Sonar 6 information is available now.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

of course then we also have munchkin who says acid doesnt gap for him --- so that is still really up in the air.

[billybk1]

Edit

[Jason Brian Merrill]

Edit

o... was going to respond....

anyway...

[saturdaysaint]

Headquest, you make some good points about the virtues of Live, but I have to say that Sonar is a bit more gapless than you're making it out to be if you've got your system tuned right. I've becpme a Live addict too, so I have a good ear for gaps, and I don't hear a thing when I add or delete effects (hopefully the same will be true of synths, which can now be added during playback!). Why assume that Audioquantize is an offline process - V-Vocal quantizes audio in realtime without gaps! Now that automation can be done on the fly, Sonar is definitely moving in the right direction in terms of "never stop the music" recording.

Of course, nobody will deny that it gaps subtly when enabling looping and not-so-subtly when moving loop markers, which is a valid sore point for electronic music makers. Another thing you've got to hand to Ableton is that Live does seem to require less overall system tuning to run without glitches - I suspect that a lot of audio hiccups for many people on Windows applications are caused by Windows video issues, which Ableton sidesteps by being so "non-Windows" in terms of programming. I think that sharing Windows' scrollbars, menus, etc., makes applications like Sonar more susceptible to audio interruptions if you have a lot of Windows' default eye-candy enabled. To be able to consistently do many things without gaps in Sonar, I've had to disable a lot of Windows video effects that Live never required me to do for stable operation.

[saturdaysaint]

By the way, I just did your guys' "ACID test" with Sonar 5.2 and Sonar continued playing back without a hiccup when I loaded a 190 BPM Acid Clip into a 120 BPM project. The only thing that gave me a slight hiccup was when I opened or closed the Loop explorer (although if I used Acid clips with any frequency, I'd just put a Loop Editor in Sonar's dock on startup, which would get rid of that issue entirely).

Disabling a lot of default Windows stuff (System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Settings, then disabling all visual effects) makes an enormous difference for Sonar's performance. If you can't add a VST without gapping, you should definitely look at your system and settings.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

...interesting.

[RTaylor]

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'm sure it tends to make folk think that the only people that use the program are high school sophomores.

[RTaylor]

How can you consentrate on music making with that hottie bouncing aroud your screen

It's a 3d model.

[headquest]

Hey saturdaysaint Good to hear from you and thanks for the tips!

Headquest, you make some good points about the virtues of Live, but I have to say that Sonar is a bit more gapless than you're making it out to be if you've got your system tuned right....
... Disabling a lot of default Windows stuff (System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Settings, then disabling all visual effects) makes an enormous difference for Sonar's performance. If you can't add a VST without gapping, you should definitely look at your system and settings.

Thanks for that. I had assumed it would be the oppositie - i.e. because Sonar is tightly integrated with the Windows OS it would need less tweaking than a cross-platform program like Live. I have the most basic obvious music-realted tweaks done (setting system priorities, etc), but I've not gone the whole hog with going into Windows classic look, etc. In fact that seems very 2001... Live works a treat without doing any of that stuff. But if you think doing all the old-school windows tweaks, partitioning, etc, is still necessary for Sonar... then I guess I should maybe give it a try.

As for adding a VST - adding effects doesn't cause problems... but adding VST synths or Rewire instruments is impossible anyway without totally stopping playback. Sonar simply doesn't allow it, although it looks like Sonar 6 will - at last . I wonder whether you will also be able to open Rewire clients without stopping playback... let's hope so!

Why assume that Audioquantize is an offline process

I don't - I said that "I am interested to see is whether it will be possible (in Sonar 6, with Izotope Radius) to manually move/adjust AudioSnap markers while the audio engine is running in real time, in the same way as you can manually move/adjust Live's Warp Markers while the audio engine is running in real time - without gaps in the audio. " (bottom of page 12). I hope that it will not be an offline process.

ALSO - it will be interesting to see if Sonar 6 will have an "Auto-quantise" like Live's "AutoWarp" feature, so that we can drag in any audio (whether a 4-bar loop or a 5 minute MP3) and have it automatically quantise and adapt to the project tempo, all without gapping. It's not clear at all from the info published so far, but this is exactly the sort of feature that will determine how far Sonar has come/is going down the "never stop the music" route.

When P5v2 was announced it looked like a serious alternative to Live 4 [yes, that's right, Live 4! And we're now on Live 6... Cakewalk are really taking their time with P5v3]. It was definitely pitched that way in the marketing materials, etc. But when the demo came out it was immediately obvious that P5 would not succeed against Live at that point, and the lack of gapless audio in P5 was only one of a number of points where the release seemed far behind. So now it will be interesting to see how Sonar 6's AudioSnap compares with Live - if it turns out to offer better quality then I might not even need Live as well as Sonar. On the other hand... well, I'll have to wait and try the demo!

- V-Vocal quantizes audio in realtime without gaps!

Huh - now you lost me! V-Vocal is great and all, but converting an audio clip into a V-Vocal clip is an offline process that requires stopping the audio playback altogether.

By the way, I just did your guys' "ACID test" with Sonar 5.2 and Sonar continued playing back without a hiccup when I loaded a 190 BPM Acid Clip into a 120 BPM project.

I got a loud click... in fact it was so loud that it caused a "Dropout", which of course in Sonar means that playback stopped altogether, which is quite annoying. But as you say, perhaps if I go into Windows Classic 1998 look it will perform better...

The only thing that gave me a slight hiccup was when I opened or closed the Loop explorer (although if I used Acid clips with any frequency, I'd just put a Loop Editor in Sonar's dock on startup, which would get rid of that issue entirely).

Yes, that is another thing that can cause serious gapping issues. I actually do have the Loop Explorer docked, and it does remove that issue . I leave the Loop Explorer docked because it also functions as a browser, and you can use it to drag other stuff into Sonar without using the "Import" command.

Now that automation can be done on the fly, Sonar is definitely moving in the right direction in terms of "never stop the music" recording.

Yes, these are some superb improvements to Sonar - a great update.

Of course, nobody will deny that it gaps subtly when enabling looping and not-so-subtly when moving loop markers, which is a valid sore point for electronic music makers.

Yes, that's very much my point.

Another thing you've got to hand to Ableton is that Live does seem to require less overall system tuning to run without glitches - I suspect that a lot of audio hiccups for many people on Windows applications are caused by Windows video issues, which Ableton sidesteps by being so "non-Windows" in terms of programming. I think that sharing Windows' scrollbars, menus, etc., makes applications like Sonar more susceptible to audio interruptions if you have a lot of Windows' default eye-candy enabled. To be able to consistently do many things without gaps in Sonar, I've had to disable a lot of Windows video effects that Live never required me to do for stable operation.

That's interesting...

Thanks again for your tips!

[christianmusicmaker]

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.

I suppose in an ideal world all the software we use would be optimised just for the hardware. While dedicated solutions exist, a good deal of tweaking is still necessary to get the best out of any set up. Although having more power to start off with does help. Dual core appears to be the way forward and thankfully many existing hosts take advantage of this new technology.

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.

uber? All sorts of things can cause gaps on any system as you know, but the best hosts IMHO for gapless usage are Podium and Live. But that is just my view based on my experiences with Podium, Live and ACID.

The other important point is that the way many people work, gapless audio is not an issue or requirement anyway.

Absolutely. I imagine there are many reading this thread with no issues with any amount of gaps, glitches or anything similar while they work. Different people with different tastes.

The key thing with any host is what works for you not someone else. I think a demo process over days or weeks even, is essential with any host to avoid unexpected problems after purchasing.

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.

It is defintely my preference for music making. Why stop playback in any way if it can be avoided? Certainly there are so many other ways to get the job done but realtime usage is my no.1 preference as well.

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.

Project 5v.2 is pretty close already. I just threw in Trilogy and Atmosphere in realtime into a project during playback and it really delivered on gapless usage, so adding any FX or instruments in real time will *not* gap P5v.2 at all on my system. But clicking on the loop enable button during playback can gap it. Clicking on the timeline can as well.

[headquest]

All sorts of things can cause gaps on any system as you know, but the best hosts IMHO for gapless usage are Podium and Live. But that is just my view based on my experiences with Podium, Live and ACID.

You're too modest mate! You've owned or at least tried nearly all the sequencers out there haven't you?

It is defintely my preference for music making. Why stop playback in any way if it can be avoided? Certainly there are so many other ways to get the job done but realtime usage is my no.1 preference as well.

That's interesting. I suspect more and more people want to work that way now. I guess that before Live came along, and especially Live 4 with MIDI, it just wasn't possible... but all that is changing...

Project 5v.2 is pretty close already. I just threw in Trilogy and Atmosphere in realtime into a project during playback and it really delivered on gapless usage, so adding any FX or instruments in real time will *not* gap P5v.2 at all on my system. But clicking on the loop enable button during playback can gap it. Clicking on the timeline can as well.

I hope that P5v3 will solve those issues and be a better competition to Live. At present the cost of Ableton is creeping up, and because there is no obvious successful rival to it there is no reason for them to exercise restraint in their pricing.

[fandango]

Wow, I'm kinda glad I don't have net access at home thesedays, or I might've spent the weekend replying to 16 pages of this thread...

Well, I'm sold on S6. I was going to wait for the demo (I always demo things first, hence I've never used Cubase, Steinberg's loss on that front, for all I know it's fantastic...), but I'm loving 5 and 6 introduces some long-wanted features that will streamline Sonar quite a bit (in particular the easier soft synth parameter access which is long overdue, imo).

Pity Edirol aren't offering the free postage offer until Sept 30th that the main Cakewalk webstore is. I've read bad experiences of the cakewalk store and Edirol have always done a very good job. Might be worth the tenner extra just to be safe.

[saturdaysaint]

- V-Vocal quantizes audio in realtime without gaps!

Huh - now you lost me! V-Vocal is great and all, but converting an audio clip into a V-Vocal clip is an offline process that requires stopping the audio playback altogether.

I see what you mean now. Once you've converted to a V-Vocal Clip, you can do everything pretty smoothly, but you're right, you do need to stop playback to convert the clip. Hopefully with Audio Quantize there will be the option to treat everything as "elastic audio" from the moment it's recorded so an additional step isn't necessary.

I get the impression you and I are on the same page in terms of Sonar's and Live's respective strengths in weaknesses - I was mostly just clearing things up for the people interested in Sonar who might get the impression that Sonar is in the Stone Age. Happy recording!

[torhan]

Here are some more minor features you might find useful: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=851562

[whyterabbyt]

Here are some more minor features you might find usefule: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=851562

Feh, Im just gonna quote them.

Clips:
Clip property to lock a clip to a SMPTE time
Clip data lock: By default, locking a clip prevents any edits from occuring. Additionally, lock can be enabled for specific clip attributes only:
• Clip Position - the clip start position is locked.
• Clip Duration - clip crops are locked, no splitting.
• Position and Data

Track View Widget Tab customization:
Can now Add/Remove/Rename the tabs at the bottom of the Track View, and choose what controls are visible on each tab for each strip type.

Track View Widget Order Customization
Can now drag-reorder widgets on any Track View strip.

Synth rack Icons:
Can now load and display icons so that a user can more easily differentiate one synth from another when a rack is fully populated with synths. This is similar to the SONAR5 track icon functionality but now available for synths.

Undoable effects bin operations:
Insertion and deletion of plugin from track/bus effects bins is now undoable.
Plugins are unloaded from memory when deleted and restored on undo. (These operations are gapless)

Bounce/export:
Choose the dither algorithm at bounce/export time
Choose "64 bit double precision engine" at bounce/export time. This allows you to render at double precision without changing your playback settings to render double precision.

Multiple Time Rulers:
Multiple time rulers in different time formats can be simultaneously displayed. Choices are MBT, MMSF, Samples, Milliseconds

Staff View:
Added a track list view pane to the staff view, similar to the one in the PRV. Lets you view any number of tracks and set a track active or set its MSR state.
Select tracks using the "PickTracks" button in the toolbar

WAI Display on tracks:
The WAI display (short for Where Am I) is a group of colored markers to show you which tracks and/or buses are currently being controlled by which controllers/surfaces or MIDI controllers. Each controllers/surface/MIDI controller uses different colored markers. You can drag the markers to different groups of tracks to change which tracks each controller/surface is controlling. You can also double-click the markers to open the property page of that particular controller/surface.

Grouping:
Maintaining Relative Gain between group members. In SONAR 6, the relative gain between parameters in a group will be maintained by default. There is a checkbox in the Group Properties dialog for this.

QuickZoom:
To facilitate quick edits, you can now zoom about the *mouse cursor position*. This adjusts both horizontal and vertical zooms at the same time, as well as updating the scroll position so the zoom point stays at the cursor. Available in both the ClipsView and the PianoRollView and is key bindable.

Snap To Time changes
Snap to Time is now a modeless dialog. Any changes you make are active immediately.
Time formats are now non-exclusive. Previously, it could be either musical, or absolute or landmark based. Now all of these are checkboxes.
There is now a choice to control the "magnetic strength" of the snap operation (low, medium, high) or turn off magnetic snap completely.

Preset Unification:
VST presets and Cakewalk effect presets are now displayed in a single menu at the top of the effects window in the following order
1. MRU Presets (if any, followed by a seperator)
2. VST Presets
3. Cakewalk Presets
"Next/Prev" buttons for navigating through the a plugins presets.

and

Finer resolution when adjusting sliders/knobs:
You can now hold down the Shift key for finer control whan adjusting sliders/knobs in the Track view, Console view, and Synth Rack.

Colors dialog:
The Colors dialog is now multi-select, so you can instantly assign multiple screen elements to the same color, or offset the brightness, hue, and saturation.

Plug-in presets:
There are now key bindings to increment/decrement the preset for the active plug-in.

Track view toolbar:
The Track view toolbar now includes all the inline Piano Roll tools, as well as new buttons for Fit Tracks to Window, Fit Project to Window, Hide tracks not in selection, Hide Tracks, Track Manager, Undo zoom, and Redo Zoom. As with all other toolbars, you can show/hide and re-arrange buttons as desired.

Time ruler:
Loop Start/End and Punch In/Out markers are now connected by a bar, which makes it easy to confirm if looping or punch recording is enabled even if the markers are scrolled off-screen. The bars can also be dragged to move the loop and punch regions.

Also, markers are transparent and always visible even if multiple markers overlap.

Track view controls:
You can customize the size and spacing of most controls, and track names can be bold or regular font style.

Vertical meters in the Track view are visible even when a track is minimized.

Synth Rack view:
When inserting a new synth, you can optionally place the audio and MIDI tracks in a new track folder.

Controllers/Surfaces dialog (formerly "Control Surfaces" dialog):
You can assign the MIDI in and out ports directly in this dialog, without having to open a seperate Control Surface Properties dialog. You can also access the MIDI Devices dialog directly from the Controllers/Surface dialog, to quickly enable/disable MIDI drivers, if necessary.

Automation icons:
Automatable parameters in the Track view and Console view show a small "Automation" icon if automation exists for a parameter.