When Gibson destroyed Cakewalk I made the decision to move to another DAW, and Digital Performer was my choice as I use MOTU hardware which I'm very happy with.
But after a year and 2 months with DP, I decided to go back to Sonar Platinum. Here's why. First of all, there is no "best DAW". What there is however, is the "best DAW for YOU".
I really missed so much about Sonar: the sharpness of the text, the beauty and clarity of the screen, the ease by which I can move from window to window and the stability of the program. Particularly under Windows 10, it's running like a champ. I missed the color-coded event list and the fact that I can see multiple staff views at one time. I missed how it makes complex operations (like volume envelopes) simple. Let's face it, DAWs are complex pieces of software. No DAW that I've tried (Reaper, DP, Cubase, Sonar) masks that complexity better than Sonar. The soloing of tracks is a good example. Under DP it's a mess, very confusing. Soloing in the track view is different from the soloing in the mix view. That's nuts, it drove me crazy. Changing layouts and window sets always was sluggish, even with a fast DAW with SSD drives, 32GB of RAM and an i7-9700 CPU and a good graphics card--always sluggish, sometimes taking 3 or 4 seconds just to switch views! Sonar is instantaneous.
Obviously Sonar isn't perfect either. It still can't display tied and dotted triplets and 32nd note triplets correctly. But I can live with this because I create the score in Sibelius anyway.
So what have I been doing lately? Here's the last track I produced in Digital Performer, it's the 4th movement of my 10th symphony:
Listen
Scored with VSL symphonic cube and several soft synths (Dune, Massive, Z3TA and the Yamaha MODX-6). I hope you enjoy listening.
I'm sticking with the very last version of Platinum that Cakewalk produced. If Bandcamp does anything new with notation, I'll consider upgrading. But for now, I'll leave good enough alone and spend my time writing music.
By the way, on November 26 of last year, my studio flooded during a heavy rainstorm. I had to remove everything, remove carpets, walls, furniture. For 8 weeks I had no studio for the first time in 35 years. Very stressful time. Now, it's all back after much work, effort and cost. I am extremely grateful.
Best,
Jerry
When Gibson destroyed Cakewalk I made the decision to move to another DAW, and Digital Performer was my choice as I use MOTU hardware which I'm very happy with. But after a year and 2 months with DP, I decided to go back to Sonar Platinum. Here's why. First of all, there is no "best DAW". What there is however, is the "best DAW for YOU". I really missed so much about Sonar: the sharpness of the text, the beauty and clarity of the screen, the ease by which I can move from window to window and the stability of the program. Particularly under Windows 10, it's running like a champ. I missed the color-coded event list and the fact that I can see multiple staff views at one time. I missed how it makes complex operations (like volume envelopes) simple. Let's face it, DAWs are complex pieces of software. No DAW that I've tried (Reaper, DP, Cubase, Sonar) masks that complexity better than Sonar. The soloing of tracks is a good example. Under DP it's a mess, very confusing. Soloing in the track view is different from the soloing in the mix view. That's nuts, it drove me crazy. Changing layouts and window sets always was sluggish, even with a fast DAW with SSD drives, 32GB of RAM and an i7-9700 CPU and a good graphics card--always sluggish, sometimes taking 3 or 4 seconds just to switch views! Sonar is instantaneous. Obviously Sonar isn't perfect either. It still can't display tied and dotted triplets and 32nd note triplets correctly. But I can live with this because I create the score in Sibelius anyway. So what have I been doing lately? Here's the last track I produced in Digital Performer, it's the 4th movement of my 10th symphony: Listen Scored with VSL symphonic cube and several soft synths (Dune, Massive, Z3TA and the Yamaha MODX-6). I hope you enjoy listening. I'm sticking with the very last version of Platinum that Cakewalk produced. If Bandcamp does anything new with notation, I'll consider upgrading. But for now, I'll leave good enough alone and spend my time writing music. By the way, on November 26 of last year, my studio flooded during a heavy rainstorm. I had to remove everything, remove carpets, walls, furniture. For 8 weeks I had no studio for the first time in 35 years. Very stressful time. Now, it's all back after much work, effort and cost. I am extremely grateful. Best, Jerry