Cubaser thinking of turning to Sonar 6 instead of Cubase 4

[captain caveman]

Again, there *have* been improvements and changes to the Sonar MIDI editing since v2, aside from the inline MIDI editing. Whether these enhancements are enough to sway users of other sequencers is obviously a matter of taste and opinion. But to say that Cake hasn't touched the MIDI editing simply isn't true.

Although improvements must have been made, I came into the show in version 5 of Sonar and it still has a long way to go to be as usable as Cubase IMO.

A lot of posters on the Sonar forum feel the same way. Cakewalk have even acknowledged that they are to focus on MIDI for the next big release.

So to say "whether these enhancements are enough to sway users....." is sort of missing the point, because they are just "catch-up" things that are being added. Catching up to Cubase/Logic/FLS/Tracktion et al.

MIDI isn't it's strong point.

[Jonathan1977]

I just transfered from cubase to Sonar6, for the new 64bit audio Engine. It does sound great. But after several days using,

I feel at lost sometimes when many things
changed and I cann't do it in the usual same way which I get used to. In cubase , there are many useful and practical little

tools designed for editing.

I hope that Sonar will have these new features in the future version:

New feautures request :

1.A must have function---- show the note name of the midi event in the piano view window. In this way it is more easy to recognize and edit the chord.

2.Add a Parabola draw tool in the Piano view window. It can save us lots of time when editting controllers such as experssion

and pitchbend envet .Very very important and useful.


3.In the Piano view window and drum editor window, adustting different layer of velocity when serveral notes overlap

vertically should be possible, insted of using notes property window. In the meantime, mouse wheel can increase/decrease

selected notes velocity easily.



4.Auto quantize function when recording midi notes, the notes we record are automatically quantized according to a quantize

settings.


5. Add a Quantize Ends Command in the Quantize menu, by whicn we can quantize selected notes' endtime.

6.Add a input midi property function in the Piano view window , by whicn we can record notes property like pitch and velocity

through midi keyboard to selected notes , leaving the exact timing unchanged.


7.Open a vsti or dxi instrument interface directly in the Piano view would be very convenient if Possible.



8.Please show the program change event in the Controller Lane. In that case I can edit this

event . For example, when I use a Kontakt 2 strings bank, in the first note I use program

2--- violins p-f short instrument, in the next note I use program 11 -- Violins short

instrumet, then in the next phase I use program 12 --Fast Run Down instrument, and so on.

But in sonar, the program change event doen't show in the controller lane, it's very hard

to do such thing.


9. Please add a mute tool in the piano window . using this tool we can mute the note here instead of go back to the project window to
mute the event of track.

10. Please add a split and a glue tools in the piano window by which we can split notes and glue notes together.

11.External effect can be use as a plugin .

12.A tape machine style record monitoring mode would be very pratical and useful.

[mellotronaut]

I recently upgraded from Sonar 2 to 6 and i love all the audio enhancements a lot, but i have to say as before (version 2.2) i don't like its midi. It isn't that much within four years of developement, more a facelifting. The only thing i'm really excited about is the direct use of vsts.
I don't like Cubase that much, but it's midi-plugs are way better than Sonar's, though they look better now.

[fandango]

3.In the Piano view window and drum editor window, adustting different layer of velocity when serveral notes overlap

vertically should be possible, insted of using notes property window. In the meantime, mouse wheel can increase/decrease

selected notes velocity easily.

ARGH! Agreed. This issue has me gnashing my teeth every time I use the piano roll in Sonar. I'm amazed that is issue isn't fixed yet. When you select certain notes, dragging in the velocities area should affect only those selected notes.

It can be done, sort of, with a certain method, but you can't use the line tool, so it's worthless enough to not bother mentioning in any detail. Come on Cakewalk, even the most basic sequencers have this!

[Jonathan1977]

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=958359

You can post your request here...

[whyterabbyt]

4.Auto quantize function when recording midi notes, the notes we record are automatically quantized according to a quantize

settings.

Update to 6.2; this is included.

[Dorian Gray]

I found Sonar 6 just as cumbersome as any previous version, without things coming naturally. When I have to read the manual just to get a part to loop well .....

Part of the program look tacked on or made by somebody else because the general GUI looks like new bits added with old bits.

The Piano roll is crap, I don't know how you can make a piano roll crap, but both cake and stein seem to keep doing it after all these years.

Since want midi editing, this is a no no. Actually I have found the piano roll editing of fruity loops studio to be the best of all sequencers by far, with it great options.

Then you have the massive mixer, why have a massive mixer, sorry that does not impress me, but might do others.

A cumbersome app stuck in the past, just like cubase.

Dg

[kmonkey]

I found Sonar 6 just as cumbersome as any previous version, without things coming naturally. When I have to read the manual just to get a part to loop well .....

Part of the program look tacked on or made by somebody else because the general GUI looks like new bits added with old bits.

The Piano roll is crap, I don't know how you can make a piano roll crap, but both cake and stein seem to keep doing it after all these years.

Since want midi editing, this is a no no. Actually I have found the piano roll editing of fruity loops studio to be the best of all sequencers by far, with it great options.

Then you have the massive mixer, why have a massive mixer, sorry that does not impress me, but might do others.

A cumbersome app stuck in the past, just like cubase.

Dg

And you are using what? Asking because of what you said about mixer. I can agree 100% with you about mixer. Great options but why so big? Probably because it sound better when it's bigger Btw i did quick run in sonar. Though i did not spend big time and i did not look in to manual how the hell can i draw midi clips? I mean in cubase you just select pen tool and you can draw midi clip. It does not work here. Yes, yes i know probably stupid question, but keep in mind that i am several years old cubase user (tryin to find another boat ). This is so easy in cubase. What magic trick/tool i must use?

[davor]

This is really, really tedious for drum programming since you can't (for example) draw in a swell of velocity on a snare fill without hitting everything else that's going one simultaneously (kick for example).

This really is crap compared to Cubase. As far as MIDI is concerned, there's no other sequencer that comes even close to Cubase / Nuendo.

[kp]

You don't *need* to draw MIDI clips in SONAR - it does it for you (you can then change their size/split them etc once they exist).

This is the kind of thing a host should do in my opinion: I shouldn't need to do work that the host can do for me.

[finalfantasy8]

2 dinosaur apps. several dedicated fanboys. ONE choice.

coming to theaters 2/7/2069

[fandango]

[edit - actually, it's not that bad]

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[mojkarma]

Some Sonar users here thinks that Cakewalk has improved midiediting since Sonar3.
There are actually 2 (two) improvements.
1. One can turn a midiclip into a acid style clip with the ability to quickly copy (shorten/lengthen) a clip,
2. The ability to change the length of multiple notes at once.

The first one is a nice feature added with sonar 3, the second one is a great feature for sonarusers, since they were the last one who weren't able to do this (even protools had this feature before sonar).

I think it is unfair to say that steinberg doesn't listen to its users, because the same is true for cakewalk if you consider midi. Midi wise, sonar can't do things, which are part of cubase for at least 10 years: muting, gluing, splitting midi notes, to name just a few.
One of the worst things in sonar: the already mentioned controller lane, which shows you all controller edits as overlaps. The worst thing is actually that you have to move the mouse pointer to the upper left screen to select which controller you want to edit, than you have to move down at the bottom of the screen to apply your edits. This is just retarded and has nothing to do with any improvement. They should hire at cakewalk somebody who uses a little bit more midi than my grandma.
Another big downside of sonar is that a shortcut produces different results, depending which view you use. The key D selects the draw tool in the pianoroll. But on the arrange view, it shows you the project overview. And in the inline pianoroll (on the arrangeview) it does nothing! That is simply crazy. You need three different shortcuts to evoke the same function, depending on which screen you are.
Sonar has big improvements on the audioside, but most other aspects of this software are worse than on some shareware sequencers. Just take the audiometronome as an example. Not only that they were the last one who implemented it (in version 4); after three versions, you are still not able to turn the audio metronome on or off while the song is playing without producing an audiogap, which makes the metronome almost useless. I like Cakewalk for some sentimental reasons, but I would rather deal with a dongle protected software instead of using a sequencer with non existed or half implemented features which are clearly not coming from people who actually makes music. The most important feature in Sonar is something called "workaround".
Sorry for the harsh words, it is just my humble opinion.
Feel free to discuss.

[aaastronomer]

I'll try answer this question without getting ugly as described above since I personally ... dislike Sonar.

I find that if you are used to Cubase and have used it extensively, Sonar "might" be really really confusing and illogical to you. Especially in regards to things like...

- General workflow / simplicity ... Cubase has a much more neat layout where tools are only accessible in limited ways. Sonar presents all tools, everywhere.
- Audio file organisation (Cubase and Logic are the bees knees here)
- Sample editing
- MIDI editing (Cubase is far superior)
- General workflow. Sonar works completely different to Cubase in a lot of things.
- Lack of sidechaining, there's no way to do this in Sonar, but there is in Cubase

I have always found that Sonar looks a lot better on paper than it is in practice because the way they choose to implement some features just don't make sense to me like Cubase does.

May I suggest you check out REAPER. I am considering the move away from Cubase too and I have found REAPER a lot easier to move to even though there are still many things I miss from Cubase.

Best of luck & I hope I haven't offended any Sonar users, these are only my observations

Fots

good...i thought it was only me. i find that project 5 and kinetic are much more intuitive...(i'm mostly a live-acid user! )...now, having: cubase sx3, project 5, kinetic 2, reason 3, live 6, acid pro 6, and fl studio 6; i've often thought: what the heck, just get sonar (and get it over with), but i never could get up the energy to climb that learning curve...the environment just has...well, too many notes (i mean, gadgets up front)! still pondering...