Post Sonar 5 thoughts here

[WillieJenkins]

I'll start

Played with V-Vocal tonight..

Its pretty amazing actually.. based on Roland VP technology, I'm not sure how it compares to Melodyne or Melodyne Uno, which I had been looking into, but never had a real need for... This might have solved the issue.

The UI looks like garbage, but its actually REALLY usable, and makes a ton of sense. The fact they integrated it so well into Sonar is a huge reason its such a killer plugin.

I was never into the Logic idea of host + effects + instruments when you buy a sequencer.. but after seeing Sonar5, its changing my mind... Sonar5 now comes with Roland instruments / effects, rgc:audio (cakewalk) instruments, and ultrafunk (cakewalk) effects... Its a pretty deep lineup for 'out-of-the-box' functionality.

I'll post more as I try new features out.

[jlot]

Is this the Producer version? How are the Sonitus FX, are they the same from S4, or updated?

[Hink]

I will take a while before I have my final thoughts...it'll take me a bit to really check it out...

[WillieJenkins]

Hink,
I'm going to just keep posting as I play with a new part of the app.. kinda like what Anderton did, let things evolve

jlot, yes, this is producer version, I have not tried the sonitus stuff yet tho

[disturb]

Can anyone comment on the ergonomics of the piano roll please ?

[JeffSanders]

Can't wait to get this!! Fed Ex will arrive today. Perfect, because I've got the day off!

[Stupid American Pig]

Is this the Producer version? How are the Sonitus FX, are they the same from S4, or updated?

Sonitus efx are the same between S4 and S5

[WillieJenkins]

Can anyone comment on the ergonomics of the piano roll please ?

The piano roll is mostly the same, with some very neat workflow enhancements.

I'm not avoiding the question, but I'm seeing really bizarre behavior, and before I say they're bugs, I need to play with it more to make sure how it works....

But basically, if you remember how in previous versions of sonar, you'd have a controller lane below, and you could only select one controller to modify at any given time.

Now you can click on the left side of a button that will show all controller data on the piano roll itself, you can also click on the right side to select which specific controller elements you wish to see. You have the option of adding other controllers if you wish.

Then on a button/dropdown below the previous button, you select which controller data has 'focus'.

-edit-

Actually, if you open the controller pane, then the automation data appears where it used to in previous revs of sonar. This is pretty cool.

-edit-

Overall for me, they're nice workflow additions. I use Live5 when I need to realtime loop midi, cause I think that interface is far superior then anything else I've used, so I'm not too concerned that sonar doesnt' seem to do it all that well still.

But yeah, the piano roll stuff is nice. I'm curious to see what someone who uses cubase/logic would say. If its caught up, or if its still in the dark ages

[Hink]

having gone from not using my home studio 2002 I cant speak for improvements...I can say that it is disapointing that each channel doesn't have an eq in studio. As a first time user of the sonitus effects they haven't conpletely blown me away, but are very good...overall the workflow is comfortable...the thing that is already standing out is the overall feel of stabikity...I can't explain it, and further it could be because I did just go from 512mb of ram to a gig.

There's only one thing yet that I can't figure out...how to refresh the rewire list (fx too I guess). It picked up FL and Vsampler....but I hadn't installed the rewire for Dfh so I did...however it wont show it...also Sytrus isn't showing up...

[torhan]

Any comment on the improved "step record" functionality?

[Ron Kuper [Cakewalk]]

Is this the Producer version? How are the Sonitus FX, are they the same from S4, or updated?

The Sonitus FX have been updated to support 64-bit double precision floating point processing. They always used double precision for their internal math, now they can stream double precision data as provided by the SONAR 5 mix engine.

[gugliel]

Torhan, the step record is much better than it used to be. Now you can enter double-dotted rhythms, tuplets of anything over anything (5 over 7, 7 over two, etc.), and proportional durations (90% of the nominal value). If you used previous sonar step record, you will definitely prefer the new version. This alone, for someone who step-records a lot, is worth the upgrade, imo.

[torhan]

Torhan, the step record is much better than it used to be. Now you can enter double-dotted rhythms, tuplets of anything over anything (5 over 7, 7 over two, etc.), and proportional durations (90% of the nominal value). If you used previous sonar step record, you will definitely prefer the new version. This alone, for someone who step-records a lot, is worth the upgrade, imo.

Thanks for the info. I understand that the step-recorded notes also appear in the track/piano view as entered.

[Mizzopuma]

OK, I have been playing with SONAR 5 for a couple of days...here are my initial thoughts...

1) The 64-bit mix engine sounds better...you can't quantify it with a % improvement but sounds like there is more headroom, and a little crisper

2) V-Vocal is amazing...I am an average singer...not good not horrible and have no right singing really...but I did a few takes and used V-Vocal and got a surprisingly good take...I mean really good. It's easy to use, you just need to get used to how much you edit and how drastic you edit a vocal...but learning curve is easy and like with everything else...spending time with this plug-in is going to make vocals sound great.

3) MIDI improvements are great...inline MIDI, step recording and an overall facelift make MIDI in SONAR better than ever

4) Perfect Space: great sounding convolution reverb. I don't think it's a stretch to say this is prob one of the best software reverbs I have heard. It has a ton of impulses, and you can really tweak them to get the perfect reverb (no pun intended)...seriously this reverb might be worth the price of the upgrade alone

5) RXP...yay now I can play my Rex files...enough said.

6) Waveform Preview...very cool new feature that is under rated. So you play your mix and it renders a waveform in the bus or on a synth...and then tells you what clipping. It's a lot easier that looping a part and trying to pick out the peak. Very cool new feature that I think is helpful in mixing.

7) Clip based editing...I never used Samplitude so I didn't know what I was missing...well this turns out to be another underrated feature that is pretty well implemented.

Overall: THis is a hell of an upgrade. I mean V-Vocal and Pure Space alone pay for this upgrade...but then add all the new instruments, MIDI and features and I feel like this was money well spent. I still have a few gripes, but overall I am estatic with this upgrade...can you tell?

[idobs]

I played with Sonar yesterday, and here are some thoughts:

1) This is a MINOR rant, but I have to say that when I got Sonar *** 4 ***, it was a bit more stable than Sonar 5. I had a hang that I hit in Sonar 5 in the one day I played with it. I also notice a few minor glitches here and there (like the main window loses activation when I launch Sonar 50% of the time, requiring me to click on it before keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+N work).

I'm not too worried about it because I have confidence these issues will be fixed quickly, and none were too bad.

2) Of all the features, the one I liked the most was in-line piano roll. Since you can zoom in to just see a measure, it REALLY helps you visualize multiple side-by-side instrument-tracks. AND to be able to tweak and add notes inline is just great.

3) I like the addition of PSYN and PENTAGON. I had almost bought Pentagon way back, but was always on the edge. Now Cakewalk helped me make my decision. I love it. And to get Psync for free, hey I won't complain.

I thought the Rex player was neat, but fairly useless for me since it can't open REX files WITHIN a Refill. I didn't get a chance to play with the Convolution Verb yet. I DID play with Roland's Voice plugin, and from the few minutes I played with it, I didn't get as good results as I do with AutoTune. But time will tell, that was just a quick test.

4) I LOVE THE MIDI-FX UPDATES!!!!! Thank you! I finally have an Arp in the host that isn't embarrassing. Don't know what this means for my usage of EnergyXT though... I was using XT for its Arp, but this is pretty good too... Ok, who am I kidding, I'll still be using EnergyXT.