Sonar 7 WOW!!!

[Machinesworking]

t I grew up on Cubase, so when you get familiar with one interface, it's hard to change to another (Live was an adjustment but a positive one as I have grown to love it's interface).

Most of the core functionaliy is available in other DAWS such as Logic and Cubase, there is very little to choose between them for basic functionality, plugins and bundled synths tends to be more of a deciding factor.

OK, but if that's the case, why get Live over Sonar? I think you're leaving out work flow, and the few unique things about a DAW that make life easier.
In Live it's Session view, and being able to use key commands to switch instruments and turn FX on and off. In Logic it's the Arrange page and "capture last take as recording"
In Digital Performer its mixer is king and the clipboard is a great idea.

More to the point, every DAW has a fatal flaw, and a strong point. Sonar seems to have everything but workflow to me.

[jamester]

completely free routing and bussing

Sonar's got a lot going for it, but this isn't one of them. Can you route a track directly into another track, without a bus? If so, then that's a new feature I hadn't heard about. If truly unlimited routing/bussing is desired, one should take a look at Reaper. But even Live will let you do routings that Sonar never would in the past at least...

jamester what is the extent of reapers slicing/chopping abilities and thanks for the info?

Personally I like slicing in Reaper, though it is manually done: Hitting the Tab button makes the cursor "tab to transients" (i.e. slicepoints - the obvious ones at least). And unlike Live which has retarded Cntrl-E to Slice, in Reaper it's "S" as it should be. So Tab-S, Tab-S, Tab-S until you're all sliced up. Then you can simply marque select and right-click "Render as new takes" and you now have all your slices as their own seperate files. Reaper's Media Explorer can be docked at the bottom to function very much like Live's browser, so simply navigate to your folder and use them as you wish (I load them to Guru and save as a kit).

I mostly do this with drums or fairly percussive material, so the transients are obvious and it works great. I imagine it wouldn't work so great with smoother, more melodic stuff, but then you could set it so that it sliced to eighth/sixteenth notes on the timeline or whatever...

HTH!

[leedsquietman]

I got Live for precisely the reasons mentioned - session view and the on the fly composition (and some live pperformance dj features that I rarely use but it's there if I need it).

When I said most basic functionality is duplicated among DAWS I wasn't really including Live in that list. I think it's only recently that Live can really be classified as a DAW, it has evolved so much from a compositional and live performance tool to a multifunction program. L7 further solidifies this.

At first I got Live with a view to rewiring it to Cubase for some cool jams and improvisations to help out the tedious creation of songs in linear arrangement as Cubase, Sonar, Reaper, Logic and PT etc. but after a year with it, I find I do most things exclusively in Live these days.

Certainly, owning Cubase, for all it's faults and bugs, buying Sonar is pretty much a duplication in so many ways in comparison, give or take the odd few exclusive features both have on the other.

[djritchie]

BLOODY HELL!!!

I wasnt dissing LIVE at all!! - thats why i posted in the GENERAL forum! for god sake - i love LIVE, ive used it since version 4 and its awesome! - i find sonar a really good alternative to Logic that i can run on my PC, i like the combination of both - throwing my stuff together in LIVE then exporting to Sonar as its a much more professional DAW. Theres some serious Fanboys (or wateva u call em) in here, just because i praise another bit of kit dont mean im dissing any others!

Jesus! Chill out!

[jamester]

Where's the mass Sonar-bashing going on in this thread? A couple comments maybe, but mostly stuff like:

Sonar is certainly a hugely impressive piece of software.

Sonar 7 has a nice spec list.

The Sonar effects are simply awesome.

Sonar is the bomb.

My point earlier was not in any way a dis to Sonar, just a correction that it does not have unlimited routing possibilities. I used Sonar for years and was perfectly happy, though I'm happier now...

[leedsquietman]

Ditto.

I haven't said anything negative about Sonar, except that I personally don't get along with it's GUI. I've said it has an impressive spec list and good inbuilt synths and effects.

By saying I didn't think of Live as a full featured DAW is not exactly the comments of a fanboy either ! Although I think that Live 7 will maybe make me reconsider that.

And linear arrangement composition is tedious, it's not just a Sonar thing, Cubase sucks for building songs from scratch too, as does Logic, Pro Tools, Fruity Loops and Reason. Compared to using session view and on the fly composition as offered by Live.

Where Cubase /Sonar come into their strength is that you might like to do further advanced audio or MIDI editing or build up the scratch tracks with those cool fx and synths and this is where the linear DAW comes into the equation, better mixer views, better editing, better plugins etc.

[sans soleil]

mmm.

software company marketing/pr guys aren't stupid. i'm sure they like to post 'comments' and start threads on forums such as this one to let everyone know how 'outstanding' their stuff is, because it helps them sell stuff.

of course, you can never be sure, but it's no secret that marketers still consider word-of-mouth the most effective way to market something. i strongly suspect that forums such as these contain a lot of covert marketing by employees posing as 'regular' people.

not to get all dale gribble-ish, but...

undercover marketing...pretty interesting, really.
insidious too.

(has anyone seen or read 'the corporation'?
there's a cool bit in the film where this guy takes you through the typical day of a joe shmo, exposing all the undercover marketing messages he's receiving. fascinating/eye opening stuff).