Does anyone else remember Cakewalk SONAR?

[Theo.M]

It was discontinued, then released free for a few years with Bandlab, but now they have extensively modified the underpinnings for multi threading, and the GUI, and have re released as a paid product with a full Bandlab sub of 14.95 p/m.

Sonar was one of very few DAWs I took seriously as a replacement to Logic when Emagic sold to Apple and they discontinued the Windows version - however I did eventually cave and go all Mac in 2008. The studio always used Mac and TDM hardware (separate from my home studio at the time) but I was always, up to that point, a Windows boy at home.
I'll never forget my first truly powerful machine for VST and VSTi, the Athlon XP 2600. Then came the core 2 duo which had an Athlon project at 90% on the meter and barely playable, cruise along at 35%, but I digress,.

I LOVED Sonar and created my BEST remix that I have ever done in it, and I can not find the file anywhere as I could reconstruct all the unique midi I did in a modern DAW as well as find the darn samples I used. It was called Toccata in Trance, and if I may say so myself, it was the best Bach Toccata EDM mix ever made. I'm usually humble as anything and go red with embarrassment, but it really was good. It used all the image line VI's and Energy XT bass and some Opcode DX plugins as well as Sonitus, so there'd be a lot of reshuffling, but if I could just find those vocal samples and midi I created for the unique parts,, I'd reconstruct it in a heartbeat yesterday, and especially now that I have grown so much in my mixing compared to back then.

Anyway, personal plug aside, I loved Sonar's workflow, but the issue was that it was unbelievably unstable. It was kind of ridiculous. Bandlab knew it, and apparently they already cleaned a lot of that stuff up with the free version, but am I the only one curious to see what the new paid versions is like?

Sonar was the underrated underdog of the DAW scene, it really was, and the proof of that is in the pudding so to speak, as Cakewalk went broke and even their multiple buyouts didn't save them for long either.

I am now committed to Mac, there's no going back, I made my choice. And Pro Tools on Apple Silicon is really hard to describe in how good it is, and that includes vs the Windows version, that I am finally at the point, now with ARA 2, that a DAW does 99% of what I truly want. I'd just add a few select midi features to it and double the delay compensation sample amount from 32K to 64K, and it would to me at least, be the perfect DAW.

I'm also not going to subscribe to Bandlab just so I can try the new whizzbang Sonar version on my gaming laptop, but I thought there might be some Bandlab users here. Any of you? It's this slightly annoying curiosity more than anything, as I always had such a soft spot for Cakewalk.
And believe it or not, it's been out for months now and there's just NOTHING on YouTube aside from a fellow that made one video about a few of the features. That's it.

So yes, just wondering if anyone is using it, and if you are incorporating Reason into the workflow with it.
Would love to hear thoughts about it!

Cheers

[EdGrip]

I know what you mean RE the underdog thing - I was very excited to try another underdog, Digital Performer, when I bought a Motu interface a couple of years ago. I installed it, very excited. Started it. It almost immediately crashed. Uninstalled it.

I never tried Cakewalk, but I remember being recommended it by a friend probably 15+ years ago.

[guitfnky]

Cakewalk was the first DAW I checked out when I realized Reason wasn’t going to be focusing heavily on the DAW for a while—it was really nice, but not sure why I ended up passing on it.

Digital Performer was the first proper DAW I ever owned and learned—switched to that on Mac to Reason, and eventually to PC. on a whim I bought the upgrade thinking I would love to try it out again (and the nostalgia was strong), but it was a joke on PC. completely unusable. and their support is atrocious. sad, because it is super powerful.

[visheshl]

Do you remember og cakewalk ? Before sonar ?

[Theo.M]

Do you remember og cakewalk ? Before sonar ?

Yeah we started with that in the early 90's, I refer to it as cakewalk dots. It was a midi sequencer only, and we had this beastly 40mb (yes mb) hdd lol. Obviously it was all hardware synths in those days, but we used Cakewalk as a midi sequencer with its black dots till 97, when we switched to Logic Audio as it was known at the time.

[Theo.M]

Cakewalk was the first DAW I checked out when I realized Reason wasn’t going to be focusing heavily on the DAW for a while—it was really nice, but not sure why I ended up passing on it.

Digital Performer was the first proper DAW I ever owned and learned—switched to that on Mac to Reason, and eventually to PC. on a whim I bought the upgrade thinking I would love to try it out again (and the nostalgia was strong), but it was a joke on PC. completely unusable. and their support is atrocious. sad, because it is super powerful.

Maybe the stability is why you passed. Even looking at Sonar wrong would make it crash back in the day.

I am fascinated to see someone is using DP here. I only ever tried it on my current Windows laptop, and even at 128 buffer the cpu meter was ridiculously high, and it seemed unstable with a lot of different plugins. Good to know at least it's only the Windows version that's flakey. Motu had that as a Mac exclusive for many years didn't they? Maybe that's why Bandlab won't convert Sonar to Mac, because its underpinnings are just too entangled with Windows and always have been. They did create a much simpler product from the ground up called Cakewalk Next, and that is on Mac also.
I actually think they are kind of nuts for doing that, as I don't see any Mac user paying for something like that when Garageband is free and can do a heck of a lot as it is.

BTW, re DP, I found it very hard to understand. I am so used to clips and editing within a clip, and I realised it was the only DAW other than Reason which didn't have audio file to project tempo preview in the browser. I did use it for the full 30 days though and got comfortable enough that I knew how to construct something in it, but boy is it weird (imho).
My least favourite DAW is Reaper, then Fruity Loops, Mixbuss (Ardour), then DP. I find that I can use any of the others if I had to, but those are the ones that do my head in. Although out of those 4, on Mac, I'd be inclined to stick with DP over the others.
BTW I also noticed that DP's delay compensation was absolutely superb, and they have docking available for everything, so I have to give them kudos for that.

[guitfnky]

DP is VERY difficult to learn. it’s got a ton of great functionality, but it’s very bloated and haphazardly put together. I had a hell of a time when I was first learning it. the only reason I was even considering going back recently was because I was already familiar with it. absolutely would never recommend it to anyone new unless there’s a particular feature it has that you absolutely need and can’t be found elsewhere.

DP would have worked fine on PC if I was okay with only using MOTU plugins, but that was a no go. as soon as I’d add any third party plugin, it would ground to a halt.

Reaper is easier to use (once you get it set up) and capable of most of the same stuff, but that takes a lot of work to get set up before it becomes usable. I really like Reaper, but again, takes too much work to be worth it for many.

[Theo.M]

DP is VERY difficult to learn. it’s got a ton of great functionality, but it’s very bloated and haphazardly put together. I had a hell of a time when I was first learning it. the only reason I was even considering going back recently was because I was already familiar with it. absolutely would never recommend it to anyone new unless there’s a particular feature it has that you absolutely need and can’t be found elsewhere.

DP would have worked fine on PC if I was okay with only using MOTU plugins, but that was a no go. as soon as I’d add any third party plugin, it would ground to a halt.

Reaper is easier to use (once you get it set up) and capable of most of the same stuff, but that takes a lot of work to get set up before it becomes usable. I really like Reaper, but again, takes too much work to be worth it for many.

My issue with Reaper is different to most others who may dislike it. I learned it well enough to use it, regardless of thinking the endless menus with walls of text are ridiculous in a DAW (and I still think that).
I am very sensitive to GUIs and cleanliness for want of a better word.
My issue with Reaper is that when a clip is selected it does not have a distinctive single style to do so, like turning black, or a border or something. It changes colour. And to me, the selected clips look like unselected and vice versa and I found it impossible to get used to, and it got even worse when there was a loop section of the arrangement highlighted. I'd delete stuff I wanted to keep and keep stuff I wanted to delete, and this never changed, no matter how long I used it for. So it's purely nothing more for me than hating the gui, and I know it's a very capable DAW and does pretty much everything these days and is very fairly priced. BTW I tried so many skins, SO many, and ended up back at the default every time.

GUI wise, I actually like DP. I think the best 2 GUIs in the world though are Logic and Pro Tools, although I wish some basic things could be customised in Logic, as I tend to shy away from dark GUIs, but thankfully, it's not uber dark but a rather a grey colour. Still, I'd like different coloured meters and I'd have it more bluey.
Cubendo is colour customizable as is S1, but S1 is SO busy, I've never seen any other DAW that's so busy. Still, I can work with it. But open the inspector on left, browser on right and mixer below, and S1 is just like little text bits everywhere and looks out of control to me and actually makes my eyes water. Do the exact same thing in Logic, and it's simply neat. In S1 I have to have the mixer on its own page and that's the only way I can tolerate it. In Logic I can even work on a 13" laptop and not have any major issues. Same with PT.

So yeah, I am a BIG gui person and my enjoyment of a DAW is maybe 50% Gui for me, and that's why I will never personally use Reaper, cause no matter what users can come up with for skins, the fundamental backbone of it visually remains and I truly dislike it. No matter how good the rest of the program is.

PS I haven't tried it in a few years now so I am not sure if they fixed that clip selection issue. I used to try Reaper every year to really try see what I was missing cause it's so well loved, until I stopped making music in 2019 for the 5 years I was recovering, and since I only came back to music in March this year, haven't tried it this time round.

[visheshl]

My favorite setup now is ableton live with rrp.
It just works for me. I've got my controller setup just the way I want.
I would love to use reason standalone, but the controller configuration is just messed up in reason.
Although its just text files,but getting your controller to work the way you want it to with reason is just too cumbersome.
They need to do something about the midi controller setup and customization.
Otherwise reason as a daw is amazing, but its been so long I've been using ableton, that I have forgotten how to use reason standalone efficiently.

I even made a web based tool to make it easier to write controller configuration files. But then I gave up on the project. And returned to using ableton and rrp.
Primarily because its reason studios who should be doing this. They should provide a simple to use tool for users to customize their midi controllers for reason standalone as per their preferences.

[esme]

yes

[Theo.M]

My favorite setup now is ableton live with rrp.
It just works for me. I've got my controller setup just the way I want.
I would love to use reason standalone, but the controller configuration is just messed up in reason.
Although its just text files,but getting your controller to work the way you want it to with reason is just too cumbersome.
They need to do something about the midi controller setup and customization.
Otherwise reason as a daw is amazing, but its been so long I've been using ableton, that I have forgotten how to use reason standalone efficiently.

I even made a web based tool to make it easier to write controller configuration files. But then I gave up on the project. And returned to using ableton and rrp.
Primarily because its reason studios who should be doing this. They should provide a simple to use tool for users to customize their midi controllers for reason standalone as per their preferences.

I adore Live so can totally see the attachment to it. I would have switched to that years ago in a heartbeat but they refuse to fix the PDC. At least enough people complained that they fixed the automation timing, so there's that. But it has excellent midi, especially in V12, and is just a very nice program to compose music in. I can see that in combo with RRP to be very powerful indeed. Enjoy!

[visheshl]

People say live's gui is bland and lifeless.
But once you learn to appreciate how uncluttered it is with just the most important options upfront...its just makes it so much more inviting to use.

Reaper is very powerful but setting it up the way you like it is just a daunting task....its got wayyy too many options and menu diving. And the learning curve is steep.

[Theo.M]

People say live's gui is bland and lifeless.
But once you learn to appreciate how uncluttered it is with just the most important options upfront...its just makes it so much more inviting to use.

Reaper is very powerful but setting it up the way you like it is just a daunting task....its got wayyy too many options and menu diving. And the learning curve is steep.

Live GUI bland? People seriously say that? I just think it looks appealing and neat, as well as having a very fast audio file browser with tempo sync.

All I'd really want out of Live is visual delay compensation fixed as well as the issue when using latent plugins alongside tempo based fx, and ARA 2 support.

For a company so big on open free standards, and creating Link, and being one of the best implementations of Rewire in its heyday, I am really surprised they haven't at all taken to any form of ARA. That, unfortunately for me, is a dealbreaker, as I make very heavy use of Melodyne, Vocalign (uggh, terrible company though, eek), SpectraLayers and now RX as well. It's something I pretty much need and rely on rather than a luxury. For my own entirely midi based compositions using synth plugins, different thing. But for major projects, yeah, I always go back to PT. But I love a TON about Live, and clearly so do *many* composers, because it is statistically one of the most popular DAWs in the world!

[MuttReason]

Sure do remember Cakewalk. I used it way back when (can’t remember how long ago, but years before before Reason existed I’m pretty sure).

I also used Sonar and really liked it. Can’t remember much about it now but it seemed quite revolutionary back in the day.

When I use R13 (or Live 12 + RRP + Ableton Push, which is a lot of fun) I sometimes remember how all this DAW stuff started going back to the 1980s and just think… wow. What a journey. What we have now is beyond science fiction compared with the early days.

[Theo.M]

Sorry MuttReason, I accidently reported your post - I thought I was quoting it! Forgive me, so sorry to mods too!

What I was SUPPOSED to say was that Sonar was ahead of the curve, being the first DAW to offer automatic audio alignment between two audio clips like the Vocalign plugin, and the only other DAW(s) to offer that now is Cubase/Nuendo. Sonar was also one of the first if not the first to offer integrated graphical pitch editing with Roland V Vocal.

When I pressed submit and it said "post has been reported successfully", I jumped. So sorry again. When the mods see the reason for reporting, they will see what I just wrote above about Sonar

[MuttReason]

Sorry MuttReason, I accidently reported your post - I thought I was quoting it! Forgive me, so sorry to mods too!

What I was SUPPOSED to say was that Sonar was ahead of the curve, being the first DAW to offer automatic audio alignment between two audio clips like the Vocalign plugin, and the only other DAW(s) to offer that now is Cubase/Nuendo. Sonar was also one of the first if not the first to offer integrated graphical pitch editing with Roland V Vocal.

When I pressed submit and it said "post has been reported successfully", I jumped. So sorry again. When the mods see the reason for reporting, they will see what I just wrote above about Sonar

No worries!

[miyaru]

Cakewalk 7 was my first serious DAW on a pentium 1 100 mhz 16 MB pc with a soundblaster 64 gold soundcard LOL.

Before C7 I tried magics music maker ( click your own hit!). Must be ‘97 or so……

Previous recording was done by me on a cassette 4 track.

I liked Cakewalk, it was a new adventure in life, by owning this DAW you had a studio in hands with all kinds of fx’s!