Cubase SX3 vs. Sonar 4

[lanark]

besides that cakewalk's piano roll editor is one of the best there is. there is a reason that cakewalk went from a one man shop to a big(by niche market standards) company. the piano roll hasnt needed much improvement since PA6, its always been good...

EVEN when the piano roll was an ascii screen on the DOS Cakewalk

[HanafiH]

There is being no bugs absolutely in any Steinberg prouct.

This is it. It is crackwhore infidel muthas who are saying this. I would saw off my own penis with a rusty breadknife to own SX3, who needs a dongle! Ha. And it is absolutely not true that I am in denial. There is no such place around here. Just because it works for me proves there’s nothing wrong with it.

[headquest]

There is being no bugs absolutely in any Steinberg prouct.

This is it. It is crackwhore infidel muthas who are saying this. I would saw off my own penis with a rusty breadknife to own SX3, who needs a dongle! Ha. And it is absolutely not true that I am in denial. There is no such place around here. Just because it works for me proves there’s nothing wrong with it.

[mojkarma]

Dear lanark,

please, do not understand my very personal review or comparation about sonar or cubase personally. It is just a discussion about A vs. B, nothing more or less, and even if I'm wrong with some of my statements, everybody is free to correct me.

You are quite wrong on a LOT of this things, how much time did you spend with SONAR??

I have worked with proaudio 6 and actually own Sonar3 PE that I've used on a daily basis. I have also installed Sonar4 to see what is new and how it works. BTW, I have recorded and arranged a whole commercially released cd on sonar 3.

Please be more precise where I am wrong with all points that I've mentioned. Please read again my post from point 1 to 10 and tell me where I am wrong. Maybe we have a different version of sonar 3 (sonar 3.1.1 to be exact).

What about CAL??? Have you tried it? I'm using it from the MIDI only times in Cakewalk... It's so powerful, and amaizingly, my old ten-years old scripts still work.

Are you serious? CAL is not the same as a macro command. It is a programing language like basic or whatever. I don't say that it is not powerful, the problem is another.
Tell me, what do you think, how many musicians are able, ready, have the time to deep into a programming language to program a specific often used feature?
An example: let's say you want to normalise an audioclip and remove the dc offset. In cubase you create a macro command that joins these two commands, you assign a shortcut and you a ready to apply two (or ten if you want) functions at once. Every single cubase user who is not a total beginner with the program is able to do this.
Now, tell me please how, what and where I have to program a CAL to achieve the same. Just type it here in your post, I'd like to see how it looks like. I'd also like to see here how many sonar users are familiar with programing their own CAL's.
And just for a further comparison, what sonar is able to do with CAL on your midi data, you can also do in Cubase: it is called "logical editor" in the menu midi.

Let me make myself a little bit more clear: I'm not trying to tell anybody that cubase is a better program and that it beats sonar in every aspect. I'm just pointing out some things for that I think they are better implemented in cubase. It is just my very personal opinion.

Fell free to discuss.

[billybk1]

There is being no bugs absolutely in any Steinberg prouct.

This is it. It is crackwhore infidel muthas who are saying this. I would saw off my own penis with a rusty breadknife to own SX3, who needs a dongle! Ha. And it is absolutely not true that I am in denial. There is no such place around here. Just because it works for me proves there’s nothing wrong with it.

Absolutely priceless!
The infamous disinformation minister resurrected.....now Steinbergs new Director of Marketing....LOL

Too Funny!

[ericj23]

this pointless war is helping no-one

can we just agree that both hosts are good

and are better than fruity !

[billybk1]

can we just agree that both hosts are good

I think we are fortunate to many professional quality audio hosts to choose from. It is a sign of a healthy marketplace for audiowares and competition breeds innovation and a quest for excellance. SONAR, Cubase SX, Nuendo, Samplitude you really can't go wrong with either one feature wise these days. I think a lot has to do with cost, copy protection, and personal ease of use. I would never buy a major piece of software without demoing it first anyway. Everyone's needs and expectations are different.

[spaceman]

this pointless war is helping no-one

can we just agree that both hosts are good

and are better than fruity !

I agree.. there' both good, although S4 is slightly better than SX3 and they're both better than FL which is better than Traktion but not as good as 2 pounds of fresh beef in a nice teriyaki sauce.. like the beef in teriyaki I had in Nobu the other day in London.. that was top quality beef, probably the best I've ever had.. I remember thinking 'this beef is really good, I wonder how it compares to other beef in the region? is it better than orion or is orion more something to have between a good fresh sandwich on a hot summer day, you know, with a good cool Hoegaarden to flush it down?' It made me think about how much we take the constellation of orion for granted.. of course, it's orion business to just hang there in the night sky but really.. can't it move a bit more from time to time? Anyway, so there I was contemplating all these different hosts and how they all relate in their own special way to beef and sandwiches and pints of Hoegaarden, en then it hit me that I need to smoke less weed or hang around kvr less often.. anyway.. so S4 <> SX3- orion * FL ^3 = 0

[Rabid]

this pointless war is helping no-one

can we just agree that both hosts are good

and are better than fruity !

And better than fruity? Do you realise the war you just started?

[headquest]

...they're both better than FL which is better than Traktion but not as good as 2 pounds of fresh beef in a nice teriyaki sauce..

For once I find myself not totally agreeing with you Spaceman...

FL is only better than Tracktion if you're having a red whine. If white whine is more your thing then I think you'll find Tracktion will bring out the full flavour of your whine.

Or vice versa.

Whereas Cubase - any version - is good for any sort of whine you like.

[spaceman]

...they're both better than FL which is better than Traktion but not as good as 2 pounds of fresh beef in a nice teriyaki sauce..

For once I find myself not totally agreeing with you Spaceman...

FL is only better than Tracktion if you're having a red whine. If white whine is more your thing then I think you'll find Tracktion will bring out the full flavour of your whine.

Or vice versa.

of course, but I though that was clear from the text
white wine doesn't go with beef that well

[Dschungelfieber]

mojkarma and the others!

Thanx for your comments! I have heard enough to decide, that Sonar isn't for me as I'm a heavy user in the midi department.
It looks like the grouping bug, which makes grouping of automation data and midi parts useless, will be solved in SX 3.01 in about a month. So this will make things better. I really miss the freezing functionality Sonar4 now has, so I will have to rely on bounce til Cubase catches up. (It's my fault as I really like the big CPU eating stuff like resynthesis, FFT fx, Reaktor stuff etc )

[jens]

people have already mentioned the superior freeze in S4.. just thought I'd mention it again

So how is it superior to the freeze in SX3? What are the key differences?

you can edit/move the frozen track, use the audio for other tracks (or loops), enable/disable track fx, add fx to frozen tracks, it only freezes data not empty space, etc.. and it's fast

and it removes the plugs from memory (sfz with malmsjö-piano anyone?)

[TeeLangSun]

this pointless war is helping no-one

can we just agree that both hosts are good

and are better than fruity !

FL is not buggy like Sonar and Cubase. That counts for a whole lot I think.

[griels]

people have already mentioned the superior freeze in S4.. just thought I'd mention it again

So how is it superior to the freeze in SX3? What are the key differences?

you can edit/move the frozen track, use the audio for other tracks (or loops), enable/disable track fx, add fx to frozen tracks, it only freezes data not empty space, etc.. and it's fast

and it removes the plugs from memory (sfz with malmsjö-piano anyone?)

So can SX3, so ner de ner It can do all of those things except editing/moving the frozen tracks. You can use frozen audio as you wish. It's extremely fast now, and only freezes used parts of the track. And it has cupholders

Don't get me wrong, I think Sonar is probably better on the whole in terms of a PC sequencer. I just use Cubase because that's what I know best (and it's crossplatform - just a pecadillo of mine). The MIDI editing features are way ahead of the vast majority of sequencers around, although Cubase and Logic best that in various ways.