Are there any High-End studios running Sonar 7 producer?

[casrec]

Just wanted to know if there any guys out there running Sonar...I consider my studio middle-end running Sonar 7 Pro on Vista Ultimate x64 and it's running great. I know I am the minority on the whole Vista thing, but I'm curious to know if any of the big guys are running or have tried Sonar 7 and if so you are getting the same good results on vista as I am..? Thanks

[Petacchi]

(high end : the expensive stuff...)

[Saxy]

I'm a home hobbyist using PE 6 on XP. I will not get Sonar 7 until Waves Plugins are supported in 7.

PE6 recently started crashing constantly, out of nowhere.

Just got Pro Tools 003 Rack....just installed it, working great!

So far soooo good.

[spektor]

Well im using Sonar 7 great stable program for me.

[casrec]

Waves plugs are supported with Sonar 7. The only thing is you have to load Sonar as a 32 bit program. Waves plugs will not work within a 64 bit Sonar. Thats a waves issue not a Sonar issue.

[confooshus]

I'd be curious to know if there are many high end commercial studios that *aren't* on Macs running Protools...

[casrec]

Well, that's what I am curious to know. And if there is, what are they using.

[seriousfun]

How about Alan Sides at Oceanway?

Presented at AES New York 2007 Exhibitor Seminar:

Recording Mary J. Blige - High-Bandwidth Tracking Powered Through Multi-Core Computing

Two-time Grammy-winning engineer/producer Allen Sides recently had a history-making recording date with Mary J. Blige performing with a full orchestra. In this groundbreaking session he recorded 48 tracks simultaneously at 24-bit/192 kHz using one Intel-based PC running SONAR. Allen will be interviewed about the session, followed by brief Q&A.

There are a lot of examples.

But, what commercial studio would choose to run SONAR, Nuendo, Logic, etc., when the industry standard is Pro Tools HD?

There is more recording done outside large commercial studios than inside them (and more audio work on Windows-based computers than Mac OS-based computers, but that's another story), systems other than Pro Tools are more common in artist-owned studios, and SONAR is one of many fine choices (and the only 64-bit native choice to-date).

[lowfreq33]

If Cakewalk would introduce a Mac version I think you'd see a lot more high end users. It's just as valid as Pro Tools, Logic, DP, etc. I think the Windows only thing is what keeps it in the "consumer" box.

[Morrillo]

I know that Ray Charles engineer (Terry Howard) uses Sonar on His Studio

[lowfreq33]

That's right, I remember reading that Ray chose Sonar in a blind (no pun intended) test, based solely on the sound.

[DarbyOhara]

Originally Posted by casrec

Just wanted to know if there any guys out there running Sonar...I consider my studio middle-end running Sonar 7 Pro on Vista Ultimate x64 and it's running great. I know I am the minority on the whole Vista thing, but I'm curious to know if any of the big guys are running or have tried Sonar 7 and if so you are getting the same good results on vista as I am..? Thanks

Originally Posted by Petacchi

(high end : the expensive stuff...)

Originally Posted by Morrillo

I know that Ray Charles engineer (Terry Howard) uses Sonar on His Studio

Guys... what you are not understanding is that although Sonar is a great and well equipped music tool, it is not for big studios and isn't made to be a front-end software for tracking. It is made for the home studio hobbyist to have a great set of tools to mix, etc.

As Petacchi stated, high end means expensive. Like $50k plus just for a mixing console and an easy $5k for just a preamp or $8k for just a mic. Check out Sony music studios. They are mostly using ProTools HD. Here is a pic of the NY studio:

Sony Recording Studio Photo 01

There are other examples... but the good news is... today, your home studios can track, mix and produce just as good as those million dollar studios. In fact many artists track that way today. Many of those home tracks do make it to the master CD because the quality is just too good to replica in expensive studios! Why waste $200 a hour renting a pro studio when they already got the same results from the home recordings.

I personally use Paris 3.0 (discontinued). And I am also using Firewire with Cubase LE. But I hate Cubase and I am in the mits of switching to Sonar 7. But as I have said, Sonar 7 is not for east tracking and mixing like Pro Tools or Paris... so the learning curve is going slow...

peace!

[seriousfun]

huh?

Sony Music in New York closed last year.

"expensive" "mac" "pro tools" do not, in themselves, mean professional, or better-sounding, or easier, or whatever you imply.

Most commercial studios do use Pro Tools HD (and most of those run on Macs) for a variety of reasons, but that does not exclude Logic, Nuendo, SONAR, or even obsolete, unsupported systems like Paris from having a place in high-end recording.

Originally Posted by DarbyOhara

Guys... what you are not understanding is that although Sonar is a great and well equipped music tool, it is not for big studios and isn't made to be a front-end software for tracking. It is made for the home studio hobbyist to have a great set of tools to mix, etc.

As Petacchi stated, high end means expensive. Like $50k plus just for a mixing console and an easy $5k for just a preamp or $8k for just a mic. Check out Sony music studios. They are mostly using ProTools HD. ...

I personally use Paris 3.0 (discontinued). And I am also using Firewire with Cubase LE. But I hate Cubase and I am in the mits of switching to Sonar 7. But as I have said, Sonar 7 is not for east tracking and mixing like Pro Tools or Paris... so the learning curve is going slow...

[A Fuertes]

Originally Posted by DarbyOhara

Guys... what you are not understanding is that although Sonar is a great and well equipped music tool, it is not for big studios and isn't made to be a front-end software for tracking. It is made for the home studio hobbyist to have a great set of tools to mix, etc.

As Petacchi stated, high end means expensive. Like $50k plus just for a mixing console and an easy $5k for just a preamp or $8k for just a mic. Check out Sony music studios. They are mostly using ProTools HD. Here is a pic of the NY studio:

Sony Recording Studio Photo 01

There are other examples... but the good news is... today, your home studios can track, mix and produce just as good as those million dollar studios. In fact many artists track that way today. Many of those home tracks do make it to the master CD because the quality is just too good to replica in expensive studios! Why waste $200 a hour renting a pro studio when they already got the same results from the home recordings.

I personally use Paris 3.0 (discontinued). And I am also using Firewire with Cubase LE. But I hate Cubase and I am in the mits of switching to Sonar 7. But as I have said, Sonar 7 is not for east tracking and mixing like Pro Tools or Paris... so the learning curve is going slow...

peace!

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here. Sonar is a feature rich piece of software that is on par with pro tools, logic etc.

Pro tools is in major studios because its the standard, not really because of the software features, and its the standard because it was really the first you could work with (thanks to the DSP acceleration). Its the standard because its still the only one with said "standardized" acceleration and a volume of third party software for those DSP cards.

Hardware acceleration was reallly pretty essential until just recently and, if you're in a pro studio paying high rates, its still important because it guarantees a certain high level of performance (tracks, plugins).

And now that protools is the standard, well you have to have it. People expect to see it. People know how to use it and people may want to transfer a protools project they did elsewhere to your studio. Its self perpetuating.

[hurd300403]

+1 for Sonar 7 Pro


amazing piece of software thumbsup

[retrolabel]

Originally Posted by A Fuertes

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here. Sonar is a feature rich piece of software that is on par with pro tools, logic etc.

Pro tools is in major studios because its the standard, not really because of the software features, and its the standard because it was really the first you could work with (thanks to the DSP acceleration). Its the standard because its still the only one with said "standardized" acceleration and a volume of third party software for those DSP cards.

Hardware acceleration was reallly pretty essential until just recently and, if you're in a pro studio paying high rates, its still important because it guarantees a certain high level of performance (tracks, plugins).

And now that protools is the standard, well you have to have it. People expect to see it. People know how to use it and people may want to transfer a protools project they did elsewhere to your studio. Its self perpetuating.

i really cant understand why is protools a "must" in high end studios..
this system was good when PC's (or macs) were'nt as strong as nowadays computers.
and u know.. if sonar is the only system today which can run on 64 bit
that puts it in a respective place with the others (PT,nuendo logic etc.)
i understood that logic is having really big steps with promotion
and maybe will change the studio standarts in the future..

[fooman]

I went to a somewhat hi-end studio with vintage 1073's, 1176's, Great River, Coles' Neumann etc. Of course, a mac with PT. Pro Tools crashed a bunch and the engineer said he hated PT and wishes he could use something else. I've personally not used it, but it did halt my band's session a few times when it crashed. I'm curious how it's easier to track in PT than it is in Sonar 7.

I use Sonar 7 PE and easily track audio and midi, 100+ track projects quickly. I know the program, and did consider switching awhile back but Sonar is familiar with me so I stuck with it. I've never had the program crash during a paid session.

However, I guess since PT because the standard most hi-end places have to have it so they can send out projects in a form other places can work with. Makes sense. I'm just not sure why it has become standard.

[A Fuertes]

Originally Posted by fooman

I went to a somewhat hi-end studio with vintage 1073's, 1176's, Great River, Coles' Neumann etc. Of course, a mac with PT. Pro Tools crashed a bunch and the engineer said he hated PT and wishes he could use something else. I've personally not used it, but it did halt my band's session a few times when it crashed. I'm curious how it's easier to track in PT than it is in Sonar 7.

I use Sonar 7 PE and easily track audio and midi, 100+ track projects quickly. I know the program, and did consider switching awhile back but Sonar is familiar with me so I stuck with it. I've never had the program crash during a paid session.

However, I guess since PT because the standard most hi-end places have to have it so they can send out projects in a form other places can work with. Makes sense. I'm just not sure why it has become standard.

Stability is the reason i've used cakewalk since 1997. It was always, perhaps is, the most stable sequencer/DAW program on the windows platform. Its not a port of a MaC program and its not cross platform which i'm sure helps. By the same logic if I used a MAC (which I'd do if stevie jobs would offer a decently priced mini-tower and not just a $2400 mic fund eating xeon mac pro) I'd use logic audio.

[Chunky But Funky]

You can port between any DAW with raw WAV file data. That sort of makes it a non-issue, doesn't it? I can see if the mix was partially done with Pro Tools specific plugs, but... I just spent a fair amount of money on high-end mics, pre's and compression and conversion but felt no urge to ditch Sonar and my self built 19" rack computer. Once it is 1's and 0's, it is 1's and 0's right? I am now prepared for the "digital summing" is better in Pro Tools flame! Mine is a personal project studio, so maybe it is a significant difference in mindset.

Doug

[fooman]

I know that porting sessions from Pro Tools requires another $500+ piece of software. I forget the specifics, but I think it's for that format that's supposed to be cross-DAW and all.

But yea, I mixed the sessions I spoke of earlier in Sonar. The PT session was rendered as raw WAV tracks and I simply imported them.

I am also a smaller project studio. Even I get "Do you use Pro Tools?" and then have to efficiently and concisely explain why it doesn't matter that I don't.

[jono]

i'm using sonar 7 - came from sonar 5, 6. I've also got logic 8 on a mac. respectfully disagree that sonar's not made for tracking - it does very well there. it's highly functional. the ancillary stuff included w sonar is not good - v-vocal is highly unstable and causes problems, audio snap same thing. the new 'mastering tools' cause issues also.

regarding the 'big names' using sonar, i've wondered the same thing, as sonar has given me ongoing problems stability-wise. i can't believe a 24-hour high-end studio would live with what i go thru. in fact, i'm in the middle of trying to stabilize a new system which includes a new machine (big quad core made specifically for DAW and Sonar by a guy who knows his shit) converters (spider a/d and apogee d/a) and interface (lynx aes-16). it crashes a lot (once an hour?) and i'm getting help from several people trying to get it rectified. very, very frustrating. sonar support is hard to get to (email responses take a week or more - phone support is an hour wait if you can get thru), i don't have anything to compare this to...but would high-end guys tolerate this?

logic seems more stable, but i don't stress it anywhere near what i do with sonar, so it's not a valid comparison.

oh, and waves does work with sonar - at least the ssl bundle does.

[computa]

folks here r always trying to justify their purchases in relation to what the industry is doing. Your gonna get opinions from professionals who work in the music and post fields who will never touch anything beyond a full blown Pro Tools HD and you gonna get opinions from hobbyist who have never even been to a studio but have a laptop and software in the bedroom and believe that no one needs anything that professionals use on a daily basis.

Just use what u got.

[andsonic]

Probably, by my educated guess, most "high end" studios use PTHD. However, I believe it's horses for courses. A lot of film composers/mixers use DP or Logic. There's one film mixer (who's very high end), who takes PT or Logic sessions & routes the audio thru Nuendo. Nashville has a large Nuendo users base.

Most major mastering studios will be using Sadie, Sequioa, or SonicStudio (formerly Sonic Solutions).

[Jiggity]

dfegadPro tools.


I use sonar 6 and am very happy with it. I do not know what all the hype is about with pro tools. I have read that sonar is superior to pro tools in sound quality so what makes pro tools so great? The hardware is expensive and so are all of the plugins. A very good friend of mine at Ball State University uses pro tools in their million dollar studios and of coarse must use it at home to work on his school projects. Every time I talk to him he is having a hell of a time with pro tools. Latency problems, interface problems, the ilok thing (or whatever that weird device is called), and whatever else you can imagine. It is always something different. I use sonar. No problems. low latency, no dropouts, Inexpensive, sounds great. He keeps saying he wants to use sonar but the school uses pro tools. Sucks for him. I dunno. Just venting here. I haven't used pro tools so I cant really judge but I really like sonar. I know someone else that graduated from ball state and he says he can get me a copy of pro tools. He says "There is a reason it is the industry standard." I would just like to know what that reason is. He couldn't tell me.

[Haddox]

I started a thread in the cakewalk forum a few weeks back called Protooleans vs. Sonarians. It got pretty flamey as I recall. One of the post was "I use Sonar to record and mix music. I use protools to take stupid peoples' money."

When I was working on my record, I wanted help with the mixing and ended up taking my pc with Sonar to a studio with protools. I heard something I wanted taken out and I used the track mute function and the studio owner stood behind me going "THAT's COOL!!. now in all fairness
the guy just may not have gotten around to all of the protools functions but, it seems that was one handy one that protools lacked.

Protools is an industry standard because a bunch of industry pros got together and declared it such. Like midi. Smpte. 60hz 50 hz 125vac.
I agree that at the time it was probably worthy of the title. These days, the title doesn't mean that it's better for making music with.

I agree with above post. Use what you got. add use what you want but somebody please please please make some decent music.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by Jiggity

... what makes pro tools so great? The hardware is expensive and so are all of the plugins.....

And... so... that makes it the best, I mean doesn't it have to?

[hurd300403]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

And... so... that makes it the best, I mean doesn't it have to?

haha....

[Eganmedia]

Use the software and hardware that does what you need. Spend what you have to to get the jobs you want, and as long as those jobs will pay for your purchase in less time than it will take to depreciate your gear you'll do well.

Some clients will demand PTHD for various reasons. Maybe that's what they're used to. Maybe they want to bring the session to another studio who uses PTHD. Whatever.

When analog tape was the standard recording medium, 2"24 track was the standard. It might not have had the theoretical fidelity of 2" 16 track, but it was more convenient. It sounded good enough and it was easy to transport from one studio to another.

Now PTHD is the standard ( though certainly not as ubiquitous as 2" 24 track was) for many of the same reasons. If the standard helps you get and keep clients, and you can tolerate the fidelity, you're swimming against the tide if you don't have it. If it doesn't meet your standard for fidelity, or if it doesn't bring in enough work to justify its expense, your swimming against the tide by using it.

Figure out what tools *you* need and realize there are reasons other people use other tools. It's that simple. There's no reason to bash a platform or a program simply because you don't use it.