Sonar4 vs Sonar5

[Stairsteps]

Well I just got Sonar5 and quickley installed it and configured it proper, At first glance it looks the same as Sonar4 , I mean identical, then I created a Song in which I used Project 5 v2 as a rewire,

I never work in Sonars enviorment as I found project 5 quickley recalls my fav rack set-up which is " EnergyXT being used as a host within a host to trigger odo's DR Drums then I have Deminsion then Virsyn Tera2, and Reaktor5" and my Kurzweil which btw has a fabulous piano sound.

Ok ok so I create my song and all not figuring to hear any difference in my previous work in Sonar4, but much to my suprise I am finding that all of my Vsts and Dxis are more responsive and sound quite better than with Sonar4, even my friend and wife can hear the difference, the wife said "It sounds like it has more punch" and my friend said it has a cleaner sound. I hear both the xtra punch and cleaner sound as my ears are quite good. But i figured the bitbridge tech was the cause but thats to scale a 64bit to 32bit so it might not be the cause but whatever it is I am really humbled by Sonar5.

Ive been upgrading since Audio9 and when they switched to Sonar 1 it was quite a improvement but not since Sonar 1 have I heard any major sound improvements, oh yes there have been add-ons and the like and GUI improvements but Ive never heard of much in the way of bettering the sound quality.

Also i see they have imported some of the Project 5 v2 stuff over to Sonar 5 producers edition, So when I got this I knew I was taking a BIG risk, simply cause i almost have everything they added in Sonar 5, but I cant be farther from the truth, man im glad i bought this product as it has elevated what I thought a host could do for your music. And thats make it sound better.

Im trully one to disbelieve in such Sorcery or Magic but here it is in a Big Green Box. Sonar 4 vs Sonar 5 need I say more.

[Hybernation]

I agree for the most part with the comments above BUT, this comes at a price, it would seem:

SONAR5 on my Dell P4 3.2gHz 2GB Ram machine consumes about 5-10% more CPU than SONAR4. Pretty much all the time. I have HT turned on and insured that the affinity was set to user both CPU's.

Anyone else had similar results?

I run a LOT of VST/DXi instruments. I had one fairly sparse track that I did a compare test with. I turned OFF the "64-bit double-precision engine" setting in S5. I have both configured for 24-bit 44.1, using M-Audio FW410 set at 256 latency (5.8ms). The track has 5 instruments:
1) Moog Modular V DXi playing monophonic bass
2) Velocity drum sampler (from P5V2) playing a very simply kit/snare/hh part
3) Vanguard VST playing a pretty fat pad (3-4 notes at a time)
4) Absynth 3 DXi playing a "loop" kind of sequence part (very few midi notes)
5) Albino2 VST playing a little noodling lead (2-3 voice tops)

In S4, the CPU peaks at about 20%. in S5 about 30%, and S5 seems "spiky"...it will shoot up in the red occasionally for brief spikes.

Now, all that said, S5 seems more tolerant when CPU usage get's high. With S4 I would almost always here artifacts (noise, pops) whenever the red was barely touched...with S5 it seems like I really have to PEG the thing constantly to cause audio to break-up.

So, maybe S5 is just DISPLAYING CPU Usage differently?

Thoughts anyone?

ALSO: S5 goes UP another 5-10% compared to S4 when I turn on the 64-bit thing...I reckon that is to be expected though.

[Funkybot]

So, maybe S5 is just DISPLAYING CPU Usage differently?

This is a confirmed bug. Apparently something they changed just prior to release changed the way the meters read CPU usage showing increased usage where there's actually a lot less. Supposedly this will be addressed soon in a point release. I definately need to upgrade to Sonar5 to hear the differences for myself. Looks like a helluva upgrade I'm missing out on.

[Stairsteps]

To add to the comments above < I would say its got to be a cpu usage bug, however I didnt encounter it, I found that my CPU was around 27% using Project 5 v2
Energy XT
Dimension-cpu hog
Roland Groove Synth
Roland Groove Synth
PSYN II
Reaktor 5
And I must add that while using Sonar4 I would be at like 70% with all this running now im hovering at 27 to 35%.

I must point this out I always use Sonar's native tracks and editor for vocal work & processing cause I find it to cumbersome to use Project 5 for audio , my point is when I used Sonar5 for the vocal track to finnish up my song I found that the cpu meter would go sky high using Izotope Ozone 3-64bit Mastering effect suite, now granted I didnt turn off the 64bit processing in Sonar5 cause I wanted to see what its capable of, but Ive never seen such a spike when using Ozone in Sonar4 unless I had all 6 processors running in Ozone, in this session I was using just 3 of Ozones processors and had to start doing the freeze trick to finnish up my project which still I have to add a chours and bridge to

Strange to find while using a rewire host "Project5" which usually drives up my cpu actually went down and when I used tracks outside of Project 5 the cpu meter would spike and in 1 occasion it shut down my audio, so I dont know what kind of bug they have but I sure hope they fix it quick.

Also after listening to alot of my work I have done with Sonar4 I must say that the sound quality has improved and im at least happy about that most of all.

[saturdaysaint]

It's not a CPU usage bug - it's a CPU METER bug (although you could argue that the new meter is more accurate since now %100 usage is a better estimation of the limit of your CPU's power).

[JeffSanders]

The difference is quite audible. I'm beside myself with the way Sonar 5 sounds. It's almost taken the sound quality from 2D to 3D.

Reverbs and delays sound lush as hell...they seem to trail off into eternity. Tracks are definitely "bigger" sounding, with more detail. imho like the first time I went from 16 bit to 24 (and never looked back )

I even love the things I didn't think I'd care about, like track icons...just the whole vibe of Sonar is enhanced with this release.

[Stairsteps]

glad others hear it too i knew i was going out on a limb to say that a host can make your projects sound better, but here it is, im still dumbfounded on how they did it but who cares im happy and kudos to Sonar5, I was about to change to T2 as well but i found Sonar5 would have per track clip effects so im glad i took the plunge. and im not even trying to get into how great each and every knob and button feel in this new enviorment, its another one of those Sorcery Magic things that I cant explain to good but I swear its here.

[Beardedone]

Damn I can't afford the upgrade right now.

[djseriouz]

It´s an amazing piece of software !
The sound of S5 is like having a limiter/kompressor/
stereo widener in the masterchain.
So much punch and headroom ! WOW ! It´s a "must have"
for producing dance/trance/house.

And the midi-timing is tighter, too.

CUBASE SX 3 sounds like an old oilcan compared to S5 !

[seamoss]

the wife said "It sounds like it has more punch"

oh man......this has to be the best thing I have read in a while

[Hink]

And the midi-timing is tighter, too.

I'll be scartching my head on that one for a while. Though I agree that Sonar 5's sound is very good, like I said in another thread, likely this will reduce AA to an editor for me (and mastering)...but I'm not sure if it's as much better sound, more like better performance which frees up my mind to concentrate on other things. With AA sometimes out of no where I get a stutter, denormalizing doesn't help and my system is tweaked..I notice a feel of stability that I dont find with other hosts. But it's hard to tell for me if that's Sonar or the fact the two weeks ago I went from 512mb of ram to a gig... since my winfall I have been learning lots of new gear and stuff and haven't seen if AA projects run better...

This weekend is Columbus day here in the US...my studio has changed greatly since Labor day (not that it wasn't sweet before). So it's hard to tell which improvement is doing what at this time...as well as stepping up my Ram I also added an external 200 gig 7200rpm hard drive...I'm not 'computer wise' enough to really know if that makes a performance difference or not...but now having DFH superior is awesome.

[Stairsteps]

Im very sure and others seem to share my opinion that the sound quality has changed for the better, also others in this thread have pointed out that there is more headroom as well so yes there is more room to work with but that in itself wouldnt equate to a better sound quality i dont think, but it might add to it im just not sure on that one, however it has made my entire vsti dxi collection improve dramaticly , For example I made a song last night with not what I would call my best sounding vstis dxis ok I used one good vsti but the rest IMO wernt up to par the ones I choose to use was dimension which is very good btw but the other 2 were only average at best in Sonar 4 and that is the Roland Groove synth, which never had that sparkle untill now and I also used my psyn 2 which also didnt have the edge that other Vstis I own have.

So I record my song and im like stuned that the crappy avarage synths I used only once or twice in Sonar4 sounded like they were from my Best Vstis like Reaktor5, VirsynTera2 and VAZ Modular. I mean its got to be magic or something right? HOw can my suck ass Roland Groove synth, odos DR drums and another third party shitty vsti sound so pristene and good?

Oh well ive got to get back to work but I just had to tell it like it was atleast my experience so far has been nothing short of breathtaking, And get this I came to this expecting just a GUI overhaul "which didnt happen" it looks the exact same as Sonar4, And being that I already had most of what they added in Sonar5, cause Project 5 comes with Roland groove synth and the PSYN II so I thought this would just be a slight upgrade for me, but BAM VIOLA did I get shocked at what they did under the hood, you cant quite see it and they prob wont tell you but there have been major improvments under the hood in Sonar5 you wont be disapointed.

[kp]

It's obviously because 5 is 20% more than 4. Couldn't resist :-)

[Hybernation]

So, maybe S5 is just DISPLAYING CPU Usage differently?

This is a confirmed bug. Apparently something they changed just prior to release changed the way the meters read CPU usage showing increased usage where there's actually a lot less. Supposedly this will be addressed soon in a point release. I definately need to upgrade to Sonar5 to hear the differences for myself. Looks like a helluva upgrade I'm missing out on.

I'd like to know "confirmed" by whom and where?

thanks in advance!

[reddrake]

So, maybe S5 is just DISPLAYING CPU Usage differently?

This is a confirmed bug. Apparently something they changed just prior to release changed the way the meters read CPU usage showing increased usage where there's actually a lot less. Supposedly this will be addressed soon in a point release. I definately need to upgrade to Sonar5 to hear the differences for myself. Looks like a helluva upgrade I'm missing out on.

I'd like to know "confirmed" by whom and where?

thanks in advance!

Here is a thread that Cakewalk talked about the problem:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=6034 ... PU&#603931


Richard