Sonar 5 effects -- what do you think?

[fandango]

I love the Sonitus:fx reverb. It just seems to have very nice smooth tails without nasty 'tinniness' you get in some reverbs.

Glad ImageLine licenced it for the Fruity Reeverb. Means I don't have to pay out to use it in FL as well.

[poonna]

The differences between Studio and Producer are that Producer exclusively has the following:

Roland® V-Vocal™ vocal processor
PSYN™ II subtractive synth (which isn't special in my view)
Pentagon™ I analog synth (which IS special - great synth)
RXP™ REX Player groove box
Perfect Space™ Convolution Reverb
Lexicon® Pantheon™ Stereo & Surround Reverbs
Sonitus Surround Compressor
Multi-format surround mixing
SurroundBridge™
Per-channel EQ (i.e. the Sonitus EQ is fully integrated into every mixer strip)
Assignable FX controls
POW-r dithering (very good)
MPEX 3 time scaling (definitely worth having)
Video thumbnail track

I had made up my mind not to care for those extra features, but now you make me swaying back to PE again. Arggggghhhh....

Actually, since I don't do surround mixing, most of the extras are just redundant, and I think I have other choices for softsynths as well. So V-Vocal and Perfect Space (and perhaps POW-r and MPEX 3) are about the only things that really catch my interest, and I thought about getting an alternative for that.

Initially, I thought of getting Sonar 5 SE + a mastering package, but now the thought has been moving towards Sonar 5 PE and use Tracktion's FinalMix (which I have) to master. Life's hard when it comes to making decision like this...

[headquest]

Initially, I thought of getting Sonar 5 SE + a mastering package, but now the thought has been moving towards Sonar 5 PE and use Tracktion's FinalMix (which I have) to master. Life's hard when it comes to making decision like this...

The second option is pretty good one, because Tracktion's FinalMix is superb . The only problem with the idea is that you would have to export at 32-bit from Sonar and then again from Tracktion, import back into Sonar to take advantage of the POW-r dithering. Tracktion's dithering is reportedly not as good as this.

You may find that the Sonitus fx cover your bases though - the Multidynamics plug in the Sonitus Suite is very handy when doing a mixdown. The freeware Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter is also very good.

As you say, decisions, decisions...

[Hink]

I like the sonitus effects, but I haven't used any of the dynamic processing pluggins because I like my voxengo stuff very much. But the sonitus reverb and delay are lighter on cpu than the effects that come with AA2.0, and they sound very good imo

[sounddesigner]

I have Sonar 5, and i like the sonitus, however in most cases i prefer third party effects.I do believe that sonar has the best processing effects/synths when compared to other sequencing programs. I don't rate them as top notch just good. They can get the job done with satisfactory results, but there are better third party out here. I would choose soniformer over sonitus multiband in a heartbeat, and harmonieq over sonitus eq.But the sonitus are good alternative options to have and a well rounded bundle indeed (noisegate,modulator,surround plugin,compressors etc).Their great plugins when compared to other sequencer program plugins, but their good plugins when compared to the great third party effects on the market (imo).Of course this is my personal taste so others may feel different.
I would recommend sonar producers over studio because of pow-r dither,perfect space, v-vocal and many other features.Cakewalk really tries to spoil the owners of producers.But know they also take care of all their products owners.