Sonar 6 information is available now.

[wrench45us]

No - both freeze and flatten maintain the clip structure of the original material, both in the Session and Arrangment views.

that's the confirmation I was looking for
that is truly radical and makes so much practical sense
thanks for your patience

[Jed]

There ae plenty of times particularly when composing drums/perc for my Sonar tracks, that I wish I could just fire up Live in rewire, and use BFD or maybe a bass synth vsti using Lives great compositional tricks.

I dont understand why Ableton havent done this for Live when P5 and FLS can. Surely it would increase their user base substantially?

Cheers
Jed

Of the many rewire applications I have worked with and/or tested I would say that Live is the BEST rewire host... and the WORST rewire slave.

Having said that the scenario you outline begs the question - why not sequence/compose directly using BFD/etc within Sonar? ... You seem to be suggesting that you prefer Live as a composing / MIDI sequencing environment? If so, why not start off composition/sequencing projects in Live instead of Sonar? Do you even need Sonar at this point?

I think these questions go directly to the heart of the issues we are discussing. WHen push comes to shove, which of the 2 (or 3 including P5) is *for you* the most creative and complete environment to work in?

Note - I'm not saying that to let Ableton off the hook! I agree that they should sort out the Reiwre slave issue asap. I doubt your assessment that it would "increase ... substantially" their user base though, because I don't imagine that this one thing is the real deal-breaker for many prospective Live users.

Two forthcoming improvements for those of us who have both Sonar and Live:

1. Live 6 receives incoming MIDI from a Rewire host - which means the Ableton instruments can now be sequenced directly from within Sonar. Great for those of us who forked out for Operator, and perhaps another reaswon to invest in the Ableton Sampler instrument (given that Cakewalk no longer seem willing to bundle a sampler with Sonar these days, which is a curious and significant feature omission in Sonar at this point.... )

2. Live 6 will now export "All Tracks" from a project, rather than just the mixdown. So it will be easy to compose in Ableton, render "all tracks", and then mix them in Sonar if this is your preference.

Interesting thread this

Headquest I like writing in Sonar - I really enjoy its Trackview in comparison to Live's, BUT the Live Session view is great for contructing grooves with input quantize - then chucking them into cells and doing variations - maybe setting up 8 or so grooves in a Live session view track, and setting up a random follow action to see how they sit with the rest of the Sonar tracks.

Its really annoying that half way through a Sonar composition I cant just fire up Live in rewire slave mode and carry on (using whatever VSTi's I want) in this fashion.

Hope that explains my position better

Cheers
Jed

[RTaylor]

Hi again!

Howdy,

I've not used the demo yet...

No, it's not yet available - still beta testing with a closed group at this point.

The release and demo should be available by the end of this month though.

I'll definitely take a look at it.

Live 6 does realtime stretching and so on?

Yes. Regarding video, the movie plays in a quicktime screen, while the aduio appears as an audio track on the timeline. You can use warp markers to stretch it in real time, etc.

That is realtime stretching of video?

Other programs are able to do this with present processor power...

True of course, but I don't think Ableton would want to distract power away from real time audio processing quite yet... but personally I can see it coming later.

I don't use samples or loops other than my own.

I only use my own loops, but I use samples in terms of one-shots and sampled instruments.

I used to... I guess I do still use the occasional cymbal. They all just sound so "ordinary" though.

[headquest]

That is realtime stretching of video?

Yes... it's even gapless

When you grab and drop a quicktime movie into Live 6's Arrangment, the audio track (if there is one) is placed on a standard audio track. This is in fact done so that you don't need to wait a minute or two - you can launch the video instantly and in real time (i.e. you might have music already playing, drag the video in and launch it). The video window can be viewed full screen on a second monitor if you wish.

Unlike other stuff, the movie's audio does not seem to be "warped" by default. However, if you select to warp it, and add/move around warp markers, the movie will speed up and slow down along with the audio file as it plays. And yes, seriously it is gapless.

This is all while the clip is set in the defaul "slave" mode. However, with one mouse click you can select the movie's audio as "Master", in which case warp markers are no longer used. Instead, every other piece of audio in the arrangment is warped/locked to the video's audio file. Essentially this is an audio groove quantise, which ensures that the music follows the tempo changes, etc, of the movie's audio.

A by-product of this enhancement is that the "Master" functionality that has been added for video can be used in any project, even where there is no video. So clips and loops can be made in this way to follow the groove/tempo of any audio recording or file. By implementing the video feature, all Live users can now benefit from this.

I see that the AudioSnap features in Sonar 6 allow for something similar to be done in Sonar, which is great news.

[RTaylor]

That is realtime stretching of video?

Yes... it's even gapless

When you grab and drop a quicktime movie into Live 6's Arrangment, the audio track (if there is one) is placed on a standard audio track. This is in fact done so that you don't need to wait a minute or two - you can launch the video instantly and in real time (i.e. you might have music already playing, drag the video in and launch it). The video window can be viewed full screen on a second monitor if you wish.

Unlike other stuff, the movie's audio does not seem to be "warped" by default. However, if you select to warp it, and add/move around warp markers, the movie will speed up and slow down along with the audio file as it plays. And yes, seriously it is gapless.

This is all while the clip is set in the defaul "slave" mode. However, with one mouse click you can select the movie's audio as "Master", in which case warp markers are no longer used. Instead, every other piece of audio in the arrangment is warped/locked to the video's audio file. Essentially this is an audio groove quantise, which ensures that the music follows the tempo changes, etc, of the movie's audio.

A by-product of this enhancement is that the "Master" functionality that has been added for video can be used in any project, even where there is no video. So clips and loops can be made in this way to follow the groove/tempo of any audio recording or file. By implementing the video feature, all Live users can now benefit from this.

I see that the AudioSnap features in Sonar 6 allow for something similar to be done in Sonar, which is great news.

What if the video you're using has no audio track? Are there any editing functions or does it just work with clips? What sort of files does it write?

Time code?

Can you dump a finished product with it {either program} or will you have to assemble stuff in an editor anyway? Titles? Transitions {bless their little hearts}? Cuts? Etc? Etc? Etc? If not... what real benefits does it have?

[headquest]

What if the video you're using has no audio track? Are there any editing functions or does it just work with clips? What sort of files does it write?

Time code?

Can you dump a finished product with it {either program} or will you have to assemble stuff in an editor anyway? Titles? Transitions {bless their little hearts}? Cuts? Etc? Etc? Etc? If not... what real benefits does it have?

Hey! I don't have answers to the specifics in those questions, as I don't work with video editing at all! I just played with the Ableton feature a little to see what it would do. So I can't speak about this in anything like the same way that I can explain the freeze

What I do know is that Video in Live 6 is intended only to aid the use of Live as a music composition environment for those working in film, and was added as a feature request made by the growing number in the film industry who love Live as a composing tool. As such, the main use is simply to view a movie clip while working on scoring the music. It therefore does not (at this stage) export video at all. The music has to be exported once you are done with it and then assembled back with the movie itself in your video editing software such as Premiere Pro or Vegas.

If you use Sonar for video work, you will probably want to stick with it; it seems far more advanced for working with video/film at this point. However, if you love composing in the Ableton environment, this new feature will be useful by allowing you to run your movie inside the program synced to Live, and this is what the "real benefit" is.

I hope that helps. If you want to know more specifics though, this has been discussed in detail on the Ableton "General" forum (and probably the beta forum too, which is public view). Predicably there are those who moan that it was even added because they can't see beyond their own needs; ... but there are plenty of others who work with film and say it will be really useful. As I mentioned before, I suspect that sector will be pressing for more advanced features in Live 7.

[antoyne]

I'm a European guy living in Asia. I own Sonar 5 and wanted to upgrade to 6 but I found out this is not possible for me. For Cakewalk people, life has to be simple : if you're a US, your billing and shipping addresses have to be in the States, for Asian in Asia etc. I never had such trouble before, so I sent an e-mail and they told me I have to call them directly, which is of course very convenient and an ultra modern way of communication these days. A good way to lose customers...

[RTaylor]

What if the video you're using has no audio track? Are there any editing functions or does it just work with clips? What sort of files does it write?

Time code?

Can you dump a finished product with it {either program} or will you have to assemble stuff in an editor anyway? Titles? Transitions {bless their little hearts}? Cuts? Etc? Etc? Etc? If not... what real benefits does it have?

Hey! I don't have answers to the specifics in those questions, as I don't work with video editing at all! I just played with the Ableton feature a little to see what it would do. So I can't speak about this in anything like the same way that I can explain the freeze

What I do know is that Video in Live 6 is intended only to aid the use of Live as a music composition environment for those working in film, and was added as a feature request made by the growing number in the film industry who love Live as a composing tool. As such, the main use is simply to view a movie clip while working on scoring the music. It therefore does not (at this stage) export video at all. The music has to be exported once you are done with it and then assembled back with the movie itself in your video editing software such as Premiere Pro or Vegas.

If you use Sonar for video work, you will probably want to stick with it; it seems far more advanced for working with video/film at this point. However, if you love composing in the Ableton environment, this new feature will be useful by allowing you to run your movie inside the program synced to Live, and this is what the "real benefit" is.

I hope that helps. If you want to know more specifics though, this has been discussed in detail on the Ableton "General" forum (and probably the beta forum too, which is public view). Predicably there are those who moan that it was even added because they can't see beyond their own needs; ... but there are plenty of others who work with film and say it will be really useful. As I mentioned before, I suspect that sector will be pressing for more advanced features in Live 7.

I don't use Sonar for video nor do I use Live. I use a video editor. Avid has a subsection of Pro-Tools built in that allows for many audio functions as well as midi and most editors will multitrack audio very capably. Many of them will do surround and many of them are vst and/or dx enabled as well. I do see the monitor function as fairly essential for "sweetening". Beyond that... it's fluff.

I am considering buying Live for it's nifty audio {tuning, squishing, what-have-you} features. I'm not about to lose Sonar or an editor.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

warp markers on video, now that is cool

[RTaylor]

warp markers on video, now that is cool

Not if you can't write the file...

[Jason Brian Merrill]

warp markers on video, now that is cool

Not if you can't write the file...

ahh... indeed!

[headquest]

warp markers on video, now that is cool

Not if you can't write the file...

I don't really understand why they didn't include that already, but I'm pretty sure it will come, probably within months rather than waiting for version 7.

The point of warp markers for video is not to warp the video (amusing though that can be ) but to warp the music TO the video. The warp markers for the video soundtrack become master, and all your other tracks are automatically fitted to the video . Then you simply save the music and add it to the video in your video editing software (which anyone doing this kind of work presumably already has, so I guess that's why Ableton originally thought it not necessary to duplicate that...?)

But lots of users instantly asked for the ability to save it from within Live, and the Abes have already said they will get on to it

[KTHE]

I'm waiting for Sonar 6. They are shipping the last week of September. Yay!

[fandango]

Yep, still debating whether to order via Edirol, pay £15 extra for postage and be confident of getting it soon after release... or ordering from Cakewalk, getting postage for free, and have it arrive a decade after Sonar 12 is released...

(if it arrives at all. I don't understand how a warehouse based in Ireland can have such a problem dispatching to mainland UK... is it despatched by life raft or trained seals or something?)

[whyterabbyt]

Yep, still debating whether to order via Edirol, pay £15 extra for postage and be confident of getting it soon after release... or ordering from Cakewalk, getting postage for free, and have it arrive a decade after Sonar 12 is released...

Last year, when I ordered from CW, it came from Ireland, think it may even have been an Edirol distribution centre. I definitely got it around the same time as folk were getting theirs from from Edirol. The year before though, it was a real struggle even getting info from Edirol.