KVR Audio

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:52 am

"billybk1 quoth

Press "M" to open the Track Manager and hide & unhide any tracks to your hearts delight.

Dont forget you can hide any given track by right-clicking and selecting 'Hide'

spaceman · Post by **spaceman** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:22 am

billybk1 wrote:
spaceman wrote: 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.

that would be a 'work around'

it would be nice though to have one shortcut to show/hide the audio or midi track of the SOFT synths ONLY.. otherwise you have to keep going to the track manager everytime you add a new soft synth and you'd have to make 2 short cuts yourself, 1 for the audio parts, 1 for the midi parts

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:34 am

Sine Sonar handles audio effects and MIDI effects, I personally think having 1 to N audio tracks and a MIDI track inserted by default makes prefect sense. I cant understand why it would be done differently.

kp · Post by kp » Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:44 am

And (agreeing with Mr Wabbit :-)), it makes soft-synths work identically to hardware synths: I need one (or more) MIDI tracks to control the synth and one (or more) audio tracks in order to record the output.

Multiple MIDI tracks for the data makes things far more flexible too: for instance, when creating MIDI drums, whether using external MIDI modules, soft-synths or both, I can have one MIDI track for the kick pattern, one for the snare and so on. If I only had one MIDI track per module (or soft-synth), then a trivial copy of a 4 bar kick pattern would turn into an incredibly painful process.

Stupid American Pig · Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:17 pm

At first I thought that the 1 midi track/1 audio track was a pain as well, but it is INFININTELY more flexible, and I much prefer it now...

kp · Post by kp » Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:54 pm

Although spaceman's suggestion ("hide soft synth") would be sensible.

tommy2000 · Post by **tommy2000** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:24 pm

Sonar&Live...that's a fun day for me! Add in a bit of Project5 and Kinetic, the day is complete.

I'm just like a kid in a candy shop with all of the capabilities that both Sonar and Live provide. Consider though, that I migrated off of Mac and Digital Performer a few months ago. Sonar and Live are a true epiphany (didn't use Live on the Mac). Once you unravel the dodgy world of PC-based sound technology, these tools are without peer in my book.

Or perhaps better phrased, they are the tools that give me the most joy to use, plus the added bonus of actual productivity.

I'm really interested in seeing how much of a difference Hyperthreading support makes.

Enjoy all this great technology in whatever way makes you happy.

munchkin wrote:
EricRichmond wrote: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.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:38 pm

I'll be wanting a look at the S4 demo when it arrives. In the meantime I had a good play with the S3 demo recently.

I liked the Groove Clips, Sonitus fx suite and mixer, also the MIDI editing, which is more indepth than Tracktion (my main sequencer at present).

I didn't like the Synths included in the demo. In fact I couldn't make head nor tail of them!! So I downloaded a Project5 demo to boot, hoping that might make up for Sonar's apparent lack of synths.

Oh dear - that was a mistake. The P5 and Sonar 3 synths all look like they were developed about 15 years ago, and seemed so out of place in a state of the art programme like S3.

I hope that S4 will improve on this.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:39 pm

loomchild wrote:Does anyone know if it now handles VSTs natively or does it still require a wrapper like in previous versions?

Doesn't look like it, no. Which is a shame in my view. Native VST might have swayed me for sure. As it is, I'm not sure...

torhan · Post by **torhan** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:44 pm

headquest wrote:I didn't like the Synths included in the demo. In fact I couldn't make head nor tail of them!! So I downloaded a Project5 demo to boot, hoping that might make up for Sonar's apparent lack of synths.

Oh dear - that was a mistake. The P5 and Sonar 3 synths all look like they were developed about 15 years ago, and seemed so out of place in a state of the art programme like S3.

I hope that S4 will improve on this.

Are you really basing your decision on the included synths -- especially when there are terrific free ones available?

dougsyo · Post by **dougsyo** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:47 pm

headquest wrote:I didn't like the Synths included in the demo. In fact I couldn't make head nor tail of them!! So I downloaded a Project5 demo to boot, hoping that might make up for Sonar's apparent lack of synths.

Oh dear - that was a mistake. The P5 and Sonar 3 synths all look like they were developed about 15 years ago, and seemed so out of place in a state of the art programme like S3.

Dreamstation is junk (I'd use Synth1 and/or Triangle 2 instead), and Edirol VSC (replaced in Sonar4) is pretty meager too.

In P5, Velocity (drum synth) is IIRC a cut-down version of DR-008, and PSYN is by Rene (RGCaudio). I like PSYN, it's also bundled with Kinetic.

As far as the wrapper: I guess I'm used to it, because both FLS and Sonar use/require wrappers for VSTI. I don't find it to be a serious impediment - I have to re-scan VSTI in other hosts as well. I have DirectIXer because I skipped the Sonar3 upgrade, so when I get Sonar4 I'll have both.

Doug

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:53 pm

torhan wrote:
Are you really basing your decision on the included synths -- especially when there are terrific free ones available?

Erm... no, not just on the synths actually! But I think some of the other "deciders" have clearly been sorted in v.4. The synths I'm not so sure...

torhan · Post by **torhan** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:58 pm

headquest wrote:
torhan wrote:
Are you really basing your decision on the included synths -- especially when there are terrific free ones available?
Erm... no, not just on the synths actually! But I think some of the other "deciders" have clearly been sorted in v.4. The synths I'm not so sure...

I'll agree the included synths are weak. Hopefully, the new TSS-1 (?) (looks like Hypercanvas) will be better.

WillieJenkins · Post by **WillieJenkins** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:49 am

I heard on the cakewalk forum that TTS isn't as good as Sampletank LE in terms of sounds...ouch

munchkin · Post by **munchkin** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:32 am

An example of how to organise synth tracks in a different way to Sonar is how Live 4 does it. A synth is opened in a midi track. That track can have audio and midi effects on it. For multiple outs just open as many tracks as you need and route the synth outs to them.

First official SONAR 4 review is in!