Cakewalk Sonar Platinum is now free!

[MattmaN]

Gear lust will keep people buying DAW's. Ableton will be fine because of Push. I do see more DAW's beig pressured to have their own dedicated controllers both due to Ableton having so much success, and Cakewalk being free means extra value from other DAW's may need to be attached to keep interest (good advertising helps also). Also IPad apps are competition, and a kid with an old IPad 2, and Beatmaker 2 for $12 can be the next Premo.

Seamless integration with fancy looking controllers like Push/Maschine/MPC Touch/etc. is what will keep the DAW market going strong with "producers".

[JohnNoizz]

Well... I don't know if you already know this but, I was doing some tests with this great DAW and while doing some modifications discovered something quite interesting, if someone is having problems with Cakewalk such as freezing or crashing with a plugin you can try changing the audio driver from ASIO to WASAPI.

Here's the thing, I was having trouble with some plugins like CodeRed from Shattered Glass Audio, the moment I load the plugin on Cakewalk it crashed and closed, I left it as it was, I went to something else, testing with different audio drivers because I wanted to know how those others drivers works with this DAW and then again made some test with CodeRed just to be sure and I realized that it works very well with WASAPI!
Went to ASIO again, load CodeRed, Cakewalk crashed and closed, changed to WASAPI, load CodeRed and works very well without a problem.

If this is useful for someone...

[dellboy]

After giving this a daw a miss for being unreliable I thought I would have another try after a few weeks. But its the usual problem that I had a while back, the daw not seeing my midi and usb controllers. It seems to be hit or miss on the day.

Is there some sort of way to get it to recognise them ?

Or does this daw have known problem with midi devices ?

Other daws I use have no problems in detecting them.

[soulone82]

Other daws I use have no problems in detecting them.

Keep using those then, no?

[lanfear]

I've been using Ableton for years, too, and one of the things I like the least about it is navigation, especially using two screens. No screen layouts, limited keyboard shortcuts...

Sorry for briefly going off topic:

@JoseC - I am a long-time Sonar user but I'm very interested learning a little about Live. After testing Live in a few short sessions, I immediately reacted on exactly the two questions you mentioned:

- It does not seem you can customize keyboard shortcuts at all in Live? (Example: three fingers for for hiding/showing browser is really cumbersome! CTRL-ALT-B! )
- How to work best with two screens in Live? Any tips for a Sonar user?

Thanks!

[JohnNoizz]

New update available!!! Installing now

[dellboy]

I love this daw.

Its a fun daw.

Love the console view. Set up a track with a five bar loop. Lets say bass. Record a riff, drag and drop it into the console view cell - and it loops just like Ableton - magic.

leave it looping and drag 5 bar piano, drums, etc into the lower cells and they sync.

Add another instrument, hit L to disable looping - and hit R for record and play a melody to the accompaniment you have just made.

Instant song play along fun.

Whats not to like.

[JoseC.]

I've been using Ableton for years, too, and one of the things I like the least about it is navigation, especially using two screens. No screen layouts, limited keyboard shortcuts...

Sorry for briefly going off topic:

@JoseC - I am a long-time Sonar user but I'm very interested learning a little about Live. After testing Live in a few short sessions, I immediately reacted on exactly the two questions you mentioned:

- It does not seem you can customize keyboard shortcuts at all in Live? (Example: three fingers for for hiding/showing browser is really cumbersome! CTRL-ALT-B! )
- How to work best with two screens in Live? Any tips for a Sonar user?

Thanks!

Yep, the three pronged stab to get the browser when you are used to hit just "B" is annoying You cannot do much about the shortcuts, you are stuck with defaults. On top of those, you can only configure some key presses to remotely control GUI widgets, and that cannot be done globally but only by project. You cannot change existing shortcuts, or import other DAWs shortcuts, or assign key presses to actions. I wish CbB had CTL-D, though.

The second screen implementation is limited, the GUI seems to be designed for single screen use, and when you add another screen you actually feel like what you have are two single screens, not a dual screen configuration. You need to be aware of where you are because GUI keyboard shortcuts will work in the active screen. There are no screensets, or lenses, so you cannot really customize your workspace. No tips, really, just get used to it.

[lanfear]

You cannot do much about the shortcuts [in Live], you are stuck with defaults.

You cannot change existing shortcuts, or import other DAWs shortcuts, or assign key presses to actions.

Why!? I don't do DAW bashing (except for bashing my own choice!) and Live seems really cool... but why?! How can it not be possible to customize keyboard shortcuts in a DAW that has existed almost 20 years?!

After my first 10 minutes with Live, that was the first thing I wanted to do. I almost fell of my chair, I thought it was a standard feature in professional applications. Sorry for the rant, I know Live rocks in many other things!

I wish CbB had CTL-D, though.

Me too, Sonar is really missing that, amongst many other things! Don't get me started...

The second screen implementation is limited, the GUI seems to be designed for single screen use, and when you add another screen you actually feel like what you have are two single screens, not a dual screen configuration. You need to be aware of where you are because GUI keyboard shortcuts will work in the active screen. There are no screensets, or lenses, so you cannot really customize your workspace. No tips, really, just get used to it.

Thanks for the insight! It kind of reinforces my initial feeling of Live as well, it kinda feels like desktop use was an afterthought. I'll see if I can get the hang of it one day!

[zzz00m]

I don't understand all this talk about Sonar and Ableton. They are very different. Just get both, I did!

Sonar is a linear DAW, based on a recording studio model, and Ableton is optimized for loop based music creation and live performance.

[deastman]

I don't understand all this talk about Sonar and Ableton. They are very different. Just get both, I did!

Sonar is a linear DAW, based on a recording studio model, and Ableton is optimized for loop based music creation and live performance.

Although Sonar has a matrix just like Ableton’s clip launcher, and Ableton has a linear timeline just like Sonar’s. My advice is to just pick a DAW and stick with it. They are all great and any of them can be used to make great music. Or you can do what I did, which is to buy most of the DAWs on the market and constantly bounce around from one to the other, failing to truly master any of them.

[dellboy]

Live has a great session mode where clips can be directly recorded into it,but the linear side is pretty lousy.

Sonar has great linear abilities but a lousy session clip mode where clips have to be recorded first in a linear way and dragged onto the session view.

Both work,but both seem to be a work in progress, rather than the finished polished article.

Live is quite expensive - Sonar is free.

If someone never records there own clips but always uses pre-recorded ones,then Sonar will do the job of launching clips just like Live does. The disadvantage being that it does not have all the hardware made for it that Live does. But I guess that Live hardware can be used to launch Sonar clips,but maybe not in as effective way that Live does it.

[zzz00m]

I think the point here is that there is not, and probably will never be, just one DAW that does everything in a way that pleases 100% of the users.

That is why there are users who choose to work with more than one DAW. It is not because they dislike their main DAW, but they want the workflow or features offered by another for certain situations. It is a matter of learning the strengths of each and using them when necessary. Use each tool for their strengths, and don't get too hung up on the shortcomings. They all have them.

There are many users who enjoy using a linear DAW like Sonar (or Studio One, Reaper, Logic, Cubase, etc.) to create in the studio, but would only use Live for a live performance. The available hardware controllers, real-time clip recording, and rock solid stability pretty much ensure that Live has a competitive advantage in that niche.

I think that if a DAW was to try to be everything, it would risk becoming a mediocre, boated mess.

[zzz00m]

Live is quite expensive - Sonar is free.

I got Live 5 (full version) bundled for free with a controller that I bought over 10 years ago.

Ableton still let me upgrade for $159 this year to Live 9 Standard, with a free upgrade to Live 10. Not a bad deal, and good of them to still offer an upgrade path for such an old version after all these years.

Now if you are referring to the Live Suite upgrade, I agree, and won't bother.

[JoseC.]

I think the point here is that there is not, and probably will never be, just one DAW that does everything in a way that pleases 100% of the users.

That is why there are users who choose to work with more than one DAW. It is not because they dislike their main DAW, but they want the workflow or features offered by another for certain situations. It is a matter of learning the strengths of each and using them when necessary. Use each tool for their strengths, and don't get too hung up on the shortcomings. They all have them.

There are many users who enjoy using a linear DAW like Sonar (or Studio One, Reaper, Logic, Cubase, etc.) to create in the studio, but would only use Live for a live performance. The available hardware controllers, real-time clip recording, and rock solid stability pretty much ensure that Live has a competitive advantage in that niche.

I think that if a DAW was to try to be everything, it would risk becoming a mediocre, boated mess.

Well, my point was exactly that, and also that it is a mistake expecting a DAW we are trying to learn to work like the one we are most familiar with. I was using Live and Sonar as an example because those are the DAWs I have used the most and I know them pretty well.

Following with that example, both Live and Cakewalk have a cell matrix, but while Live's matrix is more comprehensive and is designed for live (duh!) use, Cakewalk's is not. So, if you look at CbB Matrix view from a Live's user point of view, it is easy to just dismiss it, like I did for a long time, and I never used Live's Session view that much, anyway. It took me a long time to find out that I could do something with it, that really cannot be done with Live's Session view and that is more useful for me.

You can record or program a Midi sequence, convert it to a Step Sequencer pattern and drag the pattern to a Matrix cell. The Step Sequencer in Cakewalk allows to set up a probability value per step, so you can program a pattern to automatically generate subtle variations each time it cycles, that can be inmediately recorded back to a track. In Live you could do something like that with a clips launch options, but that works at the clip level, and not per note, so you would need to load several, or many, patterns with predetermined variations, to get the same results that you can get in Cakewalk with a single pattern in a cell.

So, right now for me Live is more of a sound design platform, but I do all my midi programming, recording and mixing in Cakewalk, while some time ago I relied much more heavily on Live when Sonar did not make me comfortable, and I would not mind doing it again if the need arises.