KVR Audio

2windy · Post by **2windy** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:29 pm

Long story short. I have a new dual core Athlon DAW on it's way to me. All I'm missing is a soundcard/interface and I've been looking at the Edirol UA25. Turnkey have the Sonar studio pack with UA25 and FULL Sonar 5 for £199 meaning I would get S5 for £60 really. A bargain that would sit along side Orion nicely.

This got me thinking, as Cubase 4 is imminent, whether I should maybe have a change?

I don't really have time to demo Sonar as I'm away until Tues and there isn't a Cubase demo anyway to compare to. I'd appreciate some thoughts on the 2 hosts. As I said I use Orion Plat and the moment and I've used and liked Reason until I found it's limitations. I tend to write dance music and chill out and I already own most top end synths and FX FWIW (although a change may spark a sale).

Not looking for major spiels really just enough to make an informed decision before the offer/stock goes. Cheers

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:33 pm

Is is so strange that there is no Cubase demo.

2windy · Post by **2windy** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:36 pm

I take it it's because of the whole dongle thing?

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:56 pm

There have been comparisons of the two done here before, but with two brand-new versions both within a few weeks of shipping (a) most of those will be outdated and (b) nobody can make an up-to-date comparison.

disturb · Post by **disturb** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 2:02 pm

here we go again...

2windy · Post by **2windy** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 2:10 pm

disturb wrote:here we go again...

Meaning?

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 2:13 pm

AS someone who has used sonarPE since v3 and has recently started collaborating with someone running Cubase SX3 I can offer an opinion, biased due to higher time spent with Sonar:

Sonar seems superior to me still, because of the following reasons:

Superior plugins come with it. Sonitus, Pentagon, Roland, Perfect space, lexicon, new stuff with 6 looks good, etc...

Workflow seems faster on a one screen sytem in Sonar, Cubase seems to require a massive succession of clicks in various mixer/popup windows just to open the bloody synth/effect GUI, wheras in Sonar I have evrything on screen and one double click away and don't need all these bloody pop up windows floating around all over the place.

Groove clip looping is cool...but....

Cubase has far superior audio editing and more control over the snap-to-tempo options than sonar's groove clip. I've also found a variety of bugs with MIDI groove clipping

The GUI and work functionality of Sonar seems generally higher, maybe its because I've used it more, but the world of grey that is default Cubase doesn't inspire much.

Piano roll in sonar seems more user friendly and faster.

Given my experience of the two I'd stick with SonarPE. yeah it has infuriating bugs, but so does cubase.

apparently logic is the shizzle though, but i can't afford a mac so don't even want to look at it...

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 2:18 pm

2windy wrote:I tend to write dance music and chill out and I already own most top end synths and FX FWIW (although a change may spark a sale).

well I guess built in plugins won't sway your opinion in that case. Its probably worth trying to get a play with both hosts, but sonar's groove clip looping does suit loop based music... arg I dunno. I'd go sonar myself.. though there are some serious looping bugs with the latest 5 update.... a plugin without an effect loses sync (!) and if you loop a section you will get an audio dropout... whether they will bother to fix this with the release of 6 is another question.... and indeed they may have carried this over to 6, like the envelope automation bug that carried from 4 to 5...

2windy · Post by **2windy** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 2:22 pm

Thanks a lot Hunter, exactly what I'm after. Yep, Logic would be great but unless I can earn from doing this it's to much expense. I don't really use loops and have Audition anyway so not too fussed on that issue. I'm use to grey as I use 'bland' Orion (I quite like it though!)

WR, tried a search for old thread but can't get past first page for some reason. Tells me no more topics.

The real rush for this is that if you buy Sonar 5SE before 30th Sept you get Sonar 6SE free, and then £69 to get to 6PE. I'm not 100% Power Studio applies to the offer yet but it's only £149 to get to 6PE from it making the cost £210 overall.

Must say I like the look of S6.

mojkarma · Post by **mojkarma** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:08 pm

Hunter wrote:AS someone who has used sonarPE since v3 and has recently started collaborating with someone running Cubase SX3 I can offer an opinion, biased due to higher time spent with Sonar:

Sonar seems superior to me still, because of the following reasons:

Superior plugins come with it. Sonitus, Pentagon, Roland, Perfect space, lexicon, new stuff with 6 looks good, etc...

Yes, definitely superior plug-ins. But lets try for a moment to distinguish between what the sequencer offers by itself. Plugins are add-ons. Not part of the sequencer.

Workflow seems faster on a one screen sytem in Sonar, Cubase seems to require a massive succession of clicks in various mixer/popup windows just to open the bloody synth/effect GUI, wheras in Sonar I have evrything on screen and one double click away and don't need all these bloody pop up windows floating around all over the place.

Well, I can hardly understand that.
The synthrack in Cubase can be opened and closed with the same shortcut: F11.
The same goes for the Mixer: F3...and you can open 3 different views of the mixer and decide what you want to see on them.
I really don't understand, what is it what you see in Sonar and it requires an additional screen in cubase.

Piano roll in sonar seems more user friendly and faster.

Sorry, if I jump on you, but Sonars Pianoroll is so badly designed that it could be studied as a design error, created by people who don't make music with midi.

Compared to cubase:
no split tool, no mute tool, no multiple lanes for various controllers,

instead,
Sonar shows you all controllers in the same lane. You enjoy a great mess and have to move to the uppre left corner of the window to choose a controller, than you have to move down to the bottom of the screen where the controllers are shown and then you try to identify which of all those lines and graphics are the controller you want to edit.

That is really a bad design.

Another thing: if you want to shorten, lenghten the events, you have to change from the select tool to the pencil tool.
An unnecessary step. In that way you are always changing between these two tools every time you want to change something.

In cubase the select tool also shortens and lenghtens the event. You select one or multiple events and change the lenght in one go.

We can discuss about audio features in both sequencers, but the midiarea in sonar can maybe be compared to cubase from the atari days.
Even worse, not a single update midiwise in sonar6. I'm waiting since sonar 2 for some changes, but nothing.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:37 pm

With so overly complex applications like Sonar and Cubase, and not knowing your expectations, work flows, what annoys you, etc. I'd say it's an even draw. They both are VERY capable hosts of doing a lot of things. One will do certain things better than the other, based on one's own OPINION, not fact. You really need to sit down with them to really make an informed decision for yourself, or take a chance and just buy one and live with it. I was lucky that I got a demo for SX1 back in the days when it was actually available. I was up and writing music within an hour or two. As always, thigns will be frustrating at first, but it gets easier as you go.

Devon

ericj23 · Post by **ericj23** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:59 pm

im pretty sure you can get a cubase demo - you can certainly get demos of lots of vsts - but you need to contact your local distributor (and probably pay for a steinberg key thingie)

fandango · Post by **fandango** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:04 pm

DevonB: I'd definately second that.

When I first demoed Sonar, there were things that I thought were really bad.

Yikes, you can't slice notes! Woah, there's no draw-through velocities for selected notes! You can't create empty clips, etc. etc. Then, after being drawn to use it more and more I realised something. It doesn't... really... matter. At worst, it's a few extra steps and, heck, if you can't tolerate that, then where can you find the patience to actually write and complete a whole song?

Sometimes, things you used to think of as tedious (the 2-tracks-per-softsynth thing) become incredibly intuitive in larger projects (e.g., Kontakt2 where you might have to contend with lots of MIDI and Audio channels with different effects bins etc.)

After a while, you don't really tend to think about the little feature requests that somehow used to seem SO-INCREDIBLY-IMPORTANT-WTF-TAEKWONDO-I-CAN'T-MAKE-MUSIC-WITHOUT-IT!!!

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:08 pm

Hmmm...if you're used to Reason, you might find Cubase a little bit more instantly recognizable. But I agree with DevonB, they're so similar now, especially after the next round of updates. If you need to try it out first, which you should, then there is no contest. Steinberg simply do not seem to be interested in providing demos. When I've contacted them about this, they only point out that you can demo Cubase versions that are included with hardware bundles. Pretty dumb.

K-Slash · Post by **K-Slash** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:45 pm

Cubase is better for MIDI, and Sonar better for audio.

No Cubase demo to compare to Sonar - Opinions please