Live 5 or Sonar Please help

emporerandy · Post by **emporerandy** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:16 pm

Hello,

I am looking at both these apps and I cant figure out which one to get. Below is what I will be using it for mainly.

Recording guitar/mic at home alone.
Production with Reason.
Midi sequencing.

Please let me know why I should get either of these apps.

Thanks.

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 3:00 pm

Live.

No other program interfaces with Reason as easily as Live.

There is nothing you can so in Sonar that you can't do in Live.

There are hundreds of things you can do in Live that you can't do in Sonar.

Plus, Live is $100 cheaper.

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 3:25 pm

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Live.

There is nothing you can so in Sonar that you can't do in Live.

*hoses himself in laughter*

clearly you know your products well .. not!
Personally while I love ableton live, I hate it for sequencing. It is too heavy on the CPU, its freeze is a f*cking hack, and there is a billion other things that it is just not doing well enough for a "studio sequencer".. and it simply does not appeal to my kind of sequencing, so I use it for live purposes only.

Sonar 5, when it comes out later this month.. it's going to be a beast of a software... obviously not suited for live purposes not even remotely, but what it 's supposed to do .. it does it brilliantly. I definately would recommend Sonar to you .. and if you don't need the surround stuff, the price for Sonar studio edition is allmost half of the producer edition..

peace

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:58 pm

So what can you do with Sonar that you can't do with Live?

Your answer is "I can I like the sequencing better in Sonar."

Smart reply.

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:12 pm

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:So what can you do with Sonar that you can't do with Live?

Your answer is "I can I like the sequencing better in Sonar."

Smart reply.

in my reply I did not include a list of things you can do in sonar, that you can't do in live.. why bother ? a smart person can see the software features for themselves on the
cakewalk website.. you clearly haven't done that.

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:17 pm

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Shouldn't you be busy working on Project 5 round about now?

Lo-Fi Massahkah · Post by **Lo-Fi Massahkah** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:30 pm

What the F**K are you guys up to? Get a grip McBoob. I think you're coming on quite strong, there...

Of course, we here at the Ableton forum like Live. Simple as that. But looking at Emporerandy's main uses - I'd say go with Sonar. Or any more "traditional" sequencer. Even something simpler than Sonar, perhaps...

Why don't you try them out? Live has an excellent demo, I think Sonar does as well.

Good luck in your choice!

/Mikael

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:44 pm

Hi emporerandy,
maybe it would help if you added a more complete description of your workflow, since recording, rewíre to reason and sequencing is something both programs do. As you can read, people disagree on which program is best, even on the ableton forum, but i think this is mostly because they're fundamentally different programs. For instance, I could do all of those things you mention without stopping playback once in Live, even do it at a gig - I wouldn't be able to do that with sonar (i think?!?) - conversely, Sonar is a much more detailed production environment, with some more bits and bobs.

But the main thing is the difference in workflow. So go out and get those demos- then buy live5

Andreas

DubGusset · Post by **DubGusset** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:59 pm

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Live.

There is nothing you can so in Sonar that you can't do in Live.

There are hundreds of things you can do in Live that you can't do in Sonar.

Whoaa. Hold on there cowboy. That's as bold as BBQ sauce.

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 9:02 pm

machinate is right on the point where Sonar is not as "realtime" as ableton live is.. but for example; in sonar I can do much more stuff.. have infinite amounts of plugins running where as live would choke my machine trying to run even half of it.. Live has a freeze feature now .. but it seems like it isn't finished or "polished" yet so to me it is pretty useless. Live on the other hand has a more open midi and audio routing which is really nice, but Live's midi "handling" so to speak is bit off putting and envelopes are a nightmare compared to sonar.

sure Live is a fantastic tool to truly experiment with different things but with a little bit of practise and knowledge .. so is sonar.

You should definately try out the demo versions of both softwares.. then buy 4track tape recorder

dj_huck · Post by **dj_huck** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:00 pm

i have used cakewalk and some of it's incarnations ie sonar 4 it is a great program, i would have it and live but i am switching to macs soon and that cans sonar. just something to consider.
one other thing is live is very user friendly mostly anyway

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:42 pm

I did a job interview recently for a ringtone company that used sonar to make polyphonic tones. I'd never used sonar so I downloaded the demo a few days before the time trial of doing a tone in an hour, had a play and despite really not finding it very intuitive got to a point where I thought I knew where alot of things were. When it came to the day I just could not get it to do even the most basic things properly, it was a complete nightmare.

I have been sequencing with midi since the early 90s and spent hundreds of
hours with Logic and then Cubase on just midi (before the Audio days) and could have done what they were asking with my eyes closed, but for some reason I just could not get sonar to do what I wanted it to.

So from that, I'm not saying because I didnt know how to use it it's rubbish, but it certainly isnt intuitive on the midi side and I personally will never go out of my way to use it again.

milfbait · Post by **milfbait** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 2:45 am

Sonar's interface is from the stone age. I don't care if v.5 is coming out, it will still be basically the same interface that it had 10 years ago. Busy and cluttered. Also, Sonar 3 was a CPU hog for me, which is not suprise since DX plugs use more cpu than VST. Version 5 supposedly has native VST support, which is way overdue imo.

Sonar can import video, so that is one thing it can do that Live can't. It also has group tracks, which is pretty cool, but I never got the chance to use them since I stopped using Sonar at v.3. Live requires much less left brain activity when working, allowing your artistic mind more resources. And it is much faster and more intuitive. For me at least.

apalomba · Post by **apalomba** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:45 pm

I have been using Sonar and Live for years. Although they do similar things, they serve two very different purposes. Sonar is a professional multi track and studio console applcation. When it comes to MIDI support and editting it is far superior to Live. Audio editting is also superior, as in it
lets me edit audio faster, more acurately, and is non destrucitve. Its support for digital mixer control surfaces is unequaled compaired to Live.
Of course if you do any kind of video integration, video and 5.1 mixing support leaves Live playing in the sandbox.

Again they are two different things. It would take a long time for Live
to reach the same level of funtionality. But then again it really does not
need to because that is not its purpose. Having said that, I see more
people moving to Live because it does all the basic things one might
need to do very well and gives you a lot of additional flexibility.

emporerandy · Post by **emporerandy** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 4:28 pm

I would like to thank everyone for the feedback. I had downloaded the demo versions of both and I found myself using Live 5 the most. I want something that allows me to get things down fast. I am into weird Avant Garde stuff and live seems perfect for me. That being said I also have a copy of Adobe Audition 1.5 but it has been a nightmare and I didn't want to make the same mistake twice. I will use Audition for other things that might be more comparable to Sonar 5. Live 5 was purchased and I should be getting it tomorrow.

Thanks again,

Emporer Andy