Sonar 8
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Posted on Nov 17, 2008 08:40 am
mclir9
www.witchsmark.com
Member Since: Aug 13, 2006
I was just looking at Sonar 8 Producer and realized that it seems there is really no real improvement's from Sonar 7 or even 6 for that matter. It seems cakewalk is starting to grab from the bottom of the barrel just to put something else out for the year. I mean the biggest improvement is a new Loop analyzer, give me a break.
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Nov 17, 2008 09:50 am I love Cakewalk products, but yes, new versions sometimes come out without need beyond new marketing. I could get by perfectly fine with Sonar 5...it's getting to the point of only radical power user improvements...
In all honesty, Sonar Home Studio is probably more than enough for anything I do.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Nov 17, 2008 10:39 am A lot of the improvements in S8 are under the hood, along with workflow enhancements. You also get the full version of Dimension Pro, Beatscape, and finally a decent amp sim Guitar Rig 3 LE. That said alot of the under the hood improvements have introduced alot of new bugs as well some v7 bugs have yet to be addressed and they are taking quite a beating in the Sonar forums for it, but the 2nd patch is due out soon.
Dan
Nov 17, 2008 10:40 am Yeah, the releases scheduled by the calendar as opposed to the readiness of the product are incredibly annoying.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 17, 2008 02:44 pm You have got to be kidding me!!!
The improvements are huge in my eyes. Some of the things I and others have been beefing about have been completely redone.
The new audio engine that here is running using half the resources is worth the price alone for me.
They have also added another load of plugins and enhancements that are huge when you do the kind of work I do.
Granted the big plugs are only available for Producer Edition.
But the load time for the app is about one tenth the time it used to take. It loads huge projects as well now in about a quarter the time.
And the bug fixes came very quick in 8.01 which cleaned up almost all the issues save for a couple.
But there are a ton of workflow enhancements that mean a great deal to myself and others.
I can go on, but you need to actually see it or use it to appreciate the improvements.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Nov 18, 2008 12:18 am Quote:
Yeah, the releases scheduled by the calendar as opposed to the readiness of the product are incredibly annoying.
Yeah, but they need the money. <G>
Dan
mclir9www.witchsmark.comMember
Since: Aug 13, 2006
Nov 18, 2008 07:48 am Noize... are those performance improvements only available if you are using 64bit/multiprocessor technology, or is it available for all systems?? Because if it is just those with 64bit/multiprocessor technology, hell I can get any slower program to speed up, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the software, just better hardware moving faster.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 18, 2008 07:28 pm The improvements are across the board. From XP 32 bit to Vista. Including single and multi core processors.
They are usually the first to generate a software package that can utilize the newer hardware, but they are also the first to make it work across the board.
While others put out a new version that can't open previous versions saved files Cakewalk's Sonar can still open files all the way back to the Pro Audio days.
If you were to take a look in the manual you will see about 55 pages of explanation for all the new or improved bits.
The jump from 6 PE to 7 PE was huge, and the jump to 8 PE is even bigger. There is a huge performance upgrade just from 6 to 7 but from 7 to 8 is even bigger.
And the funny thing is while their competition keeps taking add ons away, Cakewalk keeps upping the anti by adding major plugin's available in not only the Studio version but the Producer edition gets a huge load of killer plugin's.
I honestly have not opened any of my Waves plugin's since 7 was released. The plugins that are provided with Sonar PE are that good.
Honestly though, if you are happy with 6 then stay there. But do me a huge favor and don't bad mouth a piece of software that you know absolutely nothing about and haven't even laid hands on it yet.
And don't take that as being gruff because it isn't meant that way. It just gets me a bit miffed when someone badmouths a product they have only read about and have no idea of what it does running.
And I'll also state that I may be a bit biased, but having access to all the current version's of the other software out there I can make an honest statement having used them all. I stay very current on what is running well and what is the best bang for the buck.
Everyone has their own preference. Mine is for a software that I can tailor to do and look exactly like I want it to.
mclir9www.witchsmark.comMember
Since: Aug 13, 2006
Nov 20, 2008 08:33 am Got ya Noize. Is the performance upgrade in just loading the app and what not, or is there a improvement in playing back tracks and what have you also, I guess latency improvements? Better yet is there a link that can guide me to these 55 pages your speaking of??
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Nov 20, 2008 09:42 am Noize mentioned in another recent post, that the processing (CPU) on a busy project, went from over 95%, down to just under 50%.
That's a spicy meat-a-ball!
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 20, 2008 09:26 pm mclir9, the 55 pages are in the manual you get when you buy it.
Although I'm guessing that there is a good list of whats new and improved on the Sonar 8 PE pages at cakewalk.com.
But yes, there are huge gains in the performance on both playback and recording. AS pjk stated I saw a huge improvement on lowered CPU usage especially in large projects.
And yes, using software synthes and plugins was a lot smoother with a lot less drag as well.
YOu can find a lot of info here, www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/default.asp in 5 languages as well.
