Freeze: Sonar 4 Vs. SX3

[Sepheritoh]

and it will change pitch with your song.

Did I mention tempo as well?

Oh, if not, it will also follow your song's tempo.

[bduffy]

Yeah; it's a remixer's wet dream.

[bduffy]

Whoops! Cubase can freeze audio track effect inserts!
From the Manual:

Effect plug-ins can sometimes require a lot of processor power. If you are using a large number of insert effects for a track, you may eventually reach a point where the computer cannot play back the track properly (the CPU overload indicator in the VST Performance window lights up, you get crackling sounds, etc.).

To remedy this, you can freeze the track, by clicking on the Freeze button in the Inspector.

When you freeze an audio track, the program renders the output of the track, including all pre-fader insert effects, to an audio file. This file is placed in the "Freeze" folder within the Project folder.

The frozen audio track is locked for editing in the Project window. The frozen insert effects cannot be edited or removed and you cannot add new insert effects for the track (except post-fader effects).

On playback, the rendered audio file is played back. You can still adjust the level and panning in the Mixer, make EQ settings and adjust the effect sends. In the Mixer, the channel strip for a frozen track is indicated by a "snow flake" symbol on the volume fader handle.

The result is that you hear the track play back as before but the insert effects don't have to be calculated in real time, easing the load on the computer processor. Typically, you would freeze a track when it's more or less finished and you don't need to edit it at the moment.

[Stairsteps]

Well Ive tried Cubase and Sonar and my opinion is biased towards Sonar, Not that Cubase is not comparable but I think sonar has a much more user friendly GUI and very powerful underset of features that suits my music style. Now to shed some light on looping, Sonar has a groove looper and other methods as well, and it all done with just a touch of the mouse, But the most useful thing about Sonar 4 producers edition is that it come with Cyclone, which allows you to loop and do things you cant do with any other program ive seen this simple and stay in perfect timming with your tunes too.

Sonar 4 comes with Dxi to Vst converters program which works for every vst you own, ive got native Dxi and Vst synths running and the Vst is just as good as the duplicate Dxi counterpart in Sonar4.

Cubase does indeed look very professional but compared to Sonar4 and couple that with Project5 and youve got one pretty powerful DAW.

[bduffy]

It's a tough choice these days, I tell ya! It's best if you can try both; it took me a couple of years to really decide which one was best for me.

[LoRez]

Whoops! Cubase can freeze audio track effect inserts!
From the Manual:

Effect plug-ins can sometimes require a lot of processor power. If you are using a large number of insert effects for a track, you may eventually reach a point where the computer cannot play back the track properly (the CPU overload indicator in the VST Performance window lights up, you get crackling sounds, etc.).

To remedy this, you can freeze the track, by clicking on the Freeze button in the Inspector.

When you freeze an audio track, the program renders the output of the track, including all pre-fader insert effects, to an audio file. This file is placed in the "Freeze" folder within the Project folder.

The frozen audio track is locked for editing in the Project window. The frozen insert effects cannot be edited or removed and you cannot add new insert effects for the track (except post-fader effects).

On playback, the rendered audio file is played back. You can still adjust the level and panning in the Mixer, make EQ settings and adjust the effect sends. In the Mixer, the channel strip for a frozen track is indicated by a "snow flake" symbol on the volume fader handle.

The result is that you hear the track play back as before but the insert effects don't have to be calculated in real time, easing the load on the computer processor. Typically, you would freeze a track when it's more or less finished and you don't need to edit it at the moment.

Good info bduffy. Thanks for the clarification on this. One distinction I might humbly point out here between Sonar's implementation and that of Cubase is you can freeze some effects on a given track in Sonar while keeping others unfrozen. For instance, you can freeze your hungry compressor or filter while keeping the delay and/or reverb live. However, you must keep in mind signal path as you would only want to freeze effects that come first in the insert chain. It can get confusing if you don't keep an eye on things.

[bduffy]

Thanks for the clarification too, LoRez. Good feature!

[lsd]

I found this quote on another thread regarding Sonar VS. Sx/Nuendo:

The intelligent argument that can be made however is that the Cakewalk VST Adapter doesn't support midi out from plugs yet, rendering supatrigga and a select other few plugs useless inside Sonar.

Has this changed with Sonar 4.02 and the updated wrapper?

[WillieJenkins]

still an (annoying) issue

[ResonantOrder]

I found this quote on another thread regarding Sonar VS. Sx/Nuendo:

The intelligent argument that can be made however is that the Cakewalk VST Adapter doesn't support midi out from plugs yet, rendering supatrigga and a select other few plugs useless inside Sonar.

Has this changed with Sonar 4.02 and the updated wrapper?

I thought this issue was solved. You can use the wrapper to see the plug as a dxi instead of a regular dx plug, and the midi out will work.

I may be wrong. I think this was the issue people were having with groove agent. I'm sure you could get a quick response over at the sonar forum.

[Mr. Slater's Parrot]

You can get midi out from a VSTi just fine if you use DirectiXer as a wrapper for Sonar.

[WillieJenkins]

Mr. Slater... really?!

its not that big an issue as i do most of my sound mangling real-time stuph in Live these days, but I wish I had known that earlier

[lsd]

which program is better suited for chopping up loops and syncing them to tempo? I know SX3 reads .rex and S4 does acid. I have alot of just plain .wav loops converted from akai format sitting around.

Anyone?

[Mr. Slater's Parrot]

Mr. Slater... really?!

its not that big an issue as i do most of my sound mangling real-time stuph in Live these days, but I wish I had known that earlier.

Yes. I use both the Cakewalk Adapter and DirectiXer. The latest version of DirectiXer has a special feature just for the purpose of taking midi out from a VSTi plugin. It basically implements its own midi loopback device. Using this feature, you can take the midi out from a VSTi plugin like Groove Agent (on a given track in Sonar), for example, and use that generated midi output as the midi input to another midi track in Sonar -- one that has a BFD plugin loaded, for example. It works quite nicely.

[lsd]

What is so "cool" about SX3's "audio warp" feature? Is there anyway to complete the function in Sonar 4?