OT: your thoughts on Sonar/Cakewalk becoming a free DAW
The desktop DAW Sonar was recently rescued by BandLab, who have now restored it's older Cakewalk name and made the whole software package free for everyone.
https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk
I've never used Sonar, but it us often discussed alongside the other big DAWs (in SOS magazine, for example), so I'm curious to know what experienced desktop users think about this, and whether it will threaten Reaper's title as the budget musician's holy grail?
Discuss?
(P.s. the DAW is for Windows only atm)
Comments
It will stay Windows only, so it will never compete with Reaper on any cross platform software, various developers have come and gone after going through the code and 'apparently' it is near impossible to port to any other platform without a complete rewrite, which it will not be getting any time soon from Bandlab.
There are other issues with RAM and CPU etc, however it does have a really cool feature set and even has some super slick performance options thanks to the Roland years.
It is not as easy to use as Reaper once you have Reaper set up (Nothing is)
It is way more bloated than Reaper, not only in install size, but also resource usage.
It's community is/was very poor and very uppity to say the least "We are better than everybody else because we began on DOS" etc etc
To be honest, the only reason Bandlab are able to give it away for free is because nobody else wanted it, it was a dead duck the second Roland sold it, Roland have zero money issues, but they choose to get shot of the brand as soon as they could when they failed to find any developers who thought that it was viable to port Sonar with all of its issues, add to this the fact that the Cakewalk brand was actually a hinderance to hardware sales, Roland wanted out quick fast, and we all know what happens to anything that is sold to Gibson, its where technology companies go to die, luckily they are now dying themselves.
It isn't and wont be going forward at any great pace, but if you like the package use it, it has very few issues you cant work around easily enough if you want free and fairly feature packed.
No comparison to Reaper at all to be honest.
Heres a simple gauge for anybody to consider....
If it wasn't good enough to compete and garner any real sales (Lets not forget "Lifetime upgrades for ever and ever and ever if you upgrade now" months later "We are closing down Cakewalk") when it was actively developed, why would it be good enough now it is free and will only get developed when it can promote something else entirely.
Oh one more thing, all the lead developers left and made Mixcraft instead
https://www.acoustica.com/mixcraft/download.php
Hilarious thing about that ?
They went and restarted fresh with a new DAW, and made that one Windows only too hahahahaha.
Thanks for this.
I wondered if it might make for a convenient desktop mastering option for BM3 users, or perhaps a great tool for learning mixing/mastering in general, but it seems to me Reaper is better on both those fronts too (though obviously not free).
I suppose the real question is... why haven't I bought Reaper yet!?!?
To be fair Reaper is free to use, the developer has stated clearly plenty of times, if you cant afford it, use it, pay for it when you can.
Reaper is a royal pain in the jack until you....
Delete all of its menus (Tick keep originals in sub menu, or whatever it is called) then systematically add things to the menus whenever you cant find something you would expect to be there (Trust me this will change your life, a DAW that works how you want to work)
Change mouse modifiers (Same applies as above, make the mouse do the things you expect it to, no other DAW can do this)
Find a theme from the theme forum that doesn't make you puke (Default theme is very vomit inducing)
Realise that "Oh Reaper cant do that" does not exist, if you work a certain way, and Reaper is not obliging it is normally always in preferences, if it isn't in preferences it will be a script on the forum, if it isn't a script, ask in the script forum, they will knock you one up normally.
Sounds like a pain to set up, but once it is set up, every time you use any other software, you realise how ridiculously fast it is to now use Reaper.
Yeah never got into cakewalk or it’s sonar iteration (even with the public enemy backed advertising!
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Nice one @5pinlink I’ve never heard anyone break reaper down like that, particularly the open source element to it. Think it’s maybe time to give it a go.
No worries, any questions just ask....
Actually you know what, i think i might make a Beatmaker theme and config for Reaper, and some tutorials on using Reaper for Beatmaker stems.
I'm just about to start with Reaper, so that would be cool.
Would love to hear your take on essential free and/or paid plugins
A Maschine theme i made (Never really finished) for Reaper, I actually fixed all the issues with Maschines poor UI though hahahahaha.
About reaper. You can customize everything but if you are lazy like I am, you can always resort to the omnipotent question mark on your keyboard and the action menu will pop up and yoou’ Be able to text search any action you may need
@5pinlink I would love a Reaper tutorial thread from you!!
I am starting to see Reaper plus mastering plugins with VCVRack on a touchscreen Surface Pro as an excellent travel companion to my iPad.
Essential Free'ish' is super easy, go download all the Airwindows plugins, he is patreon nowadays and releases on a near weekly basis, if you can give him a dollar or two a month, do so, his plugins are the highest quality currently available, but they have no UI, they just use the default UI, so no bling, just best quality plugins money cant buy, and he's a real gent too, he even open sources a ton of the stuff, really hoping to talk @mathieugarcia in to porting some of his plugins to B3 native.
Essential payware, buy everything by Klanghelm/Toneboosters (trust me, you can afford it) and when you can afford it also Tokyo dawn Records.
That's it, you are done for effects, between all of those and Reapers natives, you don't 'NEED' anything else, any others you buy should just be your monthly $10 at plugin boutique for ten minutes of fun hahahaha.
As for synthesizers i can't really comment because i am not a huge synthesizer person, thought i was, turns out that i only really give a shit about samplers hahaha.
Best non sampleware sampler available is TAL-Sampler
Best sampleware sampler is Kontakt
My own main synth is Serum because i love dirty digital sounds and i paid for it $10 a month rent to buy, so didn't notice i was paying $200 for a ****** synth !!!!!
Honestly, rarely use any of it now besides the effects because Reaper is still king for mixdown, and Serum because there is nothing else like it, in all openess i do own Komplete Ultimate, but mainly use it for the effects and now and again when i need some orchestral crap, but im not much of a musician, so its rare.
More great tips, as usual.
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(p.s. how does he think and type so fast
Btw, can't believe today is the first time I've googled VCV Rack. Looks incredible!
VCV Rack is good, but also a little too disconnected, there are a few payware VST modulars available that are really good, but there is the full bucket one coming soon too, if you want some amazing free synths go and download the full bucket stuff, if you are in to synths they are free and amazing stuff too.
Standalone modular i already have and mastered 'Synthedit" which is an amazing modular software that you can save your creations as a VST, it completely changed the world of VST forever, funnily enough i was the first person using it besides the developer jeff hahaha, way before it saved as VST, i was also the first person to release a VST from it hahaha, but yeah it blows away VCV etc, but then VCV is old hat other than the UI looking exactly like a eurorack.
Re VCV being so disconnected. That’s where Patchstorage and the FB group come into their own to tweak and reverse engineer some epic patches. https://patchstorage.com/platform/vcv-rack/
Also, VCV is only just getting started. Open sourcing it is a stroke of genius with new modules being constantly added.
@5pinlink is there any iOS synth that comes anywhere close to iserum ?
I'm always looking for something like this. I've been eyeing "Scythe" But haven't picked it up yet. It's not auv3. Anyone tried it?
No nothing cones close to Serum, nothing will and it is never getting ported to IOS.
Unless you are heavily in to Brostep and Neuro and DnB stuff, there is much better stuff available for IOS, and to be honest, even those styles can be done with a bit of work on IOS.
Looks good. Reminds me of Magellan for some reason. Hope they make that one AU.
Lots of work. The closest thing is Tera mod sources but the no-wavetable, no fx modulation just keep you a decade behind. And since no host on iOS have yet managed a decent drawn (when compared to recorded)automation environment, there is no workaround for the time being if your target is that neuro dnb kind of stuff when doing sound design
Well there are plenty of work arounds, but then they arent needed anyway, Neuro and DnB was made a long time before Serum even existed, for example non of the Neuro sounds in my Neuro bank came from synths.
But those are still workarounds, or ten years old magic to get to the very same same result you could get with serum. Because serum is a all-in-one box of those same tricks condensed in one tool. And if you’re(most likely me) trying to produce such genres within iOS, you’ll find yourself(myself) upon a much harder challenge than it needs to be. If you like challenges it will be good, if you like releasing music not so much.
Sorry but i am calling nonsense on that, Neuro and DnB were around for many years before Serum appeared, Serum is not the one ring to rule them all Neuro/DnB monster you are imagining it to be, if anything Serum is the workaround and generates a very specific flavour of sounds, while i do absolutely love Serum, it is no where near as important as samplers (most specifically emu) or even NI Massive in the grand timeline of DnB or Neuro, in fact most of what it does is to simplify the combination of Massive and Samplers.
A perfect example is the bass sounds that @ronji generates just using IOS synths and B3s sampler.
I have been making DnB way too long to even consider Serum as important in terms of my output.
Yeah. You are probably right. But since we are saying the same thing I am right too. So this is a win-win. Hi five!
B3 just needs a lot more filter choices in its sampler and a drawn modulator and it is up there with Serum for Neuro/DnB.
@5pinlink how about the step mod for the "drawn" modulator? I haven't tried Serum yet but hearing a lot of good things about it.
I haven't played with Serum but second the fact of making neuro and dnb. It's all about sound design and resampling... yes there's been some aspects like Z-planes on EMU (which you could recreate with filters and layering) and Massive made things super simple but you could always achieve the sounds you wanted with the right synths, a sampler and patience
Don't get me wrong though... anything that makes life easier (like Serum or others) I'm all for it!
The step mod still needs those other trigger modes to make it viable for a lot of sound design @mathieugarcia.
Like i say, we are not too far away from it being a powerhouse sampler, but more important is all the extra filters to be honest.
A lot of people think the wavetables and modulation make Serum the powerhouse it is, they forget about its massive selection of filters/effects.
Filters and effects are the backbone of Neuro/DnB resampling, the right selection of filters added to B3, then add in the ability to drag n drop or single click resample to a new pad, and B3 blows Serum away for those genres.
^^^^
This
I still find it a poor second to Reaper in efficiency and stability, but that could just be me.
Matrix view is a sick little **** though, triggering clips direct to the timeline is awesome, thats an paid add on for Reaper, yes Reapers version is better, but Sonar is free, so awesome clip composing for free cant be bad !!