Sonar 6 information is available now.

[Bill OC]

One thing that is good about this Sonar licensing "discussion" is that people are taking it seriously enough to debate it--especially since it is software not locked to a machine ID or a dongle. (REAPER, too, of course.)

Oh, I'm not naive, but it's good to know that so many people here take the protection of intellectual property rights seriously--whether or not they agree with a given company's licensing policies.

Regards,

Bill OC

[Jason Brian Merrill]

I'm not sure if Mr. Westner likes to see his gentle company associated with such an attitude, D-Fusion.

Well the REAPER developer has publically distanced and disassociated himself from the behaviour of you REAPER fanboys on this forum, such is the embarassment your trolling has caused him!

i think it serves only to embarress him... REAPER stands on its own, as a pretty good work in progress

[Jason Brian Merrill]

If you can do this in ACID, can it be done with the audio engine running without gaps - if so then it is relevant to the thread ).

that is what he said, so yeah i guess its relevent

[Jason Brian Merrill]

ahhh one question, did cakewalk finally change the thing where when a different driver is selected you have to restart the program? That is totally unheard of, and pretty annoying, no offense. I have 2 soundcards with different stuff attached to them plus a podxt interface i use... would be a showstopper for me anyway

still have this question before the trolling started

[ObsoleteAcc99]

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[ObsoleteAcc99]

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[christianmusicmaker]

There have been some interesting comments on gapless audio made on this thread. FWIW I have Podium, Live and ACID6.

To my ears only Podium and Live will allow for an effect or instrument to be added to a project during playback without gapping. ACID6 *will* gap on my system, Podium and Live will not. Of course these or other hosts on different systems with different CPU capabilities and RAM levels may yield different results, so this is just my experience with a dual core system with 4GB of ram. So YMMV.

To clarify, when I say gapping I mean the sound dropping out briefly / silent / stops for a short time.

As for gapping in Sonar...I think Sonar 3 or 4 can't remember now, had a reference to gapless audio or playback in the marketing material or ads, but Cakewalk I think are realistic about the levels of gapping in Sonar and have reduced it somewhat over the years, I would guess that they are fully aware that Sonar5 is not as gapless as Live or Podium. Cakewalk very wisely don't appear to be making the gapless claim anymore anyway.

[Alex Westner]

ahhh one question, did cakewalk finally change the thing where when a different driver is selected you have to restart the program? That is totally unheard of, and pretty annoying, no offense. I have 2 soundcards with different stuff attached to them plus a podxt interface i use... would be a showstopper for me anyway

still have this question before the trolling started

No changes there. Why wouldn't you just enable all of them?

[Jason Brian Merrill]

ahhh one question, did cakewalk finally change the thing where when a different driver is selected you have to restart the program? That is totally unheard of, and pretty annoying, no offense. I have 2 soundcards with different stuff attached to them plus a podxt interface i use... would be a showstopper for me anyway

still have this question before the trolling started

No changes there. Why wouldn't you just enable all of them?

you cant use more than one ASIO driver at a time....

if i want to switch between them, i need to restart sonar, no?

[Alex Westner]

ahhh one question, did cakewalk finally change the thing where when a different driver is selected you have to restart the program? That is totally unheard of, and pretty annoying, no offense. I have 2 soundcards with different stuff attached to them plus a podxt interface i use... would be a showstopper for me anyway

still have this question before the trolling started

No changes there. Why wouldn't you just enable all of them?

you cant use more than one ASIO driver at a time....

if i want to switch between them, i need to restart sonar, no?

Right, ASIO... yes.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

ahhh one question, did cakewalk finally change the thing where when a different driver is selected you have to restart the program? That is totally unheard of, and pretty annoying, no offense. I have 2 soundcards with different stuff attached to them plus a podxt interface i use... would be a showstopper for me anyway

still have this question before the trolling started

No changes there. Why wouldn't you just enable all of them?

you cant use more than one ASIO driver at a time....

if i want to switch between them, i need to restart sonar, no?

Right, ASIO... yes.

sorry i didnt specify that

that is too bad, its a bit annoying having to shut down the app to change drivers -- i know there are many that probably dont end up doing this, but having 2 different cards myself and a podxt, i do it somewhat often ---
and of course, as programmers hate to hear (as i have learned from my various criticisms and old bug reports of a certain "other" host),
"no other host does this"
....

sorry

I dont remember if sonar makes you restart with changing sample/bit rate settings.... that wouldnt be good either...

thanks for the info!

[hao nao]

thanks to everyone who provided information re: Sonar 6

[mojkarma]

This is always subjective. I have both, cubase and sonar and personally, I think that cubase is by far better for midi editing. Unfortunately, there is no info about improved midi editing in sonar 6, so I suppose it is the same as in sonar5.
You cannot split midi notes and you cannot mute them. Something, I use very much while working with midi

...

Maybe Alex can bring some clarification.

We don't have many specific MIDI editing enhancements in SONAR 6, but a ton of enhancements for working with soft synths - ACT, the new synth rack, read/write automation enables, plug-in management, etc.

We did change the lasso behavior so that it selects anything it touches, without having to select the entire thing.

Also, we added mouse wheel scroll and zoom to make navigation a lot easier. There's a cool Fast Zoom feature that works with mouse wheel or key bindings that let you zoom horizontally and vertically with one gesture - like a magnifying glass.

I'm very glad to hear that you finnaly changed the lasso behavior. It was about time.
On the other side, I cannot understand, why you don't complete that damn midi area of sonar.
You say that you have improved in many ways the working with softsynths:
Well, midi is the core to drive the (soft)synths. I believe that a lot of people need more than just a pencil tool in the pianoroll. Splitting, muting, healing splitted notes is something, cubase and logic have since the 80ties!
In its present state, sonars pianoroll is not more functional than protools' pianoroll, and that is hardly a recommendation!

[missword]

ahhh one question, did cakewalk finally change the thing where when a different driver is selected you have to restart the program? That is totally unheard of, and pretty annoying, no offense. I have 2 soundcards with different stuff attached to them plus a podxt interface i use... would be a showstopper for me anyway

still have this question before the trolling started

No changes there. Why wouldn't you just enable all of them?

you cant use more than one ASIO driver at a time....

if i want to switch between them, i need to restart sonar, no?

Right, ASIO... yes.

sorry i didnt specify that

that is too bad, its a bit annoying having to shut down the app to change drivers -- i know there are many that probably dont end up doing this, but having 2 different cards myself and a podxt, i do it somewhat often ---
and of course, as programmers hate to hear (as i have learned from my various criticisms and old bug reports of a certain "other" host),
"no other host does this"
....

sorry

I dont remember if sonar makes you restart with changing sample/bit rate settings.... that wouldnt be good either...

thanks for the info!

I switch sound card quite often as well as it is a big pain to shut down and restart Sonar everytime. It would be great if this could be addressed at some point.

[headquest]

To my ears only Podium and Live will allow for an effect or instrument to be added to a project during playback without gapping. ACID6 *will* gap on my system, Podium and Live will not.

At last! Somebody who actually owns ACID, Podium and Live, and can therefore speak with more credibility on the subject! Thanks for the feedback

What you say about hardware is also crucial. Live and Podium may (alone among audio software at this time, it would seem) provide effective gapless audio engines, but if one's hardware is not up to the task obviously there will still be problems. If live performance or realtime jamming/composition are important then it is obviously necessary to have both hardware and software that are up to the task.

Before I bought my current laptop, I was running Live on a 512MB RAM lappy with only 4800rpm harddrive. Obviously there were gaps when I ran out of CPU or if my computer couldn't stream audio from a harddrive with those limitations. Upgrading to a 7200rpm hard drive enables me to stream far more audio direct from disk without issues, and the 2GB RAM on this laptop seems to also go a long way further. With Live 6's dual core support, the new version simply flies .

Of course all software is likely to run more smoothly on a more powerful system, which makes it particularly interesting that - understanding what gapless audio is and having experienced it in Live and Podium - you can acknowledge with authority that you do get gaps in ACID even on your uber-powerful computer.

The other important point is that the way many people work, gapless audio is not an issue or requirement anyway. How I work these days is as follows: As a musician I have performed for years, often improvising on stage (as a keyboard player). What I can do with Live, because of its gapless audio, is bring that experience into my electronic music production. I will open up a blank set, lay down a basic beat using the Impulse drum sampler, and then build up from that, adding VST synths, opening up Reason via rewire and programming stuff in that, draggin in and cropping other audio, adding effects and drawing in automation at clip level, mixing and recording the whole thing into a full arrangement - ... ALL without stopping between the start and end of the composition.

In other words, I IMPROVISE my pieces from scratch. Often from the point when I launch the first two-bar drum loop, I will continue for up to two hours without once stopping the audio engine running. For me it is a totally musical process and not a technical one, from start to completion, and because of my background I really love that. I know that we all come from different backgrounds, not everyone here come from doing professional instrumental performing, most people wouldn't even want to work that way. But it suits me because I am an improvising musician.

In Sonar, I love recording multitrack audio projects - the awesome effects and ease of use for that make it first choice for me in that area - easy. But for composing the lack of gapless audio prevents me from working in the manner that I have become accustomed to in Live, which is a drawback.

Cakewalk very wisely don't appear to be making the gapless claim anymore anyway.

Maybe Project 5 version 3 though... . I'm sure they - and everyone else in view of Live's success - will have an eye on this market.