CAKEWALK SONAR 5 PE (DAW software)

[Anderton]

Cakewalk Sonar 5 Producer Edition – Prologue

When Sonar was introduced, I had to use it – because it was the only sequencer at the time that combined MIDI, digital audio, and Acid-style looping. Prior to Sonar, I’d been bouncing back and forth between Sonic Foundry (now Sony) Acid for looping, Cubase VST for MIDI+digital audio projects, and Cakewalk Pro Audio for audio-for-video. Sonar meant I could do it all in one program, and while I still use plenty of other applications, Sonar Producer Edition has become my “workhorse” program.

Sonar 5 follows less than a year after the Sonar 4 upgrade. Sonar 4’s main claim to fame was a superb surround implementation…but given the lackluster state of surround, did anyone really care? I was definitely thankful for the workflow enhancements and other improvements, but I get the feeling a lot of existing S3 users figured they’d wait until S5 because surround wasn’t a big enough draw for them.

S5, however, is indeed a major upgrade: More instruments, reawakened MIDI, REX file support, and more. For a list of main new features in Sonar 5, click here (http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/features.asp).

We’ll concentrate on reviewing the new features, but if you have questions/comments not just about the new features or the review but about existing aspects of the program, c’mon down and join the review! Manufacturer comments are welcome as well.

[Anderton]

Sonar remains one of the easiest, fastest programs to get running. After a couple recent experiences where it took literally hours to get programs installed, Sonar 5 was a breath of fresh air: Load DVD, choose your language, enter serial number . . . done. Kudos to Cakewalk for not treating their customers like thieves – I just hope that their faith in humanity is being rewarded.

A couple tips on installation: When you have the option to load plug-ins, some older plugs are not loaded by default. If you’ve been using Sonar for a while, you may have used some of these plug-ins in older projects. So when the “Select Components” screen appears, click on the Audio FX “Options” button, and click on “Select All.” Click on the attachment to see the Select Components screen and the Audio FX Options button on which you click (circled in yellow).

Also, after you install Sonar, don’t forget to start the Installation process again if you want to install the Audio Finder (locates audio files used in projects), the MP3 Encoder Upgrader (so if you already paid for the MP3 encoder, you can continue to use it with S5), and/or the trial version of the discWelder DVD-A burning program.

And what’s this – no VST-DX adapter installation? That’s right. Sonar 5 now has native VST support, and there’s a subtle change in the Insert menu: Where Sonar once read DXi Synth, it now just reads “Soft Synths.” VST synths are still in a separate menu tree, but the days of watching the configuration program do its thing are over.

And when Sonar loads, it doesn’t scan through all your plug-ins – it loads fast. When you add a new plug-in, a little time elapses while Sonar adds it to its roster, but next time you open the program, it’s back to its usual speedy self.

One interesting point is that if you have an “unauthorized” plug-in (e.g., you had a demo version that timed out), Sonar does not flag this when it opens, only if you attempt to open the plug-in – another time saver.

Meanwhile, there’s nothing disorienting when you open the program: The graphic looks seems to have settled down, the toolbars mostly look familiar, and so on.

Well, with all this new stuff, where to start? Maybe with a standout feature like the V-Voice plug-in? Nah, that’s too deep – it’s Sunday night, and I’d just like to mess around a bit with some easy stuff…so let’s check out the REX file player. I’ve bugged Cakewalk for so long about the lack of REX file support, the least I can do is jump it to the top of the stack.

[MistaG]

I'm jealous. But mine is on the way. The Vocal plug in is the main reason I upgraded. My old ATR-1, due to the lack of a digital interface, will probably be sold on ebay.

Thanks for the review, can't wait.

[Anderton]

Although there isn’t “drag and drop into the track”-type REX file support, Sonar 5 actually goes one better with the RXP File Player as it allows for a reasonable degree of REX file editing. In addition to loading all ReCycle formats (RX2, REX, RCY), RXP can also load WAV, AIF, and OGG files. However, this is of limited use, as you can’t add or edit slices – basically, with these types of files RXP is a one-shot player (although you can process the file in various ways, as we’ll cover later). Click on the attachment to see the RXP player screen.

Getting back to REX files, you can load a file by navigating to it, or use the built-in Groove Browser if you want to choose among a roster of favorites. The file appears in the main graphical window, along with slice markers.

There are 24 pads across the bottom, whose function depends on whether you’ve selected the Slice or Loop mode. In Slice mode, each pad plays a slice (you can also trigger these via MIDI keyboard – cool). If there are more than 24 slices in the file, you can’t trigger slice 25 on up from the pads, although you can from MIDI.

In Loop mode, clicking on a pad plays the loop for as long as you hold the mouse button down; different pads transpose the file by the amount shown on the pad, from -12 to +11 semitones (right-clicking on a pad plays the loop all the way through).

So far so good, but here’s where it gets interesting: There are amp and filter processors. The Amp section provides Attack, Decay, Width (left/right stereo separation for stereo files), Pan, and Volume. The Filter has four possible filter curves (2-pole and 4-pole, lowpass or highpass), with an Attack/Decay envelope, Envelope amount, Cutoff, and Resonance controls. However, both Amp and Filter affect all slices – you cannot have separate settings for individual slices.

If you right-click on a pad to play the file through, varying Amp and Filter controls won’t affect the sound until the loop re-triggers. But – and this is important – if you trigger individual slices by MIDI (keyboard or the host sequencer), you can you edit these parameters in real time. However, automating these changes is a whole other issue.

When you insert RXP using the usual Insert Soft Synth option, I couldn’t find any way to automate the controls. But if you create an audio track and insert RXP into the FX bin, then create a MIDI track and send that to the RXP, the situation changes. Right-click on the RXP in the FX bin, select Arm Parameter, and you can automate parameters by diddling the knobs while recording automation. Or, right-click in the audio track itself, and create envelopes to control particular RXP parameters.

I don’t know why you can’t record knob movements when the RXP is inserted as a standard DXi synth, given that the DreamStation DXi2 can do that. Maybe in a future update…

Regarding the MIDI driving the RXP to trigger slices, if there’s MIDI data associated with the file, you’ll be informed of this when you load the file in to RXP (when you insert the RXP using the Insert Soft Synth option, Sonar creates both audio and MIDI tracks). You can drag from the RXP’s little note icon into a track to deposit the MIDI file. And here’s another of Sonar’s strong suits: You can turn MIDI files into groove clips, so if you want the MIDI file to repeat, you can simply convert it into a MIDI groove clip, then “roll out” the clip rather than have to copy and paste.

And dig this – you can rearrange slice order and change slice characteristics in several ways.

 On the file graphic, drag a slice into a different position. Other slices “close up” from where you removed the slice to maintain the same file length.
 Right-click on the slice display to show three options (this is shown in the Attachment picture): Reset, Reverse, and Randomize. Reverse is not reversed audio, but reverses the order of slices. Randomize shuffles slices, with different results each time you hit Randomize.
 The Transpose field along the bottom of the file window transposes up to +/-48 semitones.
 The Tune field transposes up to +/-100 cents.
 The Random Pitch field changes slice pitches randomly, within a range of up to 48 semitones.
 Finally, you can reverse the slices (not the order, the audio itself) by applying Controller 1 messages.

As far as I’m concerned, the important point here is the real-time playability. While the MIDI sequence is playing, you can be triggering individual slices, reversing audio, or using MIDI volume or expression controllers to change levels.

Two issues: According to the documentation, RXP should respond to Pan and Sustain controller messages. However, feeding them in from a hardware controller, or programming envelopes in a MIDI track, didn’t seem to affect the sound. Also, clicking on a pad in loop mode briefly spikes the CPU meter into the red, at which point it goes back to a more rational CPU consumption figure.

Furthermore, inserting just one instance of the RXP in a sequence with no other audio or MIDI tracks, then playing back a MIDI track into the RXP, gave CPU consumption figures that fluctuated between 25% and 42%. I realize CPU consumption figures are relative, but with Sonar 4 it used to take several hungry soft synths, plus multiple audio tracks, to reach these kind of levels – and that’s without any other goodies that might hit the CPU, like the new waveform preview drawing feature.

Hopefully a future rev will optimize the RXP’s performance, but meanwhile, it’s great to have REX support and some REX file editing capabilities - and hey, you can always freeze the track or bounce it to an audio track if the CPU thing gets iffy.

[Anderton]

This may not seem like a big deal compared to some of the other new features, but I’ve found the new metering options can definitely improve the aesthetics. The basic idea is that now you can choose between the standard “segmented” meters (where there are divisions between each “virtual LED”) and a non-segmented meter look. Click on the Attachment to see the difference – you’ll see the same track with non-segmented meters on the top, and segmented meters on the bottom.

The non-segmented meters look quite nice – they default to a sort of bluish “fluorescent” look, with higher levels being a lighter shade of blue. The non-segmented meters seem a little taller (when horizontal) or wider (when vertical) in the track view. But actually, when in a console on inspector track strip, the meter calibrations sit on top of the meter, so the meters take up less space and are more visible.

You can specify segmented or non-segmented metering independently for the Track and Console views, but also note that the Inspector is considered a subset of the Console view, so you can use segmented meters in Track view but have the inspector show non-segmented meters. Another cool feature is that you can change colors for the meters, the clip indicator, and the calibrations. For example, light orange looks pretty cool for the meters.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I was definitely thankful for the workflow enhancements and other improvements, but I get the feeling a lot of existing S3 users figured they’d wait until S5 because surround wasn’t a big enough draw for them.

That would have included me. :)

I'm really looking forward to reading this one Craig. :cool: :cool:

[Jotown]

Hey Craig, This may be a stupid question, but does the VST integration mean that I can now use my Spectrasonics instruments in Sonar?

Also; is it now possible to use a UAD-1 or TC Powercore cards in Sonar?

That was my main reason for switching over to Cubase SX. I had been doing my midi in Cakewalk Pro Audio, and then converting the midi to audio in Pro Tools. Since I couldnt use the UAD or TC Powercore in either Cakewalk or PT, and since the midi in PT was very weak I migrated over to Cubase SX.

SX 3 has had quite a few issues and I am eligible for an upgrade to Sonar. What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your response.

[D Charles]

I got really excited about Sonar 5 until I read the system requirements. It no longer supports win 2K pro. I finally got a great stable computer together and I don't want to upgrade to Sonar 5 and have to buy XP in one gulp.

Dragsville.

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Jotown
...

Also; is it now possible to use a UAD-1 or TC Powercore cards in Sonar?

... .

I'm not Craig, but my UAD card works great with Sonar.

[bdub]

Originally posted by Jotown
Hey Craig, This may be a stupid question, but does the VST integration mean that I can now use my Spectrasonics instruments in Sonar?

Also; is it now possible to use a UAD-1 or TC Powercore cards in Sonar?

That was my main reason for switching over to Cubase SX. I had been doing my midi in Cakewalk Pro Audio, and then converting the midi to audio in Pro Tools. Since I couldnt use the UAD or TC Powercore in either Cakewalk or PT, and since the midi in PT was very weak I migrated over to Cubase SX.

SX 3 has had quite a few issues and I am eligible for an upgrade to Sonar. What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your response.

VST instruments in Sonar was always possible using either the Fxpansion VST adapter or DirectiXer. Cake bought the Fxpansion adapter and has integrated it into Sonar 5. I have been using Atmosphere and Trilogy with Sonar since version 1...no issues whatsoever!

There are some people with the UAD-1 card working...I'd recommend you search through the Sonar forum at Cake's site for more info.

Bill

[Anderton]

I've also been using Spectrasonics instruments in Sonar 4, specifically the outstanding Stylus RMX. I'll test later with Sonar 5 and report back.

[Jotown]

Please also check out if the UAD and or TC Powercore cards can be used with Sonar 5.

Thanks in advance.

[tazman2]

Many people have been using the UAD cards since SONAR 3. The only issue I knew of left was with looping which was fixed in the 4.0.3 patch. I have read that most people have very smooth operation using the UAD-1 vst effects rather than the DXi's. I also think there are a few people running the Powercor cards.

(BTW, I don't own either)

Cheers,

Roberto

Originally posted by Jotown
Please also check out if the UAD and or TC Powercore cards can be used with Sonar 5.

Thanks in advance.

[Jotown]

Cool! How about Waves Direct X plugs?

[Anderton]

How about Waves Direct X plugs?

I've had no problems.

Hey, I've just been recording the Variax through Guitar Rig loaded into Sonar 5...about 5ms latency with the Creamware SCOPE card using ASIO drives. This is fun!! Better get back to work.

[Anderton]

I really liked the way S4 implemented loop recording, and the mute tool was a valuable addition. But S5 has taken it a step further, giving more control over the individual layers.

Click on the Attachment to see how Cakewalk handles the new track layer features. Note the new Track Layers On/Off button. When on, you see the layers; when off, everything collapses down to the size of the track that contains the layers.

Also note the M(ute) and S(olo) switches just to the left of each take. Solos are exclusive (enabling a Solo turns off any existing Solos), while Mutes are additive – you can have as many as you like. The best part of this, though, is that if you have a bunch of mutes set and select Solo, the program remembers which mutes were enabled. If you turn off Solo, the selected mutes go back to their muted status.

You can of course still use the Mute Tool, but once you’ve opened up the layers view, you can overlap tracks (with S4, you couldn’t – anything that overlapped was moved to its own layer). However, there’s also a “rebuild” command that puts overlapping tracks back into their own layers. So a typical scenario for loop recording would be:

1. Record multiple takes, then show the layers.
2. Use Mute and Solo to determine which tracks are candidates for compositing.
3. Delete layers that are of no further use.
4. Go Track > Layers > Compact Layers. This new command automatically expands the heights of any remaining layers to take up space used by the deleted tracks.
5. Use the Mute tool to “fine tune” which sections of layers you want to use or not use.
6. Select the clips containing audio you want to use, and choose the “Bounce to Clips” command to collapse them all into a single track.

Of course, you can still crop layers, use the underrated “overlap cropping tool” to crop two clips simultaneously, as well as add layers if you so desire.

If you’re into loop recording, this part of the update is an unqualified home run. Cubase SX used to have the best loop recording; with Sonar 4, Cakewalk achieved parity. But with Sonar 5, I feel Cakewalk has pulled ahead of pretty much any program that does loop recording.

[Anderton]

Well I’ve worked with Sonar 5 for a lot of hours now, and it finally crashed. However, I’m almost 100% sure this was caused by a beta version of a plug-in I’m testing (no, I’m not allowed to tell you about it) so I can’t really blame Sonar 5…especially because once I re-opened the program, everything worked as expected.

I'll let you know as soon as I find a repeatable, Sonar 5-related bug.

[Anderton]

This is one of those apparently small – but extremely useful – features. Click on the Attachment to see Waveform Preview in action.

When you click on the Waveform Preview button for a Bus or Soft Synth audio track, Sonar draws the waveform as you play the sequence. Better yet, it turns red wherever there’s clipping (circled in yellow in the screen shot)

For example, in the illustration, Waveform Preview has been switched on for the Master Bus and Effect Send bus. Sonar has been put into play, and is drawing the bus output waveform.

Okay, so it’s nice eye candy…but much more importantly, it gives you a much better idea of how the levels are shaping up. It’s easy to see if levels are higher or lower than expected, and especially easy to see if there was any clipping. Besides, didn’t that big empty space in the Clips view next to a bus bug you? Well, now there’s something to fill it up.

But this is only one part of the equation: Sonar 5 also has sophisticated peak-finding options so you can locate precisely where level “overs” or other issues might be occurring, and their exact values.

We’ll get into that in a bit, but it's time to put dinner together. Well, hopefully I’ll be back after a nice meal :)

[tazman2]

Originally posted by Anderton
Well I’ve worked with Sonar 5 for a lot of hours now, and it finally crashed. However, I’m almost 100% sure this was caused by a beta version of a plug-in I’m testing (no, I’m not allowed to tell you about it) so I can’t really blame Sonar 5…especially because once I re-opened the program, everything worked as expected.

I'll let you know as soon as I find a repeatable, Sonar 5-related bug.

SONAR 4 displays the waveform as well while recording. What is the difference? (My S5 won't come in till Wed)

Thanks,

Roberto

[GregMan]

I think he is referring to drawing the wav files next to the busses.

[Blades]

I think the other point is that it draws the WAVs in the "bus lane" as well a pointing out where the peaks are, and leaving that indication right in the wav file, rather than you having to guess where the over was simply by noting that there was a peak SOMEWHERE in the tune.

Also, he mentions some ability to calculate where the peaks got to the buses from - did I just imagine this part?

[Anderton]

<<SONAR 4 displays the waveform as well while recording. What is the difference? (My S5 won't come in till Wed)>>

Sonar 4 draws waveforms in tracks while recording. S5 can do that, but also draw waveforms in busses and soft synth audio tracks while playing back (or recording).

<<I think he is referring to drawing the wav files next to the busses.>>

Yes, but the soft synth track thing is very useful too.

<<I think the other point is that it draws the WAVs in the "bus lane" as well a pointing out where the peaks are, and leaving that indication right in the wav file, rather than you having to guess where the over was simply by noting that there was a peak SOMEWHERE in the tune.>>

Exactly. We're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, though...

<<Also, he mentions some ability to calculate where the peaks got to the buses from - did I just imagine this part?>>

I think you imagined it from a different post I did in the "Volume Wars" thread, on how to get a louder sound without using excessive compression.

[Anderton]

Interesting…when I loaded the Sonar project I’d been working on before dinner, it sounded fine – but the audio Clips had no visible audio waveform. Huh? If I zoomed in enough, a waveform would appear; but if I zoomed out past a certain point, the waveform would just disappear, and the clip looked as if it had no audio recorded in it (even though there was).

As the clip was a loop from the Discrete Drums series, I just brought the loop in again, and you could see the waveform. I quit Sonar and re-opened it, just to check; the audio was both audible and visible. Maybe this was just a glitch…we’ll see what happens over the next few days.

Okay, about Peak Markers: While playing back a track and/or bus, the Peak Markers follow along behind the cursor and indicate the highest value attained up to the point where playback stops. Click on the Attachment to see how these markers appear in a track and two buses (one master and one effects). It’s as if you took the little numeric that shows up in the track’s title bar, and moved it to the location where the peak actually occurred.

I’ve always enjoyed the feature in Wavelab where you could jump to peaks, and in Sonar, the Peak Markers really help in terms of trying to track down the source of any distortion. For example, if you see distortion in a bus, you can check whether any of the tracks had usually loud levels at that point.

There’s somewhat anomalous behavior while looping. During the first pass of the loop, everything works as expected. But suppose during the second pass, you suddenly turn up the effects send and there’s an overload on the bus being feed by the loop. The marker will show up in the bus where it would have appeared if you had “rolled out” the loop to twice its length. As another example, if turning up of the effects send happened on the third pass, it would show up in the bus where it would have appeared if the three looped segments had been placed end to end and not looped.

I can handle that, though. It seems the Peak Marker function is really more for playing back tracks during the mixing process, as it gives exceptionally useful insights into what’s happening with the headroom (and where anything is happening, too). Also note that you can jump to a peak in case it's off-screen - nice.

[hazanin]

Craig,
Sonar 4 does not seem to support drag and drop MIDI files when using Spectrasonics Rtylus RMX...I have tried it and it doesn't work...has this changed in Sonar 5?
thanks!
p.s. your interactive reviews are extremely helpful!

[ustudio]

Good Stuff man Keep up the good work, Keep it coming!

[Blades]

But this is only one part of the equation: Sonar 5 also has sophisticated peak-finding options so you can locate precisely where level “overs” or other issues might be occurring, and their exact values.

I think I just extrapolated my bits from yours here! ;). I have a good imagination and thought maybe this applied back from the bus level to the individual tracks, but is apparently only at EITHER the track OR bus level that you can see "overs", not where tracks combine to produce the over at the bus level, right?

Nevermind me...just babbling, really.

Glad you're posting this stuff during the wait time the rest of us are having to spend. I imagine that you'll be getting even more commentary in the thread once a few folks get their hands on it and can try what you are talking about.

[freddie_tane]

Awesome jump-start on the new
release features - thanks, Craig!

Any chance you'll be covering the
supposedly improved MIDI
Step Entry ?

One feature request that I and a few
other CW Sonar forum folks wished
for was a Step Entry feature that
enabled one to choose duration x, etc.
from the Qwerty keyboard, and
play notes on MIDI input keyboard,
moving by steps,
backspace would erase backwards,
space would input a rest of duration x

(Remember the ease of entry from
MasterTracks Pro?)

- FT

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by D Charles
I got really excited about Sonar 5 until I read the system requirements. It no longer supports win 2K pro. I finally got a great stable computer together and I don't want to upgrade to Sonar 5 and have to buy XP in one gulp.

Dragsville.
Starting with SONAR 5, we no longer officially support Windows 2000. That said, if you're using the latest Service Pack from Microsoft, you should be OK.

However, we may not be able to offer you direct technical assistance should you run into any problems.

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton
This is one of those apparently small – but extremely useful – features. Click on the Attachment to see Waveform Preview in action.

When you click on the Waveform Preview button for a Bus or Soft Synth audio track, Sonar draws the waveform as you play the sequence. Better yet, it turns red wherever there’s clipping (circled in yellow in the screen shot)

For example, in the illustration, Waveform Preview has been switched on for the Master Bus and Effect Send bus. Sonar has been put into play, and is drawing the bus output waveform.

Okay, so it’s nice eye candy…but much more importantly, it gives you a much better idea of how the levels are shaping up. It’s easy to see if levels are higher or lower than expected, and especially easy to see if there was any clipping. Besides, didn’t that big empty space in the Clips view next to a bus bug you? Well, now there’s something to fill it up.

But this is only one part of the equation: Sonar 5 also has sophisticated peak-finding options so you can locate precisely where level “overs” or other issues might be occurring, and their exact values.

We’ll get into that in a bit, but it's time to put dinner together. Well, hopefully I’ll be back after a nice meal :)
And the peak-finding option is also just part of the equation. :)

Another thing that's very cool about the synth track and bus waveform preview feature is that it helps you draw automation envelopes on buses and synth tracks because you can see exactly where your automation will be applied.

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton
Interesting…when I loaded the Sonar project I’d been working on before dinner, it sounded fine – but the audio Clips had no visible audio waveform. Huh? If I zoomed in enough, a waveform would appear; but if I zoomed out past a certain point, the waveform would just disappear, and the clip looked as if it had no audio recorded in it (even though there was).

As the clip was a loop from the Discrete Drums series, I just brought the loop in again, and you could see the waveform. I quit Sonar and re-opened it, just to check; the audio was both audible and visible. Maybe this was just a glitch…we’ll see what happens over the next few days.

Okay, about Peak Markers: While playing back a track and/or bus, the Peak Markers follow along behind the cursor and indicate the highest value attained up to the point where playback stops. Click on the Attachment to see how these markers appear in a track and two buses (one master and one effects). It’s as if you took the little numeric that shows up in the track’s title bar, and moved it to the location where the peak actually occurred.

I’ve always enjoyed the feature in Wavelab where you could jump to peaks, and in Sonar, the Peak Markers really help in terms of trying to track down the source of any distortion. For example, if you see distortion in a bus, you can check whether any of the tracks had usually loud levels at that point.

There’s somewhat anomalous behavior while looping. During the first pass of the loop, everything works as expected. But suppose during the second pass, you suddenly turn up the effects send and there’s an overload on the bus being feed by the loop. The marker will show up in the bus where it would have appeared if you had “rolled out” the loop to twice its length. As another example, if turning up of the effects send happened on the third pass, it would show up in the bus where it would have appeared if the three looped segments had been placed end to end and not looped.

I can handle that, though. It seems the Peak Marker function is really more for playing back tracks during the mixing process, as it gives exceptionally useful insights into what’s happening with the headroom (and where anything is happening, too). Also note that you can jump to a peak in case it's off-screen - nice.
Glad you're liking this feature - it's definitely turning into the big "sleeper feature" of SONAR 5 - in all of the pre-release preview demos we've given to our sales teams and distributors, this one always pops out as one of those things where they're like, "Duh, of course, that's awesome!"

I'll have our QA team check into that bug, Craig, and I'll keep you posted.

[Magpel]

-I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD I DON'T WANT TO SHELL FOR UPDATE I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD--

[UnderTheGroove]

Originally posted by hazanin
Craig,
Sonar 4 does not seem to support drag and drop MIDI files when using Spectrasonics Rtylus RMX...I have tried it and it doesn't work...has this changed in Sonar 5?
thanks!
p.s. your interactive reviews are extremely helpful!

I'm not Craig (nor do I play him on TV), but I have not had any trouble with MIDI drag and drop using RMX and Sonar 4 PE. I am assuming you are talking about dragging the midi loop file from the RMX windo into Sonar's track view.

[Anderton]

<<but is apparently only at EITHER the track OR bus level that you can see "overs", not where tracks combine to produce the over at the bus level, right?>>

Glad I'm getting a chance to clarify this. You can see on both the track AND bus level. That's one thing that makes the feature so useful: If you see an over in the master bus, you can look through the tracks and see where the "big levels" are. This is really a cool feature that will save me a LOT of time during mixing, and make a better two-track file for eventual mastering.

<<Any chance you'll be covering the supposedly improved MIDI Step Entry ?>>

MIDI is indeed greatly improved in Sonar 5, and yes, you can bet I'll be covering it.

<<Sonar 4 does not seem to support drag and drop MIDI files when using Spectrasonics Rtylus RMX...I have tried it and it doesn't work...>>

Make sure you have the latest Stylus update.

Finally I'd like to welcome Alex Westner from Cakewalk, thanks very much for contributing to this thread and providing a liaison to the company!

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton
Finally I'd like to welcome Alex Westner from Cakewalk, thanks very much for contributing to this thread and providing a liaison to the company!
Thanks Craig! I'm looking forward to learning more about SONAR. ;)

I love this review format, by the way - very fun... :)

[Phil O'Keefe]

Originally posted by Magpel
-I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD I DON'T WANT TO SHELL FOR UPDATE I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD I AM NOT READING THIS THREAD--

Dood, someone's hacked your user ID and is posting using your monkier... ;) :D



PS Go ahead and read the thread... at least Cakewalk's updates are regular in coming, and priced reasonably. :)

[Anderton]

The limitation that in the audio processing menu, you could only adjust gain in 3dB increments. Okay, I can understand why they did that, but can’t understand why they didn’t fix it for soooo long. Well, they’ve made up for lost time with a new gain dialog that lets you control the gain, phase, and stereo interleave. Click on the Attachment to see the new gain dialog menu. One of the coolest aspects is that it’s now possible to “weight” a stereo signal toward one side or the other. For example, suppose you have dual rhythm guitars. One can have its stereo field spread from left to center, and the other from center to right, while retaining the level relationship between channels…it’s just that the stereo field is narrower. Previously, if you weighted a stereo signal toward one channel solely by panning, the other channel would contribute less level to the overall signal.

You could only normalize to 100%. Gone! A new slider lets you normalize to any desired amount, in 1dB steps.

No way to remove DC offset. Now Remove DC Offset is part of the audio processing options. Furthermore, under the Options > Audio dialog, you can specify having DC offset removed while recording. Cool.

Only one clip at a time could have fades edited. Now it’s possible to apply a fade to multiple, selected clips (go Process > Fade Selected Clips). Finally - now you can apply the same fade characteristics to all clips during a fadeout in one fell swoop.

But there’s one annoying thing that hasn’t gone away: If you solo a muted track, the mute takes priority. I’m sure someone, somewhere at Cakewalk had a reason for doing this…but it doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that if you want to solo a track, you want to solo it regardless of its existing status, right?

The more I think about this, between the enhanced gain, normalize, and DC offset functions, it appears Cakewalk is statting to add mastering-type functions to Sonar, either by accident or design…hmm…

Next stop: All the new MIDI stuff. You won’t want to miss this!

P.S. to Alex Westner at Cakewalk: The audio opened up just fine today, you could see the waveforms perfectly.

[Anderton]

PS Go ahead and read the thread... at least Cakewalk's updates are regular in coming, and priced reasonably.

Agreed. And so far S5 seems like a really, really strong update.

[blue2blue]

Variable stereo interleave. Yes, thank you. I used to always record my drum module or the output of my SB (running, in essence, as a Soundfont sample player) onto separate mono tracks so they could be panned in (for drums, stereo pianos and the like). But when I moved to my laptop and a soft SF sample player, I had to either use a variable interleave plug in (which had sound quality issues) or go to the trouble of bouncing the stereo track out to two mono tracks. Kinda irritating.


Looks like they fixed some stuff and added some pretty cool new stuff.

I just hope to hell they improved the Nudge tool. Geez, I'd be embarrassed to show it to my friends. (And I hope they took the nudge hotkey away -- it's just too damn dangerous. At least it was/is? on the numeric keypad where it can be turned off.)

And I hope they included a way to lock clips in place in the tracks... I always keep the drag and drop clip movement dialog on by default to alert me when a clumsy mouseclick accidentally moved a clip. In fact I was doing a little comping in S4 last night and it seemed like every other time I tried to grab the magic part of a clip edge to roll or fade it, I ended up dragging the clip by accident.

I guess this ain't the place to hope stuff's included -- but I did post my wish lists at CW's Sonar forum. Still, that place always seems so abandoned by everybody but ill-informed fellow users...

[SSMickey]

Originally posted by Anderton: but it doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that if you want to solo a track, you want to solo it regardless of its existing status, right?

Absolutely - this one drives me nuts, because I never get used to it :(

How about the 'Audio Effects' 'DXi Synth' lists - has anything been implemented so that these can be modified/personalised easily?

That one drives me even nuttier ;)

I have to say, though, I've not been this excited about an update in a long time...

Keep the info coming :D

[1manband]

I just discovered this place from the Sonar forums. All I can say is wow! Craig Anderton! I've been reading your awesome reviews scince the 80's. Thanks for being so generous in sharing your review of sonar 5 as it happens. Very informative and fun. It gives all of us who are eagerly waiting for it to arrive something to chew on.

[Anderton]

<<How about the 'Audio Effects' 'DXi Synth' lists - has anything been implemented so that these can be modified/personalised easily?>>

Yes! Actually you've been able to do it since, if I recall correctly, Sonar 3.1. (Which you would have known if you'd been reading my Sonar Notes column in Sound on Sound (http://www.soundonsound.com/) magazine, hint hint ;).)

Go Tools > Plug-In manager. There are two panes. In the left pane, you'll find the plug-in categories (DX audio effects, VST audio effects, DX instruments, etc.). In the right pane, you'll see the names of all plug-ins in the selected category. Click on the Attachment to see the Plug-In Manager screen.

To give the plug-in a "friendly" name, just double-click on it in the right pane, and rename it in the field that appears. In the attached example, "VST Polysix" is being renamed to "VST Korg Polysix."

To prevent a plug-in from showing up in the list of plugs, just click on it in the right pane, then click on the Exclude button. You can always re-enable this if you change your mind.

And in case you were wondering, I did a little test: I called up a project, changed the name of a plug-in used in the project, closed the project, and then opened it again. The plug-in was still recognized and showed up in the track.

[Anderton]

<< just hope to hell they improved the Nudge tool.>>

Nope, but the Nudge keys are on the numeric keypad, so at least you'll be happy about that!

<<And I hope they included a way to lock clips in place in the tracks... >>

Not that I've found...

[Anderton]

I had hoped to get the MIDI info up tonight, but the additions are pretty extensive. There's in-track MIDI editing (like Cubase SX3), a refined piano roll view, much better step recording, and the MIDI FX finally get some graphic respect -- they look a whole lot cooler.

So that's a preview; we'll pick up where we left off tomorrow. I'm off to bed!

[ooblecaboodle]

Originally posted by Anderton
[B]Interesting…when I loaded the Sonar project I’d been working on before dinner, it sounded fine – but the audio Clips had no visible audio waveform. Huh? If I zoomed in enough, a waveform would appear; but if I zoomed out past a certain point, the waveform would just disappear, and the clip looked as if it had no audio recorded in it (even though there was).

I have a theory about this.
The first time I've come across this problem was this afternoon whilst importing large amounts of audio into several projects. Some tracks had the same name in verious projects, for example, "click"
The tracks in seperate projects that share names would have no waveform occasionally, and i think it's because all the Sonar picture files (wave images) are stored in ONE folder.
maybe a fix for this would be to use per-project folders for the picture cache as well?

[Alndln2]

All sounds good so far.I'm just wondering though wether Sonars now time still stops when adjusting certain 3rd party plugins (mostly VST) during playback.Another thing concerning me was the ability to disable PDC individually for certain older plugs that couldn't deal with it,and I'm reasonably certain that Craig still has some older plugs allergic to PDC for that test.

[Laptoppop]

One of the big changes to Sonar is to the mix engine -- it is now a LOT smoother. Cakewalk calls it "gapless", and it seems pretty darn close. Not only can I change parameters in plugins without stuttering, I can add and delete the plugins without any audible gaps. It totally rocks.

I don't know about selectively disabling PDC -- or if it is still needed with the new engine.

-lee-

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Alndln2
All sounds good so far.I'm just wondering though wether Sonars now time still stops when adjusting certain 3rd party plugins (mostly VST) during playback.Another thing concerning me was the ability to disable PDC individually for certain older plugs that couldn't deal with it,and I'm reasonably certain that Craig still has some older plugs allergic to PDC for that test.
Disabling PDC for any particular plug-in is easy:
[list=1]
Open up the Plug-in Manager from the Tools menu
Select the specific VST plug-in you want to change.
Click the "Plug-in Props..." button at the bottom of the Plug-in Manager dialog.
Uncheck the option that says "Enable delay compensation"
[/list=1]

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by Anderton
<< just hope to hell they improved the Nudge tool.>>

Nope, but the Nudge keys are on the numeric keypad, so at least you'll be happy about that!

<<And I hope they included a way to lock clips in place in the tracks... >>

Not that I've found...

:(

Oh well...

Heck... I was almost afraid to post that 'lock-clips-in-place' wish, since it seems like such an oversight that I was afraid I was just missing something.

Well, hiding tracks seems to protect them (although I suspect there are some gotchya's there when chopping up projects, rearranging sections, and the like). And folders also help. But I just want to be able to lock a clip in place with regards to time so a careless flick of the mouse doesn't screw you. Like the nudge tool and its hotkeys -- its the potential for accidentally making changes you don't notice until it's too late that is so troubling.

(And I have had to lose changes I intended in order to undo changes I didn't. Fortunately, I caught them in time... but it would be all too easy to nudge or drag a track without realizing it as things are set up.)

Anyhow, I'm overall really looking forward to S5. I was (mostly) very pleased by my jump from 2.2 to 4 (S3 was the only update I skipped since CWP6).


Okay, so wish list for S6 -- a decent nudge tool (where you can AT LEAST see how much you're nudging without drilling down into configuration settings! And with the option of more than three preset nudges... I mean, you'd think they had to pay extra to give you more than three...) and a way to prevent unwanted changes to clips/tracks that will keep the track visible.


Of course, if we had selective undo, that would help, too. Other apps are adopting this concept -- and with non-destructive editing already in place in many aspects of Sonar -- it's a natural, seems to me.

Thanks to Craig for this excellent thread and thanks to our friends at CW for showing up, as well. (Now if they had a presence in their own support forum... :D )

[DrummerCT]

I am wondering about Sonar user's thoughts about Cakewalk's approach to pricing for upgrades. I have Sonar 4 Producer, owned for about 8-9 months (if memory serves me well), but didn't get around to installing it until ~May 2005 (this had to do with my attempts at putting it on Tablet PC -- another story...).

Although I understand that more features have been added in version 5, I'm generally not a happy camper with the trend for some software companies, Cakewalk included, to do the "yearly" new product release, which translates almost into more of a subscription service model (without it being so stated). I can easily see the hand of the marketing folks in such company decisions and trying to ramp up top line revenue, among other aspects. Do other users simply pay and are glad? Or some other impact? I'm not sure whether I want to go to v5 or not. And please, I'm hoping for reasoned comments, not emotional outbursts (thanks).

[Laptoppop]

Originally posted by blue2blue
(Now if they had a presence in their own support forum... :D )

I know you put a smiley after the sentence, but for the record, I want to say that IMHO, Cakewalk has a MUCH bigger presence on their boards than other manufacturers (Stein...). I've seen quality detailed information from at least 4 different people -- sometimes I'm shocked by the level of detail shared.

The Cakewalk forums ARE "user to user", but they do have folks who poke their head in on a darn regular basis.

-lee-

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by DrummerCT
I am wondering about Sonar user's thoughts about Cakewalk's approach to pricing for upgrades. I have Sonar 4 Producer, owned for about 8-9 months (if memory serves me well), but didn't get around to installing it until ~May 2005 (this had to do with my attempts at putting it on Tablet PC -- another story...).

...

If you use it for a year, that's about fifty cents a day - about a dollar a day for you. Not bad objectively, but it's subjective.

[saturdaysaint]

Originally posted by DrummerCT

Although I understand that more features have been added in version 5, I'm generally not a happy camper with the trend for some software companies, Cakewalk included, to do the "yearly" new product release, which translates almost into more of a subscription service model (without it being so stated). I can easily see the hand of the marketing folks in such company decisions and trying to ramp up top line revenue, among other aspects. Do other users simply pay and are glad? Or some other impact? I'm not sure whether I want to go to v5 or not. And please, I'm hoping for reasoned comments, not emotional outbursts (thanks).

One reason I'm pretty happy to pay for most Sonar upgrades is the fact that I'm never obligated to. If you're a patient user, you could sit out a few versions and go from, say, Sonar 2 to Sonar 5, paying barely more than the Sonar 4 to Sonar 5 upgrader. It's only an expensive subscription model for those of us that like staying on the latest version (and can't resist value-added extras like the reverb and Pentagon synth).

[wes37]

Craig,

Are you running Sonar 5 in 64-Bit or regular 32 Bit mode via the Bit-bridge? If 32, do you notice more CPU useage as before due to the doubled clock cycle processing requirement?

Thanks,
Wes

[Laptoppop]

Sonar 5 can run in 32-bit mode or 64-bit mode no matter what operating system you are using. BitBridge is used to let you run 32-bit plugins in a 64-bit operating system environment. Most modern CPUs have floating point built into them, so a 64-bit floating point operation takes the same amount of time as a 32-bit operation. You use up more memory with the 64-bit operation, but it is nothing like 2X the time to do it.

There is a change to how Sonar handles MIDI for 4.0.3 and 5.0. In order to avoid gapping, processing of some of the MIDI events has been moved to the audio threads, where the CPU meter is measuring. The actual amount of work being done has not changed, only the reporting of the work is more accurate.

There is apparently a bug in 4.0.3 that affects a very small number of people where the cpu usage has also gone up. Cakewalk has already announced they will be releasing a 4.0.4 fix. Supposedly the fix code is in 5.0 already, but there are some users who are complaining of increased CPU usage and it is not clear yet if they have a bug, or if it is just the expected reporting increase from the more accurate CPU reporting.

-lee-

[SSMickey]

Originally posted by Anderton Yes! Actually you've been able to do it since, if I recall correctly, Sonar 3.1.

Well, yes, quite. But that's not what I call a user friendly method, far from it, in fact. Way to simplistic for my liking.

Ah well....

[ustudio]

Hey Craig I dont know if you've found this out or if you have updated your stuff, dont have time to read it all, I just got my S5 busy with that now, but when I was reading earlier, you said about the vst support that all plugins go into vst sub folder, but you have the option not to do that, even in vst adapter you could say dont add vst prefix and it would work. But if you installed a new vst it would reset it self, so far in the new native support I can install and it wont do that , for instance all my vst plugin arent instaled with the vst prefix, and like for instance my blue tube are in a folder by itself, I have to rename them to start off with Blue Tubes but so far they are staying that way, dont know if that is permanent but so far so good. Yo Da Man!

[Alndln2]

Originally posted by AW - Cakewalk

Disabling PDC for any particular plug-in is easy:
[list=1]
Open up the Plug-in Manager from the Tools menu
Select the specific VST plug-in you want to change.
Click the "Plug-in Props..." button at the bottom of the Plug-in Manager dialog.
Uncheck the option that says "Enable delay compensation"
[/list=1] Excellent news! I was afraid of losing individual plugin control that the adapter provided,but It's great to hear that it remains which will ultimately avert many potential problems.Now,how is that Bit Bridge Adapter for DX coming along?? :D

[Anderton]

<<Disabling PDC for any particular plug-in is easy>>

But I believe this relates only to VST plugs, right?

<<Thanks to Craig for this excellent thread and thanks to our friends at CW for showing up, as well. (Now if they had a presence in their own support forum...>>

Hmmm. When I've visited the Sonar forum, I've often seen comments from Cakewalkers. Ron Kuper seems particularly conscientious about dealing with some of the tougher questions.

<<Are you running Sonar 5 in 64-Bit or regular 32 Bit mode via the Bit-bridge? If 32, do you notice more CPU useage as before due to the doubled clock cycle processing requirement?>>

I'm running in 32-bit mode, but it does seem there's more of a hit on the CPU in this version. Could that be due to the 64-bit audio path? Or about the MIDI issue that was mentioned? Alex, any comments on this?

[Alndln2]

One thing not brought up here,it appears that many early users of S5 are apparently noticing a very big improvement in the audio engine in both 32 and 64 bit versions as reported in this thread http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=603446

[Anderton]

Think that the MIDI portion of various programs has been kind of ignored, what with all the attention to digital audio? Sonar 5 boasts a significantly revamped approach to MIDI, and yeah, I’m really liking it…although it took a little bit to wrap my head around the changes. As far as I’m concerned, if you work a lot with MIDI, the improved MIDI features alone justify the upgrade. They’re that good.

We’ll start with the MIDI Scale/Zoom control. Because of all the MIDI changes, and because the forum software allows only one picture file per post, the MIDI section of this review will be broken up among several shorter posts.

Scale/zoom provides a much more detailed view of MIDI data within a track; most of the time, you’ll no longer have to open up the Piano Roll View just to see what’s going on. And you might not want to open it up anyway, as we’ll see in the next post…and if you do open it up, you’ll find that it’s been enhanced as well.

First off, what’s so important about not having to open up the piano roll view? Simple: You can see MIDI data in context with the other MIDI and audio tracks. Furthermore, controller data is now shown along with note data. Granted, all controller data is shown simultaneously – this feature is more for giving the big picture, as you can’t edit when you’re just looking at Clips in the Clips pane. But Sonar 5 also includes new MIDI editing provisions, which we’ll cover in the next post.

The key to using this feature is the “piano keyboard” scale control toward the left, between the track info and the clip. Click and drag up or down on the keyboard to zoom in or out (in other words, make the MIDI notes taller or shorter), right-click and drag up or down to shift the visible part of the keyboard. Click on the Attachment to see various MIDI tracks zoomed in by various amounts. You’ll note in the picture that the top track is zoomed in quite a bit, the middle track less so, and the bottom track the least of all.

You can also zoom by changing the track’s height, but obviously, it’s extremely convenient to retain a track’s height and still be able to zoom in and out. Because controller data doesn’t relate to pitch, it doesn’t change when you use the Zoom/Scale option, but does stretch if you change the track height.

And there’s more:

 Right-click on the keyboard, and you have control over layers if the Track Layers button is on (show, rebuild, compact, insert, delete, and select layers).
 There’s an option to “Fit Content,” which scales all MIDI data in the track so it fits the allotted space. This can apply to selected tracks, a single track, or all tracks…your choice.
 Shift-click on the keyboard, and you’ll audition the associated note.
 Shift-click-drag on the keyboard, and you’ll audition all the selected notes over which you dragged.

As a final touch, you can change the scale from showing a keyboard (“Notes”) mode to showing numeric note values (“7 Bit Values”) mode.

I really like this…but there’s more to the MIDI enhancements.

[Anderton]

There was just a lightning storm, and as I have a UPS, I did a nice orderly shutdown. But when I turned the computer on again, it POSTs, beeps, checks the floppy disk, but then Windows doesn't start - I get the "flashing cursor in upper left hand corner" and that's it.

Bummer. Well, I'll add to the review when the computer's working again. At least if it all goes to hell and I need to re-install Sonar, I'll be thanking them every second for having such a dead simple installation procedure.

Oh, and if anyone has any advice other than re-installing Windows...

[Rabid]

Originally posted by DrummerCT
I am wondering about Sonar user's thoughts about Cakewalk's approach to pricing for upgrades. ...

My thoughts are "buy only the upgrades you need." I have used Cakewalk since version 1 and usually update every other release. So far I have Cakewalk 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, Sonar 1, 2, 3 and now 5. I skipped 4 because the metranome was the only thing I really needed, and a collection of Acid loops works just as well. Actually, I bought Sonar 4 when they offered the free upgrade to Sonar 5. Hopefully it will arive soon. No word yet on shipping. :(

I also do this with other program such as Acid and SoundForge.

Robert

[Rabid]

Any comments on how the built in VSTi support of Sonar 5 affects the wrapper in Project5? While using the wrapper with Project5 will I see multiple instances of VSTi's within Sonar 5? Is there a plan to update Project5 with native VSTi support?

Robert

[SSMickey]

Originally posted by Anderton
Oh, and if anyone has any advice other than re-installing Windows...

'Recovery Console' is always worth a shot

http://tinyurl.com/4shf

It could just be your MBR that needs repaired.

Or just reload your last saved Image...

[tecknot]

Originally posted by Anderton
<<Are you running Sonar 5 in 64-Bit or regular 32 Bit mode via the Bit-bridge? If 32, do you notice more CPU useage as before due to the doubled clock cycle processing requirement?>>

I'm running in 32-bit mode, but it does seem there's more of a hit on the CPU in this version. Could that be due to the 64-bit audio path? Or about the MIDI issue that was mentioned? Alex, any comments on this?
Craig, looks like CW is aware of the CPU metering in S5 and willl address the issue in a patch (see Noel's and Ron's posts in CW SONAR forum below). It's a little dissapointing to see the final product has this slight flaw. Not major but wish it was caught before it shipped.

At least we know it's not a real problem.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=603453&mpage=2&key=


Hello,

No need to panic :-) There was a change made to the actual CPU meter very close to when we shipped SONAR 5 that caused higher CPU readout on the meter. We have since then revised the logic used for the meter since it turned out that the change was causing higher readings than SONAR was actually consuming. The first point update to SONAR 5 will correct this. Thanks for your understanding.

Noel

_____________________________

Noel Borthwick
Cakewalk


Hi folks,

Just to second what Noel said --we've investigated the CPU loading issue. Good news and bad news.

Good news is, SONAR 5 doesn't actually consume more CPU than 4. Bad news is, a late change in the SONAR 5 code introduced a bug in how the CPU meters were being computed.

In other words, the engine isn't less efficient -- the meters themselves are displaying the wrong value.


Thanks for the indepth reports!


tecknot

[vksf01]

craig,

are you using a single or multiprocessor machine? i'm running a dual opteron with sonar 5 and if the "enable multiprocessor engine" is checked, sonar's cpu maxes out and grinds to a hault whenever i insert any softsynth. has this happened to you?

vincent
http://www.vksf.net

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton
<<Disabling PDC for any particular plug-in is easy>>

But I believe this relates only to VST plugs, right?
Yep, you're right!

<<Are you running Sonar 5 in 64-Bit or regular 32 Bit mode via the Bit-bridge? If 32, do you notice more CPU useage as before due to the doubled clock cycle processing requirement?>>

I'm running in 32-bit mode, but it does seem there's more of a hit on the CPU in this version. Could that be due to the 64-bit audio path? Or about the MIDI issue that was mentioned? Alex, any comments on this?
It's actually because of a last-minute code change that made the CPU meter reading inaccurate. We'll address this in the next possible maintenance release.

[bdub]

Alex or anyone -- how does BitBridge work exactly? I have an AMD 64/3200 but am running 32 bit Windoze XP. If I get the x64 edition and install Sonar, how do I get my old plugs to work (and I have dozens of them: all Spectrasonics, most Native Instruments, Sample Tank, Sonik Synth, Wavearts, Arturia's stuff, etc). They're 32-bit apps. Do they work in Win XP x64 in some compatibility mode and then magically talk to Sonar via BitBridge?

Thanks,
Bill

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by bdub
Alex or anyone -- how does BitBridge work exactly? I have an AMD 64/3200 but am running 32 bit Windoze XP. If I get the x64 edition and install Sonar, how do I get my old plugs to work (and I have dozens of them: all Spectrasonics, most Native Instruments, Sample Tank, Sonik Synth, Wavearts, Arturia's stuff, etc). They're 32-bit apps. Do they work in Win XP x64 in some compatibility mode and then magically talk to Sonar via BitBridge?

Thanks,
Bill
"Do they work in Win XP x64 in some compatibility mode and then magically talk to Sonar via BitBridge?"

Yes. :)

[bdub]

Originally posted by AW - Cakewalk

"Do they work in Win XP x64 in some compatibility mode and then magically talk to Sonar via BitBridge?"

Yes. :)

Thanks! So, people at Cakewalk are actually running true 64-bit systems (CPU and OS) with these plugins? That's promising.

I think there is a bit of mystery surrounding this whole 64-bit business. I have a Delta-66 soundcard so there are 64-bit drivers available for me. I'd lose the use of my Steinberg Unitor-8, but then again I have a few other MIDI interfaces that I could limp by with for now. My biggest concern was the ability to use existing software on the 64-bit OS.

Bill

[Laptoppop]

But be careful you have the VST versions. BitBridge doesn't work with DX or DXi plugins, only VST.

-lee-

[bdub]

Originally posted by Laptoppop
But be careful you have the VST versions. BitBridge doesn't work with DX or DXi plugins, only VST.

-lee-

Thanks Lee...I remember reading that somewhere. I tend to use the VST versions of everything when possible anyway so that shouldn't matter (although I do have some DXi stuff that will be rendered useless -- well, it's all for the sake of progress!).

[freddie_tane]

Oh No! Our fearless guide into the brave
new world of S5 has had a PC meltdown -
we must send bits and bytes of recovery voodoo to him and hope that he'll regain
web-ability soon ...

01010011010100100100101001001

- ft

[techristian]

I must have been hiding under a rock for some time. The only REX that I ever heard about was on the Amiga 20 years ago. I think it had something to do with piping output from one application into the input of another. Am I warm Craig or ALL WET???

Another question... I'm also using UNITY by BITHEADZ . Will all of my sounds from that software work w S5? (It is amazing how a year away from recording has caused me to grasp for the right technical terms. I'm trying to remember the type of software interface that works with bitheadz. I know that Unity DS-1 should work as a plugin but there was also another interface with it)

Am I correct in stating that your review is for the MORE EXPENSIVE of 2 versions of S5 ??

One is a $99 upgrade for me and the other is almost $300 for the upgrade. OOPS but I'm already too late for the upgrade deal !

Dan

[Anderton]

Okay, I’m back after a bout with hardware problems…ugh. As far as I can tell, a failing motherboard disk controller corrupted the boot drive and I had to reinstall Windows, which means I had to re-install Sonar. Hopefully the system will limp along until the replacement mobo arrives in a couple days.

Anyway, when you click on a track’s PRV button, you can not only see the MIDI data in the track (with the zoom, fit content, scale, and other options mentioned above), but can actually edit the notes. This isn’t a new concept; Steinberg included in-place editing in Cubase SX. But it is indeed convenient because, again, you can see the MIDI data in context with audio tracks and other MIDI data tracks…even more so, because you can see the soft synth audio in its track along with the MIDI data driving it.

There are three drop-down menus for a MIDI track in PRV mode. Click on the attachment to see the three drop-down menu locations; the show/hide data menu is currently visible. The PRV button is circled in yellow. One menu chooses the note value that will be written when you use the pencil tool, another the type of data (note, velocity, controller), and a third shows/hides various data so you don’t have to be overwhelmed if there’s a lot of data in a track.

Incidentally, the PRV view has its own toolbar. But note that the Scrub control still affects only audio tracks in the Clips pane; you need to use the piano roll if you want to scrub MIDI notes.

[Anderton]

<<I must have been hiding under a rock for some time. The only REX that I ever heard about was on the Amiga 20 years ago.>>

The REX file was originated by Propellerheads and allows stretching digital audio by slicing the digital audio into pieces, and triggering each piece with a MIDI note. A longer time between triggers slows down the tempo; a shorter time increases the tempo.

<<Another question... I'm also using UNITY by BITHEADZ . Will all of my sounds from that software work w S5?>>

I don't know, I don't use any of the Bitheadz instruments on Windows.

<<Am I correct in stating that your review is for the MORE EXPENSIVE of 2 versions of S5 ??>>

Yes, although several elements are present in the lower cost version. This is all explained on the Cakewalk web site (http://www.cakewalk.com).

[Anderton]

The big feature here is you now have a choice of putting controllers in a separate pane (as was done previously), or superimposed on top of the notes. Click on the Attachment to see how the piano roll view combines controllers and velocity with notes. The selected controller is thicker and darker.

What’s interesting here is that the controllers can now take up a lot more vertical height, because they have much room to play around with as the notes. And see the purple controller data in the picture? That’s a controller being drawn. Note how a readout shows the precise value of the controller being drawn at any given moment, along with the controller data’s timing, control number, and name.

Like the in-track PRV, there’s a drop-down menu that shows/hides different elements, and another menu that specifies the type of data you’ll be drawing. Note values are not selected from a menu here, as there is already a graphic interface for choosing note values.

All these MIDI changes are very welcome. Working with controllers is much easier; you can still use envelopes on the tracks (and of course, the “Convert MIDI To Shapes” option is still available), but being able to draw controllers in greater detail, and see the direct relationship to the notes, is great.

[Anderton]

Step recording doesn’t get much respect – isn’t it just for people to enter arpeggios? Well, sorta. But if you’re going to do step recording, might as well make it as easy as possible.

The biggest improvement (at least in my opinion) is that keyboard shortcut bindings are set up so it’s easy to play notes with your left hand, and edit step recording characteristics (note lengths, add step sizes together, step forward, step backward – which you can now do repeatedly – beat forward, etc.) with your right hand. But it’s also nice that you can immediately see the results of step recording, and can use other commands while step recording (including change tracks).

Click on the Attachment to see the listing of keyboard shortcuts. I know a list like this sounds boring, but it’s also an easy way to see the kind of step control you have at your fingertips. And of course, it’s Sonar…you can change the key bindings if you like. If you’re into step recording, I’d strongly suggest printing out the shortcuts sheet until you learn them.

The step recording dialog box has two settings, Basic and Advanced. Advanced has some cute features (randomize note duration) but also has some pretty useful commands, like linking the step recording insertion point to the now time. This is a much faster way to jump to particular sections of a tune compared to using the advance and back options.

If you want to use other commands while step recording, you have two options. Anything mouse-driven “adds” to what you’re doing. If you want to use keyboard shortcuts, you can temporarily disable and enable step recording. While disabled, you can use the mouse and keyboard shortcuts.

Now I must admit I never really found step recording all that useful. So, I’m not particularly thrilled I can do something I don’t care about anyway more efficiently. And if this section is somewhat superficial as a result, I apologize! But I know that a lot of people do like step recording, especially those entering notes from sheet music. For them, I’m sure the improved implementation is a big deal. And y’know, maybe Cakewalk’s trying to give me a hint, and it’s time for me to check out doing some techno-type bass arpeggiation with step recording instead of relying on playing notes and adding echoes…

[Anderton]

They’re not really all that different from the MIDI effects in previous versions of Sonar – except for the look. Yes, you no longer need to be embarrassed if a client is looking over your shoulder as you pull up one of these babies. Click on the Attachment to see the new look, as shown in the Quantize and Echo effects.

One disappointment: The Session Drummer plug-in, which is really quite cool, looks as uncool and user-hostile as ever. And on a related subject…the CAL programs provide a lot of useful MIDI functions. Shouldn’t you be able to download the Cakewalk Application Language if you’re enough of a geek to want to write your own CAL routines? And maybe some of the CAL routines could be packaged into new, spiffy-looking MIDI effects.

I’m sure these things aren’t a big priority at Cakewalk; I wouldn’t suggest the engineers’ time would have been better spent on CAL programs than the other updates. But it’s something to think about for, oh, Sonar Version 8 or so. (And if you haven’t checked out the CAL files, do so: There are some real gems in there, like the Strum-It file.)

[Anderton]

Yes, it really is improved. It seems that gapping gets less and less with each version, and V5 is no exception.

Let’s handle the easy part first. A Sonar project can contain different bit depths. This is very helpful when you’re importing, say, a mix of 16-bit and 24-bit loops. But here’s something I don’t understand: The online help says “Sonar 4 does not play back projects that contain files with different bit depths,” but I recorded a test file with both 24 and 16 bit depth files, and it played back just fine – huh? In any event, you can rewrite all the files to the same bit depth; your choices are 32, 24, and 16 bits (With 16 bits selected, you can enable dithering. But I wouldn’t recommend doing this until your final mixdown, when you export a high-resolution file to 16 bits.)

There’s also an option under Global Options where you can select file bit depths for Record Bit Depth, Render Bit Depth, and Import Bit Depth. Click on the Attachment to see the revamped Global Options menu.

Now let’s tackle the big question: What’s the deal with this 64-bit audio engine?

First, you do not need a 64-bit computer, or the x64 operating system, to use a 64-bit audio path. A full 64-bit system will give somewhat faster operation, but the concept of running under a 64-bit OS, and the concept of using a 64-bit audio engine, are not related. You can run the 64-bit audio engine, with the benefits it provides, on 32-bit computers.

Second, can you hear the difference? As in so many cases when you’re talking about audio, it depends on the program material. A lot of users report superior sound quality on computationally intensive sounds, like reverb tails. With most of the material I used, the source material wasn’t really at a level where 64 bits would make a big difference. However, as I used more plug-ins and processing, it did seem the sound stayed more consistent – there were certainly no traces of “fuzziness.” I feel Sonar’s 32-bit quality did the job, but certainly, 64 bits can’t hurt and yes, you can hear a difference with the right program material.

[Anderton]

Okay, that's it for tonight. Let me give a real quick summary of how I feel about the update so far.

I'm very impressed by the new MIDI features. With all the goodies happening in Sonar, it might seem strange to focus on that. Yet a certain MIDI "clunkiness" remained from the Pro Audio days, and seemed increasingly out of place in Sonar. Now it feels like the MIDI and audio elements belong under the same roof.

The other thing I like is that a lot of the "little things" are big things. Being able to see the audio for a soft synth, bus, or master output is extremely helpful, especially because you can find peaks. And the track icons - which we'll touch on tomorrow - seem like pure eye candy until you use them in the console view; with the icons, it's much easier to parse tracks rapidly.

And you might not think REX file support is that important, but it's done very well. The extra instruments are thoughtful, and cleaning up some old annoyances - like limited gain options, and the inability to record DC offset - helps bring Sonar even further into the "pro" arena.

If you didn't update to S4, I highly recommend the jump to S5. It's a great upgrade and the features have real benefits. The upgrade reminds me very much of Live 5's relationship to Live 4: Lots of changes the affect the entire program, not one big killer feature, like surround.

However, Sonar 5 does have two killer features, too: V-Vocal and convolution reverb. We're going to deal with some of the remaining enhancements over the weekend, and save these "killer features" to close out the review. It's not just to be dramatic :), I need the time to learn them better before I feel confident talking about them.

Thanks for your interest, and be sure to ask any remaining questions soon - we'll be wrapping up the "official review" part fairly shortly.

[freddie_tane]

Thanks for the reviews Craig !!
Awesome, as always!

Well allright!

From the sounds of it, those are indeed
the enhanced features of step recording
that I (and some others) have been
looking for ...

keyboard bindings to select duration
onscreen view of notes as created
forward backward

Cool beans! I should be ready to upgrade
in a month or so - currently in midst of a
collaborative project with a buddy
in S4 - we'll both upgrade after it's
"done" ;-)

- ft

[Deef]

Originally posted by Anderton
A Sonar project can contain different bit depths. This is very helpful when you’re importing, say, a mix of 16-bit and 24-bit loops. But here’s something I don’t understand: The online help says “Sonar 4 does not play back projects that contain files with different bit depths,” but I recorded a test file with both 24 and 16 bit depth files, and it played back just fine – huh?

Well, Sonar 5 does play back projects containing files of varied bit depths, correct? I assume if you are sharing a project with a Sonar 4 user, the statement in the help file would be an important point.

On the Sonar forum, Noel Borthwick of Cakewalk says,


If you open File | Project audio files you will see a new column listing the individual bit depths of all files in your project. (The clip properties also list the bit depth)

This is useful to know if you want to share S5 files with S4 users since you must first convert to a single bit depth (using the change audio format command) before S4 will open S5 peojects.


Deef

[Anderton]

Well, THAT will teach me to read the fine print!! I'm so used to reading "Sonar 4" I just glossed past it and saw "Sonar 5" instead.

But I think I'll leave that post up, even though it makes me look dumb, because your reply brings up an important point about S4/S5 compatibility. Thanks!

[Laptoppop]

Originally posted by Anderton
But I think I'll leave that post up, even though it makes me look dumb, because your reply brings up an important point about S4/S5 compatibility. Thanks!

That sir, is class.

-lee-

[Anderton]

<<That sir, is class.>>

I'd like to agree, but really, I'm just doing my job, which is to try and be as accurate and fair as possible. I can't be accurate 100% of the time, it's simply not doable. That's one reason I started this review format: If I overlooked something or was mistaken about a feature, I could be pretty sure someone would catch it.

The idea of a Pro Review is not just for me to spout off (although that IS kinda fun!) but to really try to present a variety of opinions and outlooks converge in one place. Hopefully this will allow people to make better purchasing decisions when they base such decisions on reviews.

It's very flattering, but also a bit scary, when someone buys something because of a review I wrote. Flattering, because it's great that people recognize how hard I work at being objective but scary because sounds, functionality, and workflow are soooo subjective...

[Anderton]

I must admit I thought this was kind of silly. I mean, after all, I can read the name of a track, right?

But I’ve written before about the right brain’s power to parse colors and images much faster than the left brain can parse text – and track icons are just the thing to make it easier to pick out the tracks you want from a big project.

The idea is simple: A track can have an associated icon (with two sizes, large and small). Click on the Attachment to see six console view tracks with icons. But in typical Sonar fashion, there are a lot of ways to customize this.

First, although Sonar comes with a bunch of very nice icons, you can make your own. I’ve found that grabbing a piece of a virtual instrument front panel (Cakewalk recommends 128 x 128 pixel images) really helps identify which specific piece of software is playing back on a track. (And of course, being able to hide MIDI tracks driving virtual instruments doesn’t hurt either, with respect to making an overview easier to grasp.)

Second, you can customize how (and whether) icons are shown in the track view, inspector, and console view. In the track view, you can show icons in the header, in the strip, or both. In the others, you can specify the icon size and whether icons will be shown or not.

All of this is available from the Options menu, although you can also right-click on icons to load icons and choose small or large icons (this affects all icons, not just the one on which you clicked).

It still seems a little weird to consider this one of Sonar 5’s standout features, but I gotta say, when you see that mic or guitar or synth or whatever sitting in the console view, you just know exactly which fader you need to use. If nothing else, it really drives home just how helpful an intelligent use of visuals and color can be when you’re trying to wade through the creative process with minimum distractions.

[Anderton]

Here’s another one of those simple things that has a major impact on workflow. I must say it took me quite a while to figure out what those little blue triangles did in the upper corner of the track numbers, but here’s the deal: Ctrl-click on several of them to tie parameters like volume, pan, etc. together. This even applies to the Sonitus channel EQs, which is great when you’re riding two tracks together and want response changes to affect multiple tracks identically. Click on the Attachment to see two virtual instruments tracks tied together so their effects sends would track; the Quick Group “tabs” are circled in yellow.

By the way, you can still select/deselect/put focus on tracks in the usual way, as well as use the regular style of grouping when you want groups to “stick.” But for quick links among parameters, Quick Groups is another one of those “Why wasn’t I bugging them for this years ago?” kind of features.

[Anderton]

I may be way off base here, but I think Sonar 5 has benefited greatly from Cakewalk’s forays into more “consumer” fields (e.g., their Kinetic software) and the work they’ve done with Roland. The result, I believe, is more of an insight in how to aid the music-making process by simplifying certain aspects of that process, such as better use of color and images.

But perhaps there was also a realization that some functions didn’t need to be as elaborate as they have been, such as grouping. The Quick Groups thing is really no different than linking faders on a digital board to have a particular movement “track.”

While I appreciate the “big items” that have gone into Sonar 5, it’s the little things that make the program just that much slicker to use on a day-to-day basis.

[Cmusicmaker]

While I appreciate the “big items” that have gone into Sonar 5, it’s the little things that make the program just that much slicker to use on a day-to-day basis.


Full marks for detail and effort I must say. Many will return to this thread no doubt to go over the views shared in this thread. Great idea but a question for you sir...

I think the Sonar 3 review was a great write up. Sound on Sound?
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb04/articles/cakewalksonar3.htm

...however you added a rather useful angle to the review by including the Sonar Vs Everything else Box.

I found that to be a real eye opener. Of course with only so many pages left to review Sonar 3, you were never going to go into too much detail but as you no doubt already know, once an interested party has read a detailed review they sometimes ask themselves "OK but how does Sonar X compare to product Y or Z"... are you with me?

If you could *update* the Sonar Vs Everything else mini article by giving us a Sonar 5 Vs everything else summary I think that would be very helpful as it was for Sonar 3.

Cubase Sx3, Samplitude 8 and Acid 5, have since replaced the now previous versions mentioned in that summary. How do you think it looks today?

Clearly decisions about which Sequencer is best is down to the user and they all acheive the same thing in different ways, but for me I think Sonar has caught up and passed the competition in many ways but of course it is all subjective at the end of the day...So Craig any chance of that "..Vs Everything else" summary?;)

I remember wondering what exactly Project 5 was years ago and heading down to Soundonsound to read your Project 5 review http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jun03/articles/cakewalkproject5.asp very useful and very helpful. You discussed Pysn in that review, what I would also like to see is some information on Pentagon and how you think it compares to Psyn II. I would particularly like to hear your views on the "2x oversampling option" mentioned on the RGC website http://www.rgcaudio.com/pentagon_I.htm.

Finally...if you have the time please include the following in your review..I guess I just want to hear your views on them...

Envelope automation drawing enhanced with tempo-sync patterns, freehand, e.t.c

Track Templates

Object based Clip FX

and...

V Vocal.

Apologies if I have missed the above topics if they have already been covered and thanks for taking the time!

[Anderton]

If you could *update* the Sonar Vs Everything else mini article by giving us a Sonar 5 Vs everything else summary I think that would be very helpful as it was for Sonar 3.

I'm working on it now.

Craig

[Cmusicmaker]

Originally posted by Anderton


I'm working on it now.

Craig

Thanks Craig.:cool:

[GY]

Would Sonar 5 run okay on a 1 GHz, 512 MB, Win PX machine?

[flatpicknut]

Cakewalk's web site shows minimum requirement of P4 1.3 GHz, 128 MB memory. Recommended is P4 2.8 GHz with 512 MB memory. You are below the minimum for CPU. That isn't to say that you couldn't run SONAR with some reduced expectations for the number of softsynths or effects or audio tracks that you could run. The cool new stuff in v5 has me thinking about upgrading my hardware, and I'm running a P4 3.01 GHz (I'll see how well my system runs with the SONAR upgrade once I actually get it. Still waiting...).

[Anderton]

I checked out M-Audio's Key Rig with Sonar 5, and has some serious CPU spiking issues. It's likely not Key Rig, as neither Cubase SX 3.1 nor Project5 have the same problems. Basically, the CPU hangs out in the 20% range, then occasionally spikes up to 80% or even the "Warning" zone.

Even with a project that has nothing loaded other than Key Rig, the CPU meter peaks out often. I've increased latency to 11 ms and it's better, but still have some problems. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether I turn the 64-bit engine or multiprocessing engine (I use a dual Athlon computer) on or off.

Anyway, I brought this to Cakewalk's attention and they're investigating it...might be related to the CPU meter bug mentioned previously. I'll keep you posted; this seems like the kind of thing that gets a patch before too long.

[Gerry C]

Just wanted to say a big thank you Craig for your reviews. Really interesting reading and oh so informative. Also thanks to Cakewalk for pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks,

Gerry

[SSMickey]

Originally posted by GY
Would Sonar 5 run okay on a 1 GHz, 512 MB, Win PX machine?

It'll run just fine.

You will obviously be limited to what and how much you can do, but unless you are trying to run a huge amount of DXi/VSTi you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Anderton]

I noticed that the CPU spiking happens only if the properties page is open. If I close it, the CPU consumption settles down to a much more normal number. So I guess there's some kind of interaction with the graphics somehow...I've passed this info along to Cakewalk.

[blue2blue]

Finally caught up with these last two pages. Good -- make that, really good -- info, Craig.

and bloatware shock of Macromedia's Studio 8 update (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and some stupid crap that no one who uses DW will ever need or want that they obviously put in to make up for taking out useful but no longer developed apps like Freehand). Damn I hate Macromedia. Too bad I hate Adobe even worse. But these apps are just pigs vis a vis the MX versions (2 vers back.) Anyhow, it looks like I won't get the same sinking feeling loading up Sonar 5 -- and that's a big relief.]


Btw... I couldn't help laugh outloud reading your 2004 Sonar 3 vs everything else writeup when I got to the bit about Logic...Logic Audio 5.5, the last version created for Windows, is still touted by some partisans as being superior to every other program out there. OK, how I can say this delicately... this is like people who take their cat to a taxidermist when it dies, then leave it on a chair in the living room so they can pretend it's still alive. Message to Windows Logic users: yes, it's a great program, but at some point you'll need to get a Mac, or find an alternative on Windows.

Purr-iceless.

[Anderton]

Well without further ado, let’s proceed to arguably one of the bigger elements of the update (aside from the 64-bit audio engine, the convolution reverb, the improved MIDI, the better workflow…): V-Vocal.

Let’s make one thing clear – V-Vocal is a misleading name, because it works with lots of different sounds. I took a synth bass part, and turned it into a fretless by drawing curves to slide from one note to another. Polyphonic material is hit and miss, but just about anything monophonic is eligible for V-Vocalizing. The only caution is that you probably will want to normalize any V-Vocal clip down a few dB; the process introduces minor level changes and if the headroom is exceeded, you’ll hear a very nasty click.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry.

V-Vocal is not a plug-in. Instead, you turn a clip into a “V-Vocal” clip, when then shows up in the V-Vocal display. Click on the Attachment to see V-Vocal adjusting pitch.. This is where you have control over four different sonic elements:

Pitch. This is your basic pitch correction, which you can do manually or automatically.
Time. If you’re familiar with Live 5’s warp markers, you’ll understand this. You can stretch or compress time within a file; for example, with a drum part you can “lag” just one snare hit. With vocals, of course, you can stretch out a note or make it staccato.
Formant. If you pitch a vocal note up, you can use the formant option to change the formant back down again, and vice-versa. If you’re too pressed for time to do this on a note-by-note basis, you can have it follow the pitch line.
Dynamics. Bring up soft parts, and bring down loud ones…or add unnatural dynamics.

Formant and Dynamics have envelopes you can treat as draggable segments, or use a pencil for freehand (or a line tool when you need a smooth change). With Time, you insert a marker and drag it left or right, bringing along the audio along with it. Pitch works like similar pitch correction software; you drag a note up or down, referenced to a pitch scale along the left. But you can also use the pencil or line tool, or click a note on a keyboard to have the note “snap” to that pitch. And, constrain to a minor or major scale.

Three editable parameters govern the correction’s “naturalness.” The Note control is like pitch quantization, from nothing to total dead-on pitch. The Vibrato control “flattens out” any vibrato at one extreme, and leaves it totally intact at the other; Sense widens or narrows the range affected by pitch correction. Bottom line: You can create very natural changes, or go for the robot shifting voice that we all know.

Then there’s the groovy LFO tool, where you can draw vibrato, optionally fade it in, and drag up or down to specify the depth as well as right or left to change the frequency. I love this option…it’s so cool.

Best of all, you can go completely nuts and not worry. There are undo/redo controls within V-Vocal itself, but if you drag the eraser tool over a piece of audio, it goes back to the way it was before you got all goofy about it.

Oh, and here’s a tip for drum timing: Material that’s unstretched sounds like the source material; changes occur only with stretched material. Suppose you want to have one snare sound hit late. So you click in front of the snare, and “push” the sound to the right. But this time-compresses everything to the right, or to the next “warp marker,” whichever it encounters first. So then you click in front of the next beat to uncompress the rest of the file…but it’s hard to get it exact, so there’s a little bit of stretching, and the sound changes a bit.

A better way to change the timing of one hit is to put a marker before and after the sound. Now you can move the sound anywhere within that “window,” without disturbing the rest of the file.

I could go on about V-Vocal, it’s incredibly flexible and useful. Samplitude and MOTU include these types of capabilities, but Sonar’s implementation is unusually complete. I’ve always liked Roland’s VariPhrase technology, but it was always found in things that were too expensive for my tastes. And now it’s built in to Sonar 5! This feature is an out-of-the-park home run that provides stunningly useful processing option for vocals, as well as many other sounds.

But I do think it’s going to take me until Sonar 6 comes out before I learn how to exploit this to the fullest. It seems every time I play with V-Vocal, I come up with some groovacious new application.

[blue2blue]

Digesting the V-Vocal thing, here...

I think I've stumbled on a new grail for those looking for a quest.

How about vocal pitch correction -- and especially harmony generation -- that uses 'true intervals' rather than the often awkardly out of tune even-tempered intervals.

I really hate the sound of 'piano-correct' vocalists and particularly harmony singers who use even-tempered note values instead of going with true harmonic intervals (like all the good vocal ensembles do whether they know it or not -- and which is why smart vocal ensembles try to avoid support instruments that play sustained notes, like organs, that create a harmonic mine field for any ensemble trying to sing true intervals instead of 'piano notes.')

[Anderton]

You can adjust V-vocal pitch to whatever interval you like; it's not necessary to snap to the even-tempered scale. For example, I find that sometimes making a note a little flat if it's leading up the tonic can sound pretty cool.

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton
Well without further ado, let’s proceed to arguably one of the bigger elements of the update (aside from the 64-bit audio engine, the convolution reverb, the improved MIDI, the better workflow…): V-Vocal.

Let’s make one thing clear – V-Vocal is a misleading name, because it works with lots of different sounds. I took a synth bass part, and turned it into a fretless by drawing curves to slide from one note to another. Polyphonic material is hit and miss, but just about anything monophonic is eligible for V-Vocalizing. The only caution is that you probably will want to normalize any V-Vocal clip down a few dB; the process introduces minor level changes and if the headroom is exceeded, you’ll hear a very nasty click.
Wow, that's a great tip, Craig. Good thing we updated our Normalize tool. :)

I haven't tried this myself, but one of our beta testers suggested that normalizing before creating a V-Vocal clip might be a good idea because of the origins of VariPhrase technology in general - that the technology was originally used in samplers, where wavetables are often normalized.

However, there is a pre-analysis component to working with V-Vocal - I would bet this analysis step takes care of this.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry.

V-Vocal is not a plug-in. Instead, you turn a clip into a “V-Vocal” clip, when then shows up in the V-Vocal display. Click on the Attachment to see V-Vocal adjusting pitch.. This is where you have control over four different sonic elements:

Pitch. This is your basic pitch correction, which you can do manually or automatically.
Time. If you’re familiar with Live 5’s warp markers, you’ll understand this. You can stretch or compress time within a file; for example, with a drum part you can “lag” just one snare hit. With vocals, of course, you can stretch out a note or make it staccato.
Formant. If you pitch a vocal note up, you can use the formant option to change the formant back down again, and vice-versa. If you’re too pressed for time to do this on a note-by-note basis, you can have it follow the pitch line.
Dynamics. Bring up soft parts, and bring down loud ones…or add unnatural dynamics.

Formant and Dynamics have envelopes you can treat as draggable segments, or use a pencil for freehand (or a line tool when you need a smooth change). With Time, you insert a marker and drag it left or right, bringing along the audio along with it. Pitch works like similar pitch correction software; you drag a note up or down, referenced to a pitch scale along the left. But you can also use the pencil or line tool, or click a note on a keyboard to have the note “snap” to that pitch. And, constrain to a minor or major scale.

Three editable parameters govern the correction’s “naturalness.” The Note control is like pitch quantization, from nothing to total dead-on pitch. The Vibrato control “flattens out” any vibrato at one extreme, and leaves it totally intact at the other; Sense widens or narrows the range affected by pitch correction. Bottom line: You can create very natural changes, or go for the robot shifting voice that we all know.

Then there’s the groovy LFO tool, where you can draw vibrato, optionally fade it in, and drag up or down to specify the depth as well as right or left to change the frequency. I love this option…it’s so cool.

Best of all, you can go completely nuts and not worry. There are undo/redo controls within V-Vocal itself, but if you drag the eraser tool over a piece of audio, it goes back to the way it was before you got all goofy about it.

Oh, and here’s a tip for drum timing: Material that’s unstretched sounds like the source material; changes occur only with stretched material. Suppose you want to have one snare sound hit late. So you click in front of the snare, and “push” the sound to the right. But this time-compresses everything to the right, or to the next “warp marker,” whichever it encounters first. So then you click in front of the next beat to uncompress the rest of the file…but it’s hard to get it exact, so there’s a little bit of stretching, and the sound changes a bit.

A better way to change the timing of one hit is to put a marker before and after the sound. Now you can move the sound anywhere within that “window,” without disturbing the rest of the file.
Another great tip. This kind of technique is equally great for moving the timing of just one particular note or phrase of a melody/vocal line.

I could go on about V-Vocal, it’s incredibly flexible and useful. Samplitude and MOTU include these types of capabilities, but Sonar’s implementation is unusually complete. I’ve always liked Roland’s VariPhrase technology, but it was always found in things that were too expensive for my tastes. And now it’s built in to Sonar 5! This feature is an out-of-the-park home run that provides stunningly useful processing option for vocals, as well as many other sounds.

But I do think it’s going to take me until Sonar 6 comes out before I learn how to exploit this to the fullest. It seems every time I play with V-Vocal, I come up with some groovacious new application.
I feel the same way - it's an incredibly deep tool!

We've had producers and engineers use V-Vocal to make very fine and subtle corrections to high-end vocal recordings without a flaw, and at the same time...

We've learned that, because V-Vocal is so flexible with its control ranges, it makes for an awesome tool for doing some pretty extreme mangling of vocals and other instruments.

One of our QA engineers is a drummer in a very dark, heavy and noisy industrial band, and he came up to my desk one Monday morning with an extremely devlish ear-to-ear smile on his face and said, "V-Vocal is FUUUUUNNNNN." :D

[Anderton]

I just had a hunch...I went into the VST configuration wizard, and increased the editor pixel size for Key Rig by about 20 pixels. Problem solved! With the properties page open, there's no additional CPU consumption compared to having it closed.

I wonder if other reports of plug-in problems relate to this same situation. If so, try running the wizard and adjusting the editor size.

[Anderton]

Interestingly, this is found under the VST effects menu...not DX. Hmmm…

But I digress, so let’s hit the bottom line: This is an excellent, world class reverb. I was able to get some good effects out of Pantheon, but quite a few people weren’t entirely satisfied with its sound. PerfectSpace addresses that, period. It’s great.

It works like most convolution ’verbs: You load an impulse that “models” a real, or unreal, space. Sonar 5 includes plenty of these to get you started; the plates sounded great on vocals. And like most convolution reverbs, it likes to drink deep at the CPU well. But that’s what freeze is for, right?

Another cool thing is that PerfectSpace is very editable; there’s way more than the usual dry/wet controls (although of course, those controls are present, along with a pan control for the wet signal). Click on the Attachment to see a hi pass curve that reduces the reverb’s low end. There are similar editable envelopes for volume, width, pan, lo pass, and EQ (and the breakpoint curve lets you dial in any response you want).

It’s also possible to make some changes to the impulse itself (offset, length, and delay), and there are non-“space” impulses, like bass amp, acoustic guitar body, etc. These are wild and yes, putting a bass recorded direct through the bass amp impulse sounds like a bass going through an amp. You can load your own WAV files as impulses, and all I can say is, wow…I used some wild drum loops as impulses, and the results were astounding on a variety of material (being able to change the impulse length and offset is a tremendous advantage here).

The verdict: Convolution reverbs aren’t new, they have latency, and they suck CPU power. And they sound great! PerfectSpace is an exceptionally worthwhile addition to Sonar that adds a lot of value to the program, and will probably be all the reverb most users will need.

I am really digging this upgrade…and we’ll wrap up the Pro Review later tonight. Now it’s time for dinner - mmmm, fresh salmon...

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by Anderton
You can adjust V-vocal pitch to whatever interval you like; it's not necessary to snap to the even-tempered scale. For example, I find that sometimes making a note a little flat if it's leading up the tonic can sound pretty cool.

:)

Of course, I was hoping for one that would do the math for you... kind of like that just-intonation software that some of the newest synths and soft-synths can run... and then generate just-intoned vocal harmonies acorss a set of chords you can type in (a la PG Music's Powertracks and probably other vocal harmonizers, I just never paid attention).


But, really, it'd all be moot if I could just sing worth a... goldarn.

[Anderton]

We already mentioned the REX file player, but that’s not the only instrument in the upgrade: You now get rgc:audio’s Pentagon I. Click on the Attachment to see the Pentagon’s front panel..

This isn’t exactly a new synth; it’s been around for awhile as a pay-for-download instrument, particularly for those who got hooked on the related monophonic freebie, Triangle I. It’s your basic analog emulation digital synth, with a few interesting extras: Four oscillators with 18 possible waveforms, various EQ simulators (including speaker cabinets), dual multimode filters, separate envelope generators and sophisticated LFOs for the pitch, filter, and amp, and also, onboard effects (drive, chorus, delay, and bass/treble EQ). It’s not quite as cool as its successor (the z3ta+, now distributed by Cakewalk) but Pentagon I should satisfy those who feel the DreamStation DXi is showing its age. This is a synth that sounds fine, has a bunch of useful presets, and again, represents added value for the Sonar 5 package.

[Anderton]

I get the feeling that just before Sonar 5 was released, someone ran into a marketing meeting and said “Wait! I found a format we don’t support –Sound Fonts!” And thus SFZ, the Sound Font player, was added to the roster.

Visually, it’s not much: You can choose the mode, MIDI channel, amount of polyphony, effects on or off, quality, etc. Click on the Attachment to see the SFZ Sound Font player front panel. But it does what you want it to do, and supplants the LiveSynth found in previous versions. Useful? Yes. Earth-shattering? No. Added value? Yes. Worth including? Yes.

[Anderton]

Cakewalk Sonar 5 – The Rest of the Story

This is a massive upgrade, and so far I’ve written well over 8,000 words about it, with 20 downloadable images – a freedom I’ve never had with magazine reviews! But all good things must come to an end, and I’m leaving for AES in a few hours. We’ve covered the highlights, and I’d rather not postpone the conclusion for a week, so let’s wrap up some of the other enhancements before moving on to the conclusion.

Video output to FireWire DV devices. Record a video to a DV recorder, or display video on an external monitor or camcorder. Okay, but I’m not giving up Vegas for my video work.

Per-clip effects bins (MIDI or audio). This takes a page from Samplitude’s playbook, which has always treated “clips” as objects. Sonar’s implementation is not quite as sophisticated as Samplitude’s, but accomplishes the same result. Is this important? Well, it keeps you from having to split part of a clip to a separate track just to do some specific processing, so it’s mostly a matter of convenience and a “workspace anti-clutter” measure.

Multiple track insertion and cloning. So here’s the deal: You want to insert 8 MIDI tracks that will drive instruments in a multi-timbral device. Before Sonar 5, the quickest way to do this was select a MIDI track, then hit Insert 8 times. Now you can go Insert > Multiple Tracks, fill in a few fields, and insert any number of audio and MIDI tracks. This is a minor feature, but one that can shave a few minutes off projects here and there. Furthermore, an additional option under Clone Tracks lets you clone multiple tracks at a time.

Snap to scale. This MIDI feature snaps notes drawn in the piano roll (or inline piano roll view) snap to specific scales. I used to insert a MIDI effect in Sonar to accomplish the same sort of thing, but this update provides a far more convenient, user-friendly option. Several dozen scales are included, and you can create your own using the Scale Manager window. However, you can’t do microtunings to create different intonations; you’re still stuck with even-tempered intervals.

More OMF options. You can choose a new sample rate and bit depth when importing OMF files.

Track Templates. I would have given this more attention, but the feature was already introduced in Project5 V2. If you’re not familiar with track templates, these can be real time-savers because you can call up the following as one unit: Track type, hardware input, output destination, bus send settings, track icons, effects and related settings, name, etc. So if you have, for example, a favorite vocal setup, you can recall it instead of having to build it from scratch each time. And it’s easy to do, too; you just select a track with the characteristics you want, and go File > Export > Track Template to save it. Loading is equally easy

Tabbed Views. This is a little difficult to explain, but bear with me. Most windows have a little “Enabled Tabbed” icon in the upper left corner. Click on it, and you can dock the window in the Track view’s lower right. Click on the Attachment to see an example of tabbing among the bus, SFZ sound font player, and MIDI piano roll view for a track. The main value here is if you find yourself alternating among various windows to do particular edits; this lets you access them easily, all in one space.

Two preset management options. You can now see a list of recently used presets, but the more interesting and useful of the two new features is the ability to see if a preset has been changed compared to the last time it was saved. This can help prevent a situation where you re-save a preset, only to find to your horror that a different project uses the same preset, but now it doesn’t sound the same at all. You can use this either as a hint to save the preset under a different name so that the original saved version remains intact, or if the preset represents an improvement, go ahead and save it and have the improved version show up in the other project.

Envelope draw tool. This is a feature I always liked in Cubase SX, and now it’s available in Sonar: You can draw envelopes with preset shapes, like sine, triangle, square, saw, and random.

PSYN II Soft Synth. PSYN first appeared in Project5, but now Sonar owners don’t have to buy P5 to use it. Between this and Pentagon I, I expect people will stop complaining about the DreamStation (which actually does a lot more than most people realize).

Add automation nodes at selection. You know how you want to change the panning for just one section? So you click real carefully on the pan envelope, then click next to it, then create another pair of nodes, then click on the segment…with this new command, you just make your selection, and two closely-spaced pairs of nodes are added automatically so that you can easily change the level between the node pairs. And nodes are now circular instead of square. No big deal, but they do look better.

Whew! Let's head to the conclusions.

[Anderton]

For “everything else,” let’s define that universe (in alphabetical order) as:

 Sony Acid 5
 Adobe Audition
 Steinberg Cubase SX 3
 Ableton Live 5
 Emagic Logic for Windows
 Digidesign Pro Tools
 Cakewalk Project5 V2

Here’s how they stack up.

Sony Acid 5. I still think this is the fastest, easiest, most efficient way to create loop-based music (especially since the program added folder tracks). The virtual instrument and MIDI implementation is less than optimal, but if that’s not an important part of what you do, Acid will handle those needs as required. Acid does support plug-ins, digital audio, surround, and video, making it more DAW-like compared to Live. However, there’s no “mixing console” emulation page, which may be offputting to those used to working with standard hardware environments. And while it does include the Native Instruments Express Instruments, it doesn’t come close to having the kind of extras that come with Sonar Producer Edition.

Adobe Audition. At present, Audition is a much stronger stereo editor than multitrack recording environment, and there’s no significant MIDI support. If you’re into serious DAW work, there’s no question that Sonar is a better choice. But also consider that Audition occupies a unique niche that may be well-suited to a variety of applications for which Sonar would be overkill.

Steinberg Cubase SX3. This is the closest competitor to Sonar. However, with Yamaha behind both Steinberg and the Studio Connections initiative, Cubase has the potential to be the sequencer of choice for hybrid software/hardware setups. It has excellent looping and stretching environments, and bundles some useful plug-ins and instruments. I feel the workflow is more convoluted than Sonar’s, although of course, that’s a matter of preference and the type of work you do with the program. I do prefer Sonar’s “industrial design” in terms of graphics; Sonar’s are less sophisticated, but have the plus of being more straightforward. Steinberg’s dongle-based copy protection method is definitely more inconvenient than Sonar’s; some would argue, however, that being able to have all your authorizations in a single place is convenient if you go for an all-Steinberg setup. Bottom line is that I have both, and use both. But I use Sonar more than any other host.

Ableton Live 5. For remixing applications, I’d give Live 5 the nod because of the brilliant auto-warp feature, multiple stretch algorithms, and Session View, which has no equivalent in Sonar. As a DAW, though, Live 5 falls short of Sonar in several ways: MIDI, surround support, video capabilities, ability to read Acidized and REX files, metering, multiple monitor support, and native support for multiple control surfaces (Live 5 supports only the Mackie Control).

Emagic Logic for Windows. It’s time to move on…get over it. Buy a Mac, or learn one of these Windows programs. Or hope that someday Logic will support Windows machines again . . . yeah, right.

Digidesign Pro Tools. Sorry, but I’m not gonna go there. Pro Tools is its own world, and a lot of people use Pro Tools because the people they work with use Pro Tools, and interchanging projects is a snap. It is a Pro Tools world, and if you’re invested in the Digi way of life, you probably won’t chuck it for Sonar (or Cubase, or whatever). That said, though, Sonar does everything I need and at least for me, there would be no significant advantages – and several disadvantages – if I used Pro Tools instead of Sonar. I realize Digi offers very tight hardware/software integration, but for me, so does Creamware’s Scope system and Sonar – and I can run a lot of great Creamware soft synths and plug-ins on the Scope hardware. Finally, Sonar does support OMF, so interchange with Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase SX, etc. is relatively painless.

Cakewalk Project5 V2. Definitely not a DAW, this is the type of program you should consider alongside Acid and Live rather than Sonar. Although it seems to have much in common with Sonar – digital audio recording, ReWire, acid file support, and the like – it’s really centered around MIDI pattern generation and is more of a composing than recording tool. I can understand why a lot of users rewire Sonar and Project5 together, as they make a very complementary team.

[Anderton]

This isn’t just an upgrade, this is a major upgrade. If you’re a Sonar user, version 5 is essential– no two ways about it. If you work with vocals, V-Vocal is amazing. The new instruments make Sonar 5 far more cost-effective than its predecessors. PerfectSpace doesn’t only let you off the hook for buying a good reverb plug-in, it’s a great plug-in no matter how you look at it. And the enhanced 64-bit audio engine does make a difference in audio quality, even on 32-bit systems; with true 64-bit systems, it makes a difference in speed as well.

Couple this with the workflow enhancements, the vastly improved MIDI implementation, REX and Sound Font file support in addition to Acidized files, waveform previews, track icons, quick grouping, and all those other goodies we’ve covered, and you have an amazing, truly state of the art package. Simply stated, Sonar 5 isn’t just the best Sonar yet, it holds its own against anything out there.

So does this mean I’m going to stop using, say, Live 5, Project5, and/or Reason 3? Precisely the opposite, actually. Sonar’s comprehensive gestalt makes me appreciate the “self-contained world” aspect of these other programs. But the really big deal here is ReWire, which turns Sonar into not just a superb program in its own right, but a worthy partner for more specialized applications.

Is the upgrade perfect? There are a couple rough spots, like the problem I had with the VST configuration wizard choosing a window size that caused strange CPU overloads. But I haven’t seen anything that doesn’t look like an easy fix for a 5.0.1 patch, which I hear is in the works. I had no drastic issues, crashing, or other frustrations; Sonar 5 has been well-behaved, and a joy to work with.

If you're a Sonar user, you’re gonna love this upgrade - I certainly do. And if you're not a Sonar user, this upgrade just might make you wish you were.

Finally, thank you very much for your participation and feedback. Please feel free to continue to comment, and/or ask questions.

[Cmusicmaker]

Originally posted by Anderton
Finally, thank you very much for your participation and feedback. Please feel free to continue to comment, and/or ask questions.

Thanks Craig! The review was very useful.:D

[Gerry C]

Well I'm waiting for my Upgrade to arrive and your review has confirmed to me I have made the right decission.
Thanks again,
Gerry

[SonicBananza]

Thanks so much Craig!!!

Questions:
1. Would you recommend EmulatorX-studio as a front end for Sonar5? Any setup tips and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

2. Did you try using Sonar's reverbs in combination (I think there're three reverb plugs) and did you try to add Emulator's reverbs? Could you suggest some settings for lush/modern vocal reverbs that helps to keep vocals upfront and close ?

3. Is it possible to monitor those reverbs with 0 latency withing Sonar5 if so how can I do it?

Reading your review inspired me to try Sonar and I will probably make it into my main DAW.

[blue2blue]

I'm a big fan of SFZ! I've been using the shareware version for over a year now and it's great. Not quite as good as having an actual Soundblaster dedicated to SF playback (not possible on my notebook) but damn close -- and, unlike some of the hobbled software that Creative has released for their SB SF playback [some versions arbitrarily limited the user to 32 MB of samples], SFZ has no limits as far as I can tell.

It's a nice acknowledgement of SFZ's merit.

[Anderton]

Thanks so much Craig!!!

Questions:
<<1. Would you recommend EmulatorX-studio as a front end for Sonar5? Any setup tips and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.>>

I would not have recommended without reservations prior to the most recent update, which made it work very well with Sonar. Before there had been some rough spots...still useable, but the new update solves those problems. I think the Emulator X really rocks.

<<2. Did you try using Sonar's reverbs in combination (I think there're three reverb plugs) and did you try to add Emulator's reverbs? Could you suggest some settings for lush/modern vocal reverbs that helps to keep vocals upfront and close ?>>

After you use PerfectSpace, I suspect your other reverbs will sort of fall by the wayside. Try the plates with vocals.

<<3. Is it possible to monitor those reverbs with 0 latency withing Sonar5 if so how can I do it?>>

PerfectSpace has reverb, all convolution ones do. But you don't really notice it with reverb. The latency will depend on your card and driver. I get about 5 ms with comfortable CPU usage with the Creamware card, although I can get it down to 3 ms.

<<Reading your review inspired me to try Sonar and I will probably make it into my main DAW.>>

Well you certainly picked the right time to check it out, V5 is really something.

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton

Track Templates. I would have given this more attention, but the feature was already introduced in Project5 V2. If you’re not familiar with track templates, these can be real time-savers because you can call up the following as one unit: Track type, hardware input, output destination, bus send settings, track icons, effects and related settings, name, etc. So if you have, for example, a favorite vocal setup, you can recall it instead of having to build it from scratch each time. And it’s easy to do, too; you just select a track with the characteristics you want, and go File > Export > Track Template to save it. Loading is equally easy

I just want to add that what SONAR added to the concept is that you can store multiple tracks and buses in a single track template. Extremely handy for instantly loading multi-output synths with tracks, buses, routing, effects, presets - everything - already configured and ready to go. Also useful for calling up routing for multi-track recordings, and the like.

[hybridmusic]

Originally posted by Anderton
I get the feeling that just before Sonar 5 was released, someone ran into a marketing meeting and said “Wait! I found a format we don’t support –Sound Fonts!” And thus SFZ, the Sound Font player, was added to the roster.

...it does what you want it to do, and supplants the LiveSynth

Craig (and CW) thanks so much for the review and comments! It's really helped me to make up my mind and take the plunge!

One question though...will the SFZ the Sound Font player be any different than the freeware version available from RGC Audio's website which only allows one loaded .SF2 to play at a time (i.e. you can't assign 16 different .SF2 instruments simultaneously to midi channels 1-16 for full multitimbral operation)?......er, or I can't figure out how to load more than one .SF2 at a time??? :(

Hmm....at least LiveSynth allowed you to be able to load and assign 16 .SF2's to 16 midi channels for multitracking.

Thanks again!

[blue2blue]

Add automation nodes at selection. You know how you want to change the panning for just one section? So you click real carefully on the pan envelope, then click next to it, then create another pair of nodes, then click on the segment…with this new command, you just make your selection, and two closely-spaced pairs of nodes are added automatically so that you can easily change the level between the node pairs. ...


Yes!


It is the little things.

[Anderton]

or I can't figure out how to load more than one .SF2 at a time???

I just insert multiple instances, load a different preset into each one, and set each to a different MIDI channel. Is that what you're looking for?

[Anderton]

It is the little things.

Indeed it is! :)

[ZenFly]

Hey Craig!

I've had Sonar P5 for a week now and am loving it. So I firmly believe my issue is user error...

I am having an issue getting MTC to send to my Tascam DM3200..I've tried about everything between the Sonar manual and the DM3200, but to no avail. I wonder if you have any tips on how to hook it up so the DM3200 recieves MTC?

BTW, I posted this at the Tascam forum as well.. but you are the man for Sonar.

My specs are:

PC P4 3.0 w/ 2 gig ram
USP connected to the DM3200
(I tried midi in/out didn't work)

I have 2 Mackie control surfaces (reg and XT) installed and a MMC for transport on the DM3200. All the transport and control surface features work. I tried the prescribed MTC set up and no luck. The DM3200 says the MTC is supposed to send and return on USB 3.

I remember your columns in the ancient Guitar Player mags of my youth on making Fuzz boxes and such...I am a fan.

can you help?

[Anderton]

Well, I'm not back home yet, and I don't have a 3200...but when I get back, I can at least check that Sonar is producing MTC. Give me a coupla days............

[ZenFly]

Thanks!

I realize it's a unrealistic request given the other parameters, but at least if I can be sure I can get MTC out of Sonar it will help. (I'm still working on it as well.)

[Artur Meinild]

PerfectSpace Reverb. Interestingly, this is found under the VST effects menu...

That's because it is essentially the Voxengo Pristine Space Light plugin, adapted to Sonar. Voxengo plugins are well known for their high quality, so this is a nice addition...

[Anderton]

<<Voxengo plugins are well known for their high quality, so this is a nice addition...>>

That explains a lot, I like Voxengo plug-ins. And yes, it is indeed a nice addition!

[ZenFly]

Craig,

I got the MTC to work! It took some experimenting, but it's all good now got the code showing up on the DM3200 meter bridge and all woop!

BTW Sonar P5 rules!

Perfect Space is a fine addition as well.

[Anderton]

<<I got the MTC to work! It took some experimenting, but it's all good now got the code showing up on the DM3200 meter bridge and all woop!>>

Well don't leave us in suspense...what made the difference in getting it to work?

[ZenFly]

Craig,


I hooked up a midi in and out to the DM3200 (in addition to the USB).
There were about 5 screens to set up in SOnar and a couple in the DM3200 and Voila! it all works.

Much of this insight came from this pdf File

http://homepage.mac.com/mccormick_mack/.Pu...l%20Surface.pdf

that was posted on the Cakewalk Sonar forum by a DM24 owner.

A good chunk of the problem was that I had missed one screen in Sonar for directing the MTC to the midi out.

I think the main lesson was the USB connection was unable to send/recieve the MTC...at least for me, whereas the midi cable in/out works on the DM3200.

live and learn

Loving this desk!

[freddie_tane]

Has anyone using Sonar and Tascam
FW-1884 noticed that the Master fader
goes to a different 0 setting -
if you use the hardware "Master 0 db"
button it goes to one spot, if you use
the Sonar Snap-to (double-click), it
goes to a slightly higher position.

Any thoughts on why that could be?

Gonna post this over on the Tascamforums as well ...

- ft

PS - Thanks for the review - convinced me
that I need the S5 upgrade sooner
than later, so got with my Sweetwater
sales and it's here!

[Bhagavat]

Can somebody tell me how good ASIO implementation in Sonar 5 is?

Can I get 0 latency with the appropriet sound card?

Is it better to use WDM drivers or ASIO?

Thanks

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Bhagavat
Can somebody tell me how good ASIO implementation in Sonar 5 is?

Can I get 0 latency with the appropriet sound card?

Is it better to use WDM drivers or ASIO?

Thanks

S5 works great with ASIO and my RME Multiface.

0 ms latency is theoretically impossible (cards that give Zero Latency Monitoring let you monitor through the audio interface, not the software/computer). I can run small projects at 1.5 ms, typically record at 7-10 ms, and mix at my highest setting.

[AmpliFuzz]

Hello everybody, first post here :)

First off, mad props to the Cakewalk team - this is indeed a seriously impressive update. I've never used Sonar before, but this may well be the time to switch.

As a Sonar noob I'd like a quick feature check: does 5 PE have latency compensation on busses? Beat Detective-like features? A adjustable delay-compensated I/O plugin to use outboard processing in the FX chains? How are the advanced audio editing capabilities compared to SX/Nuendo 3 and Samplitude? How many Video tracks?

Thanks,
AF

[Anderton]

<<As a Sonar noob I'd like a quick feature check: does 5 PE have latency compensation on busses?>>

Yes, all tracks and buses.

<<Beat Detective-like features?>>

No. There's a Sonar-compatible program that does the same sort of thing, as I recall...I'm not a big fan of that type of process so I never really looked into it.

<< A adjustable delay-compensated I/O plugin to use outboard processing in the FX chains?>>

No, if you mean like how Cubase SX does. Of course you can use the same basic procedure to compensate for delay, but it's not at all "automated."

<<How are the advanced audio editing capabilities compared to SX/Nuendo 3 and Samplitude?>>

Haven't used Nuendo, but the pitch stretching technology is equivalent. Cubase/Nuendo don't have anything like V-Vocal pitch correction though, although Sam 8 does. Could you be a little more specific about what you mean by "adbancred" audio editing?

<<How many Video tracks?>>

One, with thumbnails and a video window. It's probably worth mentioning that I've thrown a lot of different video formats at Sonar, and it does't hiccup.

[Anderton]

<<Is it better to use WDM drivers or ASIO?>>

It depends on the drivers. If your sound card has better ASIO drivers, use ASIO. If the WDM drivers are better, use them instead. I use the Creamware SCOPE card, it seems the performance is pretty much the same with either one. So I think the performance has more to do with elements other than Sonar. However, some Sonarians insist that a superb WDM driver will outperform a superb ASIO driver somewhat....just passing along some other people's opinions!

[AmpliFuzz]

Thanks, Craig!

<<Beat Detective-like features?>>

No. There's a Sonar-compatible program that does the same sort of thing, as I recall...I'm not a big fan of that type of process so I never really looked into it.

I tried googling around without much success ... do you mean Beat Quantizer? BTW, all the native DAWs on PC are still struggling with that, so getting it done right in Sonar sooner than later would be quite the godsend.

<< A adjustable delay-compensated I/O plugin to use outboard processing in the FX chains?>>

No, if you mean like how Cubase SX does. Of course you can use the same basic procedure to compensate for delay, but it's not at all "automated."

So you can insert outboard into a track's FX chain but the delay compensation is up to you by nudging by the right amount, right?

Could you be a little more specific about what you mean by "adbancred" audio editing?

'Advanced' was misleading, sorry. I meant your standard Pro Tools slice & dice tools. I know Cubendo and Samplitude are up to par (even superior in spots) while LAW 5.5 lagged behind and I wanted to know where Sonar falls in that regard.

And I forgot to ask about automatic crossfades and audio quantize (Audio Warp-like in SX) functions.

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by AmpliFuzz
...

And I forgot to ask about automatic crossfades and audio quantize (Audio Warp-like in SX) functions.

Automatic crossfades, yes.

Audio quantize, no.

Audio editing, no. If you have Sound Forge, Wavelab, or another editor, Sonar integrates that pretty well. You select a clip, send it to the external editor, save it, and the edited clip is re-imported in-place.

[JBenson]

I'm seriously considering Sonar, so thanks Craig, for this review.

One thing I'm wondering about, not sure if any DAW can do this, but does Sonar have a function where you can compare different mixes quickly.

On a Roland VS workstation, for example, you can take a snapshot of the complete mix, then you can do a completely different mix (or mixes), using different takes, effects, EQ, automation, and so on, and then at the press of a button, instantly switch between mixes.

This is very handy if you want to experiment with different ideas, either for the complete song, or just a section.

How do you do this in Sonar?

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by JBenson
...you can do a completely different mix (or mixes), using different takes, effects, EQ, automation, and so on, and then at the press of a button, instantly switch between mixes.

This is very handy if you want to experiment with different ideas, either for the complete song, or just a section.

How do you do this in Sonar?

I'm not Craig, but I can think of a few ways to do this.

One would be to use "Save As" to make a different project, leave them both open, and toggle between them in the Window tab.

The other would be to copy all tracks and paste them in the same project. Archive all of the duplicated files, listen to the originals, archive the originals, un-archive the dupes (all done with simple context menu clicks), and keep going back and forth until one of the sets of tracks is what you want them to be.

[freddie_tane]

Sure, another way might be ...

What is a mix? In Sonar it is writing
a (stereo) .WAV file to disc.

What does Sonar work with best?
(stereo) .WAV files.

If you wrote your first and second
mix to disc, then started a new
project, and imported both mixes -
one to track 1 (stereo) and
second to track 2 (stereo),
lined up from time 0 ,
you could A/B the mixes in real
time - heck, you could even
take section A from mix one
and mute section B, and take
section B from mix two - probably
down to the sample level.

My 2 cents.

- Freddie


Originally posted by doug osborne


I'm not Craig, but I can think of a few ways to do this.

One would be to use "Save As" to make a different project, leave them both open, and toggle between them in the Window tab.

The other would be to copy all tracks and paste them in the same project. Archive all of the duplicated files, listen to the originals, archive the originals, un-archive the dupes (all done with simple context menu clicks), and keep going back and forth until one of the sets of tracks is what you want them to be.

[JBenson]

Originally posted by doug osborne


I'm not Craig, but I can think of a few ways to do this.

One would be to use "Save As" to make a different project, leave them both open, and toggle between them in the Window tab.

The other would be to copy all tracks and paste them in the same project. Archive all of the duplicated files, listen to the originals, archive the originals, un-archive the dupes (all done with simple context menu clicks), and keep going back and forth until one of the sets of tracks is what you want them to be.

The "Save as" idea seems like it could work.

So you can have these "different" projects open and active at the same time? Can you copy between them? Would having a number of projects open with plugins and everything affect the computer?

Your archive idea, I'm afraid I don't get what you're talking about on that one.

Thanks.

[JBenson]

Originally posted by freddie_tane
Sure, another way might be ...

What is a mix? In Sonar it is writing
a (stereo) .WAV file to disc.

What does Sonar work with best?
(stereo) .WAV files.

If you wrote your first and second
mix to disc, then started a new
project, and imported both mixes -
one to track 1 (stereo) and
second to track 2 (stereo),
lined up from time 0 ,
you could A/B the mixes in real
time - heck, you could even
take section A from mix one
and mute section B, and take
section B from mix two - probably
down to the sample level.

My 2 cents.

- Freddie




This would certainly be quick as far as A/Bing, and you could edit between them, but I'm thinking more of wanting to be able to do this as you go so you can make changes and tweaks.

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by JBenson


The "Save as" idea seems like it could work.

So you can have these "different" projects open and active at the same time? Can you copy between them? Would having a number of projects open with plugins and everything affect the computer?

Your archive idea, I'm afraid I don't get what you're talking about on that one.

Thanks.

As you switch between open projects, the project with focus will play. Somewhere in Sonar there is a menu preference to tell the program to only allow one open project at a time...make sure this isn't checked.

You can copy between them.

The extra project will increase the load on the CPU by the idle CPU usage of the original project - sometimes this 5-6% can make a difference, so be careful.

Archive - if you archive a track, it gets muted and will not suck CPU, but it can be un-archived at any time. Just right-click on the track (or any number of tracks) and choose "Archive." First clone the tracks to be archived (in S5, you can clone any number of tracks at once - in earlier versions, you have to do them one at a time). If you put all of the cloned tracks in one folder, you can just archive or un-archive the folder.

[JBenson]

Originally posted by doug osborne


As you switch between open projects, the project with focus will play. Somewhere in Sonar there is a menu preference to tell the program to only allow one open project at a time...make sure this isn't checked.

You can copy between them.

The extra project will increase the load on the CPU by the idle CPU usage of the original project - sometimes this 5-6% can make a difference, so be careful.

Archive - if you archive a track, it gets muted and will not suck CPU, but it can be un-archived at any time. Just right-click on the track (or any number of tracks) and choose "Archive." First clone the tracks to be archived (in S5, you can clone any number of tracks at once - in earlier versions, you have to do them one at a time). If you put all of the cloned tracks in one folder, you can just archive or un-archive the folder.

Quick reply, thank you!

Okay, great, this is sounding pretty easy and doable :thu: . Although the CPU thing worries me as my projects tend to get pretty bloated.

I suppose the archive way might be the best since there would be no hit at all on the computer no matter how many folders of cloned tracks you have, right?

Is archiving and unarchiving instantaneous? And does it reflect in the mixer?

Thanks!

[Anderton]

First of all, great answers Doug.

<<Is archiving and unarchiving instantaneous?>>

Well not INSTANTANEOUS (you have mute for that), but quick enough. The point of archive is to "disconnect" from the CPU, thus lightening the processor load, so it takes a few milliseconds to reconnect.

<<And does it reflect in the mixer?>>

If you want a track not to show up in mixer, to specifically need to hide it.

BTW I do the "save as/have to projects open" thing fairly often when doing remixes, it works fine. But if you're only changing a few tracks, it makes sense to copy them and toggle between the options to see what you like.

[RichardT]

Thanks Craig and the Cakewalk guys for a fabulously useful thread.

I am one of those Logic on the PC users for whom the time has come. I'm looking primarily at Sonar and Cubase SX3

Any improvement in Sonar 5 to the scoring abilities ? I looked at demo version of producer version 4 and the score production seemed to be quite limited, though I didn't go into every nuance.

Eg, stave splitting seems to work only on a fixed split note; SONAR doesn't know about the pitches of instruments, eg trumpet in Bb and adjust the displayed pitches accordingly; only triplets are supported, no other tuplets, and then only when all three notes are present, eg triple patterns with rests are not supported.

Cubase scoring looks much better but SONAR looks to be better in other ways and is cheaper and includes some great addons and plugins.


SONAR is what I really would like to buy, but I fear the scoring is a real limitation. I might be able to get away with it if scores can be exported and edited with some other tool, or an add-in score editor is available. Are either of these possible ?

thanks
Rich

[Anderton]

Okay, I am NOT "Mr. Expert on Scoring," so I hope others can chime in.

I work with a publishing company that does a lot of sheet music. They don't consider any of the DAWs as adequate, they use programs designed specifically for sheet music. I think that if you want engraving quality notation, you would need to do the export/import thang. Comments, anyone?

[Bhagavat]

I've heard that they were planning to implement some improvements in the area of scoring but there weren’t enough requests to justify this effort. If you are planning to request this feature then me and some of my friends who want to cross grade to Sonar will back you up. We also need advanced scoring features.

Thanks

[JBenson]

Originally posted by Anderton
First of all, great answers Doug.

<<Is archiving and unarchiving instantaneous?>>

Well not INSTANTANEOUS (you have mute for that), but quick enough. The point of archive is to "disconnect" from the CPU, thus lightening the processor load, so it takes a few milliseconds to reconnect.

<<And does it reflect in the mixer?>>

If you want a track not to show up in mixer, to specifically need to hide it.

BTW I do the "save as/have to projects open" thing fairly often when doing remixes, it works fine. But if you're only changing a few tracks, it makes sense to copy them and toggle between the options to see what you like.

Thank you Craig, Doug, and Freddie! :thu:

[RichardT]

Originally posted by Bhagavat
I've heard that they were planning to implement some improvements in the area of scoring but there weren’t enough requests to justify this effort. If you are planning to request this feature then me and some of my friends who want to cross grade to Sonar will back you up. We also need advanced scoring features.

Thanks

Bhagavat - I found this thread re scoring - we're not alone!

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=584933&mpage=1&key=scoring&#588866

[RichardT]

Originally posted by Anderton
Okay, I am NOT "Mr. Expert on Scoring," so I hope others can chime in.

I work with a publishing company that does a lot of sheet music. They don't consider any of the DAWs as adequate, they use programs designed specifically for sheet music. I think that if you want engraving quality notation, you would need to do the export/import thang. Comments, anyone?

Thanks Craig, I can understand that - I guess you're talking about Sibelius etc - but I just something halfway decent to give to musicians! Looks like I'd have to go for import / export for now.

How would I submit a development request to Cakewalk ? I'd like to see what their thoughts are.

thanks

Rich

[doug osborne]

Cakewalk Feature Request (http://www.cakewalk.com/support/featurerequest.asp)

[RichardT]

Originally posted by doug osborne
Cakewalk Feature Request (http://www.cakewalk.com/support/featurerequest.asp)

thanks Doug

[MoreGuitars]

I just purchased Sonar 5. Reading this review with he program open was a great way to get acquainted with it.:thu:

[Anderton]

Make sure you get the latest update. It fixes a lot of those "if you're using this software on a certain computer running a certain CPU on an even-numbered day of the month" problems, as well as fixing some envelope issues.

FYI I put Sonar through a real torture test developing the loops for my next live performance...at one point I had about 70 very short loops, all reading from an unfragmented disk <G> and most with a bunch of effects. I also had IK Philharmonik and SampleTank, as well as East-West Colossus, RA, and Morphology loaded up...maybe a couple other soft synths, too.

Sonar held up really well CPU/latency-wise, although past a certain point, the disk gave up. I converted a bunch of the loops to groove clips to put them in RAM, which made the disk happier.

[MoreGuitars]

Originally posted by Anderton
Make sure you get the latest update. It fixes a lot of those "if you're using this software on a certain computer running a certain CPU on an even-numbered day of the month" problems, as well as fixing some envelope issues.

FYI I put Sonar through a real torture test developing the loops for my next live performance...at one point I had about 70 very short loops, all reading from an unfragmented disk <G> and most with a bunch of effects. I also had IK Philharmonik and SampleTank, as well as East-West Colossus, RA, and Morphology loaded up...maybe a couple other soft synths, too.

Sonar held up really well CPU/latency-wise, although past a certain point, the disk gave up. I converted a bunch of the loops to groove clips to put them in RAM, which made the disk happier.

Thanks for the heads up. One thing it did fix was my US-428 individual sliders were not controlling the volumes of he channels, now they do. This controller has never worked better.

I've also noted with the upgrade the CPU load meter is down.

[rasputin1963]

Originally posted by Anderton
Okay, I am NOT "Mr. Expert on Scoring," so I hope others can chime in.

I work with a publishing company that does a lot of sheet music. They don't consider any of the DAWs as adequate, they use programs designed specifically for sheet music. I think that if you want engraving quality notation, you would need to do the export/import thang. Comments, anyone?

Yes, Mr. Anderton, I agree... gotta use something like SIBELIUS or FINALE for truly publishing-worthy appearance sheet music. Best bet is to quantize your MIDI part(s) in SONAR (if not quantized, you'll have your work cut out for you later!), save them as MIDI files, then import them into SIBELIUS or FINALE where you can give your parts the thorough editing they need to be eminently handsome and playable. Especially true for piano/organ and other polyphonic or dual-staff instruments. Still, if you just had a monophonic riff you wanted to present to, say, a studio trumpeter or flautist, a printout from SONAR's Staff View will work fine (provided you've set up your Key and staff data there appropriately!).

I too agree that SONAR 5 is a MAJOR upgrade.... Just the recorded audio alone sounds better for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. The sound is just richer. Meatier. Solider. (Note: these are not real musical terms). It meshes beautifully and glitchlessly on an XP OS.

...and yes, V-VOCAL is da shiznit!!! Makes one's mind swim with possibilities. Kids, we've officially left auditory reality behind, and we've exited to the world of The Jetsons. LOL

What I love about V-VOCAL is the way it's so seamlessly integrated into SONAR... Little you do in the V-VOCAL console is going to upset SONAR or your CPU. What's cool is the ability to tweak all of V-VOCAL's maps on-the-fly, in real-time. For me, it's tempting to forgo subtlety altogether, and imbue even my lamest, most vanilla vocals with incredible punch, style and soulfulness. Heck, why not?

Almost makes ya want to go abduct some cute teenager (with a lacklustre voice) from a shopping mall and turn them overnight into An Instant Vocal Superstar American Idol Grammy Winner. LOL Let them jiggle on MTV; heck, you control their voice!

A neat way to make quick, tight harmony vocals: Duplicate your lead vocal two or three times, push your individual notes to their desired harmonies [note to an earlier post-er here: feel free to push your harmonies sharp or flat, with a dark or bright Formant, as desired. If your resulting harmonies exhibit a vibrato & tremolo that's too similar to your Lead, simply use your Timing tool to "push" and "pull" samples within your harmony clips, left and right, to vary the timings of the vibratos. Neat. A little reverb and pan-potting and you're good.

The only thing I haven't quite figured out yet with V-VOCAL, is how to turn only parts of a track into a V-VOCAL editing track...
Furthermore, I haven't figured out a way to "confirm my changes" permanently.... ie., return my V-VOCAL track into a regular audio track, but with the new changes permanently applied to it. Does one just leave one's V-VOCAL tracks in the V-VOCAL mode all the way into the final mixdown process? Just a minor thing.

PerfectSpace sounds gorgeous... it sounds...well... like an actual space, rather than a reverb applied after-the-fact... There are no nasty artifacts or ringings or phase anomalies or unnatural tails or deadnesses... it just sounds like Your Source Audio In A Room. Period. Very kewl. I've never used a reverb whose presets were instantly useable, with no tweaking! I even made an Impulse of my own living room (popping balloons hither and thither) and the result was pretty darn good. Though not as good, of course, as the incredible Impulses included with SONAR 5, [The Skillman Bible Church room will make you weep, it's so beautiful] and the ones available on the 'Net, (as these have been made by more sophisticated microphones and recording apparatus than my own).

I got so involved, having fun with this new SONAR, that I noticed only late, that nothing I did-- plugins, edits, recording, softsynths-- caused my CPU to go crazy or hiccup or cause SONAR to fail. This, in itself, is reason for celebration.

At present, the only things on my SONAR wishlist would be: A). an in-house 3D spectrum analyzer that has a BIG interface... a big pretty interactive waterfall that can be generated ultra-quickly, just from one selected portion of audio. B). Microtuning capabilities that are extensive and flexible, but which do not necessarily require you to have a PhD in Engineering and Music History to understand (á là the third-party program, SCALA. I'm sure SCALA is fab, but I can scarcely make head nor tail of it.)... C). It would be super-swell to be able to apply your VST/DX effects to your MIDI tracks just as easily as you do your audio tracks. I'm not sure how it could be arranged, but I'll bet it could!

Those three additions, and my fantasy DAW would be a reality. Honestly, I think extensive video editing and sheet music editing capabilities should probably still be left to other, specialty proggies.

Something I have not seen yet, but would like to, is a 3D spectrum analyzer in which you can actually reach into the "waterfall" with your cursor, and raise and lower only select frequencies, ad libidum, and hear the filtration result in realtime. Maybe a loop-type console in the fashion of V-VOCAL.

Does such a thing exist?

[Anderton]

<<Something I have not seen yet, but would like to, is a 3D spectrum analyzer in which you can actually reach into the "waterfall" with your cursor, and raise and lower only select frequencies, ad libidum, and hear the filtration result in realtime. Maybe a loop-type console in the fashion of V-VOCAL.>>

The closest I've come to that is with the Har-Bal mastering program and with Audition's Frequency Space editing function, but neither is 3d.

[rasputin1963]

Very cool, Mr. Anderton, thanks.


ras :thu:

[vksf01]

Originally posted by rasputin1963
[B]

The only thing I haven't quite figured out yet with V-VOCAL, is how to turn only parts of a track into a V-VOCAL editing track...
Furthermore, I haven't figured out a way to "confirm my changes" permanently.... ie., return my V-VOCAL track into a regular audio track, but with the new changes permanently applied to it. Does one just leave one's V-VOCAL tracks in the V-VOCAL mode all the way into the final mixdown process? Just a minor thing.


what i do is to split the track at the section that i want to v-vocal, apply trimming and then v-vocal it.

also, to "confirm changes" permanently, right click and select bounce to clip. s5 will create a new clip with your v-vocalled changes and also keep your original clip as a muted clip

[Will Chen]

This is a cross post, which could provide some insight for anyone interested in upgrading from Pro 9 to SONAR 5 Studio. Original post located here (http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1162107)

Sonar 5 Studio...a Little Dissapointed

Well, the thread title is a little misleading. It is a highly functional application on which Mr. Anderton covered in depth not that long ago. Let me preface this with a little background.

I have been a Cakewalk user for a long time and stopped upgrading versions with Pro Audio 9. After recently obtaining a copy of CUBASE LE bundled with a Tascam 1082 purchase and seeing how functional this freebie was, I decided it was time to upgrade.

Overall I love the app and I'm sure as I learn the deeper functionality will love it even more. There is a ton of stuff which is a huge improvement of Pro 9. However, a few things were a little disappointing...

1) Extract Timing - This was a built in function in Pro 9 which was basically a gate which functioned as a midi trigger to a specified note. I used this function to create midi tracks for snare and kick enhancement/replacement all the time. I did not see it in SONAR 5 studio, perhaps it is part of the Producer edition. I know there are free plugs which do this now, it was just a nice built in feature that I enjoyed.

EDIT: This function is part of SONAR 5 Studio, I posted before fully examining the software, the menu location changed.

2) SONAR experienced a ton latency on softsynths when using WDM drivers. Switching to ASIO drivers significantly reduced the latency (which was confusing to me as I thought audio drivers wouldn't effect softsynth performance), however the app defaults to the WDM option. It took me a while to figure this out and I was about to pull my hair out thinking I wasted my money.

3) Speaking of softsynths, the bundled softsynths were a big disappointment...not that I was expecting much. However, since SONAR is in it's 5th incarnation of softsynth integration I kinda expected something more. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I didn't hear anything any more usable than the GM softsynth included with CUBASE LE.

On the up side - TASCAM 1082 integration was seamless and easily allows custom programming of special surface function controls, 'freeze' is a wonderfully time saving function, and the bundled plug in package is nice.

I guess I was just expecting SONAR 5 to include be Pro 9 X 5...

EDIT-Upon digging deeper, I really taken advantage of many of the more advanced features. For example the 'native'VST support is great. Using a wrapper in Pro 9 resulted in a loss of all presets, not so now.

[blue2blue]

Studio comes with these soft synths:

Roland® GrooveSynth™
TTS-1™ GM2 synth
Cyclone™ groove sampler
SFZ SoundFont sampler

[TTS-1 is a pretty useful and mostly quite musical GM2 synth, in my view. A good GM synth can be invaluable even if you never, ever use it in a finished work. (That said, it's got some pretty decent sounds.) And SFZ opens up the world of SoundFonts, where there are a huge number of cool free sample sets.]

And Pro adds:

RXP™ REX Player groove box
PSYN™ II subtractive synth
Pentagon™ I analog synth

_______________


As you've discovered the integrated VST handling also opens you up to a large variety of free (and not so) soft synths.

[Check out http://www.hammersound.net/ for free SoundFont sets and Synths, as well as demos and trials of payfors.]

[Reitzas]

Hi Craig,
I came across two questions today as I was helping a friend of mine on his Sonar 5 rig.

1) How can you"solo isolate" a track? Seems like a simple thing to do but I couldn't find it in our limited time.
2) What gates are available for Sonar that accept side chain inputs to a gate. I couldn't do it with the Sonitus Gate. It only has a side chain filter; not what I was looking for.

Thanks for helping.
Best,
Dave Reitzas
www.reitzas.com

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Reitzas
Hi Craig,
I came across two questions today as I was helping a friend of mine on his Sonar 5 rig.

1) How can you"solo isolate" a track? Seems like a simple thing to do but I couldn't find it in our limited time.
2) What gates are available for Sonar that accept side chain inputs to a gate. I couldn't do it with the Sonitus Gate. It only has a side chain filter; not what I was looking for.

Thanks for helping.
Best,
Dave Reitzas
www.reitzas.com

(I'm not Craig...)

The best way to "solo isolate" is to assign the track to a Quick Group.

SONAR doesn't directly offer compressor sidechain (despite many feature requests). It can be done with creative bus assignements (put the compressor on a separate bus and send two mono channels to the buss hard panned left and right with the sidechain signal from a Send and the controlled signal from the channel out...), apparently something in the current VST spec makes this difficult.

The db-D Dynamics Processor plugin from db-audioware (http://www.db-audioware.com/dB-D-dynamics-processor-more.htm) offers true sidechaining in SONAR.

[Anderton]

Hey Doug, you do a pretty good "Craig" :)

Not sure what you mean by "solo isolate" as opposed to just "solo." To create a quick group, you ctrl-click on the little triangle in the upper left of the track heading.

The sidechain thing is much harder to pull off because of the way plug-ins are handled on tracks. I've often wanted this so I could, for example, have one track provide amplitude control over a different track. Angus at FXpansion came up with a really clever workaround for his vocoder plug-in way back when: a plug-in that sends a track's signal to another plug-in. I think he's off on to other things now, though...I wish he'd revisit that concept.

[Reitzas]

Thanks for the replies.

What I mean by solo isolate is the ability to designate a track or an aux input to stay active and not mute when another track is solo'd. For example, In Pro Tools, holding command while clicking on a track's solo button isolates that channel and keeps it active regardless of any other track you solo. Very effective for reverbs and effects or especially aux inputs. Not sure how making a quick group would accomplish this.
Maybe the terminology is different and hopefully there is a simple explanation.

Regarding a side chain for a gate; I wanted to put a gate across a pad track and have the gate open by triggering it from the hi hat. Again, something that I'm very used to doing but seemed to be missing from the gate plug-ins on the system I used.



Dave Reitzas
www.reitzas.com

[Anderton]

<<What I mean by solo isolate is the ability to designate a track or an aux input to stay active and not mute when another track is solo'd.>>

Solos are additive in Sonar, so if something's soloed, soloing something else does not mute it. I've asked for a preferences where you could choose between additive solo or "radio button" solo, but apparently I'm the only one asking for this.

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Anderton
<<What I mean by solo isolate is the ability to designate a track or an aux input to stay active and not mute when another track is solo'd.>>

Solos are additive in Sonar, so if something's soloed, soloing something else does not mute it. I've asked for a preferences where you could choose between additive solo or "radio button" solo, but apparently I'm the only one asking for this.

Yes. And if you add all channels to a Quick Group, Control Click on Solo will toggle that channel with all others soloed in that group.

The default behavior of SONAR 4.x and newer is to not Mute or Solo an Aux or Bus send when a track is Muted or Soloed. This can be changed with a text edit in the aud.ini file - I've feature requested a menu preference change for this. This is described in the aud.ini section of the manual (for once, I RTFM).

[Reitzas]

OK, there's definitely a difference in the terminology. Actually, in the Pro Tools environment it's referred to as solo safe. In the analog console world it's referred to as solo isolating a track.



From the Pro Tools manual;


Solo Safe Mode Pro Tools lets you solo safe a track. This prevents the track from being muted even if you solo other tracks. This feature is useful for tracks such as Auxiliary Inputs that are being used as a submix of audio tracks, or effects returns, allowing the audio or effects track to remain in a mix even when other tracks are soloed. It is also useful to solo safe MIDI tracks so that their playback is not affected when you solo audio tracks.

To solo safe a track: ■ Control-click (Windows) or Command-click (Macintosh) the Solo button on the track. This prevents the track from being muted even if you solo other tracks. The Solo button changes to a transparent color in Solo Safe mode.


From me:

Applying quick groups, let's say between midi tracks and their corresponding soft synths; or drums and it's submix, is a good way to operate- but I'm referring more to tracks that are universal, like reverbs or internal mix tracks.

Haven't been able to find an equivalent in Sonar, but I'll keep searching for an explanation.


Thanks,
Dave Reitzas
www.reitzas.com

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Reitzas
...

Haven't been able to find an equivalent in Sonar, ...www.reitzas.com [/B]

Yep, I don't think there is a direct equivalent.

The SONAR forum (http://forum.cakewalk.com/tt.asp?forumid=5) might be of some help.

[blue2blue]

I can second that the db-D Dynamics Processor plugin from db-audioware does sidechaining.

I demo'd it and it did precisely the typical sidechaining I needed. But I decided I didn't like how it worked out in my track and I didn't use it. Not a comment on the the performance of compressor: what I wanted to do just wasn't such a hot idea, after all.

But the compressor -- well, in this case sidechained gate -- did precisely what I asked. I didn't really use it for anything else so I can't weigh in on its overall performance or 'sound.' I would definitely buy it if I needed a sidechain.

http://www.db-audioware.com/dB-D-dynamics-processor-more.htm

[Reitzas]

Thanks B2B!
This is good news. I was under the assumption that side-chaining gates and compressors was a common procedure until I wasn't able to do it that day.
I will pass this info on to my friend.

Dave Reitzas
www.reitzas.com

[Picker]

anybody have Sonar 6 yet? Impressions?

[gtbaka]

I got it (SE) , I'm basically learning how to use it from the ground up. Since my upgrade is from Pro Audio 9, it'll probably be hard to get a gauge of it's improvements from 5, from me. It's a whole new environment for me... with all the softsynth, and plug-in heaven, bus routing, amidst a myriad of other features that wow me.


I'm using it with a Mackie 400F and I added Dimension Pro. The processor load is amazing, so I think an ADK computer is now on my "to-buy" list.

As far as impressions:
-initially scared, but that's because of the huge learning curve I had
-Softsynths are alright. The TTS is basically the Roland JV-1010 I've been using for the last few years. So I could phase that piece of hardware out. I do recommend getting Dimension Pro though, if you upgrade or buy Sonar 6, I think you can add on for just 99 bucks. Now that is an amazing synth... same goes for Raptor. You can get it for 140 dollars or something after buying S6.

-Plugins are amazing. I have major latency problems with Perfect Space, so I don't touch it... too bad. But the others are nice and clean. I have to say, the Vintage Channel 64 is awesome. If you want all kinds of colors for your sounds, or virtual tube dynamics processing, this thing is a beast. It looks like an Avalon pimped out in black. Sounds even better.

-Session Drummer two, is really sweet. It really feels like you have a live drummer around. Inspiration strikes and makes you want to play that rock or blues or jazz live sound.

-Rex Player. More inspiration. It does for Hip Hop, electronic music what Session Drummer does for live band music.

Interface- I suppose it should just take getting used to for me, but there shouldn't be much difference from 5, besides the new transport controls which is easy to get used to, and the left side that always shows all the information you need for the currently selected track. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the buses and stuff... along with 400F. I had a feedback problem trying to route an output on the 400F to an input. There also appeared to be sound going into another channel that had nothing plugged in, which seems related to the feedback problem. That's an issue I have to figure out, maybe resolve it with mackie.

In the end though Sonar 6 really contains a lot of things that inspire creativity, which foremost makes it a great buy. I guess once I get the workflow down, ideas should be no problem being recorded.

[gtbaka]

I forgot to add. The Alienware plugin sounds awesome too. I plugged in my cheap ES-335 Knock-off and this plug-in too inspires creativity.

[Anderton]

Now that Sonar 6 is out, this thread is closed. A Pro Review of Sonar 6 will start shortly!