KVR Audio

OzoneJunkie · Post by **OzoneJunkie** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:42 pm

Ildon wrote:I've used Home Studio and Sonar, and I own Music Creator 2003, but I'm not as familiar with it. Music Creator DOES have an event viewer, so you should be okay.

Thanks for the info. Really seems like MC would do what I needed for, at least for the moment. If I outgrow it, it's not like I spent that much for it...

but, anyone else that wants to share the knowledge here, continue on - so far this is all helpful...

fandango · Post by **fandango** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:44 pm

Something to point out about Home Studio, as much as I love it, the "2 tracks per synth" thing really irritates me. In short, to use a soft synth you need a MIDI track (so far so good) and also an Audio track which routes the output. You can hide the audio tracks in the main sequencing area, but before long you find you need to use it for something and either have to go to the mixer to change it or bring it back into the main area. A logical concept, but not an ergonomical one imo. It just makes things like multi-timbral multi-out synths frustrating and tedious to use. It is a great package though.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:58 pm

@ fandango. The MIDI + Audio track paradigm is the same across the whole Sonar product line. I think that Cubase is the same (but I may be wrong there...) and until the newly released v7 Pro Tools also worked that way. I do suspect that Sonar at version 6 may change this and implement "instrument tracks" like Pro Tools.

In the meantime there is a lovely option linked to the freeze function in Sonar. Basically in the freeze options you can choose to always hide the MIDI track when a synth gets frozen. So by choosing to freeze a synth you have effectively bounced the track to audio, and in the audio channel the waveform clip appears, can be moved, edited, etc. Meanwhile the MIDI clip disappears, the synth gets disconnected, etc. To all intents and purposes, the MIDI track is gone. But the MIDI data is not deleted: it can be quickly unfrozen if you actually want/need to re-edit it later on. A very elegant solution

GreyLion · Post by **GreyLion** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:49 pm

Hey, OJ -- Just in case you missed it, because the thread that I posted sank VERY quickly, you can find Home Studio from MicroCenter on-line for $70 after a $30 rebate. This might make it worth getting the extra functions, depending on how hard you want to squeeze the dollar.

The thread is here: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=126270

Take care,

GreyLion

OzoneJunkie · Post by **OzoneJunkie** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:51 pm

thanks!

JoeSchmoe · Post by **JoeSchmoe** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:01 pm

Well, I just bought it...not like I really NEED it, I'm really happy with Ableton Live, but I've always been interested in Sonar (much more so than any other of the "big" sequencers). But I think it's an excellent oportunity to get on the Cakewalk upgrade path.

And heck, it's a VST host for 29 Euros...

dougsyo · Post by **dougsyo** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:06 pm

headquest wrote:But I think the "wild card" now is Sonar LE, which is "free"/bundled with many Edirol interfaces, including I believe the UA-20 (which costs less than £100).

The UA-20 I had was not worth it. It was noisy (ie whatever inputs had this low-level noise under it), it drew a LOT of power from the USB port (bad for a laptop), etc.

Dreamstation's nothing to get excited about either.

But I digress... Doug

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:11 pm

dougsyo wrote: The UA-20 I had was not worth it. It was noisy (ie whatever inputs had this low-level noise under it), it drew a LOT of power from the USB port (bad for a laptop), etc.

I have one too, largely replaced now by my M-Audio Ozonic firewire interface. I didn't have too much of a noise issue, but I agree about the power consumption.

The UA-25 is a much sturdier device, but I think the forthcoming UA4FX looks pretty impressive as a beginner package. As well as Sonar LE it comes bundled with the Edirol VSC.

http://www.edirol.it/europe/details.asp ... K&code=424

Dreamstation's nothing to get excited about either.

Well no. Anyone picking up that package will do well to also get a few of the better freeware synths (e.g. Crystal, Alpha, Triangle 2, Synth 1, Rez) and effects (Kjaerhus Classic bundle). And maybe buy a copy of CM and get their freebie plugs.

fandango · Post by **fandango** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:37 am

headquest: I think I'm just spoilt by paradigms in hosts like T2, eXT, Orion etc. where you have MIDI on the track view and an audio mixer strip (or signal chain) to handle the output of that synth. I've been demoing Sonar5 for a while, and whilst the Folder Tracks hide away the clutter a little bit, it still seems like a sledgehammer to a walnut. As nice as the freeze option is, it's actually the MIDI I want to keep.

Thanks for the heads up on that though.

MattmaN · Post by **MattmaN** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:21 am

I was about to demo Sonar,and then I noticed it had so many restrictions you could barely use it.

This demo version has the following restrictions:
Saving is disabled
Printing is disabled
Putting data on the Windows clipboard is disabled
File | Send (email) is disabled
Export audio is disabled
ACID file export is disabled
MIDI Groove Clip export is disabled
Export video is disabled
Offline audio and MIDI effects (i.e., Process | Audio Effects, MIDI Effects) is disabled
Integrated time/pitch stretching of audio is disabled
Saving effect presets is disabled
Bounce to Clip(s) is disabled
Bounce to Track(s) is disabled
Groove Quantize export is disabled
Launching 3rd party wave editors from the Tools menu is disabled
Tools | Clean Audio Folder is disabled
No VST-DX Adapter
3rd party MFX MIDI plug-ins are not included
Lexicon Pantheon reverb is not included
SpectraFX is not included
Cakewalk TTS-1 synth has the following limitations:
Beeps every 10 seconds
Limited to 1 output
Stops functioning after 10 minutes
This demo version will emit silence after every 5 seconds of rendered audio, for a duration of one second. These are the specific feature areas affected:
Freezing audio tracks
Freezing DXi's
Importing audio from non wav sources (mp3/wma, etc.)
Importing audio from 32 bit wav sources or any surround formats
Imported audio via any video format.
Apply audio effects

No wonder people are fed up with the big boys like Cake,and Stieny.
Makes you Apreciate apps like EXT all the more.

fandango · Post by **fandango** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:25 am

MattmaN: For some strange reason Cakewalk have advertised the Sonar5 demo on their forum, but still only link to Sonar4 on the main website demo page. :\ Anyway, the Sonar5 demo allows you to use VSTs but... yep... it's pretty restrictive (probably because there are lots of ways to save audio, freezing etc. which could get around the audio saving restrictions). Anyway, in case you're interested: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=665279

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:54 pm

Lunch Money wrote:Need, or want? All most of us needed in the past was a 4-track Portastudio. Now, of course, we surely want and expect much more. I couldn't go back to 4-track, but on the other hand, we're spoiled for features.

Cakewalk Music Creator looks great. I'll probably demo it because I can imagine it becoming one of my 2 sub-$50 recommendations (eXT being the other one!).

Greg

You could too go back to 4 track. We all could go back, digressing to the point of most primative thing left being the instrument and our hands/minds/souls. But this is pointing out the obvious. I concur with you man, I think that we are all definitely spoiled.

But seriously you /could/ go back Greg, you don't want to and no one here blames you for it.

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:57 pm

MattmaN wrote:I was about to demo Sonar,and then I noticed it had so many restrictions you could barely use it.

No wonder people are fed up with the big boys like Cake,and Stieny.
Makes you Apreciate apps like EXT all the more.

ROFL. They should disable installing, uninstalling, playback to any audio hardware, and recording from any MIDI inputs, and they'd be all set!

What do you expect? They can't give away the farm. Atleast they made a demo available. More than some other companies do.

MattmaN · Post by **MattmaN** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:07 pm

Well I DL'd the Sonar 5 demo.
It's certainly complex in comparison to what I've used/demo'd before(Tracktion,EXT,FL,Orion,Reaper)
I thought EXT seemed complicated at first too however.

Ildon · Post by **Ildon** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:13 pm

MattmaN wrote:Well I DL'd the Sonar 5 demo.
It's certainly complex in comparison to what I've used/demo'd before(Tracktion,EXT,FL,Orion,Reaper)
I thought EXT seemed complicated at first too however.

Once you learn Sonar, it's not complicated at all. You'll probably not use about 80% of everything that's in there in most recordings.

Cakewalk Music Creator vs. Sonar