Bingo. I have no ill wishes against Cakewalk and sincerely hope things have improved, but their history is relevant.chk071 wrote:But, frankly, i have my doubts that it's taken a magical 180 degree turn, and is perfectly stable now, i know Cakewalk too well now to assume so. Maybe i'm wrong.
SONAR issues...deal breaker?
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- KVRAF
- 4310 posts since 20 Feb, 2004
A well-behaved signature.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1586 posts since 7 Jun, 2007
Yup, as stated I'm considering my options, old versions and new. I don't want to spend a lot of money on this, purely because the performance seems to be such a big unknown. And I'm happy with entry level versions if they aren't too limited.
With secondhand older versions I'd get more features for my $$$, but also a potentially volatile environment.
With secondhand older versions I'd get more features for my $$$, but also a potentially volatile environment.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1586 posts since 7 Jun, 2007
Looks like the best strategy would be to buy into the current version at the lowest price-point...Home Studio at $49, and if that behaves well upgrade to the next level.
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- KVRAF
- 4310 posts since 20 Feb, 2004
Sounds like a good strategy! If you do this, I'd recommend really pushing it under heavy load and seeing how things hold together. Also how workflow suits you after completing an entire song.xalama qo wrote:Looks like the best strategy would be to buy into the current version at the lowest price-point...Home Studio at $49, and if that behaves well upgrade to the next level.
A well-behaved signature.
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- KVRian
- 573 posts since 14 Nov, 2005 from León, Spain
We already noticed that you like to play the village simpleton, but honestly, I think that you are overdoing the part.incubus wrote:Bug fixes are paid updates
Teh fanzois is planning invasion of this thread, you have blasphemed!
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1586 posts since 7 Jun, 2007
JerGoertz wrote:Sounds like a good strategy! If you do this, I'd recommend really pushing it under heavy load and seeing how things hold together. Also how workflow suits you after completing an entire song.xalama qo wrote:Looks like the best strategy would be to buy into the current version at the lowest price-point...Home Studio at $49, and if that behaves well upgrade to the next level.
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- KVRAF
- 7540 posts since 7 Aug, 2003 from San Francisco Bay Area
I've been using Sonar since v4. Some versions have been better than others, but I'm pretty happy with the current state of things. I don't consider the current Sonar any more or less buggy than any of the other major DAWs.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.
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- KVRian
- 888 posts since 31 May, 2008 from Australia
SONAR is plagued with many long standing bugs which continue to go unaddressed year after year after year, depending on your use, some serious. SONAR is full to the brim with quirks, idiosyncrasies, stuff which should work as described but doesn't, requiring one of MANY, MANY, MANY required workarounds. To long time users of SONAR who have out of necessity learnt all these various workarounds over the years, SONAR is stable, but they forget that all of these required workarounds to make the program work as it should are second nature to them, thus avoiding many of the crashes, unexpected behaviors and down right weirdness, but to someone without the prior knowledge of the required workarounds, many of which can be lengthy and cumbersome, well it may be a different story.
While X3 was fairly stable, and Platinum has built on that, the above still needs to be taken into account. I started with Cakewalk back in the Pro Audio Days, and am a Lifetime member today, although I don't use it much, just checking in every now and then to see what's been fixed and how things are going.
My take is, and this is well known and even acknowledged by Cakewalk (they have said that were going to cut into the core of SONAR, removing/replacing all the old and inefficient code, I believe the words they used were "take the knife to SONAR's core removing the old inefficient code"), the very heart of SONAR is very old, they just keep slapping things on without fixing underlying issues, and things just start breaking. With each update comes the real risk of something that worked last update being broken in the new, and this happens all the time, spend a bit of time at the forums and you will see that it is true, it's a fact. Continual and ongoing issues with Cakewalk products, not just SONAR, but instruments and fx, Rapture Pro, Zeta, etc, etc, dropping into 'Demo Mode' thus not allowing the user to even use the product, support is virtually non existent and has been for a year or more, although they will tell you they have fixed it, and the fanbois will say it's all good, again go to the forums and spend a little time looking around and you will see for yourself (be quick before they delete the threads or move it to a dark corner out of plain view). SONAR, to me now feels very clunky, old, cumbersome, I just don't like spending much time in it, things may turn around down the track (hence my lifetime membership) although I highly doubt it myself. It's been over 2 years since I jumped ship from Platinum and I find things where I am now far more stable, intuitive, and just far quicker to get things done, and none of the annoyances that SONAR is full of. One of the main cries you here on the SONAR forums all the time is how you should always save, save, save, you should have your ctrl/s shortcut key fingers primed and firing, while that may be good advice to save, with SONAR they tell you to save far more often, some say they save after each modification, why is that? simply because SONAR is very crash prone, there is no other reason. Since I jumped ship, the only time I save is when I am shutting down for the day, or switching projects etc, and in the last 2 + years I have not once lost a thing. Then there are the audio engine drop outs, can happen anytime and for any reason going by posts in their forums, never heard of audio engine drop outs outside of SONAR, SONAR is the only place I have experienced such nonsense. Again if you doubt any of this, spend some time searching and reading the SONAR forums, and see for yourself. But beware, it is full of rabid fanbois who will make any excuse to show SONAR as the perfect DAW, they will blame things on 3rd party plugins, pilot error or your machine is crap, failing that they will descend on you like a pack of wolves calling you a troll and all manner of things, so if you are going to say something, try to keep it positive, they like that, they don't like having their bubble burst, they prefer to live in denial, oblivious to reality.
While X3 was fairly stable, and Platinum has built on that, the above still needs to be taken into account. I started with Cakewalk back in the Pro Audio Days, and am a Lifetime member today, although I don't use it much, just checking in every now and then to see what's been fixed and how things are going.
My take is, and this is well known and even acknowledged by Cakewalk (they have said that were going to cut into the core of SONAR, removing/replacing all the old and inefficient code, I believe the words they used were "take the knife to SONAR's core removing the old inefficient code"), the very heart of SONAR is very old, they just keep slapping things on without fixing underlying issues, and things just start breaking. With each update comes the real risk of something that worked last update being broken in the new, and this happens all the time, spend a bit of time at the forums and you will see that it is true, it's a fact. Continual and ongoing issues with Cakewalk products, not just SONAR, but instruments and fx, Rapture Pro, Zeta, etc, etc, dropping into 'Demo Mode' thus not allowing the user to even use the product, support is virtually non existent and has been for a year or more, although they will tell you they have fixed it, and the fanbois will say it's all good, again go to the forums and spend a little time looking around and you will see for yourself (be quick before they delete the threads or move it to a dark corner out of plain view). SONAR, to me now feels very clunky, old, cumbersome, I just don't like spending much time in it, things may turn around down the track (hence my lifetime membership) although I highly doubt it myself. It's been over 2 years since I jumped ship from Platinum and I find things where I am now far more stable, intuitive, and just far quicker to get things done, and none of the annoyances that SONAR is full of. One of the main cries you here on the SONAR forums all the time is how you should always save, save, save, you should have your ctrl/s shortcut key fingers primed and firing, while that may be good advice to save, with SONAR they tell you to save far more often, some say they save after each modification, why is that? simply because SONAR is very crash prone, there is no other reason. Since I jumped ship, the only time I save is when I am shutting down for the day, or switching projects etc, and in the last 2 + years I have not once lost a thing. Then there are the audio engine drop outs, can happen anytime and for any reason going by posts in their forums, never heard of audio engine drop outs outside of SONAR, SONAR is the only place I have experienced such nonsense. Again if you doubt any of this, spend some time searching and reading the SONAR forums, and see for yourself. But beware, it is full of rabid fanbois who will make any excuse to show SONAR as the perfect DAW, they will blame things on 3rd party plugins, pilot error or your machine is crap, failing that they will descend on you like a pack of wolves calling you a troll and all manner of things, so if you are going to say something, try to keep it positive, they like that, they don't like having their bubble burst, they prefer to live in denial, oblivious to reality.
Say 'NO' to Clap
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- Banned
- 5357 posts since 7 May, 2015
You're lucky you are in this position. When X2 came out, there was no demo (not for quite some time) and that dude that used to work there put out this webinar type thing that was awesome. I had given up on sonar (8.5 was ok, X1 was.........meh ish) and took the plunge.
Not only did it not work properly and poof crash all the time (which I had not run into with previous versions) it had ONE LOUSY UPDATE. ONE. ONE UPDATE.
I'm not bitter about it, not at all
But after that and the "promises promises" IF I paid for a new update, I just blew it off. Still, I hear more people complain about technical issues about sonar than anything else.
Not only did it not work properly and poof crash all the time (which I had not run into with previous versions) it had ONE LOUSY UPDATE. ONE. ONE UPDATE.
I'm not bitter about it, not at all
But after that and the "promises promises" IF I paid for a new update, I just blew it off. Still, I hear more people complain about technical issues about sonar than anything else.
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- KVRAF
- 7540 posts since 7 Aug, 2003 from San Francisco Bay Area
Major changes to the core have been made in recent updates, such as revamped audio and midi handling. I'm going from memory here, but yes, they have indeed been putting in a lot of work under the hood.
Also, you could argue that almost any major DAW other than Bitwig or Studio One has a ton of "old legacy code" which needs rewriting. That isn't unique to Sonar.
I can't think of any workarounds I've had to develop for parts of the program which don't work as advertised. It's a big program though, and maybe those buggy features are simply ones that I don't use.
Again, I don't claim that Sonar is flawless. All DAWs have bugs, and Sonar is no exception. I'm pretty happy with the major work they've been putting in for the past couple of years though, and there is no indication that they're slowing down at all.
Also, you could argue that almost any major DAW other than Bitwig or Studio One has a ton of "old legacy code" which needs rewriting. That isn't unique to Sonar.
I can't think of any workarounds I've had to develop for parts of the program which don't work as advertised. It's a big program though, and maybe those buggy features are simply ones that I don't use.
Again, I don't claim that Sonar is flawless. All DAWs have bugs, and Sonar is no exception. I'm pretty happy with the major work they've been putting in for the past couple of years though, and there is no indication that they're slowing down at all.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.
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- Banned
- 5357 posts since 7 May, 2015
Contrary to popular opinion, I'm gladdeastman wrote:Major changes to the core have been made in recent updates, such as revamped audio and midi handling. I'm going from memory here, but yes, they have indeed been putting in a lot of work under the hood.
Also, you could argue that almost any major DAW other than Bitwig or Studio One has a ton of "old legacy code" which needs rewriting. That isn't unique to Sonar.
I can't think of any workarounds I've had to develop for parts of the program which don't work as advertised. It's a big program though, and maybe those buggy features are simply ones that I don't use.
Again, I don't claim that Sonar is flawless. All DAWs have bugs, and Sonar is no exception. I'm pretty happy with the major work they've been putting in for the past couple of years though, and there is no indication that they're slowing down at all.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1586 posts since 7 Jun, 2007
Thanks for the input guys!
@ jinotsuh, what kind of workarounds are needed? Avoiding certain ways of performing a task? Changing audio device drivers, or ASIO to WDM etc? Can you give some insights here pls? Tx
@ jinotsuh, what kind of workarounds are needed? Avoiding certain ways of performing a task? Changing audio device drivers, or ASIO to WDM etc? Can you give some insights here pls? Tx
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- KVRian
- 589 posts since 19 Jan, 2008 from Bethlehem, PA USA
the only times Sonar was unstable for me was back when i was trying to bridge 32 bit plugins into the 64 bit version, oh, and that time that it turned out to be NI Maschine's fault.
my newest sounds:
https://soundcloud.com/the-das-kaput
Cakewalk by BandLab, Komplete 13, Maschine 2 (MKI & Jam), Fathom Synth, Guitars, Jam Origin MIDI Guitar, EXH Superego+ etc
https://soundcloud.com/the-das-kaput
Cakewalk by BandLab, Komplete 13, Maschine 2 (MKI & Jam), Fathom Synth, Guitars, Jam Origin MIDI Guitar, EXH Superego+ etc
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- Rad Grandad
- 38041 posts since 6 Sep, 2003 from Downeast Maine
absolutely no call for this blatant flaming and trolling, you and incubus have gone at it in other Sonar threads and you wont start it here again. Okay?JoseC. wrote:
We already noticed that you like to play the village simpleton, but honestly, I think that you are overdoing the part.
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.