make sure you've got an up-to-date backup of your C: drive (just in case).

Although the shock of the announcement does leave things in a tail-spin, you might want to wait... and see exactly how this all shakes out. Cakewalk will likely be sold. If so, the product line (or very similar) may continue.
It doesn't make logical sense for Gibson to just end Cakewalk... when it could be sold to generate some capital.

At the very least, you have time to thoroughly check out other DAW applications... and make a smooth/graceful transition.

^^^ Subscribe this 100% ^^^

[gaf_thit]

And.... this has turned into a Reaper thread... well done WR.

i feel tainted now.

Don't smear the Reaper

[skipscada]

I was interested in waveform because of Composers Tools. I actually just bought it the other week.

WARNING: Bad Idea!

First of all, I had issues with activation. While everything activated the way it intended, I keep getting constant beeps and I cant tell why (when playing the Demo song).

My VSTs did not show correctly. When I opened it first time, it said, "These VSTs failed..." and there was list of like 40 plugins. All native Instruments plugins failed and almost everything else.

The tracks in it are on the right and use of real estate is just weird. I could never figure out where is what and where I am. I have about 20 years of DAW expedience, and i was like, "What in the world is this?"

I contacted tech support via e-mail and told them about all the problems and that I need refund unless they have easy fix. I never heard back from them. I contacted them again and never heard back from them.

Awful.

Activation: I've been a bit annoyed at activation myself, I get the feeling I need to activate Collective (the sampler) and DAW Essentials (Tracktion's own plugin suite) everytime there's an update to Waveform. But to be fair, as long as your login info is correctly set up, activation is a case of clicking one button (in DAW Essentials activating one plugin activates all). The beeps: Maybe you have an unactivated copy of Collective running? If so, open it, click "activate" top right and voila. Solution: make sure your login info is correct.

Plugins: My guess is that you're trying to get Waveform 64 bit to load 32 bit plugins (or vice versa), which won't work. No problems with NI plugins or indeed most plugins at all here, so again the problem is likely on your side. Solution: Verify that you're using the right versions. 64 with 64, 32 with 32 (I think - personally I only use Waveform 64 bit).

Support: They can be slow or fail to respond at all, but if you report a bug you will often find they've fixed it in their next update. But they could definitely improve when it comes to feedback/acknowledgment. Have you tried their forum here on KVR, though? ̶T̶h̶e̶y̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶.̶ Edit: Apparently they haven't written anyting there for a month. Probably busy with a major release.


Don't give up yet! It's very fast, easy and powerful.

[whyterabbyt]

And.... this has turned into a Reaper thread... well done WR.

i feel tainted now.

Don't smear the Reaper

All our DAWS have come
Here but now they're gone

[4damind]

IMO it's a decision between Cubase and Ableton Live.
Cubase is the "flagship" DAW with all features (audio manipulating, scoring, accurate midi timing/latency compensation, stable plug-in host, video etc) and with regularly updates and new features.
Ableton Live has no audio editor, scoring etc. but people like the quick workflow and it's also great for performing on stage (it seems it's the most used DAW artists using also on stage).
Live works also as a "linear sequencer" and a lot people using only this "arrangement" view.

[kb420]

IMO it's a decision between Cubase and Ableton Live.
Cubase is the "flagship" DAW with all features (audio manipulating, scoring, accurate midi timing/latency compensation, stable plug-in host, video etc) and with regularly updates and new features.
Ableton Live has no audio editor, scoring etc. but people like the quick workflow and it's also great for performing on stage (it seems it's the most used DAW artists using also on stage).
Live works also as a "linear sequencer" and a lot people using only this "arrangement" view.

No decision at all. I own and use both Cubase and Live. I gave up on Sonar years ago. Ableton is great for getting an idea down fast. Cubase is there to put the final buff shine on the mix and everything else. Version 9.5 makes it even better with more inserts and the improved floating point engine.

I also own Studio One 3. It's a great program that continues to improve. For me, it actually fits somewhere in between Live and Cubase. If you haven't checked it out, then you probably should. It's definitely worth a look.

[Astralv]

I was interested in waveform because of Composers Tools. I actually just bought it the other week.

WARNING: Bad Idea!

First of all, I had issues with activation. While everything activated the way it intended, I keep getting constant beeps and I cant tell why (when playing the Demo song).

My VSTs did not show correctly. When I opened it first time, it said, "These VSTs failed..." and there was list of like 40 plugins. All native Instruments plugins failed and almost everything else.

The tracks in it are on the right and use of real estate is just weird. I could never figure out where is what and where I am. I have about 20 years of DAW expedience, and i was like, "What in the world is this?"

I contacted tech support via e-mail and told them about all the problems and that I need refund unless they have easy fix. I never heard back from them. I contacted them again and never heard back from them.

Awful.

Activation: I've been a bit annoyed at activation myself, I get the feeling I need to activate Collective (the sampler) and DAW Essentials (Tracktion's own plugin suite) everytime there's an update to Waveform. But to be fair, as long as your login info is correctly set up, activation is a case of clicking one button (in DAW Essentials activating one plugin activates all). The beeps: Maybe you have an unactivated copy of Collective running? If so, open it, click "activate" top right and voila. Solution: make sure your login info is correct.

Plugins: My guess is that you're trying to get Waveform 64 bit to load 32 bit plugins (or vice versa), which won't work. No problems with NI plugins or indeed most plugins at all here, so again the problem is likely on your side. Solution: Verify that you're using the right versions. 64 with 64, 32 with 32 (I think - personally I only use Waveform 64 bit).

Support: They can be slow or fail to respond at all, but if you report a bug you will often find they've fixed it in their next update. But they could definitely improve when it comes to feedback/acknowledgment. Have you tried their forum here on KVR, though? ̶T̶h̶e̶y̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶.̶ Edit: Apparently they haven't written anyting there for a month. Probably busy with a major release.


Don't give up yet! It's very fast, easy and powerful.

I am glad it works for you. My first instant impression of it was "What the....?" I tend to have 60-70 audio/instruments tracks per song. I scroll a lot up and down with scroll wheel on the mouse. I dont know what genius decided to assign ZOOM to scroll wheel in Waveform. It painfully frustrating- I have 20 years of habit to move up and down from track one to track 60 with scroll. I scroll all the time and instead of moving me up and down it ZOOMs tracks.

Is the Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 11 contains many 32 bits plugins? I did not think so. I do NOT EVER install 32 bit plugins. I always uncheck them. I may be have few essential, but with Waveform, at least 40 plugins failed. How is it my system? I have ZERO plugins failed with Cakewalk Sonar. This is 11 months old top pf the line custom Windows computer with fastest Samsung M.2 for C drive and all other plugins installed on other SSD drives. Everything is freshly installed, I have perfect order on my system. No errors, no mass, no viruses. I do have my VST folders on S drive, not C, but that is not a reason to fail. It says, "These files look like they are VST plugins but they failed to load"- all bunch of them. What in the world?

And why in the world they put tracks on the right- makes me want to turn my monitor up side down or twist my neck. This is impression of having it opened for 20 minutes. I am sure- if I actually try to make sense of it, there will be a page long list of ridiculous.

[Astralv]

I dont think cakewalk will be sold. Unless they were sold to Apple. When Alchemy went out of business, it also was closed first with sadness, and then reopened under Apple. Apple would just kill cakewalk.

I almost bought Cubase last night- I was too late- sweetwater closed for the holidays. They had a deal- I could crossgrade at $325. I figured- I may enjoy trying new things. I was actually considering Abelton just to have it and play with it. Is it bad for computer to have too many DAWs installed? I have SSD foir C drive and it runs out of space easy, I also don't want my computer to be tired, get conflicts and errors or altered registry files.

[Spencer Maddox]

I dont think cakewalk will be sold. Unless they were sold to Apple. When Alchemy went out of business, it also was closed first with sadness, and then reopened under Apple. Apple would just kill cakewalk.

I almost bought Cubase last night- I was too late- sweetwater closed for the holidays. They had a deal- I could crossgrade at $325. I figured- I may enjoy trying new things. I was actually considering Abelton just to have it and play with it. Is it bad for computer to have too many DAWs installed? I have SSD foir C drive and it runs out of space easy, I also don't want my computer to be tired, get conflicts and errors or altered registry files.

viewtopic.php?p=6933426
If your still thinking Cubase that's an interesting deal.
I think that's slightly cheaper then the traditional crossgrade discount. Not sure however.