Hi, I am wondering what the best DAW is for me in terms of my needs. I want to make hiphop beats, electronic music, progressive rock/metal, soft piano, etc. I figure most DAWs will allow you to do that, but I wonder if some are more better than others.

My main point is that I want a DAW that has good included VST's and plugins. I've been using Sonar Home Studio 6XL and it has worked fine, though I'm sure I could make more use of it. I now want more VST's and more sounds, though I wonder if that's necessary for me or if my HS6XL is enough. Recently I've been thinking about moving up to Sonar X1, because of the features and included VST's (Rapture LE, Dim Pro, Truepianos, studio instruments, Zeta+ 1.5, etc.)

Compared to the other DAWs and their included VST's, is Sonar X1 the best for me and for the music I want to create? Are the VST's better or just as good as the other DAW's included VST's?

As someone who has used sonar at 3 different versions (PE3, PE8.5, X1) I can tell you that for many people it's not that stable, the builtin stuff is a mess and it's VERY bloated. I also totally gave up on cakewalk anything and completely deleted/uninstalled all cake stuff (including all plug ins) Too many bugs, too much incompatibility. Too much "this is x64" and "this is still only x86".

However, there is no reason not to DL the demo and see for yourself. Hosts are a mess imho, there are too many variables and what works for one may not for others and the other way around.

I completely agree; prudent advice. It is clearly a capable piece of equipment that people find great results with and & I like the included FX plugs, but my life needs more stability and less clutter.

I've used Sonar for years, and though it has it's problems now and then (All DAWS do), I find the support great, and the forums have a lot of fine people who will help. I switched to Sonar because it was truly Windows based. It does have some great VSTs and FX.

Lately though, I've been more interested in Ableton Live because it is designed for live performance. For what you say you want to do, I'd take a look at it. If you spring for Live 8 Suite, you get a ton of synths, FX, and content.

I think both are great, Sonar for recording and editing (Live is not so hot for that), and Live for performance and spontaneous creation. Sonar's loop handling is nowhere near what you can do quickly in Live.

Just my two cents.

Forgive my repeating this regularly here. I believe that there is a fully functional sonar demo that can be tried. Don't take that the wrong way, love that it was brought up, love discussing it......just sayin' the BEST WAY to see for yourself on your system, set up your way.

Interesting advice, thanks everyone.

I've heard there were bugs with Sonar X1, have those not been addressed through the updates?

The thing is I'm salivating for those VST's which sonar has, they have a lot to offer. What other DAW offers comparable synths/instruments/etc. such as Zeta+ 1.5, Dimension Pro, Rapture LE, Guitar Rig 4 LE, Truepianos, session drummer 3, studio instruments, etc.? Plus the price would be $300 for me compared to

Does Cubase or Pro Tools offer good VST's? Or, can I get free VST's that are comparable or better than to those Sonar has?

Oh and I briefly looked at the demo to sonar x1, but it didn't come with all the VST's, which bummed me cuz that's the main reason I wanted to try it. Though I might try it again just to get a feel for the program.

So, personally, I don't think that suite is worth the extra money. I think that Live is great, and I work around how it irritates my by building racks and MFL patches to wrap VSTs in. This way I don't have to deal with ugly multiple windows and the most essential controls for the intended use are brought out to the rack.

The analog synth is AAS and sounds quite dated to me.

I know nothing about Pro Tools. Cubase 6.5 has some new synths that might be nice, I don't know. The ones that came in 5 were far worse than what comes with Live.

From what I've heard, Logic is the value winner in terms of usable synthesizers and effects.

Cubase comes pretty complete. I don't know if you need a dongle to demo that anymore.

@demo: Yeah, I didn't think about that. Some of that stuff is good. Zeta+ is good, rapture LE is pretty good. I hate demension pro, HATE IT! Buggy as all get out here. I can't remember all the names (there's a ton of stuff) but there is a groove thingy that I believe is still x86 only and would be great....if it wasn't so buggy A bunch of loops (some are not bad)

btw, one issue I had was that sonar wasn't compatible with REX x64. Not sure if they every got that solved. I don't use a ton of rex stuff but it was REALLY annoying (especially since the props have had x64 rex out for a while now.)

There were are ton of irritating bugs that just wouldn't work. The interleave used to make me want to hurt small animals No matter what you did, it would always revert to mono So you CONSTANTLY had to go back and keep switching it back on. That may have been fixed. I also had a ton of issues getting a proper mono input (guitar/bass) Kept wanting to be stereo AND the signal was weak once you got mono to work. Just allot of really dumb workflow things that I just don't have with that sodding host I won't mention

Another thing I really hated was the rack. Let's say you didn't want that synth anymore and deleted it. Always leftovers........you'd have to manually go in and delete tracks to tidy up.

LOVE the docking stuff in X1! But after discovering that it's pretty easy to do in that sodding host I won't mention It's not as important.

Oh yeah, @protools: Despite what some people say it's a mad-man. BUT, it's really a can of worms with the extra stuff. Plus with protools you are locked into their proprietary plugin format (which is all changing to aax or something like that) and that can be tough. I don't think there is anything wrong with going that route, but certainly not cost effective.

I'd say if you know how Sonar works stick with it.

I work mainly with Cubase and though I'd like to get away from it it's unrealistic to think I could do that. I also have Reaper and use it for mastering but I can't track and mix in it. I'd have to invest a lot of time to learn it inside out and I really don't wanna do that. I also have a life you know...

My point, stick with the Sonar version you have if you know it well. Don't upgrade to X1 (or even worse to a totally different program) just for the included effects. Nowadays there are many excellent free plugins to do your job, or cheap commercial ones.

I'll say this, I like the effects. The Halion-Lite that comes with it is also decent. The synths, at least the old ones, suck. Groove Agent or whatever the drum machine is, is comical.

Also, I have to give the edge to cakewalk here, cubase does not allow you to load their plugins into another host. Of course, you can't load live's plugins either since they're not VSTs.
Last edited by ghettosynth on Wed May 23, 2012 5:31 pm; edited 1 time in total

That's a good point that if you like the cake fx you can use them in any host.

btw glad I'm not the first one who said the "r" word

perhaps for what I want to do as an non-serious musician, HS6XL is enough. I don't know. I guess I want more synths and sounds, but do I really need them?

I heard some samples from Zeta+ 2 and they sounded loud and good. The samples in my program aren't as loud and powerful. Maybe I need to tweak?

Oh well, I just glanced at Cubase's features and they impressive me, though I don't know how good the included VST's and effects are, and in comparison to Sonar X1's.

Something that needs mentioning is the new workflow in Sonar X1, it is completely different than Home studio XL so you would be basically relearning the program again. I would buy the Sonar X1LE package for $19.99 first and try it out. It don't come with much but it's good for starters and it wont time out on you.

here is the link if your interested:http://www.store.cakewalk.com/b2cus/ProductInfo.a spx?productid=10-X1G31.00-20E
Last edited by CTStump on Wed May 23, 2012 6:19 pm; edited 1 time in total