Anyone Use Sonar as their DAW

asimmd

I have Sonar X2a Producer on my PC and I see Cakewalk gave now moved to subscription for the latest versions. If anyone uses it I wondered if it was worth going down the subscription route. Seems a few are doing it like that now.

spark240

I did use it but moved to Dtudio One, I found Roland lacked support when it comes to older products. That said, some of the synths are nice, and I did like the interface.

asimmd

Thanks for the reply I was looking at Studio 1 but because I know Sonar it makes sense to stick with it rather than learn a new DAW.

Snap

I've used Cakewalkand then Sonar for years. I had X3 then upgraded to Platinum last April. I paid upfront which means I got a year's sub included.

The subscription model - I like it. Every month there is an update to the DAW and this includes all sorts of things. SOmetimes its new FX, new plugins, synths, samples etc, as well as patches and bug fixes.

As a DAW I think it has now gone from being good, but buggy, to outstanding. Very stable, easy to use, and there are shedloads of tuition and support things available. The bundled stuff with Platinum is amazing tbh. I've also bought two synths form Cakewalk - z3ta+2 and Rapture Pro. Awesome.

Also you get Addictive Drums 2 included, which is a v good plug in, sounds good.

The mixing an mastering stuff has been vastly upgraded too, some ace stuff in there. So yeah, a fan!

spark240

No worries...S1 is worth a good look though

Cirrus

Somehow missed this thread. X3 user here, love it. Worth upgrading?

Snap

most certainly

Gadget

I'm on Sonar Platinum subscription.

littlegreenman

After my very, very old version of Sonar died (been using it for about 8 years!), I have just bought Artist. Liking it so far.

GUI is quite different to what I'm used to obviously but all of the editing stuff seems to be the same. Just a case of getting used to the new layout I imagine.

monquixote

I used Sonar for a long time, but I moved to Reaper and never looked back.

DLM

@Grunfeld was a Sonar guy, ISTR.

Grunfeld

DLM said:

@Grunfeld was a Sonar guy, ISTR.

Yep, I absolutely loved it.  But there was a build around v.6 which was really unstable on my PC and I ended up switching to Reaper out of necessity.  I've still got a shrink wrapped box with Sonar 8.5 here somewhere -- I kept buying it for a while before feeling confident with Reaper.

It's weird, I can do more in Reaper, and I've never had a stability issue with it, but I still miss the flow of Sonar.  I'm sure it's changed a lot since I've last used it though!

littlegreenman

monquixote said:

I used Sonar for a long time, but I moved to Reaper and never looked back.

Lack of a stave editor was the dealbreaker with Reaper for me. I like my little black dots