First official SONAR 4 review is in!

[stale bread]

couldn't agree with you more soulata, tracktion is the one to watch next
but I'd say that Live 5 is in the best release position to be, being that live 4 is verymuch capable of hangin with what's going on right now.

[whyterabbyt]

Yeah, always good to compare a product thats just been released yesterday with the next version of a product that just came out a month ago. Authorititive insight or what?




Might as well start claiming everything else is redundant because of what they're 'probably' going to put into Sonar 7. <sigh>

[stale bread]

easy does it there, I didn't mean to make you sigh with my computer, i'm
just having conversation of interest here do i actualy need to type in my authoritive voice?....I'm just a student of the greater minds that prevail here like yourself, I have no authority, seniority, or reputation to uphold. I just like sonar a less than when i bought it and Live and tracktion much more, i come in peace.

[whyterabbyt]

Fair enough; its not you personally, as much as how much prejudgement goes on from people who never used what they're talking about at all.

Im sure T2 and L5 are going to be damn fine pieces of software, whenever they arrive. But I dont use them, and Im very happy with the evolution of the tools I do use. Personally I think S4 is a 'maturation' of the product; it looks like it fills all the major gaps its established users have brought up, and it does so in a pretty much 'best of class' way. Although, no doubt, individual features may be excelled elsewhere, as a whole, it looks very impressive to a long-term user.

I'll say for sure in a fortnight when it turns up in the UK.

As always, no one size fits all, try all the demos, find your own path grasshopper, yadda yadda yadda....

[tetraplan]

looks like they stole the navigator view among other things from Live, [...]

There are many applications that use navigator windows.
Looking at the specs, if they "stole" anything from another app, it could just as well be something like Premiere Pro or Avid.

I like sonar, spent almost 4oo bucks on it by the way if anyone wants to buy it from me for cheap pm me, any way the first thing I thought about when I saw this article is you know the next version of ableton live is going to kill it,

Well, not to bash Live, but Live 4 was supposed to be the Sonar-killer according to some comments.
This will go on as long as these apps exist.
Anyway, Live and Sonar are two conceptually completely different apps.

in the interest of making things simpler the traditional apps are still bloating, i imagine they will continue until they burst. there are definitely some nice features there but it looks like it will take two people to lift the app, these manufacturers are kind of like the big record labels, they just don't get it yet.

This depends entirely on your needs.
For me, the new features (just about all of them) are very, very welcome additions I wish I had acess to the last month and a half.
So much so that, for the price, I might as well go all the way and get the Producer edition.
Bloat? Yes please!

Live 5 will turn these trad. sequencers on their heads when it comes out while at the same time improving workflow (if thats even possible) and simplifying the user interface, not to mention it will have a few goodies that these other guys just aren't capable of.

Live 5 will take another year or so to be released. This is pointless speculation.
By that time, there will be a Sonar 5, a Cubase SX4, &c.

one could look at Live 4 right now and almost kid ones self what Live 5 is going to be like only knowing that it's going to be damn good that's for sure.

One could, but it would be pointless.

Groet, Erik

[billybk1]

i come in peace.

May you live long and prosper, my friend!

[WillieJenkins]

Sonars bus routing is the best among all the sequencers imo, and once you learn to really use the dynamic console, thats a leading edge feature (for me at least).

People also forget Sonar was the first with full PDC, and a freeze function (called archive). Which is why when the rest of the world caught up with Sonar in both those categories, Sonar users replied 'We already have that'

I agree imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and seeing as how quick both PDC and Freeze were imitated, Cakewalkers must be doing something right. Look for the bus routing to be copied next, at which point again, I will merely say, 'ahh, sonar had that'

BTW, I use a Sonar / Live combo, and imo they're totally different products with totally different mindsets. Also, SX3, I want in-place midi editing, and external hardware delay compensation, those features are very impressive.

-Eric

[munchkin]

Sonar users replied 'We already have that'

Many times have I declared this and heard it echo'd through 't land.

I'm very pleased with Sonar 4. The multiple takes option is going to be the most useful development for me (considering my crap playing and singing). My only criticism is that synths use up two tracks in Sonar. I wish Cakewalk would think up a more elegant solution like having one track that can be toggled for midi or audio. Or do what Live does and just have a midi track where audio FX can be used. But apart from that I turn to Sonar when I want to record audio.

I have Live 4 and it is very good but in a different way to Sonar. I think they compliment each other. I also have Vegas Video and all three work very well together. Sonar is great for linear recording and song construction. Live takes a pattern based approach so it's great for throwing audio and midi clips at and creating complex pattern based songs. And Vegas combines the two approaches except it doesn't have midi and is audio and video based. All three overlap in their capabilities so it's not very useful to claim that one is better than the other IMO.

[soulata]

hmm

I've tried a sonar 3 demo today and even that looks quite impressive. Last time I've tried Sonar it was ver 1.x.

What I don't like about it is

a) it's not very intuitive (I had to think how to get a working vsti, and could not record it after 2 min)

b) Why DXi (+ the ones in the demo suck)

Looks nice anyway, I'll give the S4 a try.

k

[stale bread]

yeah this S4 version looks like something i would've dropped a load of cash on b4, i'm not saying that sonar is bad, maybe i sounded that way, but i'm just moving philosophicly in a different direction I guess, more towards live and energy xt, but like i said i own sonar right now, no plan to upgrade but i'm not the type that's just gives blind loyalty to an app or platform so if sonar goes well with this release i might just upgrade for the sake of being well rounded if luxury permits.

[Funkybot]

I was hoping to see a bunch of features that weren't in Cubase.

I can't think of anyone else that has something like the Surround Bridge plug-in. Let's face it most of these features are scattered about other hosts, but Sonar 4 seems to have all these features in one package. Cakewalk has nailed it.

[stale bread]

it has come a long way, i remember when i first got it no one gave it any respect.

[WillieJenkins]

yeah stale bread, me too.

When I first started getting into electronic based music making, sonar 1, sx1 and logic 5 were the options (I think), so I got the demos of them all (my friend actually had logic, dp, and pro tools at teh time) and tried them all out and picked the most intuitive one for me, which was Sonar hands down. It wasn't until I got online and everyone started bashing me that I realized Cakewalk had a bad rep.

But as the revs have come out, slowly but surely all my friends get in the studio and are like 'wow, it can do this? and that?' heh.

hey munchkin. For single out dxi/vsti, the 2 track thing is definitely a PITA, but if you need 8 or 16 outs from kontakt, then it becomes useful I've found.

Also, with the new track folders in S4, I'm planning on stuffing those 2 tracks into one track folder to solve the issue. I'm also going to email cakewalk to see if they can make it an option for 4.1!!

[spaceman]

hey munchkin. For single out dxi/vsti, the 2 track thing is definitely a PITA, but if you need 8 or 16 outs from kontakt, then it becomes useful I've found.

Also, with the new track folders in S4, I'm planning on stuffing those 2 tracks into one track folder to solve the issue. I'm also going to email cakewalk to see if they can make it an option for 4.1!!

I agree, just a way to hide the midi or audio tracks for softsynths would do for now

[billybk1]

I agree, just a way to hide the midi or audio tracks for softsynths would do for now

Press "M" to open the Track Manager and hide & unhide any tracks to your hearts delight. You can also group tracks into all audio and MIDI, so one click will hide unhide all your MIDI tracks with one mouse click. With SONAR 4's new improved keybindings you will probably be able to assign that task to one keystroke, Hide/Unhide all MIDI tracks.