Sonar 5 has arrived...

[RapRogue]

Has Word's interface ever stopped anyone from writing a best-seller? Hell, has a pen and paper ever stopped anyone, and that's a sreally sucky
interface?!

You hit the thing right on the head there, when I opened
Sonar I thought I went into a word processor. It has
very little audio feel to it, the colors and the
structure...crazy. The new update great, will be fun to
see how it all balances out.

Too bad they missed the point with their clip-based FX,
with sums up my current opinion, a lot of great features
but not very thorough.

Regarding Samplitude, if you need the tail to be
longer just make the object longer with added silence etc.

[Brandon Ryan]

Has Word's interface ever stopped anyone from writing a best-seller? Hell, has a pen and paper ever stopped anyone, and that's a sreally sucky
interface?!

You hit the thing right on the head there, when I opened
Sonar I thought I went into a word processor. It has
very little audio feel to it, the colors and the
structure...crazy. The new update great, will be fun to
see how it all balances out.

Too bad they missed the point with their clip-based FX,
with sums up my current opinion, a lot of great features
but not very thorough.

Sorry but i don't think it is a fair statement to say the point was missed with clip based effects. I'll repeat...it is not meant to be a CPU saving feature...that's what freeze is for. The feature is designed to enable ease and flexibilty in mixing and arranging. It was never intended nor pitched as a CPU saving resource. SONAR's inherent architecture already ensures that plugins not processing audio use reduced CPU resources. I must be way out of touch, because the conecpt of this being a CPU saving feature never even crossed my mind when I saw it...maybe I've got too much CPU horsepower to spare

P.S. Yeah, I hate when word processors include mixing consoles and audio tracks...doesn't make them feel very "word processor".

[whyterabbyt]

Yes, that's how samplitude does it, it cuts off the tail.

Ugh.

It only processes the FX as long as the clip is which is why you need to add silence to the end of the clip if you want the delay/reverb to last longer.

Ick.

However, in samplitude individual objects/clips can send to an AUX also which goes around this problem.

So in other words the 'standard' implementation mentioned needs workarounds.

I think Im convinced; Sonar's implementation is a pretty sane, predictable, way to do it, all things considered.

[whyterabbyt]

Regarding Samplitude, if you need the tail to be
longer just make the object longer with added silence etc.

...and have to keep tweaking it until you get it right. Thats not a solution, that's a workaround... Sorry, I want to hear my reverb and echo tails without futzing about with silence at the end of clips.

I dont think CW missed 'the point' at all, although Im starting to think that the Samplitude people did.

[kp]

I main point is, then, that different tools suit different people. Bringing it back to music

Agreed, which is why the "the UI is crap/the worst/uninspiring" make no sense really (unless prefaced with "in my opinion" which doesn't seem to be the case given the vehemence of some of the arguments).

For example, I think most people would find how I like applications (all toolbars off asap, minimal clutter) off-putting, but I find toolbars confusing and distracting...

[headquest]

Agreed, which is why the "the UI is crap/the worst/uninspiring" make no sense really (unless prefaced with "in my opinion" which doesn't seem to be the case given the vehemence of some of the arguments).

I think most people here know that what they/others are writing is just opinion. But people get bored of prefacing everything with "imho" - it's really "a given".

For example, I think most people would find how I like applications (all toolbars off asap, minimal clutter) off-putting, but I find toolbars confusing and distracting...

Yeah, agreed! My favourite application of the moment is Ableton Live, which I now find a doddle, but some others find... simply mystifying.

I *do think* that there are *some* imperatives though - most people would probably agree that:

* clashing colours = not good for long term use (medically)
* too much detail crammed onscreen all at once = unecessary, needs to be customisable at least
* needing to search through confusing sub-menues = slows you down in the middle of a session

etc... (imho)

[WillieJenkins]

post of the year!!!!!!

That's one thing I don't quite get - why wait until version 5 before adding native support for VSTs?

I'm sure there is some reason that must have been discussed at length on the forums here in the past though.

Because the entire audio engine was developed around an internal standard which wasnt VST (just like FL, Orion, ProTools and just about everything else that ever came with its own non-VST plugins).

By the way, most hosts which have their own plugins, or support multiple plugin types, actually use 'internal' wrappers anyways. Sonar just happened to utilise an external wrapper. Now, with S5, it would appear to incorporate an internal wrapper. Woot. The major difference? Hopefully it'll eliminate whining from the people who say 'but I hate having an external wrapper'.

[Forever Sun]

Hi Brandon,
Thanks for replying.
My comments regarding FX & clips were made because I love Sonar and want the best for it. And if Sonar can improve on existing features found in other apps then great ! And if I have revealed naivety during this thread, then what the hell, all in the name of making Sonar the best.

[WillieJenkins]

Another post of the year!!!!

Well, I don't know if it is from "sratch" or not......but I am suspicious. The reason is that sonar was never it's own animal, it's an update of cakewalk pro......which had several versions.

This is speculation unless someone has the code and knows with certanty.

Indeed it is speculation. Doesnt seem to stop you running with that though.

Even if you love sonar, let's face it.........their vst wrappers sucked wang and we'll have to see if native means native or if it's another coat of paint.......

The VST wrapper has worked on my system prefectly well for several years, with hundreds of plugins. The only plugins that ever caused problems were Steinberg plugins, which were usually because they'd been written to a slightly 'altered' API behaviour from that generally accepted.

It's the bucks that get me down on sonar. Why? because instead of getting a kick butt program when I paid 500 bucks for pe3, I got a terd.

I needed 50 bucks for the "real" version of vsampler

No you didnt. The supplied version worked fine within Sonar.

then another 50 for dxier, then that didn't work and support stoped

How is that a fault with Sonar?

and then it's "hey, kick another 180 to upgrade to 4".........

That wasnt mandatory either. Upgrades never are. Unless you have to get them merely because your OS version changed.

that's more money than I've spent on protools/bfd//vst/rtas adaptor...........and that stuff is more usable..

Oh so you're happy to buy a wrapper for RTAS but not DX. Why? Both were developed by the same company.

And dont you pay for ProTools updates? Or have you just not bought any?
We have to, and they're not that cheap. £45 UK for a minor revision, with no instruments, and no major features, and you've got to buy it just because you upgraded to the latest version of OSX? Hah. Not that much of a bargain.
Especially when you have to pay £600 just to get timecode support.

But hey, nobody made you pay for upgrades, so it was up to you to spend, or not spend, that money. So complaining about it being 'expensive' compared to some arbitrary other thing you spent money on is just bollocks.

I see more complaints/bugs with sonar (and cubase, to be fair) than anything else.

Most of the complaints I see seem to come from people who dont actually use it, or havent used a recent version. And they mostlky complain about features which are purely workflow issues, most often. Most of the stuff people dont like gets changed, but they still bitcvh about that stuff, long after its been changed or removed, or replaced. Funny that.
And most of the bugs get fixed.

But of course, it much more fun to sit in a thread about the new version of a program you dont own, and bitch about it endlessly, than just go 'hey well, I got a solution that suits me fine, so what the hell', isnt it.

[Brandon Ryan]

Hi Brandon,
Thanks for replying.
My comments regarding FX & clips were made because I love Sonar and want the best for it. And if Sonar can improve on existing features found in other apps then great ! And if I have revealed naivety during this thread, then what the hell, all in the name of making Sonar the best.

I understand, and your input is of course appreciated. And, there are far worse things than a modicum of naivety

[WillieJenkins]

poorly written response on my end, self edited

[RapRogue]

Object based Fx can be both (cpu saving & control), as
Sam has had these features a long time there are
reasons.

Experiance talks in this case, using object based FX is
addictive. Soon you will have different convultion
reverbs on different phrases. Even with gigalan and a
few Fx boxes there are limits.

whyterabbyt tweak the tail? Add 10 seconds of silence
and you done. If Cakewalk got it right this 'new'
feature will not be the cpu-hog I think it will be in
the demo.

[hello1234]

edit

[hello1234]

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[WillieJenkins]

yeah, you're 100% right. I don't know how I learned saxophone and flute on those "student" models I initially, it was so hard to get inspired to play, cause my instruments just looked so icky!

I actually wanted to use cubase on an atari, but the interface was so horrid, I just couldn't get inspired.

Oh oh oh, and when I was writing my compositions, I asked my teachers if I could work on the grand piano to sketch things out, cause those upright pianos in the general practice rooms.. I mean, yeah all the notes sound the same, but the look of the piano just didn't inspire me.

You are a prime example of what is wrong with a subset of music/musicians today

So 3-D shadeing in the GUI make better songs, interesting.

Yeah, this was the crux of why I initially posted. It was turning into a "it doesn't look cool enough" situation, at least thats what everyones arguments are as best I can tell.

I agree, Sonar's interface is the most drab of them all, probably because its focused on allowing the user to actually see whats going on and to simplify the process of actually making music

But its clear from some of these posts, thats not a priority for all

It's nice to see some totally brainless answers on KvR again..

Insipration and intuitive interface go hand in hand. Usability goes a long way to improve productivity.

.. heck why am I even bothering to answer these two??

- bManic