Should newbie with Pro Audio 9 upgrade to Sonar 3?

The place for general discussion of Cakewalk Pro Audio.
The Rone

Post by The Rone » Tue Oct 28, 2003 3:12 am

Picked up a used Aaardvark Pro Q10 and just started using it along with the Pro Audio 9 it came with. I apparantly can upgrade to Sonar 3 for $149. Problems/questions I have:

Pro 9 tells me I can't convert projects recorded in 24bit/96Khz to MP3 format (Only 8 or 16 bit at 44.1 or 48khz). Is there a work around I can do with this software to accomplish this? Does Sonar 3 come with MP3 compression software that can do this and at no extra cost?(Pro 9 gives me 30 day demo, then $29 extra bucks for mp3 converter)

Effects don't seem to work right at 96Khz. Is this a limitation of Pro 9? Does Sonar 3 overcome this?

Almost half a second latency when trying to play synths (just the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth that's on my PC) with external midi keyboard as controller. I've been told that Sonar 3 comes with excellent sounding synths and that, combined with the AISO drivers would eliminate this problem. Is this true?

Thanks for any help.


andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:15 pm

Sonar 3 will answer all those questions. For $149 you can't go wrong. With Sonar 3 you will never look back PA 9 just does not compare to it.

GretscGuy
Posts: 434
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2003 1:26 pm
Location: Massachusetts USA

Post by GretscGuy » Thu Nov 27, 2003 9:50 pm

Personally, I loved PA 9 and waited until recentley to switch over to Sonar. I had been a registered user of PA since it's introduction.

Here is what made me switch:
- I built a new pc and wanted to take advantage of hyperthreading. Sonar 3 is written to do this, PA9 is not. There is a great article on Intel's website about why this is so cool.

- Bought a Universal Audio UAD-1 and it was not supported under PA9. It did work ok for destructive processing though.

- Lexicon Pantheon. The Lexicon reverb is worth the $150.00 in itself.

I haven't used the synths yet. I don't do a ton of softsynth stuff. I use GigaStudio 160 and C-Sound but I hear the Sonar Instruments are cool.

If you are looking for ASIO drivers and lower latency, I would suggest tuning your pc up for audio. There are some great documents for Windows tuning at www.musicxp.net (for xp) and www.tascam.com (98, ME, 2K, XP). There are some other sites around as well, do a google.

Could you tell us a bit more about your system? Minimum for Sonar3 is 900/128 I believe. If your about there now, it may be worth spending the money on a new pc.

Best of luck!

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