CAKEWALK SONAR 5 PE (DAW software)

[blue2blue]

Digesting the V-Vocal thing, here...

I think I've stumbled on a new grail for those looking for a quest.

How about vocal pitch correction -- and especially harmony generation -- that uses 'true intervals' rather than the often awkardly out of tune even-tempered intervals.

I really hate the sound of 'piano-correct' vocalists and particularly harmony singers who use even-tempered note values instead of going with true harmonic intervals (like all the good vocal ensembles do whether they know it or not -- and which is why smart vocal ensembles try to avoid support instruments that play sustained notes, like organs, that create a harmonic mine field for any ensemble trying to sing true intervals instead of 'piano notes.')

[Anderton]

You can adjust V-vocal pitch to whatever interval you like; it's not necessary to snap to the even-tempered scale. For example, I find that sometimes making a note a little flat if it's leading up the tonic can sound pretty cool.

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton Well without further ado, let’s proceed to arguably one of the bigger elements of the update (aside from the 64-bit audio engine, the convolution reverb, the improved MIDI, the better workflow…): V-Vocal. Let’s make one thing clear – V-Vocal is a misleading name, because it works with lots of different sounds. I took a synth bass part, and turned it into a fretless by drawing curves to slide from one note to another. Polyphonic material is hit and miss, but just about anything monophonic is eligible for V-Vocalizing. The only caution is that you probably will want to normalize any V-Vocal clip down a few dB; the process introduces minor level changes and if the headroom is exceeded, you’ll hear a very nasty click.

Wow, that's a great tip, Craig. Good thing we updated our Normalize tool.

I haven't tried this myself, but one of our beta testers suggested that normalizing before creating a V-Vocal clip might be a good idea because of the origins of VariPhrase technology in general - that the technology was originally used in samplers, where wavetables are often normalized.

However, there is a pre-analysis component to working with V-Vocal - I would bet this analysis step takes care of this.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry. V-Vocal is not a plug-in. Instead, you turn a clip into a “V-Vocal” clip, when then shows up in the V-Vocal display. Click on the Attachment to see V-Vocal adjusting pitch. . This is where you have control over four different sonic elements: Pitch. This is your basic pitch correction, which you can do manually or automatically. Time. If you’re familiar with Live 5’s warp markers, you’ll understand this. You can stretch or compress time within a file; for example, with a drum part you can “lag” just one snare hit. With vocals, of course, you can stretch out a note or make it staccato. Formant. If you pitch a vocal note up, you can use the formant option to change the formant back down again, and vice-versa. If you’re too pressed for time to do this on a note-by-note basis, you can have it follow the pitch line. Dynamics. Bring up soft parts, and bring down loud ones…or add unnatural dynamics. Formant and Dynamics have envelopes you can treat as draggable segments, or use a pencil for freehand (or a line tool when you need a smooth change). With Time, you insert a marker and drag it left or right, bringing along the audio along with it. Pitch works like similar pitch correction software; you drag a note up or down, referenced to a pitch scale along the left. But you can also use the pencil or line tool, or click a note on a keyboard to have the note “snap” to that pitch. And, constrain to a minor or major scale. Three editable parameters govern the correction’s “naturalness.” The Note control is like pitch quantization, from nothing to total dead-on pitch. The Vibrato control “flattens out” any vibrato at one extreme, and leaves it totally intact at the other; Sense widens or narrows the range affected by pitch correction. Bottom line: You can create very natural changes, or go for the robot shifting voice that we all know. Then there’s the groovy LFO tool, where you can draw vibrato, optionally fade it in, and drag up or down to specify the depth as well as right or left to change the frequency. I love this option…it’s so cool. Best of all, you can go completely nuts and not worry. There are undo/redo controls within V-Vocal itself, but if you drag the eraser tool over a piece of audio, it goes back to the way it was before you got all goofy about it. Oh, and here’s a tip for drum timing: Material that’s unstretched sounds like the source material; changes occur only with stretched material. Suppose you want to have one snare sound hit late. So you click in front of the snare, and “push” the sound to the right. But this time-compresses everything to the right, or to the next “warp marker,” whichever it encounters first. So then you click in front of the next beat to uncompress the rest of the file…but it’s hard to get it exact, so there’s a little bit of stretching, and the sound changes a bit. A better way to change the timing of one hit is to put a marker before and after the sound. Now you can move the sound anywhere within that “window,” without disturbing the rest of the file.

Another great tip. This kind of technique is equally great for moving the timing of just one particular note or phrase of a melody/vocal line.

I could go on about V-Vocal, it’s incredibly flexible and useful. Samplitude and MOTU include these types of capabilities, but Sonar’s implementation is unusually complete. I’ve always liked Roland’s VariPhrase technology, but it was always found in things that were too expensive for my tastes. And now it’s built in to Sonar 5! This feature is an out-of-the-park home run that provides stunningly useful processing option for vocals, as well as many other sounds. But I do think it’s going to take me until Sonar 6 comes out before I learn how to exploit this to the fullest. It seems every time I play with V-Vocal, I come up with some groovacious new application.

I feel the same way - it's an incredibly deep tool!

We've had producers and engineers use V-Vocal to make very fine and subtle corrections to high-end vocal recordings without a flaw, and at the same time...

We've learned that, because V-Vocal is so flexible with its control ranges, it makes for an awesome tool for doing some pretty extreme mangling of vocals and other instruments.

One of our QA engineers is a drummer in a very dark, heavy and noisy industrial band, and he came up to my desk one Monday morning with an extremely devlish ear-to-ear smile on his face and said, "V-Vocal is FUUUUUNNNNN."

[Anderton]

I just had a hunch...I went into the VST configuration wizard, and increased the editor pixel size for Key Rig by about 20 pixels. Problem solved! With the properties page open, there's no additional CPU consumption compared to having it closed.

I wonder if other reports of plug-in problems relate to this same situation. If so, try running the wizard and adjusting the editor size.

[Anderton]

Interestingly, this is found under the VST effects menu...not DX. Hmmm…

But I digress, so let’s hit the bottom line: This is an excellent, world class reverb. I was able to get some good effects out of Pantheon, but quite a few people weren’t entirely satisfied with its sound. PerfectSpace addresses that, period. It’s great.

It works like most convolution ’verbs: You load an impulse that “models” a real, or unreal, space. Sonar 5 includes plenty of these to get you started; the plates sounded great on vocals. And like most convolution reverbs, it likes to drink deep at the CPU well. But that’s what freeze is for, right?

Another cool thing is that PerfectSpace is very editable; there’s way more than the usual dry/wet controls (although of course, those controls are present, along with a pan control for the wet signal). Click on the Attachment to see a hi pass curve that reduces the reverb’s low end. There are similar editable envelopes for volume, width, pan, lo pass, and EQ (and the breakpoint curve lets you dial in any response you want).

It’s also possible to make some changes to the impulse itself (offset, length, and delay), and there are non-“space” impulses, like bass amp, acoustic guitar body, etc. These are wild and yes, putting a bass recorded direct through the bass amp impulse sounds like a bass going through an amp. You can load your own WAV files as impulses, and all I can say is, wow…I used some wild drum loops as impulses, and the results were astounding on a variety of material (being able to change the impulse length and offset is a tremendous advantage here).

The verdict: Convolution reverbs aren’t new, they have latency, and they suck CPU power. And they sound great! PerfectSpace is an exceptionally worthwhile addition to Sonar that adds a lot of value to the program, and will probably be all the reverb most users will need.

I am really digging this upgrade…and we’ll wrap up the Pro Review later tonight. Now it’s time for dinner - mmmm, fresh salmon...

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by Anderton You can adjust V-vocal pitch to whatever interval you like; it's not necessary to snap to the even-tempered scale. For example, I find that sometimes making a note a little flat if it's leading up the tonic can sound pretty cool.

Of course, I was hoping for one that would do the math for you... kind of like that just-intonation software that some of the newest synths and soft-synths can run... and then generate just-intoned vocal harmonies acorss a set of chords you can type in (a la PG Music's Powertracks and probably other vocal harmonizers, I just never paid attention).


But, really, it'd all be moot if I could just sing worth a... goldarn.

[Anderton]

We already mentioned the REX file player, but that’s not the only instrument in the upgrade: You now get rgc:audio’s Pentagon I. Click on the Attachment to see the Pentagon’s front panel..

This isn’t exactly a new synth; it’s been around for awhile as a pay-for-download instrument, particularly for those who got hooked on the related monophonic freebie, Triangle I. It’s your basic analog emulation digital synth, with a few interesting extras: Four oscillators with 18 possible waveforms, various EQ simulators (including speaker cabinets), dual multimode filters, separate envelope generators and sophisticated LFOs for the pitch, filter, and amp, and also, onboard effects (drive, chorus, delay, and bass/treble EQ). It’s not quite as cool as its successor (the z3ta+, now distributed by Cakewalk) but Pentagon I should satisfy those who feel the DreamStation DXi is showing its age. This is a synth that sounds fine, has a bunch of useful presets, and again, represents added value for the Sonar 5 package.

[Anderton]

I get the feeling that just before Sonar 5 was released, someone ran into a marketing meeting and said “Wait! I found a format we don’t support –Sound Fonts!” And thus SFZ, the Sound Font player, was added to the roster.

Visually, it’s not much: You can choose the mode, MIDI channel, amount of polyphony, effects on or off, quality, etc. Click on the Attachment to see the SFZ Sound Font player front panel. But it does what you want it to do, and supplants the LiveSynth found in previous versions. Useful? Yes. Earth-shattering? No. Added value? Yes. Worth including? Yes.

[Anderton]

Cakewalk Sonar 5 – The Rest of the Story

This is a massive upgrade, and so far I’ve written well over 8,000 words about it, with 20 downloadable images – a freedom I’ve never had with magazine reviews! But all good things must come to an end, and I’m leaving for AES in a few hours. We’ve covered the highlights, and I’d rather not postpone the conclusion for a week, so let’s wrap up some of the other enhancements before moving on to the conclusion.

Video output to FireWire DV devices. Record a video to a DV recorder, or display video on an external monitor or camcorder. Okay, but I’m not giving up Vegas for my video work.

Per-clip effects bins (MIDI or audio). This takes a page from Samplitude’s playbook, which has always treated “clips” as objects. Sonar’s implementation is not quite as sophisticated as Samplitude’s, but accomplishes the same result. Is this important? Well, it keeps you from having to split part of a clip to a separate track just to do some specific processing, so it’s mostly a matter of convenience and a “workspace anti-clutter” measure.

Multiple track insertion and cloning. So here’s the deal: You want to insert 8 MIDI tracks that will drive instruments in a multi-timbral device. Before Sonar 5, the quickest way to do this was select a MIDI track, then hit Insert 8 times. Now you can go Insert > Multiple Tracks, fill in a few fields, and insert any number of audio and MIDI tracks. This is a minor feature, but one that can shave a few minutes off projects here and there. Furthermore, an additional option under Clone Tracks lets you clone multiple tracks at a time.

Snap to scale. This MIDI feature snaps notes drawn in the piano roll (or inline piano roll view) snap to specific scales. I used to insert a MIDI effect in Sonar to accomplish the same sort of thing, but this update provides a far more convenient, user-friendly option. Several dozen scales are included, and you can create your own using the Scale Manager window. However, you can’t do microtunings to create different intonations; you’re still stuck with even-tempered intervals.

More OMF options. You can choose a new sample rate and bit depth when importing OMF files.

Track Templates. I would have given this more attention, but the feature was already introduced in Project5 V2. If you’re not familiar with track templates, these can be real time-savers because you can call up the following as one unit: Track type, hardware input, output destination, bus send settings, track icons, effects and related settings, name, etc. So if you have, for example, a favorite vocal setup, you can recall it instead of having to build it from scratch each time. And it’s easy to do, too; you just select a track with the characteristics you want, and go File > Export > Track Template to save it. Loading is equally easy

Tabbed Views. This is a little difficult to explain, but bear with me. Most windows have a little “Enabled Tabbed” icon in the upper left corner. Click on it, and you can dock the window in the Track view’s lower right. Click on the Attachment to see an example of tabbing among the bus, SFZ sound font player, and MIDI piano roll view for a track. The main value here is if you find yourself alternating among various windows to do particular edits; this lets you access them easily, all in one space.

Two preset management options. You can now see a list of recently used presets, but the more interesting and useful of the two new features is the ability to see if a preset has been changed compared to the last time it was saved. This can help prevent a situation where you re-save a preset, only to find to your horror that a different project uses the same preset, but now it doesn’t sound the same at all. You can use this either as a hint to save the preset under a different name so that the original saved version remains intact, or if the preset represents an improvement, go ahead and save it and have the improved version show up in the other project.

Envelope draw tool. This is a feature I always liked in Cubase SX, and now it’s available in Sonar: You can draw envelopes with preset shapes, like sine, triangle, square, saw, and random.

PSYN II Soft Synth. PSYN first appeared in Project5, but now Sonar owners don’t have to buy P5 to use it. Between this and Pentagon I, I expect people will stop complaining about the DreamStation (which actually does a lot more than most people realize).

Add automation nodes at selection. You know how you want to change the panning for just one section? So you click real carefully on the pan envelope, then click next to it, then create another pair of nodes, then click on the segment…with this new command, you just make your selection, and two closely-spaced pairs of nodes are added automatically so that you can easily change the level between the node pairs. And nodes are now circular instead of square. No big deal, but they do look better.

Whew! Let's head to the conclusions.

[Anderton]

For “everything else,” let’s define that universe (in alphabetical order) as:

 Sony Acid 5
 Adobe Audition
 Steinberg Cubase SX 3
 Ableton Live 5
 Emagic Logic for Windows
 Digidesign Pro Tools
 Cakewalk Project5 V2

Here’s how they stack up.

Sony Acid 5. I still think this is the fastest, easiest, most efficient way to create loop-based music (especially since the program added folder tracks). The virtual instrument and MIDI implementation is less than optimal, but if that’s not an important part of what you do, Acid will handle those needs as required. Acid does support plug-ins, digital audio, surround, and video, making it more DAW-like compared to Live. However, there’s no “mixing console” emulation page, which may be offputting to those used to working with standard hardware environments. And while it does include the Native Instruments Express Instruments, it doesn’t come close to having the kind of extras that come with Sonar Producer Edition.

Adobe Audition. At present, Audition is a much stronger stereo editor than multitrack recording environment, and there’s no significant MIDI support. If you’re into serious DAW work, there’s no question that Sonar is a better choice. But also consider that Audition occupies a unique niche that may be well-suited to a variety of applications for which Sonar would be overkill.

Steinberg Cubase SX3. This is the closest competitor to Sonar. However, with Yamaha behind both Steinberg and the Studio Connections initiative, Cubase has the potential to be the sequencer of choice for hybrid software/hardware setups. It has excellent looping and stretching environments, and bundles some useful plug-ins and instruments. I feel the workflow is more convoluted than Sonar’s, although of course, that’s a matter of preference and the type of work you do with the program. I do prefer Sonar’s “industrial design” in terms of graphics; Sonar’s are less sophisticated, but have the plus of being more straightforward. Steinberg’s dongle-based copy protection method is definitely more inconvenient than Sonar’s; some would argue, however, that being able to have all your authorizations in a single place is convenient if you go for an all-Steinberg setup. Bottom line is that I have both, and use both. But I use Sonar more than any other host.

Ableton Live 5. For remixing applications, I’d give Live 5 the nod because of the brilliant auto-warp feature, multiple stretch algorithms, and Session View, which has no equivalent in Sonar. As a DAW, though, Live 5 falls short of Sonar in several ways: MIDI, surround support, video capabilities, ability to read Acidized and REX files, metering, multiple monitor support, and native support for multiple control surfaces (Live 5 supports only the Mackie Control).

Emagic Logic for Windows. It’s time to move on…get over it. Buy a Mac, or learn one of these Windows programs. Or hope that someday Logic will support Windows machines again . . . yeah, right.

Digidesign Pro Tools. Sorry, but I’m not gonna go there. Pro Tools is its own world, and a lot of people use Pro Tools because the people they work with use Pro Tools, and interchanging projects is a snap. It is a Pro Tools world, and if you’re invested in the Digi way of life, you probably won’t chuck it for Sonar (or Cubase, or whatever). That said, though, Sonar does everything I need and at least for me, there would be no significant advantages – and several disadvantages – if I used Pro Tools instead of Sonar. I realize Digi offers very tight hardware/software integration, but for me, so does Creamware’s Scope system and Sonar – and I can run a lot of great Creamware soft synths and plug-ins on the Scope hardware. Finally, Sonar does support OMF, so interchange with Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase SX, etc. is relatively painless.

Cakewalk Project5 V2. Definitely not a DAW, this is the type of program you should consider alongside Acid and Live rather than Sonar. Although it seems to have much in common with Sonar – digital audio recording, ReWire, acid file support, and the like – it’s really centered around MIDI pattern generation and is more of a composing than recording tool. I can understand why a lot of users rewire Sonar and Project5 together, as they make a very complementary team.

[Anderton]

This isn’t just an upgrade, this is a major upgrade. If you’re a Sonar user, version 5 is essential– no two ways about it. If you work with vocals, V-Vocal is amazing. The new instruments make Sonar 5 far more cost-effective than its predecessors. PerfectSpace doesn’t only let you off the hook for buying a good reverb plug-in, it’s a great plug-in no matter how you look at it. And the enhanced 64-bit audio engine does make a difference in audio quality, even on 32-bit systems; with true 64-bit systems, it makes a difference in speed as well.

 

Couple this with the workflow enhancements, the vastly improved MIDI implementation, REX and Sound Font file support in addition to Acidized files, waveform previews, track icons, quick grouping, and all those other goodies we’ve covered, and you have an amazing, truly state of the art package. Simply stated, Sonar 5 isn’t just the best Sonar yet, it holds its own against anything out there.

 

So does this mean I’m going to stop using, say, Live 5, Project5, and/or Reason 3? Precisely the opposite, actually. Sonar’s comprehensive gestalt makes me appreciate the “self-contained world” aspect of these other programs. But the really big deal here is ReWire, which turns Sonar into not just a superb program in its own right, but a worthy partner for more specialized applications.

 

Is the upgrade perfect? There are a couple rough spots, like the problem I had with the VST configuration wizard choosing a window size that caused strange CPU overloads. But I haven’t seen anything that doesn’t look like an easy fix for a 5.0.1 patch, which I hear is in the works. I had no drastic issues, crashing, or other frustrations; Sonar 5 has been well-behaved, and a joy to work with.

 

If you're a Sonar user, you’re gonna love this upgrade - I certainly do. And if you're not a Sonar user, this upgrade just might make you wish you were.

 

Finally, thank you very much for your participation and feedback. Please feel free to continue to comment, and/or ask questions.

[Cmusicmaker]

Originally posted by Anderton Finally, thank you very much for your participation and feedback. Please feel free to continue to comment, and/or ask questions.

Thanks Craig! The review was very useful.

[Gerry C]

Well I'm waiting for my Upgrade to arrive and your review has confirmed to me I have made the right decission.
Thanks again,
Gerry

[SonicBananza]

Thanks so much Craig!!!

Questions:
1. Would you recommend EmulatorX-studio as a front end for Sonar5? Any setup tips and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

2. Did you try using Sonar's reverbs in combination (I think there're three reverb plugs) and did you try to add Emulator's reverbs? Could you suggest some settings for lush/modern vocal reverbs that helps to keep vocals upfront and close ?

3. Is it possible to monitor those reverbs with 0 latency withing Sonar5 if so how can I do it?

Reading your review inspired me to try Sonar and I will probably make it into my main DAW.

[blue2blue]

I'm a big fan of SFZ! I've been using the shareware version for over a year now and it's great. Not quite as good as having an actual Soundblaster dedicated to SF playback (not possible on my notebook) but damn close -- and, unlike some of the hobbled software that Creative has released for their SB SF playback [some versions arbitrarily limited the user to 32 MB of samples], SFZ has no limits as far as I can tell.

It's a nice acknowledgement of SFZ's merit.

[Anderton]

Thanks so much Craig!!!

Questions:
>

I would not have recommended without reservations prior to the most recent update, which made it work very well with Sonar. Before there had been some rough spots...still useable, but the new update solves those problems. I think the Emulator X really rocks.



After you use PerfectSpace, I suspect your other reverbs will sort of fall by the wayside. Try the plates with vocals.



PerfectSpace has reverb, all convolution ones do. But you don't really notice it with reverb. The latency will depend on your card and driver. I get about 5 ms with comfortable CPU usage with the Creamware card, although I can get it down to 3 ms.

>

Well you certainly picked the right time to check it out, V5 is really something.

[AW - Cakewalk]

Originally posted by Anderton Track Templates. I would have given this more attention, but the feature was already introduced in Project5 V2. If you’re not familiar with track templates, these can be real time-savers because you can call up the following as one unit: Track type, hardware input, output destination, bus send settings, track icons, effects and related settings, name, etc. So if you have, for example, a favorite vocal setup, you can recall it instead of having to build it from scratch each time. And it’s easy to do, too; you just select a track with the characteristics you want, and go File > Export > Track Template to save it. Loading is equally easy

 

I just want to add that what SONAR added to the concept is that you can store multiple tracks and buses in a single track template. Extremely handy for instantly loading multi-output synths with tracks, buses, routing, effects, presets - everything - already configured and ready to go. Also useful for calling up routing for multi-track recordings, and the like.

[hybridmusic]

Originally posted by Anderton I get the feeling that just before Sonar 5 was released, someone ran into a marketing meeting and said “Wait! I found a format we don’t support –Sound Fonts!” And thus SFZ, the Sound Font player, was added to the roster. ...it does what you want it to do, and supplants the LiveSynth

Craig (and CW) thanks so much for the review and comments! It's really helped me to make up my mind and take the plunge!

One question though...will the SFZ the Sound Font player be any different than the freeware version available from RGC Audio's website which only allows one loaded .SF2 to play at a time (i.e. you can't assign 16 different .SF2 instruments simultaneously to midi channels 1-16 for full multitimbral operation)?......er, or I can't figure out how to load more than one .SF2 at a time???

Hmm....at least LiveSynth allowed you to be able to load and assign 16 .SF2's to 16 midi channels for multitracking.

Thanks again!

[blue2blue]

Add automation nodes at selection . You know how you want to change the panning for just one section? So you click real carefully on the pan envelope, then click next to it, then create another pair of nodes, then click on the segment…with this new command, you just make your selection, and two closely-spaced pairs of nodes are added automatically so that you can easily change the level between the node pairs. ...

 

 

Yes!

 

 

It is the little things.

[Anderton]

or I can't figure out how to load more than one .SF2 at a time???

 

 

I just insert multiple instances, load a different preset into each one, and set each to a different MIDI channel. Is that what you're looking for?

[Anderton]

It is the little things.

Indeed it is!

[ZenFly]

Hey Craig!

I've had Sonar P5 for a week now and am loving it. So I firmly believe my issue is user error...

I am having an issue getting MTC to send to my Tascam DM3200..I've tried about everything between the Sonar manual and the DM3200, but to no avail. I wonder if you have any tips on how to hook it up so the DM3200 recieves MTC?

BTW, I posted this at the Tascam forum as well.. but you are the man for Sonar.

My specs are:

PC P4 3.0 w/ 2 gig ram
USP connected to the DM3200
(I tried midi in/out didn't work)

I have 2 Mackie control surfaces (reg and XT) installed and a MMC for transport on the DM3200. All the transport and control surface features work. I tried the prescribed MTC set up and no luck. The DM3200 says the MTC is supposed to send and return on USB 3.

I remember your columns in the ancient Guitar Player mags of my youth on making Fuzz boxes and such...I am a fan.

can you help?

[Anderton]

Well, I'm not back home yet, and I don't have a 3200...but when I get back, I can at least check that Sonar is producing MTC. Give me a coupla days............

[ZenFly]

Thanks!

I realize it's a unrealistic request given the other parameters, but at least if I can be sure I can get MTC out of Sonar it will help. (I'm still working on it as well.)

[Artur Meinild]

PerfectSpace Reverb. Interestingly, this is found under the VST effects menu...

 

 

That's because it is essentially the Voxengo Pristine Space Light plugin, adapted to Sonar. Voxengo plugins are well known for their high quality, so this is a nice addition...