How is Tracktion working out for you? My decision tomm

[christianmusicmaker]

Buying a new host is such a dillema.

It is indeed, and you've received lots of contradictory advice. However, a few things that should be clear from the thread:

Firstly, several people have given you a pile of reasons not to go for Tracktion. And as you said yourself:

i'm just gonna spend the $300. Better to have one host that will do 98% of what I want it to do for 300 dollars than have one that does 75% for 150 dollars.

Secondly, the host that has been recommended by the most people is Ableton Live 5. It is more expensive than your suggested price, but there are some cheaper ways of getting hold of it.

Thirdly, you might be interested to know that if you are planning on using FL Studio, then Sonar has a further advantage over the others discussed, which is the fact that like FL it is a DX host as well as VST. This means that many of Sonar's instruments/effects - including the wonderful Sonitus fx:suite - would be available to you in FL Studio as well as in Sonar

I hope this helps you with your decision.

Hi No name...

Sonar Studio is a good choice if you go that way...

I have to agree with Headquests advice. I was one of the early adopters of Tracktion and still admire the workflow of the program. But if you really meant what you said "Better to have one host that will do 98% of what I want it to do for 300 dollars than have one that does 75% for 150 dollars" Which I suspect you did, then you may regret a decision to go for Tracktion as based on your own comments you feel Tracktion will meet less of your requirements now.

If that is the case you would be buying it hoping that Mackie would add the features you would like later at some stage. This is probably not a good idea. Just trying to help here.

I think someone on KVR said always buy a host that gives you the features you need or want now. Avoid buying into something cheaper that does not have those features now but are promised later.

I have been in exactly the same position as you with Tracktion. Great for what it offers *now* but Cakewalk offer many of the key advantages of Tracktion (single user interface) for instance with far more features.

Sonar will not just meet your current needs but exceed them. I cannot see you ever outgrowing it.

Cakewalk also offer other packages as well. As headquest has mentioned...Project 5. This is very close to Ableton Live in design and execution and as a user myself it is a very capable host. You can rewire acid into P5 as well.

If you really do go for Sonar 5 Studio Edition now for £200 you could easily at a later time pick up one of the special offers that Cakewalk provide and pick up Kinetic or P5 later.

Remember all of these are from the same stable...Cakewalk.

Mackie only have Tracktion. As good as it is from your own descriptions it will not meet your current needs. Or is very unlikely to do so.

Many people in your position like myself at one time, have invested in a package that meets the following requirements when it's just too difficult to make a decision.

1. Support.
Whatever package you buy this is essential as you will very likely have to ask questions to find answers at some point.

Cakewalk have about 20 odd forums with dedicated forums for Sonar, Project 5, Kinetic, Instruments, Songs, Techniques e.t.c there is nothing like that on offer from Mackie. This is not a criticism of Mackie its just that Cakewalk are simply much further down the road.

Again with so many forums to choose from I would be amazed if you could not find answers to any questions you have about Sonar or P5 from existing users. With any investment it’s nice to know you can draw on the experiences of over 20,000 registered forum members to help.

Even if you do not want to ask questions on the forum just do a search. With so many users posting everyday there is an incredible amount of information available already.

Also because Sonar is one of the top sequencers on the PC platform Sound on sound have a truly massive amount of tutorials on offer for Sonar users…just type in Sonar in the search field top right, www.soundonsound.com you will be able to access articles going back to 2001!

Some of the most recent articles require a subscription but, I can assure you it is very unlikely you will even have time to even read all of them!

Also many of the Cakewalk development team actively participate in discussions, even those that highlight any issues they may have missed. They see problems raised as an opportunity to better their product not to lock threads! More of a Steinberg issue, not aimed at Mackie.

2.Manual
The Sonar Manual is around 600 pages and is very detailed. There are numerous books available as well…

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Books/SONAR.asp

3.No dongle
Cakewalk amazingly still only use a serial number (with a simple registration online for an activation code) that’s it. No hardware controlling software here.

4.Wealth of products
Cakewalk make at least three standalone hosts that you could buy based on your requirements…

Sonar 5 Producer
Project 5
Sonar 5 Studio

5.Various high end instruments as well like z3ta, Dimension Pro are also on offer but because they all come from the same stable, in future if you decide to buy additional instruments you can do so and avoid compatibility issues as they are all Cakewalk instruments.

6.Development
Cakewalks development is very rapid. The differences between the first version of Tracktion 1.0 and the version of Sonar (Sonar 2) at the time Nov/Dec 2002 are truly massive! This goes back to my point about not out growing Sonar.

Edit:Compare The features added to Tracktion since Tracktion v.1 came out over the same timeframe to those added to Sonar up until now over the same period. Cakewalks development pace will more than likely exceed your requirements for the future especially with Sonar 5 Producer which you cam always upgrade to at a later time should your needs go that far.

7.You could easily just use Cakewalk products alone for just about every need you have…of course you can still rewire acid to Sonar!

I could go on but if you really want a host that you can grow into and not worry about possible features you need now, hopefully being added later then really I think Cakewalk is your best choice. You would be better running XP. I think you said you are running Windows 98 (correct me if I am wrong).

You may want to check out this interactive review of Sonar 5 it is probably the best review available for Sonar 5.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/for ... id=1044512

Hope this helps.

[No name]

Damn, you made your case! Sounds tempting as hell. I'm about to check out the review on it. Thanks.

[nuisance sonore]

Thanks people, there is my list, I doubt i'll have my DAW hooked up to the net so I can;t really try out demos on it.

You really shouldn't spend a few hundreds on a sequencer/host without trying it first. They all have their quirks, they all have their workflow deficiency, residual buggette and half assed implemented features. As an example, I demoed Sonar recently and I really hated the way the clipboard was working on the thing along with how you selected clip on the timeline, it was enough so that I wouldn't use the software at all at any pricepoint it would be; but you can see that others really love Sonar.

The point is to find the one that suits you the most and you do that by trying and testing as features list can be very deceiving.

It is really time well invested to spend, say, a month to try and test software as you'll most likely spend years after with the software in question.

Beside, just look at the suggestions here, everybody has their own idea as to what's the best software so that should tell you something. You're the only one in your shoes...

[P.T.]

Tracktion is easy to learn and is easy to set up for recording.
It is very easy to swap vst instruments and effects in and out of tracks and to even change the order of the effects on a track.

The problems and shortcomings that a quik tryout of the demo might not show you are

No midi clip linking. If you have copied a clip many times and want to change a note you will have to change it in every copied clip individually.

No folder tracks for grouping and hiding tracks (like a bunch of drum tracks).

Midi track automation problem. If you have a lot of midi automation on a track and decide to change the tempo of the song you will have to redo all of the track automation. Tracktion alters the tempo by stretching or shrinking the midi clips, but the automation remains unchanged so it no longer is in the right place.

No simple one click way to make the ends of all midi notes overlap for smooth legato playing, or to eliminate overlaps.

In the end, you will have to demo it to find out if you like it or not.

[diverdee]

If you use multiple automation lines on single tracks do a search here & on the cakewalk forums concerning an issue that I blieve is still affecting Sonar, i.e. one cannot have more than one parameter automated for a vsti etc. (or something like that).
There are threads on this site also about this issue, it may have been resolved - I don't know, but definately check it out.
There is nothing worse than splashing money out on a host & finding that there is a longstanding, as yet unresolved bug that may seriously effect your workflow.
I thnk Whyterabbit & a couple of others here were discussing the issue & also bringing it to the attention of cakewalk support staff.
I'm not knocking sonar, I've also reccomended it, but i'd forgot about this issue & thought it should be brought to your attention, just in case.
I hope that someone knowledgeable will shortly post & assure you that it is now all good.

[Lunch Money]

I wouldn't let people's convincingly-presented case win it for you. Try the demos.

Also, there's a difference between a host meeting 75% of your needs and a host meeting 75% of what other people interpret as being your needs, or projecting their own needs onto you.

Tracktion has other things going for it that you might not be aware of, as well. Racks spring to mind. Audio and MIDI being able to share a track is another. But that's neither here nor there until you get a chance to try the demos.

Greg

[headquest]

If you use multiple automation lines on single tracks do a search here & on the cakewalk forums concerning an issue that I blieve is still affecting Sonar, i.e. one cannot have more than one parameter automated for a vsti etc. (or something like that).

That issue should be resolved in a bug fix in the near future. It is not a long standing issue (at least not in the same way that certain of the bugs in Tracktion are long-standing, at any rate ), but first appeared in the final release of Sonar 4 a few months ago.

Cakewalk staff have confirmed on their forum that they are aware of and hoped to sort this one out for the recent 5.0.1 patch but it slipped through the net. But I think we can assume it will be sorted very shortly (i.e. in 5.0.2)

One of the things that has particularly surprised me since getting Sonar a couple of months ago is just how positive their forum is. I have posted on several company forums (as well as here of course) but I don't think I've ever met a crowd who are clearly so very happy with both Cakewalk's products... and their customer support/interaction/commitment to fixing things really quickly.

Very refreshing after my previous Tracktion experiences, I must say

[diverdee]

I'd noticed that on the Sonar forums also, a huge culture difference between the activities there & the SX forums for instance.

[christianmusicmaker]

I wouldn't let people's convincingly-presented case win it for you. Try the demos.

Also, there's a difference between a host meeting 75% of your needs and a host meeting 75% of what other people interpret as being your needs, or projecting their own needs onto you.

Tracktion has other things going for it that you might not be aware of, as well. Racks spring to mind. Audio and MIDI being able to share a track is another. But that's neither here nor there until you get a chance to try the demos.

Greg

Lunch did the preset save issue (Mackie plugs not bringing up the last saved preset when re opening a project)ever get fixed? It is still not fixed in the latest version of Tracktion or am I missing something?

Convincing presented case?. Wow you make it sound like we are in a courtroom.

So I guess since No name started this thread he is the judge?

I agree with you on the demos, he has to try them first really...and then buy Sonar

[Lunch Money]

I'm not the one making it sound like we're in a courtroom. No name is certainly going to be the end judge of which software he goes with, but a courtroom judge is impartial and not subject to the rhetoric of the lawyers. The judge has proved that he or she is above and beyond that due to superior knowledge and experience. Poor no name is more like a badgered witness.

Yes, the preset save issue has been fixed for a dog's age. It will install from scratch fine, but people on the 'update' path may still find that they need to toggle the presets' "read only" status in the file properties to give it a kick start.

Positivity is good. Sonar sound great. If I jumped Tracktion's ship (not likely any time soon!), I would end up with Sonar, I'm fairly certain. That's my positive comment for the day.

The Tracktion users, despite whatever your perceptions may be from the numerous feature requests (not to be confused with bug reports) are frickin' awesome. What a great bunch of people. Very helpful and supportive, and most of the feature request come because they LOVE Tracktion and are still missing things from whatever software they abandoned. Sure, I might debate against the people who want a mixer, when they come from a traditional environment with a mixer, but I also know that they're asking for one because they want to stick with Tracktion.

I'll take my fellow Tracktioneers, feature requests, debates, and all, over any other user base on the planet. A truly interesting, inspired, and helpful bunch.

Greg

[Mauvehead]

The whole "rack" concept (as mentioned by Lunch Money) is a big perk for T2. At first I wasn't sure if it would be a big deal or not, but now I find I use it all of the time on most projects. And the whole idea of how quickly you can grab filters (VST's/VSTi's) and rearrange the order of them on any track is highly convenient.
I'd agree that T2 has a lot of room for improvement in certain areas, and their support can be frustrating sometimes, however the program itself seems way more intuitive and efficient for me to record with than Acid or Abelton. I work more with actual recording of non-loop based performances and so Abelton and Acid seem a bit too cumbersome and restricting for my usage. Your mileage may vary of course. But I would have to agree that it's such a daunting task to pick out the perfect host. Nothing is cheap these days. Best of luck.

[headquest]

@ Mauvehead: have Mackie fixed the plug-in delay compensation to work properly in the racks yet?

[Mauvehead]

Hmmm....not sure. Never ran into that issue myself actually. Any threads that reference this?

[pHz]

@ Mauvehead: have Mackie fixed the plug-in delay compensation to work properly in the racks yet?

another one of those (mis)leading questions headquest ...

... there ARE some situations where certain rack setups will cause PDC issues but on the whole (and as long as youre fairly methodical about it) racks can handle PDC pretty well ...

... it seems to be pretty well accepted that implementing a TOTALLY foolproof PDC system means limiting the hosts routing options in some way (check all gols posts in the myriad 'why doesnt fl-studio have PDC ?' threads for detailed explanations) ... and thats WITHOUT factoring in a modular environment ...

(edited for typos)

slainte rob

[Lunch Money]

I've never run into PDC issues, either. That's not to say they don't exist. The user base has helped Mackie identify the problem, it's being worked on, and it's not a quick fix.

But it does mean that somebody identifying a situation in which PDC doesn't work doesn't suddenly render racks useless or show that Tracktion's PDC is completely broken. Rather, it's a specialized situation.

Greg