Today when I was at SofMap I caught a demonstration of Sonar 7. It seems like a pretty cool program. I have not used any Cakewalk Products since Cakewalk 8.
The thing that really impressed me most was the Roland V-Voice Plugin. That thing was bad ass! I wish they would make that into a AU or VST plugin. It does pitch correction, time correction and a couple of other things. I think the coolest thing was pitch to midi. The other plugins were not that impressive. Nothing that you can not find for free or comes with any other sequencer.It’s nice to see that Sonar is now supporting VST along with DXi. When DXi first came out I thought it was going to be the new standard because of the way direct x integrates with the windows operating system. However it never really seemed to catch on. A lot of companies made DXi versions of their stuff, but at the same time it was bundled with VST and RTAS versions too. So if you were not running Sonar it was not used. I don’t think Cubase, Nuendo, or ProTools support DXi. That is probably the biggest reason why it never took off. Whether it is superior to VST, I don’t really know.
Another nice feature is the POW-R dither. I think of all the major sequencers, Cubase/Nuendo are the only ones that don’t utilize POW-R. Steinberg opted to go with the UV22hr dither by Apogee. From what I understand POW-R is a better plugin. Bob Katz also did some tests which indicated that it is a better choice over Apogee’s UV22hr. I have used both in the past and either one is fine. Odds are these days a lot of music is being dithered with POW-R or UV22hr or the Waves L series limiter dither.
The only thing I didn’t like about Sonar was that the screen seemed cluttered. With all the available windows and sub windows and tabs it just seemed like too much. Other than that, the only other thing I question is the the stability. During the demo, Sonar crashed. I don’t know exactly what the reason was because I was not quick enough to read the error screen due to that it was in Japanese. However I suspect that one of these three reasons are why it crashed. 1. Windows Vista caused some sort of error. 2. Sonar itself had some sort of internal error. 3. The Edirol digital mixer interface lost connectivity or caused an error.
Overall I have to say Sonar has come along ways since when I first used it when it was Cakewalk 6. In fact sequencers have come a long way. This past year I had a chance to play with Cakewalk 6 and I realized that is a real unfriendly program. I don’t know how I even managed to learn it without using a manual. I have to say with out it, I would not have such a good understanding of the way sequencers work. I think if someone asked me whether they should pick up Sonar 7 for their studio, I would say go ahead. The only negative things I would say about it is what I mentioned above. There is no reason to tell not to pick it up. In the end it’s all about how they choose to use it. I really think that Sonar 7 is kind of similar to Apple’s Logic. I mean similar in the way it comes with a lot of plugins that are really useful. Unlike Cubase, which always seemed to be the most lacking in the included plugins.
After watching the demonstration, I will say that for as cool as Sonar seems, I will not be picking up a copy. Mainly because I currently have Cubase SX2, Logic Pro 7, ProTools LE 7, Cakewalk 8, Reason adapted for Digidesign, and Live Lite 6. It’s not all the latest and some aren’t even the full versions, but I do have to say that I am pretty covered for sequencers. In addition to that I don’t feel the need or want to learn a new one. There is still a lot for me to learn about Cubase, Logic and ProTools. Not to mention the others which I barely use. Now if Roland only released that V-Voice plugin as a VST/AU/RTAS!
