Belthus

Firstly, many thanks to everyone who has helped me on the original SONAR forums over the years and more recently on these forums, where I finally installed Cakewalk by Bandlab in addition to SPLAT. After 3 years of getting to grips with the software, soft synths and plugins I have finally broke free from the 8 bar “brick wall” and managed to put down a full track using Rapture, Iris 2, Native Instruments Suite (with Maschine), Massive, z3ta+ 2, Hybrid 5, Union and Serum. Tried my best at Gain Staging during the process mindful that I needed the headroom and finally Mastered with Ozone 7. I have a severe hearing deficiency to high frequency which adds to the frustration while making any music as well as mixing down (I really can’t hear Hi Hats etc without headphones – and then it’s not ideal), so everything always sounds muffled to me……. So over to you guys. I know there are issues with the song and mix, but there becomes a time where you just have to draw a line under it after so much tweaking, so I will leave it here and move on to the next track knowing that I have learnt a huge amount during this process. PS, really wish I had a proper electric guitar for the lead instead of the Rapture patch and Guitar Rig 5. Plus, would really love to know how you would describe the music so I can better inform listeners.

Excellent, looking forward to trying it. Many thanks for everyone's help.

Thanks Scook, I have the core SPLAT installed and Plugins including "Boutique FX Suite" etc. Is the Platinum Instrument Collection also shared, as Z3TA+ would be nice to have, as well as some of the other options such as Rapture Pro.

Yes sorry, I will get around to adding specs to by Bio. I am on Windows 10, and SPLAT ran without issues for the most part prior to my recent reformat and re-install (I like to do a complete OS install every 2 years if possible). While I can certainly re-install SPLAT, it just seems like a good opportunity to get CbB up and running, also I would consider SPLAT to be "Legacy" software given its no longer receiving any development or updates to address possible Windows compatibility issues in the future. After trying various other DAWS, I still think SONAR is the best based on my personal use and requirements, I am just grateful that Bandlab have given myself and everyone else the opportunity to use a version of SONAR going forward.

Thank you Colin, excellent advice and something that wasn't obvious (possibly its mentioned elsewhere). I made the jump to 64bit quite a while ago, but will double check that my soft synths are all 64bit anyway.

Hi all, just a quick question in hope of getting various opinions from those that have used both. I have SONAR Platinum which I have used for a few years (just as a hobby), however the time has come to reformat my PC, so I thought it a good time to ask the question. Should I go forward using SPLAT or CbB? Not too bothered about existing projects, but I did like using some of the soft synths in SPLAT, but to be honest I mainly use Native Instruments (Massive etc), Serum, Iris, Hybrid etc these days. As mentioned, nothing is mission critical, I just enjoy losing time being creative in my own way.