Sonar 5 has arrived...

[deastman]

Am I the only one who is annoyed that they keep referring to Pentagon I as a "vintage analog synthesizer"?

Still, native VST support!

[JeffSanders]

I've got a god damn chubby right now.

[audiojunkie]

I heard rumors a while back that Cakewalk was thinking about <cough cough> adding some added copy protection into this version. This sounded scary and very unlike Cakewalk. Does anyone know what the copy protection is for Sonar 5? I sure hope Cakewalk didn't change. It's one of the reasons I like them so much.

--Sean

[LIMITAPROACHINGINFINITY]

if its dongle count me out.

[munchkin]

It certainly has got a lot of new features but since I upgraded to Sonar 4 I've gone off it. I'm using ACID 5. It may have a lot less going for it but it's a lot simpler for loop based music. I even find their midi implimentation easier to use.

I used to love Sonar but now I get confused just looking at all the options. I wish they had a basic and advanced view so that I could close all the superfluous stuff I don't need.

I'm also uncertain about how all the synth and other extras fit in with the overall uniformity of Sonar. I think it's good that they get other devs on board but it doesn't seem to hang together that well in my opinion compared to Live, ACID, Logic etc. Dare I say, 'bloatware'?

I've also found ACID to be a lot more stable when it comes to automation and editing - even on the fly. Sonar 4 seems to loose automation information and the audio & midi loop editing process is still very clunky imo. I can't rely on it when I need to whizz round the screen and adjust my tracks like I can with ACID. Sonar crashes a lot more often than ACID on my system and I wonder if that's because it's a lot more complex. Even tempo editing in Sonar takes a number of steps. Maybe the upgrade has fixed all of this but I won't be upgrading until I've tried the demo.

It's definitely a humungous upgrade but sometimes less is more.

[ModuLR]

yes a declutter option would be useful for us minimal folks!

[moonlite]

FINALLY!

ironically, i was swearing out loud tonight because i couln't find "cakestep" to test it ... step recording is a must for me ...

... but then i just thaugth "oh, well, i hate the wrapper anyway, so let's just drop it"

and an hour or so later i find this topic ..

i'm SO excited ... i want it now! ;P

[SleepyP]

it'll be hitting retail next month. my brother (a big Sonar user) will finally get to see all those "crazy VST plugins" i keep telling him about
so now Sonar is up there with Cubase and Nuendo in being able to host DX AND VST, any other hosts capable of both?

[LIMITAPROACHINGINFINITY]

Damnit.. Now i have to pay 260 bucks upgrade just to use intrack midi editing.. I think the cubase crossgrade costs less.. Might go that route.

[lebaron]

I am SO glad about this:
"NEW—Integrated inline audio and MIDI editing, arranging, and mixing all in one view"

This alone is reason to upgrade for me, especially the ability to edit midi notes in the track view along side all the other tracks.

In fact I've already pre-ordered.

End of Sept. Much sooner than I expected.

Can't wait!

[kL]

Mousewheel zooming? If it's there, I'm there.

Exactly. I've been asking for it since Sonar 3 -- lack of it after repeated requests is the main reason I never upgraded to 4.

It's so obvious: mousewheel zoom.

[Stairsteps]

Im an avid Sonar 4 user and will continue to do so, not that I dont see a few improvments, mind you I see alot that they added that I for one have been using other methods or other products to achieve the same results. NEW—BitBridge™ enables 32-bit VST effects and instruments in SONAR’s 64-bit environment
is the only thing that interest me atm, but Sonar 4 is not hard at all to edit midi or audio, and the GUI that everyone seems to think is cluttered can be fully customised to your liking. But I gladley recomend Sonar 5, As even though I dont need it with all I have hooked up to Sonar 4 and all I cant recomend it enough and Ive been recording music on computers since the early Commodore Amiga days of Music X and Bars and Pipes, Long before Mark of the unicorn was even thinking about MOTU for Mac.

Sequencers I have tried on Windows XP platform are Samplitude- very nice program but dosent cover all the bases that Sonar does
Cubase SX -Love the GUI and the layout but sluggish performance running alot of Vstis and does'nt work with Dxi stuff , which means nothing except for a few must haves like Dimension and Sonitus.
Logic-Very weird but powerful GUI very object based GUI but seems very powerful I was completley put off by this product, I want to get my songs down as quick as possible without marrying the frigging sequencer.
FruityLoops- Deciveing looking but powerfull, at first looks like a toy but can do rap and R&B stuff probley the best of the bunch here so far, but no where near the power I need for a full mix so I use it rewired to Sonar.
AbletonLive- Weird new way of doing things deff not old school its very different looking and was put off right away with it but I hear everyone loving on this so I'll be quite.
Traction- Never tried this and considering all the writeins about how something dosent work with it I'll be sure to stear clear of it, even though it seems to have ravinous fans here at Kvr I see a new problem posted every day on the forums about this product so for now im staying away from it, And from what I have checked out from there very own web page this is no way near the power of Sonar 4.

[SecondSkin]

Damnit.. Now i have to pay 260 bucks upgrade just to use intrack midi editing.. I think the cubase crossgrade costs less.. Might go that route.

Noone ever pays the full upgrade cost for cw products, do they??? Hell, they are still sending me discount offers (almost daily) and I haven't upgraded since Sonar 2.

[Sascha Franck]

Damnit.. Now i have to pay 260 bucks upgrade just to use intrack midi editing.. I think the cubase crossgrade costs less.. Might go that route.

Really, why would you need it?
Seriously, I've been very excited when reading about it as being a feature in SX 3.
Now that I got it, take a deep breath and guess how often I've actually used it! Right on: Never.
To me, it only makes sense when adjusting certain beats/notes to audio events. But, after all I had to find out that I rarely ever need to do so.

It'd be a lot smarter if inline MIDI editing (of course I can only talk about SX here) would feature a bunch of sub-options, such as "auto track zoom", "autozoom to fit screen", "autozoom to fit locators", "autozoom to fit selection" and "autozoom to user defined zoom factor", which obviously should happen automatically as soon as I'd select a track or part.
For arrange size editing (usually way more zoomed out than what you'd set your piano roll to), in line MIDI editing is almost making no sense and I find myself permanently zooming back and fourth, so I actually don't use it at all for any daily MIDI editing jobs. So for me it'd only make sense if I could quickly switch to any desired vertical and horizonzal zoom setting along with it (would be best if it also remembered the last used setting and no additional shortcuts or operations would be required to get you there).
Maybe they've done it better than in Cubase - but if they just did it the same way... well, I couldn't see myself using it.

However, there's quite some good lookig features coming along with Sonar 5. I hope they made the interface a bit more appealing to my taste, I never liked the overall layout at all.

Too bad I'm working quite a lot on x-platform projects.

[DeBro]

I heard rumors a while back that Cakewalk was thinking about <cough cough> adding some added copy protection into this version. This sounded scary and very unlike Cakewalk. Does anyone know what the copy protection is for Sonar 5? I sure hope Cakewalk didn't change. It's one of the reasons I like them so much.

--Sean

They introduced a new copy protection scheme with the recently released Sonar Home Studio 4. When you placed an order to upgrade, the program is pre-registered. They then send you an e-mail before or after the the program has arrived containning the Serial # and a Registration Code. Once you've entered the Serial #, you can use the program for 30 days without entering the Registration Code. Buying a box version from a retailer is somewhat similar. Anyhow, it can be install on more that one computer.