sonar 3.0

[maestro]

I heard that Sonar 3.0 is out. Does somebody have some experience with the product. It also says that SONAR 3.0 PRODUCER (the more expensive version) has an integrated sampler and it is also compatible with .gig files.

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

I upgraded from Sonar 2 to Sonar 3 Producer. I think the interface is much better and the audio routing is easier to comprehend now. What I really like is that you can EQ each track now without having to bring up another plug-in. Apart from these, the insides of the program are still the same basically. I haven\'t explored that extensively yet (not even with the older versions) as I have had my new Sonar for less than 2 weeks.

I also have Gigastudio and Kontakt so I haven\'t really tested VSampler yet. It looks simpler though, from the looks of it.

The Pantheon reverb that comes with Sonar 3 Producer is a quantum leap from its old reverb plug-ins although I think eveything comes too wet for my taste. But the sense of space that it creates is wonderful.

Here\'s a song that I have composed using Sonar 3. The mixing has not been done well as I don\'t have enough expertise in that area: I think the bass is too loud and some tracks stick out too much too. I will continually improve on it when I have enough time. The song\'s title is Waig (\"http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/3437/3437365.html\") .

That\'s about everything that I can share with you right now.

Nhick (\"http://www.mp3.com/npacis\")

[ProfessorOak]

I\'m also a Sonar 3 Producer user. I\'ve been using it every day since the beginning of the month, when cakewalk 2nd day aired it to me.

I\'m loving the program in general, espically the interface over 2.2xl. But to answer your specific question:

Producer is packed with VSampler 3. While I really enjoy vsampler (espically its sound editing/sampling side), I don\'t really enjoy using it with larger samples. It takes a very long time to load larger .gig files, and dosen\'t seem to perform as well. I tweaked and tweaked, but it really hit the CPU meter hard compared to kontakt.

It does load .gig, soundfont, and akai samples, and I don\'t mind using it on smaller samples, but I don\'t like using it on things that require disk streaming.

but again, I\'ll restate that I do enjoy vsampler with smaller samples, and the sampling/editing features are stellar- I\'ve had a blast creating new sounds, and then exporting them in vsampler\'s GREAT ogg vorbis based compressed format. My stuff sounds nice and has really small file sizes.

I hope this helps
-Prof

[maestro]

Thanks folks for the helpful info. Since I already have Gigastudio 160 for some time I will probably just go for the simple version of sonar 3.0. Does that make sense or would I miss something?

[ProfessorOak]

you\'d be okay depending on what you already have

The producer version also includes the Ultrafunk Suite- which I absolutely love. so you\'d miss out on that and the per-channel EQ and enhanced mixing controls. but if you already have preffered plugs, this isnt a big deal.

you also wont get the \'professional sample library\', but thats definately not a big deal - and isn\'t that \'professional\' IMO.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Originally posted by ProfessorOak:
you\'d be okay depending on what you already have

The producer version also includes the Ultrafunk Suite- which I absolutely love. so you\'d miss out on that and the per-channel EQ and enhanced mixing controls. but if you already have preffered plugs, this isnt a big deal. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Despite having perhaps the single worst product name ever conceived, the Ultrafunk plugins are really solid, professional-quality stuff. If you don\'t have a full set of good quality plugins, it\'s a way to get them.

I think the Lexicon Pantheon comes with both editions, and all I can say about that plugin is images/icons/shocked.gif All the classic Lex sounds are there, and it is efficient at that!! You can run a bunch of them on a decent machine, and there you go. That plugin alone is worth the upgrade for anyone already on SONAR. No brainer.

It will take some time before people actually come to grips with what can be done with this bussing structure. Anything buss can route to any other buss, and any track can route to ANY combination of busses. One thing is for sure--a person with the SONAR 3.0 Producer Edition has no excuses left!!

[Mattias Henningson]

Originally posted by Bruce A. Richardson:
One thing is for sure--a person with the SONAR 3.0 Producer Edition has no excuses left!!<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I guess I should hope that I will never see the upgrade here in Sweden then. images/icons/smile.gif It\'s probably a month or so away so I still have some excusing to do before it\'s over.

Regarding the Pantheon verb... I think the Studio Edition has only a LE version of the Pantheon while the Producer includes the full version.

/Mattias

[Kenn159]

I never liked any of the cakewalk reverb plugins until the Sonar 1.0\'s release of Studioverb.
It sounds very dense with smooth tails and no audible aliasing and is very CPU conserving.
How does the new Lexicon compare in sound quality?

[maestro]

Thanks for the additional data. I would like to know a little bit more about the \"VSampler 3.0 DXi\" compared to Gigastudio160 which I have for some time. As far as I understand .gig files can be imported into the VSampler...but are there any essential differences between Giga160 and the \"VSampler\" portion of Sonar 3.0 Producer Version?

[tonylombardi]

I\'ve played with the Vsampler a bit, and so far it doesn\'t work too well with giga files.
I tried to import the gigapiano lite version and it only imported half, so half the piano wasn\'t even there.
Also it seems to use way more memory than Giga. Like 4 times as much, even though it does disk stream. I tried to improve things but haven\'t been able to.

[maestro]

Thanks Anthony. I bought Sonar3 Producer and started playing with it. It seems that the 3 CDs contained some samples too. I\'m not that far to use the Vsampler but I hope to get through the stuff in the next few days. The 643 pages manual seems to be well organized.

Any feed back about Sonar 3 and the Vsampler in perticular is very wellcome.

[Pat Azzarello]

Originally posted by maestro:
Thanks folks for the helpful info. Since I already have Gigastudio 160 for some time I will probably just go for the simple version of sonar 3.0. Does that make sense or would I miss something? <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I think you would be missing a lot of if you just went with the Studio version. In the Producer version the \"per track\" EQ is a real time saver, and the full Lexicon Pantheon is a great reverb plug-in. I think it\'s worth the extra $$$ for just these two features.

[maestro]

Thanks for checking in Pat. I already bought the Producer version.

Playing with the Vsampler plug in some interesting
things happened. 1) After the registration process I opened the Vsampler interface and I had a crash right away. Tried it several times, crash again. Since I have a computer with hyperthreading I\'m used to check the processor window after crashes. Oddly enough Sonar was only running on CPU0 but not CPU1. I enabled the second processor and the interface opens fine. No more crash 2) I loaded the Giga Harp into the Vsampler. Took about 2 minutes to load it.
3) I used the \"on screen\" Vsampler keyboard. NO SOUND.

I was unable to get any sound of Vsampler. I\'m curious what I\'m missing.
--------------------------------------------
HP Pavillion 3.2 GHz Hyperthreading
1GB Ram
2 Hard Disks 200GB and 160GB
Layla 24 Soundcard
---------------------------------------------
Soundcard works well on 8 analog channels audiotrack with sonar.

[Alan Russell]

Hi guys,

Here\'s my first mix using Sonar 3.0 Producer..I adore the new look and features..


Sorry guys wrong link..take the first song on the list..

http://www.alanrussellmusic.com/song_descriptions.htm (\"http://www.alanrussellmusic.com/song_descriptions.htm\")


\"Masquerade\"
(Performed & Arranged By Alan Russell)

**Motif 8 Brass and Reeds apply here**
Piano - Borsendorfer Imperial Grand Piano -Bardstownaudio.com

[sporter]

Originally posted by Alan Russell:
Hi guys,

Here\'s my first mix using Sonar 3.0 Producer..I adore the new look and features..

http://alanrussellmusic.com/Masquerade%20Performed%20&%20Arranged%20By%20Alan%20Russell).MP3 (\"http://alanrussellmusic.com/Masquerade%20Performed%20&%20Arranged%20By%20Alan%20Russell).MP3\")

\"Masquerade\"
(Performed & Arranged By Alan Russell)

**Motif 8 Brass and Reeds apply here**
Piano - Borsendorfer Imperial Grand Piano -Bardstownaudio.com <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Alan, you did my request!!!

Now I gotta tip you... images/icons/grin.gif

I\'ve been seriously looking at CW 3.0. I\'ve got an older version, and I crossgraded to Logic...then SX a while back. I\'m serously thinking CW now has the edge.

Here\'s a few questions I have:

Can CW do \"match quantize\" similar to midi groove quantize in SX2.0?

How about delay comp?

I have a ton of vst\'s...any issues with the wrapper?

[Alan Russell]

Sporter,

everybody was wondering who requested the song..well now I remember..this one was for you bud..any comments..

BTW Sonar 3.0 Producer wrapper is peachy..does everything for me..As far as the Quantizing goes, I don\'t use it but I\'m sure it is just as great..

Alan Russell

[Alan Russell]

Sporter,

I appreciate the listen of course. Man I just adore the sound of an Alto sax that can possibly duplicate the sound on the old Saturday night live sound or even Paquito D\' Rivera sound. I\'ll tell you what, I\'ll drop Paquito an E-mail asking whether he\'d consdier having his Alto sampled down the road. What a treat trhat would be with the right sound engineer of course. Hope your enjoying Bigga Giggas collection..His Soprano sounds very nice.

Alan Russell

[dwdonehoo]

Great info here guys!
I assume nobody had any trouble loading down versioned projects? (2.0, 2.1, 2.2 etc.)
I am curious if (with 3.0) I will continue to eventually get the dreaded \"Sorry, we have to close this program now...you may lose all unsaved data\" message when I seriously load the system with 160+ tracks (a few audio), a full Gigastudio and a full Kontakt. Sonar has always been wierd under limited memory conditions. A graceful exit (exception handling) would help here.
I have a ton of suggestions from using 2.2, but there is no forum for Sonar developers that I know of.
I wonder if 3.0 can better cut holes in midi music and close them.
I can\'t wait to try the Lex stuff. That is exciting.
Some people are using 3+ ghz systems? Wowzers.
I like VSampler, but yes, I would use it for short sample libs. Same as I do with Kontakt.
I imagine the VST integration will be even better than with 2.2., which is good.
I wonder if I will be able to slide midi data and automation together...finally...
Does it load any faster? Its fairly slow when Gigastudio launches it.
Keept the observations coming! images/icons/smile.gif

[Alan Russell]

DWdone,

I run Kontakt as a DXI in Sonar 3.0 Producer..no problem at all..I am using a 3.2 GHZ PIV HT with 2 Gigs PC3200 Ram...This machine I built myself and it keeps its promises.
The learning curve from 2.2 to 3.0 was a breeze..The Lex Reverb is awesome..

Alan Russell

[MusicalCharities]

And for those of us without 2 gigs of ram, and hyperthreading capability (I have 1 gig ram, 2.4 Ghz), Sonar 3.0 is (at least for me) much less CPU intensive under XP. I opened some projects that were starting to get boggled down with DXi\'s and FX\'s in 2.2, and much to my surprise, it ran perfectly smoothly in 3.0!

And yes, the transition from 2.2 to 3.0 was a breeze, thankfully!

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

By the way, a new plug-in update for Sonar 3 is already available at the cakewalk site.

http://cakewalk.com/Support/kb/kb2003194.asp (\"http://cakewalk.com/Support/kb/kb2003194.asp\")

The new patch updates Lexicon Pantheon/Pantheon LE, Sonitus:fx Suite, VSampler 3 DXi and VST Adapter.

Nhick (\"http://www.mp3.com/npacis\")

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

Follow up:

I just installed the update on my computer and a miracle happened - the SIR Reverb plug-in no longer lags! Thanks to the VST Adapter update!

Nhick

[sporter]

Alan, this is one of your best. I think it\'s my personal favorite. The trumpet is just incredible.

[ProfessorOak]

sweet!

thanks for the update on the....er....update images/icons/wink.gif

[ProfessorOak]

oh, and hey!
has this triangle Dxi always been up there for download (on the update plugin page) ,or is that new? I\'ve never noticed it before, but I\'m playing with it right now. Its really nice!

[sporter]

Originally posted by Alan Russell:
Sporter,

I appreciate the listen of course. Man I just adore the sound of an Alto sax that can possibly duplicate the sound on the old Saturday night live sound or even Paquito D\' Rivera sound. I\'ll tell you what, I\'ll drop Paquito an E-mail asking whether he\'d consdier having his Alto sampled down the road. What a treat trhat would be with the right sound engineer of course. Hope your enjoying Bigga Giggas collection..His Soprano sounds very nice.

Alan Russell <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">The soprano is the one I haven\'t got. What do you think about these saxes now that you\'ve had a chance to use them? To me, they are still the best sax samples around...just curious what you think.

[Alan Russell]

Sporter,

I\'ve only worked with the Soprano...I really need to have the Kontakt version here. The keying does not work in Kontakt from the Giga conversion..

Alan Russell

[MusicalCharities]

Hi ProfesorOak. I just tried out the Triangle Dxi , and started a new thread on it. It\'s pretty spectacular, isn\'t it?

[Alan Russell]

Where did the Sonar 3.0 update go?..no page found at this time..

anybody?

Alan Russell

[Owel]

They must have pulled the page down... probably writing a fix for the update that will fix Sonar. images/icons/smile.gif

I should have downloaded it last night....

[ProfessorOak]

I don\'t mind sharing images/icons/wink.gif

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

Apparently, the patch update introduced a new set of bugs - or so they say at the sonar newsgroup. Too late for me - I already installed it. Now let me see what the new bug is...

[mitchb2]

Originally posted by dwdonehoo:
I have a ton of suggestions from using 2.2, but there is no forum for Sonar developers that I know of.
<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">If you want to contribute to Sonar development, it\'s easy enough to get on the beta team.

It\'s alot of fun to have actual discussion with the people who directly implement features and functions.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Hi everyone,

I just talked to Cakewalk. They did indeed pull down the patch. The plugin-patch introduced an unforseen problem on some machines which didn\'t come to light until after they\'d put up the patch. They\'re repairing that.

The reason SIR started working better with the patch was a matter of delay/buffer compensation. They DID fix that, and all VSTs and DXis should compensate properly with the update. So when the patch is re-posted, everyone should be sure to get it downloaded and installed...it fixes the SIR problem completely.

Happy sequencing!! SONAR 3 has been a really enjoyable upgrade for me. The Lexicon reverb alone is worth the upgrade price, and the new audio routing is unprecedented.

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

Thanks for the info, Bruce! So far, I haven\'t had any problems with the update although I fear getting into one all of a sudden. Do you know if the repaired update will be able to undo the new bugs if that previous patch has already been installed?

Nhick (\"http://www.soundclick.com/nhick\")

[Alan Russell]

Thanks Bruce for being there for all of us..

Alan Russell

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Originally posted by Nhick Ramiro Pacis:
Thanks for the info, Bruce! So far, I haven\'t had any problems with the update although I fear getting into one all of a sudden. Do you know if the repaired update will be able to undo the new bugs if that previous patch has already been installed?

Nhick (\"http://www.soundclick.com/nhick\") <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I have no idea. I suspect they will make the patch upgrade either the release or \"patched\" version, since they know people have installed it. They\'re usually very good about that.

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

Thanks again, Bruce! I hope the Cakewalk people will just do that. I\'ve been experimenting with Cakewalk again - still haven\'t encountered any adverse side effects. What a relief!

Nhick (\"http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/nhickmusic.htm\")

[Alan Russell]

Nhick,

the marriage of Kontakt and Sonar 3.0 Producer is impeccable..glad to be part of the DXI, VST capabilities here..

enjoy..

Alan Russell

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

Indeed! I have saved so many hours just by bouncing tracks from Kontakt into Sonar. How I wish I could do this with Giga as almost all of my libs are Giga. I\'ve started importing some into Kontakt, but only those that I immediately need. I do have CDExtract now, but still I have to tweak things manually to get the sound that I usually hear from the Giga versions.

Nhick (\"http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/nhickmusic.htm\")

[Jake Johnson]

I don\'t have Sonar, but I\'ve used VSampler for two years now, and can offer this much. It\'s excellent in many ways (its interface, its handling of Akai disks and files), and not where they want it in others:

1. Like Kontakt, it has to decompress Giga files, so you\'ll need plenty of hard disk space to use it for Giga files.
2. Giga conversions were not seamless in the previous edition. They should be improved now, but I\'d look to the other people who\'ve had experience with the latest version.
3. This version, unlike the previous version, doesn\'t support streaming\\Direct from Disk for Giga libraries. The makers promise this will come in the next month or two, and they tend not to make promises they don\'t keep.
4. VSampler is very good at importing Akai sounds. It will read original Akai disks from your cd-rom drive and recognize all the partitions and settings. Nice feature. (Kontakt forces you to load the partitions and samples on your hard drive, and I for one have had trouble with it placing samples in odd places.)
5.The VSampler interface, to me, is the best of any softsampler. Gives you much more control over the amp and filter envelopes than anyone else and it uses tabs to let you move from screen to screen, instead of those terrible little buttons in Kontakt. On the other hand, it has fewer filters available. No 2-pole filters, last time I looked.
6. Excellent sound quality.
7. The entire product seems to be the creation of two people at VSampler.com. There\'s a forum, and they respond regularly to input (although lately they\'ve busy getting this latest version out.)They often ask for input about what features are wanted, or which layout is preferred. They seem to be always improving VSampler, clearly know their stuff, and are straightforward.

If you don\'t end up using VSampler for every project, I still hope you\'ll take some time to explore it. Very good in many ways. If its giga import and disk streaming were where they want it to be, this would be the program to beat.

[dwdonehoo]

I hope Sonar includes a user guide for VSampler. I have played around with VSampler 3, which I like, but I could not figure some things out.

[Jake Johnson]

What are you having problems with? I\'ll help if I can.

For basic questions (about importing files, the interface, etc. you may want to search on the 2.7 version forum you can click into from: http://www.vsampler.com/english/forum.html (\"http://www.vsampler.com/english/forum.html\")

(This is for the previous version, but much of it is still the same.)

For other issues, go to the \"VSampler 3 public betatest\" forum you can click into from the same link. (They don\'t yet have a forum for the latest version, but the last beta was very close to the final release.)

The forums are active, and if you post a message, someone will come in to help.

[marco b]

Originally posted by dwdonehoo:
I hope Sonar includes a user guide for VSampler. I have played around with VSampler 3, which I like, but I could not figure some things out. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I downloaded yesterday VS version 3.03 and this included quite extensive help-file.
And I read VS forum that dowloadable . PDF manual is coming when boxed version
is ready and you can even order paper manual cheaply (10USd or something like this)!!!

By the way, what do you like VS3 ?
It seems extensive, versatile but quite complicated beast!
Can it replace Giga?
Not at this moment at least; key switching is not working and not disk-streaming
yet (but it´s coming in version 3.1)!

[dwdonehoo]

I have Sonar 3 installed and running and I just went to the Sonar 3 Tour. Boy, this thing has taken care of some of my favorite pet complaints, like the flyby refresh problem on monitor 2 (dual monitor).
The Lexicon reverb is unreal. This is by far the best soft reverb I have ever used: I did not think that a soft verb could sound this smooth. No twangy verb here! About 1% cpu per instance. I think that when I do the next mix, I will try to use only Sonar and give Vegas a rest (never thought that would happen). The mix setup is much easier to use and doing a sub-mixes is a snap. The psycho-acoustic surround is interesting and maybe useful. Now, if they could just get the true surround thing set up (which I hear is coming)....

[robgb]

Originally posted by dwdonehoo:
I think that when I do the next mix, I will try to use only Sonar and give Vegas a rest (never thought that would happen). <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Boy, it must be impressive, cuz I\'d have a hard damn time giving Vegas a rest -- it\'s my workhorse. I\'m reportedly receiving a copy of 3 soon, so I look forward to testing it out.

Good news.

[Nhick Ramiro Pacis]

Originally posted by dwdonehoo:
Now, if they could just get the true surround thing set up (which I hear is coming).... <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I also wish I could burn to CD directly from Sonar, just like Vegas!

I\'ve been to the Sonar 3 Tour last night. It was the first time I heard that Sonitus Surround. It was actually pretty decent! I just can\'t hear it that way with my crappy speakers!

Nhick
http://www.nhick.com (\"http://www.nhick.com\")