Cakewalk’s Z3TA+ has long been a favorite virtual analog / waveshaping soft synth, so much so that it consistently hits top 10 lists of software classics, even as it’s been (in past, at least) a Windows-only offering. Years, later, though, it’s most definitely due for an update. Cakewalk has released a video of what’s in store this week, with a redesigned UI, new effects, deeper editing options (which, incidentally, had been my disappointment with the first generation), and improved sound quality.

Highlights:

• New sound content, many from original Z3TA+ sound designers
• New waveshaping functionality
• New filter types (check out the “parallel/dual” routing visible in the video)
• Enhanced effects routing, with drag-and-drop support
• Graphical arpeggiator

Visible in the video, “time morph”, having something to do with wave morphing, is looking very interesting.

Correction: Cakewalk confirms this will remain Windows-only.

The soft synth market is a crowded one, but I like the straightforward look of the design here, and the emphasis on waveshaping and time modulation. CDM should get a chance to look at this very soon, so let us know if you have questions.

On Create Digital Motion today, I write about the 1.5 release of ArKaos GrandVJ, the latest version of the popular Mac and Windows VJ tool. The big innovation: insert a VST plug-in into software like Ableton Live, and you can pipe MIDI and audio to your live visuals for easy synchronization and collaboration. You can even, as the video demonstrates, run an Ethernet cable between two machines. (This works on both Mac and Windows, despite the appearance of only Apple laptops in the video.)

GrandVJ is doubly interesting for readers on the music site, as it’s long featured a music-centric interface (a black-and-white piano keyboard was a feature of the earliest versions of ArKaos), alongside easy MIDI assignment. (APC20 support was recently added alongside out-of-the-box, bi-directional control with Akai’s APC40.) GrandVJ also boasts terrific, media server-quality performance at the price of a VJ app.

Stay tuned for more tests, and a round-up of live visual tools. (Or, if you like, volunteer to help us out or make requests on the kind of information you’d like to see.)

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what we’re covering in the live visual scene, so if you aren’t already reading Create Digital Motion with your Create Digital Music feed, come check it out / follow both sites on Twitter and Facebook. And believe me; I’m not just being self-promotional here — a lot of us want to see more live visuals when we go out to shows! Vive le revolution audiovisual.

ArKaos GrandVJ 1.5 Packs in Features; Talks to Music Apps via Plug-in

Cakewalk’s SONAR has always been a compelling choice of DAW on Windows. Under the hood, its 64-bit processing, 64-bit mix engine, balanced complement of editing features, and quite-nice array of instruments and processors has held enough appeal. But then there’s the interface, which hasn’t held up to the tools underneath. Being pretty isn’t only cosmetic; a visually-refined interface is just easier to look at and use. And aside from aesthetics, moving between editing views or just managing what’s visible on-screen in SONAR can be a chore. It’s a problem not unique to Cakewalk’s DAW: the leading music workstations now simply do a lot, making for a daunting, jumbo jet cockpit-like interface design challenge.

SONAR X1, announced today, focuses on that problem. I should get hands-on time shortly, but I can at least report back on the design goals, and they show some promise. High-res shots at top.

New UI features and workflow:

• Skylight: The name for the new X1 workspace, Skylight is Cakewalk’s own take of how to avoid window shuffling and see everything you need at once. Yes, other apps have done multi-pane editing before, from DP to Logic to Pro Tools. But Skylight has some interesting takes on combining some of the best UI features evolved in pro apps over the years years (audio or otherwise), including docking, modular controls, a Browser, and Inspector. And significantly, docking can occur across multiple monitors, and tools and windows can float above other windows. Long-overdue, easily-accessible Screensets are available, too.
• Redesigned Control Bar: My major UI bugaboo in SONAR was its toolbar, basically a hideous, unreadable parade of look-alike icons. The Control Bar will still be familiar to SONAR users, but without all that nonsense. You can actually differentiate transport buttons and editing functions, which is fairly critical for an app like this!
• Modal “Smart Tools” Tools are now more contextual. Now, Logic, for instance, has long had a common editing palette, but the tools in that palette are often specific to each view. What Cakewalk is trying to do, they say, is to make a smaller number of tools work consistently across views. Consistency of this kind is to me the only antidote to runaway complexity, so I’m eager to try it.
• Key clusters: For QWERTY jockeys, keyboard shortcuts are now available reorganized into clusters, so that a set of related tasks is available without moving your fingers around or searching your brain. “Loop” functions all revolve around the “L” key and modifiers, “Quantize” the “Q” key.

None of this is really worth talking about at length until you’ve had some time using it, but I do think it’s promising; I’m especially intrigued by those keyboard shortcuts. Stay tuned for more.

Not everything in X1 is UI. The big audio feature is ProChannel. Recent SONAR releases have had some great audio processing tools, but they’ve been banished to a dedicated plug-in interface. Now, they’re right in the mixing console. Features:

• Channel, bus compression
• Variable tube stage
• Console EQ with “pure,” “modern,” “vintage” modes
• Routing pre- or post-effects, drag-and-drop routing of EQ, compression, tube modules (just like on Cakewalk’s other effects – it’s a nice feature)
• A collapsible UI (with feedback both expanded and collapsed), dedicated ProChannel presets
• 64-bit audio resolution (for sound), 64-bit computing (for number-crunching performance).

Promo video below, if it helps you see this in action.

Pricing is aggressive: the full-blown Producer edition is US$399 with everything, including the new Pro Channel Strip, excellent Session Drummer sampled drums and drum machines, mastering effects, True Pianos, and Dimension Pro sampler. “Studio” is a decent sweet spot, still including a 64-bit version and features like Audio Snap, surround sound, Rapture, and V-Vocal, but $199. Sonar X1 includes all the basic sequencing options, minus those extras, in a 32-bit-only version for $199. Starting today, you can buy SONAR 8.5 and get X1 free. It’s not quite Reaper cheap, but it undercuts most of Cakewalk’s other competitors.

Let’s face it: as audio users, we’re spoiled for choice. Graphics production has nearly all boiled down to a suite from one vendor, Adobe. Happily, we have a more competitive market, and users with fierce loyalties, to boot. (it’s a good thing we don’t all agree.) That said, it’s nice to see SONAR modernizing in this way. Stay tuned for more.

SONAR X1 Product Page

This week, while we poll readers to find out what platforms they really use and care about for music, we’re launching a new series to help you get the most out of whichever OS you choose.

We’ve been covering the complexities of Windows for a while, from the bumpy Vista transition to the smoother advent of Windows 7. I also wrote up a feature in Keyboard Magazine covering Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Here, I’ve worked with Noel Borthwick, Chief Technical Officer of Cakewalk, and Kevin Jacoby of custom computer house Rain Computers, in order to get both the software and hardware developer perspective and the OEM side. They’ve offered some frank opinions in the past; Noel had some criticisms for Vista, and Jacoby and Rain kept XP the default for a while. But that means when they say Windows 7 can work for musicians, they mean it.

If you’re still on XP or Vista, or if you’re pondering going to a 64-bit version, we have some advice there. If you’re already on Windows 7, we’ve some tips on how to make the most of optimizing the OS.

When is the OS to blame? (aka, “Glitch” music when you don’t want it)

Before we get into talking about Windows itself, I think there’s a bigger issue to address.

Now that I’ve been testing Windows alongside a variety of operating systems, I can say this. I think the press and user base have sometimes blamed the Windows operating system itself when it isn’t directly at fault. A lot of the most annoying obstacles to music making on computers – glitches, audio stability issues, and an inability to run at lower latencies – depend on a complex chain of interoperating hardware. (That’s true even on the Mac platform; in fact, even given Apple’s relatively focused computer offerings, I think Apple deserves the same credit a PC vendor does when they have all their components working in concert. When we have seen issues on the Mac, drivers and chipsets are often to blame.) Chipsets and components, particularly on laptops, can cause problems. It’s simply easy to blame (or credit) the OS because it’s so fond of flashing its logo at you, and it’s the part of the computer with which you interact.

This also means the choice of Windows itself may not be as important as the choice of computer hardware. Custom shops like Rain Computers are unique in that they test their components for audio applications – that’s not an advertisement for them; it really does make a difference. Because part of what attracts readers to the PC is vendor choice, I’m working on ways of evaluating mainstream machines, too.

The bottom line is, because musical and visual applications are more demanding, there’s a greater need to remain educated and share information. Too much of that information in the larger tech press devolves into petty platform advocacy and bickering. We really need the information just to keep our machines running smoothly.

Windows 7, After Some Time in the Hands of Musicians

We’ve now been living with Windows 7 for some time, which means when you do choose to upgrade, you’ve got plenty of information behind you. When I first looked at Windows 7, it was clear the OS was better than Vista, but it wasn’t yet entirely clear how it compared to XP. And while Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux comparisons tend to be apples to oranges, you ought to at least be able to be pretty objective about comparing Windows releases to other Windows releases. Now, we do have a lot of empirical evidence, and both Rain and Cakewalk – the folks on the other end of the phone when people call to complain about problems – have pretty strong endorsements.

Kevin at Rain goes as far to say that Windows 7 exceeds XP:

Windows 7 is by far the best operating system we’ve seen for pro audio and video production. It’s got all the modern bells and whistles that were missing in XP, none of the craziness from Vista, and has managed to retain the benefit of an open architecture that lends itself to great application design. It’s given us the opportunity to squeeze every ounce of power from the apps and hardware we see most often like Pro Tools, Cubase, Adobe CS5, etc.

In terms of support, our tech support staff is over here celebrating. Windows 7 has remarkable improvements that help with stability. Pro audio/video isn’t the easiest thing in the world. It starts to get a bit touchy when there are too many features, apps, drivers, etc. But W7 seems to be more forgiving; it heals better than Vista or XP – doesn’t crash like them either. And when there is an issue, its got some tools, like Complete PC Backup, that help us get the user quickly back to a point where they’re making music and video again.

Noel Borthwick, on his off hours, is actually a musician. I’ve been following his experience with his own home computer setup, and he’s a happy camper.

I recently built a new DAW for my studio which runs SONAR 8.5 on an Intel Core I7 950 with Windows 7 Professional X64. (See http://www.noelborthwick.com/minidump/2009/12/new-daw/ for specs) I can categorically say that the SONAR/Core I7/Windows 7 combination is a match made in heaven for DAW users! I easily have way more bandwidth than I would ever need for the next several years on this rig. On my largest projects which would previously max out the CPU or drop out (an older dual CPU Windows 2003 based machine), I am now able to run at 128 sample buffers with a MOTU 828 MK2, at 24bit/96KHz with under 20% CPU utilization in SONAR!

Noel has also been listening to users, he says:

The response to Windows 7 and SONAR has been overwhelmingly positive. Here are a few threads talking about the great results that our users are having with SONAR and Windows 7.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1769661&mpage=1&key=?

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1774267&high=windows+7&mpage=1

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1734916&high=windows+7

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1713663&high=windows+7&mpage=1

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1601783&high=windows+7&mpage=1

Rain also confirms that, as always with PCs in general, it’s the combination of hardware that can be an issue and is the focus of their optimizations. “Part of the challenge is getting around the consumer-centric features,” says Kevin. “For instance, HDMI and other high def audio features often interfere with pro audio drivers and interfaces. It’s a bit of a challenge at times but Microsoft and our other tech partners have been helpful.”

Should You Run 64-bit for Music Apps?

Not to be confused with 64-bit audio – a representation of the length of digital samples and their corresponding dynamic range – 64-bit computing is what enables access to greater amounts of memory, and provides a corresponding computational boost in performance on the same hardware. On Windows, unlike the Mac, you must choose when you install the OS whether you opt for the 32-bit or 64-bit version. (You can configure a multiple-boot operation, but each boot entry must be one or the other.)

If you’re configuring a new machine, or upgrading from XP and Vista, it may be an optimal time to try 64-bit, since you’ll be evaluating compatibility and updating drivers anyway. So, which should you choose?

Kevin offers a whole-hearted endorsement of 64-bit, but with some ideas on why 32-bit still has some place.

My biggest disappointment when W7 was released is that we couldn’t put the 64-bit version on every Rain computer that left the factory. With due respect to the pro audio industry, some software engineers are chronically behind the curve when it comes to releasing new versions and drivers. However, all that is changing now. These days, I’m in a much better mood since Pro Tools released a 64-bit compatible update and our customers can choose from a wider range of plug-ins and virtual instruments. Kudos to Cubase and SONAR for doing their homework early on that one.

On the other hand, the folks over on the video side learned a long time ago that more memory would make their lives easier. The last system we sent to the US Olympic Committee had 24GB of memory installed which made Adobe Premiere sit up and bark like a dog. We’re just now updating our Element video editing workstation to 12-core and, as with before, you can match that with 48GB of memory. It’s a beautiful thing.

That said, there are still a lot of people out there attached to their legacy gear. Maybe you’re updating your computer and your budget doesn’t allow you to replace all your software and hardware at the same time. Maybe you’re in love with a certain plug-in that just refuses to play nice with 64-bit. For those people, we do everything we can to help them protect their initial investment. But if possible we do recommend getting the most up-to-date version you can, load 64-bit and take advantage of all its benefits.

As a side note, though some Rain computers ship from our dealers (Best Buy, Amazon, B&H, etc) with 32-bit, we have a program in place to help the user update to 64-bit at no additional cost once they get their computer home.

Noel notes that 64-bit support is vastly improved over the past – and this coming from one of the first software vendors to embrace 64-bit Windows in any industry, let alone in music. (SONAR first supported 64-bit way back in the XP x64 days.)

Any new CPU you can buy these days is capable of running 64-bit Windows. As a result of this proliferation driver support for X64 is a lot better now than it was a few years ago. In this environment it makes the most sense to install the 64-bit version of Windows 7. With a 64-bit OS you get the best of both worlds. You get the advantage of expanded memory as well as the ability to run 32-bit applications. 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS run fine and in some situations might even show better performance than when running under a 32-bit OS.

In other words, if you’re using any music hosts (or video editing software) with native 64-bit support – just one – going 64-bit is a no-brainer so long as you’ve got a 64-bit computer like those based on the Core 2 Duo CPU. But what if you don’t have any 64-bit software? My standing advice had been to stick with 32-bit, but Noel actually disagrees – and I have to admit, I see his point. Noel writes:

I would argue that even if you don’t have any apps that currently take advantage of X64 [Windows 7 64-bit] it still has advantages to go with [64-bit] for the upgrade options. You can always add more memory to the system or later introduce native 64-bit apps, something you cannot do if you have a 32-bit OS without reinstalling Windows and starting from scratch.

So, is there anything that should keep you on 32-bit (aside from owning an older computer with a 32-bit-only CPU?) What about ReWire?

You don’t lose ReWire by running on a 64-bit OS. You can still run a 32-bit version of the application on a 64-bit OS and have ReWire access. The only reason I can think of that might deter someone from a 64-bit OS today is if they had some legacy hardware that didn’t have 64-bit drivers. I.e., you cannot run 32-bit drivers on a 64-bit OS, since those have to be native.

At least you can make that decision based on your music host, not your music plug-ins. A key feature of a modern DAW like SONAR is, even though it runs natively in 64-bit, it doesn’t require that you give up your 32-bit plug-ins. That’s a very big deal, because a lot of plug-ins – even paid ones, let alone freeware oddities – aren’t yet 64-bit. For its part, Cakewalk has been updating 32-bit support.

In SONAR 8.5 we addressed many user-reported VST compatibility issues with Bitbridge. Additionally, Bitbridge XR now breaks the memory barrier for 32-bit VSTs allowing you to run as many 32-bit VSTs as you want in SONAR X64. You can use up to 2GB of memory PER 32-bit VST and run multiple BitBridge servers allowing up to 128 GB of memory for your 32-bit plug-in. With Windows 7 and SONAR 8.5, more and more users are making the leap to X64 systems running systems with 12 GB of memory or more to run multiple memory hungry plug-ins in their sessions.

That’s anecdotal evidence, however. Here are some hard numbers. Aside from the benefits of expanded memory access – useful if you use big sample libraries and the like – 64-bit can have some real-world, quantifiable, verifiable performance benefits. Noel writes:

Here are some external studies/benchmarks that compare X64 performance against X86 on the same hardware.

http://www.noelborthwick.com/minidump/2009/12/a-case-for-64-bit-windows/

Disabling Power Management to Improve Multi-Core Performance

Most of the usual optimizations apply to Windows 7 that applied to previous versions. You’re best off disabling resource-consuming background applications like antivirus software, keeping drivers up-to-date, working with good quality audio interfaces, and the like. We do have a couple of specific pieces of advice for Windows 7, however.

One such detail, while it’s unlikely to impact everyone, is that disabling some power management on multi-core systems can improve performance. Noel explains, complete with instructions:

There has been some controversy about the new core parking feature in Windows 7 which was introduced for more “green” power management. On quad core and higher systems, some users have reported that core parking can cause audio glitches. It could be system specific since I haven’t personally experienced this issue on my own DAW which is pretty much running a vanilla Windows 7 install with a Core I7 (8 cores). In any case even though there is no user interface in Windows 7 to enable/disable core parking, fortunately there is an documented way to disable it in the Microsoft performance tuning guidelines. Look for “Core Parking” in this document http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/E/7/7E7662CF-CBEA-470B-A97E-CE7CE0D98DC2/Perf-tun-srv-R2.docx

To summarize:

To turn off core parking, set the minimum cores parked to 100 percent by using the following commands:

Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor bc5038f7-23e0-4960-96da-33abaf5935ec 100 Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Smarter File Management

With Windows generally working better out of the box, though, here’s a quick tip that can help make it more usable when you’re actually working on projects. Noel has become a big fan of Libraries (and yes, you’ll find access to them in SONAR’s file dialog):

Win 7 has support for a very useful feature called Libraries, which can be a very handy way to keep track of data scattered around your hard drives. Unfortunately Libraries do not directly support folders on networked locations. On attempting to add such a folder to a library you get an error message telling you the location is not indexed. Apparently libraries rely on folders being indexed. This shortcoming greatly reduces the usefulness of libraries for users who store folders in networked locations.

Fortunately, I came across a workaround to the libraries problem here which uses symbolic links to get around this limitation: http://hubpages.com/hub/Adding-a-Network-Directory-to-a-Library-without-Indexing-in-Windows-7

More Resources

Keyboard Magazine has my full comparison of Windows 7 and Snow Leopard online:
New Decade, New OS What Matters to Musicians in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7, by Peter Kirn

I’ve been writing “geeky as we wanna be” looks at Windows for some time – and rightfully so, I think; musicians push operating systems hard. I only wish the larger tech community paid greater attention to what we do, because we’re often best able to torture test any OS, Mac, Windows, Linux, or mobile.

Here’s some of our past coverage of Windows on CDM:
Obsessive Windows 7 Under-the-Hood Guide for Music; Can You Finally Dump XP?

Vista Tweak: Use the Audio Profile Cakewalk’s CTO Uses

And if you’re looking for some tips to get the most out of Windows:
Tips: Fix Windows Explorer, Be Happy

12 Free and Cheap Must-Have Music Utilities for Windows

10 Free Non-Musical Windows Software Every Musician Should Use

For a look at a 64-bit-native DAW, check out my review of SONAR 8.5.2:
SONAR 8.5.2 Hands On: Tradition, Meet Tempting Treats

Addendum: Finding 64-bit Crashes

This is an extremely obscure issue, so if you’re not interested in gory details, stop reading now. But because we like gory, technical details, I’ve decided to add it. It’s not a reliability problem with 64-bit Windows — far from it; you won’t actually see it until you encounter a crash, and even then, it’s useful only to the people troubleshooting. But it does demonstrate the power of getting to the bottom of an issue, and there is a fix. (So, Mac users, I don’t want to hear any “see, this is why I switched to a Mac.” You can get into weird, technical things if you dig deep enough in any OS, period. Shield any innocent eyes.)

Noel adds a description of troubleshooting 64-bit Windows crashes as follows:

How to make your apps crash gracefully on 64-bit Windows
OK this is admittedly a weird topic Why would anyone actually want their app to crash you may ask? To answer that question we need to have some background about why applications crash.
An application crashes when it performs an unexpected operation or encounters what is called an “exception condition”. Exceptions include unwanted operations like writing to invalid memory locations, divide by zero errors, page faults, etc. Programs can end up with exceptions like this for a variety of reasons – bugs in the host code itself or even due to bugs in loaded plugin DLL’s which share the same memory and address space as the host application. Normally when an error like this occurs, Windows will display the familiar error message “This Program Has Performed an Illegal Operation and Will Be Shut Down” and the program will close. Some applications like SONAR handle such errors more gracefully and will even try and intercept these exception and attempt to allow the user to save their work before exiting the program. Additionally on Windows you can choose to save what is called a Minidump containing “post mortem” debugging info that is very useful to developers to find out why the program crashed.

Recently we began noticing a pattern where we were receiving Minidump’s from crashes on from 64 bit Windows systems X64 where the dumps contained useless or apparently invalid information about the crash. This made it very hard for us to diagnose such issues. I was even able to reproduce this by writing a simple test application that forced a crash. In one case I found that the crash was reported in a completely different location and in another the application behaved as if the exception didn’t occur! This is actually very bad since when damage is done to the app the best scenario is to actually shut down the application or you risk data corruption or worse. So you really WANT your app to crash when something like this happens. I logged a bug with Microsoft about this with a test application. I recently heard back from their developer support about this issue. It’s an interesting problem that Microsoft is aware of and have issued a hotfix for.
Here is a link to a Microsoft blog post describing this problem in gory detail if you want to read more about it.
http://blog.paulbetts.org/index.php/2010/07/20/the-case-of-the-disappearing-onload-exception-user-mode-callback-exceptions-in-x64/
And here is the link to the hotfix if you want it now. This hotfix will also be rolled into Windows 7 SP1. I hope that this is not required in the final version but currently the fix requires you to set a value in the registry to enable it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976038

Touch performance control on devices like the iPhone and iPad has become increasingly popular, but the question remains: can developers push these interfaces further? Richie Hawtin has initiated a new touch control project and promises more “advanced” control of Ableton Live for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users.

Details remain murky – developers Liine say they’ll tease out features over the coming weeks. But the system, when fully revealed, will be modular, with a set of touch objects and gestures across a set of apps that provide touch control. The first application is Ableton Live-specific, and provides a new mechanism for controlling Live’s grid of clips. The developers say Griid makes it easier to find clips and see information about them, even when navigating large sets of clips. (You know who you are, those of you with enormous Live sets with a zillion colored clips.)

Different editions will scale to different screen sizes, with Griid Pro for iPad, and Griid for iPhone/iPod touch, plus a Lite version for free.

What all of this means or whether it lives up to these claims is, well, a complete unknown outside of the Plastikman stage. That is, unless you happen to be in Barcelona at SONAR this weekend. Tomorrow, Saturday, Richie will be demonstrating the app in person. Liine tells us:

“At the hands-on Richie will show how he uses the app in his Plastikman Live show. There will also be another laptop or two set up and hooked up with Griid so that they can give it a try themselves.”

If you can make it and want to report back to the rest of us, I’d love to hear it. And I expect to bring more info to CDM soon, if not. But it certainly works for Richie; check out the video below of him using the tool at Detroit’s Movement festival, for his new Plastikman Live show. (And yes, this is bringing back Plastikman and more of the live performance, rather than simply DJ, the side of Richie a lot of us love best.)

http://liine.net/griid/
http://liine.net/

If you’re at SONAR, check out http://ghost.m-nus.com/ (and if you’re not, that site has live streams and audio – warning, audio auto-plays!)

The video cuts fast, but in these still images, you can get a better view of the software and Richie’s setup, including the JazzMutant Lemur touch hardware and Behringer BCF-2000 motorized hardware faders alongside the iPad:

There’s something to be said for the traditional digital audio workstation, its linear arrangement view, and all its editing bells and whistles. When it comes to finishing a track from beginning to end – not doing live PA-DJ hybrid performances or racking up modular synths and effects or programming intricate cellular beats – sometimes the conventional approach can be welcome.

With lots of affordable alternatives – not to mention competition from stable, previous versions – the question with any full-freight, top-of-the-line DAW is whether it can “buy” your loyalties with enough extras? And, for that matter, might it even convince you to enjoy running Windows? SONAR has tempted me before, but 8.5.2 reaches a new level of maturity – and a new level of pack-in goodies to sweeten the deal.

Choosing a DAW is an immensely personal decision. It’s worth saying that we have a lot of exceptionally good choices from which to select tools. Even when they perform tasks in very different ways, any number of tools can achieve the same results. I have had a personal reaction to certain tools, though, and too often in reviews, we don’t get to talk about that subjective experience. I’ve actually started to work SONAR into more of the projects I’m doing, so I speak personally about it.

From the moment you fire it up, SONAR screams DAW tradition, as in, “welcome to the cockpit of my 747 jet plane.” Yes, it’s got rows of squint-worthy icons on its toolbars. And yes, it’s sufficiently utilitarian. Whereas Ableton prides itself on a minimalist approach, and Apple and Digidesign have slapped on layers of slick gloss and shine, Cakewalk remains, behind the occasional pretty icon or knob scattered here and there, a tool that looks like a piece of software.

But don’t necessarily let this surface complexity turn you off. All the way back to the DOS days, Cakewalk has had a history of giving you more of everything, then allowing you to turn on only what you want. You can switch off and customize nearly any element of the interface. Clever tabs introduced in recent versions help keep everything within reach. The UI is still a little harder to look at than I’d like – not aesthetically, but in that the UI can become cluttered, and it’s easy to wind up with a lot of floating windows. But switch off some extraneous toolbars, learn some keyboard shortcuts, and get used to the “packed workbench” set of tools, and SONAR can grow comfortable more quickly than you’d think.

When it comes to editing, production, mixing, and routing, you’ll certainly never say, “I wish I could…” or “if only editing worked like..” More often than not, some tool with just that editing method is nearby.

SONAR is unquestionably the DAW of “more.” But whereas some of its flagship competitors have tacked-on additional tools or bundled items, much of that “more” is also integrated with the host itself. SONAR has also been focusing in the last few releases on the areas about which electronic producers care the most. I recently lamented that Apple’s Mac-only rival to the feature-packed SONAR on Windows, Logic Studio, has neglected some of its bread-and-butter audio effects and MIDI editing features in its most recent release. Apple’s Amp Designer and Pedalboard, MainStage performance rig, and Soundtrack Pro wave editor are nothing if not impressive, but they may not be relevant to everyone. If words like “step sequencer” and “tempo-synced mod filter” appeal more, then read on.

Step and Matrix Editing in a Traditional DAW

Two of the banner editing features introduced in SONAR 8.5 this year likely look a little familiar. The push-button Step Sequencer 2 recalls FL Studio’s step sequencing view, and the new Matrix View seems intentionally modeled on Ableton Live’s signature Session View. If you’re pleased with those tools, they may not make you a convert, either. But there are some reasons to believe that this is a  uniquely SONAR-like take on these kinds of features.

Step Sequencer

The step sequencer is likely to warm the hearts of fans of beat programming, and it could well woo away some users of FL Studio. What’s unique about it is that it’s a step sequencer view of any track you like – not an effect, not an instrument, but a view on the host app itself. Pulling up a step sequencer is now as easy as invoking the time-tested Piano Roll view. Nor is this limited to repetitive, four-on-the-floor patterns: you can determine the number of beats and the number of steps on each beat. (The maximum number of steps is 16, with more beats possible than I could count.) The beats lock to SONAR’s master tempo, as they should, but the pattern itself can even be out of phase with the sequencer time signature if you so desire.

Among other improvements in the new release, you can now add adjustable flam with a double-click, load and save favorite patterns, and populate certain steps automatically.

It’s the way in which the step sequencer integrates with SONAR’s track view that’s especially lovely. You can sketch ideas in the step sequencer, then fine tune them in a conventional Piano Roll view. You can lay out patterns in the arrangement wherever you like. You get all the speed and convenience of the step sequencer, in other words, without having to limit your ideas to accommodate it.

Step sequencing notes is the obvious choice, but you can also set parameters for each step, including velocity, time offset, and (to keep your patterns from getting repetitive) per-step probability. You can also send MIDI messages, including even RPNs and NRPNs for advanced MIDI programming. That makes SONAR an excellent choice for automating external MIDI gear.

There is a skin-deep similarity to FL Studio, but the real lineage here is Cakewalk’s superb instrument Rapture, which used a similar interface to perform step modulation.

Sadly, though, what’s missing in the step sequencer is the ability to automate third-party plug-in effect parameters via the same interface – a major missed opportunity, and something present in tools like Ableton Live’s clip envelopes. You can still do this via automation lanes, but it’d be nice to make use of the elegant control-sketching capabilities of the Step Sequencer. In fairness, the problem here is that many plug-ins don’t respond to common MIDI control change messages, even the few that can be reasonably standardized, such as filter cutoff.

Note that I say “third-party” plug-ins; some of Cakewalk’s own included synths can indeed be automated via the step sequencer, which is good fun. It’s an easy feature to miss, so I’ll cover how to do it in the upcoming SONAR 8.5 tips story. And if your plug-in does implement proper MIDI control, you can manipulate any plug-in with MIDI, too.

Also missing in the Step Sequencer itself is a way to switch amongst multiple pattern buffers. However, this is where the fact that the Step Sequencer is simply a view of a clip becomes powerful. To create multiple patterns, you’d simply create multiple clips. If you need a way to switch between clips, you can drop them into Matrix View and switch between them that way. That’s similar to what’s possible in Ableton Live, again, but for those who prefer the traditional behavior of a step sequencer to a Piano Roll view, SONAR gives you some additional choice.

I do hope that SONAR 9 continues to refine the step sequencer and its integration, as I think this feature has a lot of potential beyond its current, already-useful functionality.

Speaking of steps, it’s not at all a new feature, but it’s worth saying that SONAR has one of the easiest implementations of step recording I’ve ever seen. It’s easy to bang out an idea while cramped in coach with your laptop using just the keyboard. And it’s another reminder that a mature DAW still has its place.

Matrix View

One of the mysteries of music software development over the last few years has been that, for all the success of Ableton Live, it seemed no one tried to copy Live’s biggest features, its clip-launching workflow. (Live didn’t invent the idea of putting chunks of music in an array of triggers – that fundamental idea comes from samplers and drum machines – but that makes the absence of other takes on the idea all the more strange.) Well, the wait is over: Matrix View in SONAR 8.5 certainly seems to respond directly to Live’s Session View.

It’s easiest to talk first about the obvious similarities. As with Live’s Session View, SONAR’s Matrix View arranges audio and MIDI clips into an array. Trigger a clip, and it begins playing. Set the launch quantization, and its playback will begin on a beat or a bar. Trigger the clip again, and it either re-triggers or toggles playback, depending on the mode you’ve set. Trigger a second clip in the same row (SONAR) or column (Live), and the first clip starts playing, replaced by the first. SONAR’s rendition is rotated ninety degrees from Live’s – which in some ways is more intuitive – but the behavior is the same. SONAR even mimics some of the toolbar layout of Live’s Session View.

Because Matrix View is so much like Session View, however, the differences are thrown into relief, too. For the first time, we see what Live might look like if it were redesigned from the ground up. The clip buttons are enlarged in SONAR’s Matrix View, allowing for greater visual feedback on clips. Settings that in Live require a visit to a different pane are exposed in Matrix View, including looping and latching clips.

Matrix View also introduces some features Live users may envy. You can set “Latch Mode” globally, so that clips play back only when an input – like a pad on a drum controller – is held down. That can make your audio clips more playable, encouraging you to use your pads instead of just let them loop endlessly. (It’s possible to do the same thing in Live, but the feature is more exposed in SONAR.) SONAR’s Matrix View also introduces the idea of having two quantization settings instead of just one. Switch clips to bus A or B, and you can set one set of clips to trigger on the bar and another on the quarter-note beat, for instance.

I’ll be honest: I was initially apprehensive about Matrix View. If I wanted Live in SONAR, I’d be inclined simply to use Live, which yo can even easily do inside SONAR via ReWire. Sure enough, if you try to use Matrix View like Live’s Session View, you’re likely to be disappointed. SONAR isn’t built for onstage, real-time live performance in the way Live is, so the sonic results aren’t quite the same. (It certainly operates in real time, but it’s primarily a “studio” program. I did occasionally get brief drop-outs in sound that would make me hesitate to try to play Matrix View onstage. SONAR is a strong choice for onstage use if you’re hosting plug-ins or running backing tracks, but something like Matrix View becomes more interactive.)

Also, while the Matrix View’s array looks like Session View, it lacks the integrated tools for manipulating clips that Live has – to say nothing of Live’s more advanced arrangement options, like Follow Actions. You can warp audio using SONAR’s sophisticated GrooveClips, and unlike Ableton, SONAR has the eminently logical ability to loop clips without warping the audio contained. (Why Live still doesn’t do that after ten years is beyond me.) But Matrix View simply isn’t Live. Nor, says Cakewalk, is it supposed to be; Cakewalk repeatedly told me that, despite appearances, they intend Matrix View as a means of extending SONAR and not even a competitor for Live.

So that’s what Matrix View isn’t. The surprise is, what Matrix View is turns out to be more useful than I expected. Ableton Live is split effectively into two programs, one a linear view as in a conventional DAW and the other Session View. It’s possible to go from one to the other, but you feel like you’re dealing in a way with two separate programs.

SONAR, with or without Matrix View, remains entirely focused on the linear arrangement – and that can be a good thing. Treat Matrix View as a bin of clips, with the focus still very much on SONAR’s linear tracks, and the whole thing starts to make some sense. In fact, SONAR’s means of mediating between the non-linear clips and the linear arrangement seems more intuitive than Live’s to me, even after many years of using Live. Turn on “Capture Matrix Performance,” and you can use Matrix View as an easy way of “writing” patterns and clips into tracks. You can do this without having to turn on and off the transport’s record control, which can result in some messy mistakes in Ableton Live. Toggle “Follow Transport,” and choose whether Matrix View’s behavior is determined by the project transport condition. You can do many of the same things in Live, don’t get me wrong, but SONAR has been able to learn and improve upon Live’s way of doing things, and favor the linear arrangement. Even if you opt to use SONAR alongside another application like Live, that might be useful to have integrated with SONAR itself.

Matrix View’s rows also are not tied to pre-determined tracks as in Live’s mixer-like Session View. You can choose any row of clips and arbitrarily route them to any track you like. Take all of the clips and route them to one audio track. Route some rows to one track and others to another. This makes managing signal routing and recording linear arrangements much easier. It’s possible to do the same thing in Live with busing, but Matrix View is routing to actual tracks, not returns.

Of course, none of this makes SONAR a live performance tool, which for many is the draw and namesake of Ableton’s Live. But if the appeal of SONAR, as mentioned at the outset of this story, is committing to linear tracks, that may not matter.

The net result of all of this is that Matrix View can be a useful way of playing around with clips quickly, while remaining focused on your end-to-end arrangement. It’s also worth mentioning that Matrix View isn’t the only way of dropping audio into tracks. Cakewalk’s excellent, dead-simple Beatscape can do something similar, in a drum machine/MPC-style view. Neither of these tools may convince you to upgrade to SONAR 8.5, let alone switch from another host. But having them available in your arsenal expands your ways of working, which can help prevent you from getting stuck in a creative rut.

As with the Step Sequencer, what’s critical in SONAR’s approach is keeping everything integrated and focusing on the main Track View. I can’t recommend SONAR on the merits of Matrix View – I’d like to see it grow and mature a little bit first, and to see it expand in a Cakewalk way and not just an Ableton way. I’m also not yet confident of its reliability; it’s a new feature, I saw some occasional glitches, and 8.5.2 made a lot of changes under the hood. But it could show promise in the future, and it certainly indicates Cakewalk’s commitment to adding to their host’s workflows.

Arpeggiator

SONAR 8.5 also packs an arpeggiator on each track. It’s a smaller feature than the Matrix View and Step Sequencer, but sometimes little things make a difference in workflow. The tool is very simple, but it’s awfully nice having it always available to use. You get all the basics, and because it’s everywhere, it can spawn new ideas you might not have tried otherwise.

Effect Goodies

If you opt for the full Producer Edition of SONAR, you get a lot of pack-in effects. Previously, the “kitchen sink” approach to effects had been the domain of Logic. SONAR has not only caught up, depending on the applications that matter to you, it could have the most appealing lineup of included effects.

I generally recoil from discussions of how “good” software sounds; a lot of this has to do with the user. But I will say, working with SONAR’s mix engine and bundled tools is an aural pleasure. There’s some really great-sounding stuff in here, and I suppose the “if it sounds good, it is good” maxim holds in music software as much as anything.

There’s a huge collection of new effects. Some aren’t strictly “new,” developed for other Cakewalk products, but no matter – this is a fresh, useful collection of stuff.

The PX-64 Percussion Strip is just fantastic. It combines dynamics (compressor/expander), equalization, delay, tube saturation, and transient shaping. Putting together these modules isn’t just a gimmick, either; the set is complementary, and there’s an elegant drag-and-drop option for changing routing. Seeing everything in one place makes a difference, and it’s nice to any time a software developer includes an expander and not just a compressor. The sound can be really transparent, as well. Combine this with the dedicated Transient Follower introduced in SONAR 8, and SONAR is a terrific environment for tweaking percussion. (Incidentally, it’s just as much fun with synthesized and sampled electronic percussion as recorded acoustic percussion.) 

The VX-64 Vocal Strip, as the name implies, does the same thing for vocalists. It includes a Deesser, compressor/expander, tube EQ, doubler, and delay. As with the PX-64, the VX-64 provides easy-to-use visual feedback and drag-and-drop routing.

The PX-64 and VX-64 are definitely the “headliners” in the new effects. But some of the other plug-ins are gems, too:

Tempo Delay is my favorite in the whole bundle; it’s a tempo-synced delay and modulated EQ/filter that for me, at least, recalls Lexicon classics like the brilliant and inexplicably-discontinued PCM 42.

Mod Filter is a similarly lovely tempo-synced EG/LFO with a rich overdrive.

The Alias Factor decimator is both a bit crusher and a low-pass filter; it’s the rare bit crusher that sound warm and organic no matter how much you stress its settings, and may well have become my new favorite decimator. (In fact, forget I told you about it. So many people are currently overusing the settings on Ableton that it’s become really obvious. So, keep doing that, and I’ll keep Alias Factor for myself. Move along.)

There’s also an included phaser, high-frequency exciter, multivoice chorus/flanger, parametric EQ, stereo compressor/gate, and digital reverb. Not one of these effects is flashy, in sound or appearance. They all have a few knobs. They look like free plug-ins. And I love that – they’re the worst possible option for impressing friends or clients with your pricey, fancy plugs. (They’re clearly modeled on Lexicon’s hardware front panels.) But they sound great, without getting in the way of your mix, and they actually stick to the controls you’ll actually use.

The latest additions sit atop some powerful, beautiful-sounding existing tools, like the Vintage Channel VC64, which incorporates analog-emulating dynamics, gate, De-Esser, and EQ, as created by Kjaerhus Audio. The vintage-styled panel is a gimmick, but make no mistake – the plug-in itself sounds wonderful. Cakewalk also has the well-executed Boost11 compressor.

Not new to SONAR 8.5, but now bundled with SONAR Studio and well worth mentioning, is the Roland V-Vocal editor. The tool incorporates the VariPhrase vocal analysis technology in Roland hardware – at (sorry, Roland) a fraction of the price of buying additional gear. Now, don’t get me started on the many reasons I hate artificial pitch correction and vibrato. But V-Vocal has some interesting creative applications, even if you’re not a singer. You can use it as a harmonizer. You can use it to create special effects with timing, phrasing, and formants. Its pitch to MIDI conversion works really well, too, so you can even sing in unusual synth lines. By “overlook,” incidentally, I do mean overlook – you’ll find V-Vocal as another “view” of your track.

SONAR is not without competition. For instance, I love some of Logic’s oddities, like its Sculpture physical-modeling instrument, or Ableton’s unusually elegant and unique effects. But when it comes to signal processing specifically and what’s in the box, I don’t think there’s a DAW on the planet right now that can match the utility and sound quality of the effects bundled with SONAR. That may not be a big deal if you already have assembled a suite of your favorite plug-ins. But if you want a DAW that ships with a lot of audio-processing goodness, SONAR, particularly in its Producer Edition, is simply unmatched.

Here’s another advantage of SONAR over some of its competitors. Yes, applications like Pro Tools, Logic, and Ableton Live now come with boatloads of plugs. But try to load these tools in another host, and they disable themselves. That’s true of some of SONAR’s V-Vocal, VC-64 channel strip, Lexicon Pantheon Reverb, and True Pianos. But nearly everything else – including the fantastic new Session Drummer – works in any Windows VST host. Want to drop your LinnDrum samples in a Session Drummer instance with the PX-64 effects strip inside the tracker Renoise, without loading SONAR? Go for it. That makes SONAR’s value decidedly greater.

(Notably, Reaper does not have these same limitations, as its fans are likely to be quick to point out. But SONAR, while priced significantly higher, also comes with a broader selection of plug-ins, and it remains a robust host for all of your other plugs.)

Drum Machines and Instruments

The big instrumental addition in 8.5 is the new Session Drummer 3, an expanded drum machine / drum sampler. Like Cakewalk’s other recent instruments, it focuses on the essentials but executes them elegantly: it’s a basic drum kit with open-standard SFZ sample compatibility, MIDI pattern playback and multiple pattern slots, and a friendly graphical view of the kit. The mixer is the really nice part of the instrument: mix via a basic mixing interface and route each audio wherever you like, with separate controls for width and tune. That doesn’t quite add up to a full-blown drum sampler like NI’s Battery, but it still does plenty.

I’m not particularly interested in sampled acoustic kits, so the beauty of this pack to me is the additional vintage drum machines, including Roland’s TR-707, 808, and 909, but also DrumTraks and LinnDrum models – all the things I can’t afford on eBay or store in my apartment. They’re just samples, not full-blown emulations, and it is a little silly hearing an 808 while looking at a picture of an acoustic drum kit. But couple these with SONAR’s step sequencer and transient-following effects arsenal, and you have a combination that should make any fan of electronic beats blissfully happy.

Of course, I’d be even happier if Cakewalk would bundle its modular drum synth, NPulse, from Project5. There seems to be no reason at this point not to bring Cakewalk’s flagship host in line with the rest of the fleet. And Cakewalk is up against various bundles of synths – Reason, Logic Studio, FL Studio, Ableton Live Suite, and even Pro Tools all now come with deep synth bundles. Just remember, you do get a good selection of instruments in Cakewalk’s software, too, including the Dimension Pro sampler and Rapture LE. Unlike the audio effects, I can’t really say the synth and sampler choices in SONAR are a reason to opt for Cakewalk’s tool over other hosts, but they don’t hurt, either.

AudioSnap

Slicing and dicing audio in time is all the rage these days, so it’d be easy enough to miss Cakewalk’s take. But I’d put AudioSnap 2 right up with Logic Studio 9’s new audio mashing features for ease of use. The AudioSnap overlay is brilliantly simple, and best of all for creative production, allows you to copy grooves to MIDI with one click. I could say more about it, but I think the new window says it all. The one thing you can’t see here is that you can now easily tab around from transient to transient.

Cakewalk also employs the high-quality stretching algorithms from the folks at iZotope. Note that Apple has recently developed some in-house audio warping techniques, as has Propellerhead for Record. Seeing how these features stack up, though, would be the domain of another feature.

Usability, Performance, Compatibility, and the Sum of the Parts

There’s quite a lot of additional fit and finish in SONAR 8.5, with additional improvements added in 8.5.2.

The Media Browser is improved, and acts as Windows users would expect; it’s great having a native file browser built into the host, and it fits neatly in a tab at the bottom of the screen.

The “Now Time” marker lets you easily drag around “now” during playback with the cursor so that the transport springs to the right place. It’s a little thing, but a big time-saver; I wish I had it in my video editing software.

Freezing now lets you easily include or exclude effects bins – an obvious, welcome choice.

And if you like buttons, you get even more. There is also a solo button on effects, useful while you’re tweaking. Freeze and archive buttons have been added to save computing resources, especially handy if you’re working on a laptop (or are addicted, as I am, to all those CPU-hungry multi-effects strips). Archiving is really handy when you’re working on a production, in that it allows you not only to freeze but disable a track while you aren’t actively using it.

But I think it’s the compatibility and reliability work that may be most important. Cakewalk has been way out in front with support for the latest-and-greatest version of Windows. They managed to support Windows Vista when, frankly, no one else seemed to work out how to do it or even if it was a worthwhile use of time. They supported 64-bit computing before anyone else, opening up greater memory capacity to their users – and now make it easy, via a technology called BitBridge, to migrate all your 32-bit plug-ins to your 64-bit system. Now, Windows 7 is here and generally doesn’t suck, and SONAR is not only first, but has an exceptional level of support. 8.5.2 in my testing was rock solid.

SONAR in general is one of those hosts that I feel won’t blink when I toss a variety of plug-ins and audio interfaces at it. Running audio interfaces on Windows, in particular, tends not to be as easy as it is on the Mac because of Windows’ multiple audio systems. Yet SONAR can be run reliably, in my testing, under a variety of audio systems from WASAPI to ASIO, with a variety of hardware.

There are subtle but important plug-in improvements here, too, for VST lovers. You can turn on “always suspend on play” to fix plug-ins that have trouble with stuck notes when you stop the transport (been there), and “serialize host access” to fix problems with plug-ins crashing or glitching because of user interface thread sync problems. I’ve definitely seen both of these issues before, though I wasn’t able to locate a misbehaving plug-in to test it. But it shows a level of attention to detail that, on Windows at least, I believe is pretty unique.

It’s tough to talk about reliability. Anecdotally, I know some readers prefer older versions of SONAR to newer versions, and I can’t find a material reason why that might be. But I do say that SONAR is generally a trust I feel I can trust and use reliably, and that to me means a lot.

SONAR Wins Me Over

Is there a place for traditional DAWs in coming years? Small, agile competition is certainly turning up the heat. And SONAR retains the legacy of conventional DAWs. It has an interface that can sometimes be cluttered with options. It requires an investment of money and time. It runs only on Windows, and it certainly looks like a traditional Windows application. By virtue of doing everything, it’s almost guaranteed to do some things you really don’t need.

But for all the beauty of non-linear arrangements, of unusual interfaces and novel music making, sometimes you want to finish a track in the conventional sense. And sometimes that means dealing with an interface with a lot of tools in order to make complex arranging tasks easier.

As for justifying its cost, SONAR can pay you back with reliability, predictability, and an arsenal of effects tools that would be tough to match anywhere else. It provides this set of tools without sacrificing standards support, compatibility with a wide variety of audio and controller hardware, and strong support for the open SFZ sampling format. It is tied to Windows, but it provides an exception level of support for the operating system, not only doing things first, but doing them best.

At the end of the day, we do all of this for fun. SONAR provides, by removing some of the points of pain (driver support and arcane under-the-hood optimizations), while providing plenty of toys for us to relax with. And at some point, with the step sequencer ticking away and an especially-lovely effect licking your drum track, everything else will fade away.

When it comes to stacking up conventional DAWs, I think SONAR deserves mention at the top of the pile. Any of the mature DAWs will likely get the job done. But SONAR covers an extraordinary range of bases that makes it a top pick.

Production software coverage: Watch later this week for some tips on making SONAR 8.5 work as production tool, whether you’re a long-standing user or newcomer. Also, we’d like to continue to offer coverage of a range of production tools / DAWs. If there’s an angle you’d like to see covered, or you’d like to talk about how you use your own tool of choice, we’d love to hear from you. Ultimately, it’s not a matter of talking about the tool itself, isolated from anything else. It’s how we work with these tools in music that matters. -Ed.

The tricky thing about introducing a new feature is that you almost immediately hear from users about other features that would go well with that feature. (There’s a children’s story that goes this way.) The folks at Cakewalk have done what I think is a pretty amazing job of working through a big feature list, and throwing in additional goodies users get without even asking. They’ve also listened to users and been thorough in fixing issues – some quite particular – in 8.5. The result is that SONAR 8.5.2 brings a mature version of some significantly-changed features, and an unusually significant amount of stuff for a “point” release. If 8.5 was beginning to feel like 9.0, 8.5.2 definitely does.

Flash back for a moment to SONAR 8.5 and updates, which made enough of an impact among die-hard Cakewalk lovers that we started to see bizarre fan videos about it. As previewed back in September, 8.5′s banner features were a step sequencer, an arpeggiator, a Matrix View grid for triggering MIDI and audio clips (yes, reminiscent of a program that rhymes with Sable Bun Drive), a new sampled drum instrument, AudioSnap for tuning the timing of audio, and nice new effects strips.

Matrix View, an ambitious new feature, was admittedly not entirely baked when it shipped, and saw a set of performance and functionality fixes with 8.5.1. But with 8.5.2, nearly all of those banner features get improved, with additional bonuses, to boot. Some of my favorites:

• 70+ new impulses for the lovely Perfect Space convolution reverb
• Swing individual arpeggiators
• Combine Matrix View cells with probabilistic Step Sequencer patterns for some generative music-making
• Drag cells from Matrix View into Track View – a bit like going from Ableton Live’s Session View to Arrange View, but in a more conventional DAW workflow

The full list of enhancements, tweaks, and fixes is utterly enormous. Now, of course, it would have been nice to see 8.5 ship with some of these issues, but I will say Cakewalk has shown some attention to detail and gotten quite a lot right. I’m finishing up a review of 8.5x based on the 8.5.2 version now. So, as I polish that off – any remaining questions you’d like answered?

Rather than just review the tool, as well, I’ve been working in my own material and with the folks at Cakewalk to share some tips, so stay tuned.

SONAR 8.5.2 Update Changelog
SONAR 8.5.1 Matrix View Update
8.5.2 Update on the Cakewalk Blog

“Black Friday” has become a traditional date for talking discounts, but one price you can’t beat is free.

Cakewalk is giving away some of their older effects and synth plug-ins. These aren’t just hand-me-downs – Cakewalk forum members lamented that a couple of these didn’t receive greater development attention. They’re eminently usable on Windows systems now. Available free:

• SFZ+: The real highlight here, rgc:audio’s excellent SoundFont sampler player, with built-in effects, various performance options, and an all-in-one interface
• Square I: A very lovely analog subtractive synth
• Audio FX 1: Multi-effects including compressor/gate, limiter, expander/gate, dynamics 
• Audio FX 2: Guitar amp and tape simulation
• Audio FX 3: A unique reverb / room emulation plug-in that allows you to design your own soundstage

Audio FX 1-2 have been easily supplanted by newer options from Cakewalk, but Audio FX 3 is fun to play with. And Square I and SFZ+ are both good bread-and-butter additions to your plug-in library. Note that the FX plug-ins are all DirectX plug-ins, not VST, but the two synths will work as VSTs – meaning they can also work on Linux, making them a nice choice for your netbook.

Holiday discounts

Cakewalk is also discounting software in their Holiday Guide – and offering savings on new, music-optimized PCs. Native Instruments is running a $99 sale on their synths, which is repeated here, but Cakewalk has some deals, too:

• Rapture for $49 or $99: Easily on par with NI’s better instruments now on sale (like Massive), Rapture is a favorite electronic instrument, capable of some gorgeous sounds and with a friendly but deep envelope editing window. Current SONAR users get it for $49/€49/£34.50, and any registered Cakewalk customer for $99/€99/£82.50.
• Kinetic 2 for ten bucks: Kinetic is actually a fun but overlooked little drum machine packed with Roland groove box samples, VST and ReWire support, and simple sampling. At $10, this is a nice stocking stuffer for yourself.
• Beat Fetish for $20: Martin Atkins-produced beat soundware at a steep discount
• Elite Packs for SONAR: Bundles featuring notation, reverb, sound restoration, guitars, and piano are now discounted for SONAR 8.5 users to US$/EUR 79-199.
• And a new computer: Through Sunday, SONAR 8.5 users get a 20% coupon off of PCAudioLabs’ excellent, music production-optimized PCs. And yes, this sort of thing is a good thing to squeeze in before the end of the tax year as a writeoff, especially for freelancers and the self-employed.

For all the deals:

Cakewalk "Black Friday" Holiday Deals

By the way – for the record, “Black Friday” is not some sort of goth-tinged day in which retailers offer deals so cheap they horrify even themselves with bargains as black as the night. No, it’s a reference to the day on the retail calendar at which businesses traditionally broke even, with the holiday shopping season the time of year to actually turn a profit. So here’s to the move from red ink to black ink – something we’d all celebrate in this economy.

What happens when you mix technical chatter on the Cakewalk forum, Samuel Beckett, and The Matrix? I’d wager you get something like the surreal video above. Prompted by the posting of technical details for a new update to Cakewalk’s SONAR production software for Windows, and empowered by a strange, new tool that generates eerie virtual reality from typed text, we get banter like this:

The arpeggiator is now on every track, so you are supposed to use it. It is one of the new rules of recording.

Yes, I came from the days of one-finger piano playing. This is a total blessing to me.

I’m going to take that as a challenge and base my review of SONAR 8.5 on using an arpeggiator and step sequencer on every track. And I’ll have to pronounce all those hard g’s in the voice over, clearly.

And no, this is not some twisted viral campaign on the part of the folks of Cakewalk; I’ve been assured that this came from a user.

Okay, what was this post originally about? Oh, yeah – the actual technical details of the SONAR 8.5 release. Noel Borthwick talks about all the details of the new SONAR release on the Cakewalk forums. Apparently, some people care deeply about whether this is SONAR 9 or 8.5 or some conspiracy theory there, but what interests me is the technical details of the software itself.

SONAR 8.5 Fine Print

Noel goes down to a code level. Interesting tidbits: working with Intel, Cakewalk was able to do a demo of SONAR running an absurd number of tracks, instruments, effects, and live video without pegging the CPU, with a tiny 2 ms of latency. The Cakewalk engineering effort also has put together what may be the most highly-optimized VST support and richest 32-to-64-bit bridging on any platform, anywhere.

Whatever the opposite of “marketing speak” may be, I think that’s what Noel has achieved, getting into a sort of developer-to-developer level discussion. It is still readable, and worth digging through.

See also: Intel Developer Forum details and video on the Cakewalk blog

I could talk more about that, but let’s just leave it at step sequencers and arpeggiators on every track, okay?

Windows matters. It’s what roughly half of CDM readers use, and – for all the attention Apple gets – it’s a big part of the computer music world. Windows today also faces many of the same under-the-hood challenges that other operating systems do, so even if you’re a die-hard Linux or Mac user, you may want to pay attention.  You don’t need to love Windows, and you certainly won’t be hosting a Windows 7 launch party. You want to know if the OS will get out of your way and let you get to work.

Windows Vista proved what happens when an operating system’s many interconnected pieces are out of alignment. Even a graphics driver out of sync with underlying changes in the OS could render audio unusable, because just one missed sample can produce an audible glitch or dropout. Part of why I’m optimistic about Windows 7 is that Vista today is a radically different picture, thanks to many, many fixes delivered by Microsoft in updates and more mature audio and video drivers. But that means not just whether 7 is better than XP, but whether 7 is also better than Vista.

Vista wasn’t entirely alone: Mac and Linux have all had their share of growing pains in recent years. The devil is usually in the details. So, I again turn to one of the best guys in the business for sorting out all those technical details. Noel Borthwick, the CTO for Cakewalk, probably has a better big-picture view of how music and audio work in Windows than anyone on the planet. He’s a person hardware and software vendors outside Cakewalk often rely upon as a resource. Noel kept us technically honest on Vista, and he’s doing it again on Windows 7, with some exclusive information for CDM.

Those details get mighty technical, so here’s the punchline: Windows 7 is an OS Noel would use himself. It was hard to get anyone to recommend Vista over XP; loyal Windows-using developers I know still largely stick to XP. But would Noel switch from XP to 7?

Yes, absolutely. Windows 7 finally delivers on the stability and performance that users hoped for from Vista. The kernel changes and optimizations for large scale multi-core processors make it very attractive to DAW users who are interested in better low latency performance. I will be building a new DAW soon and Windows 7 X64 will be my OS of choice.

What’s new in Windows 7?

• Better multithreading: Improved performance of highly-multithreaded software and hardware by removing a significant bottleneck, especially relevant to a tool like SONAR
• Better memory management: Improved memory management when working with multiple threads
• Less nagging: More customization over UAC prompts (meaning they don’t have to nag you more than you want)
• More lightweight: Fewer system services run by default on a stock system, plus a leaner footprint of the OS
• Media support: More native media format support, including QuickTime MOV and H.264, plus drag-and-drop media transcoding
• Composite devices: More logical display of hardware with multiple functions (like audio and MIDI).
• FireWire: Enhanced FireWire support, with IEEE 1394b
• Multi-touch: Multi-touch display support
• Usability improvements: An improved user interface, task bar, and Libraries for managing files

If you’re ready for all the gory details, read on – including a frank appraisal of how all of this compares to XP in real-world performance, and what compatibility issues to look out for if upgrading from either Vista or XP.

Noel Borthwick of Cakewalk effectively wrote this story in response to my questions, so these answers all come from him. Microsoft has not responded to my requests for a review copy, so I’ll be able to evaluate this on my own system – albeit far less scientifically than Noel can – closer to launch.

WARNING: Extremely geeky details of the inner workings of Windows 7 follow, in keeping with our “never dumbed down” policy. If you’re a developer, you can likely get some leads on how to better support Windows 7 in a single point, something even Microsoft doesn’t provide as completely. But if you’re willing to dig, you get a rare view of the OS from a developer view – no marketing speak, no cheerleading, no fanboyism, no platform wars, no writing for the lowest common denominator.

What Actually Improves Audio Performance

Peter: In terms of performance for audio production, what are the significant differences in Windows 7?

Noel: Windows 7 on the surface is very similar to Windows Vista. It has the same audio driver support and same audio system infrastructure as Vista. However, it’s some of the under-the-hood improvements that are more significant for audio production. There are some interesting innovations and optimizations in the Windows kernel, making the OS more scalable for concurrent processing. This makes it attractive for highly multithreaded applications like SONAR. Additionally there are various new API’s/SDK’s that may be of significance to developers. Some highlights are below:

Multi-threading: Removal of the kernel “global dispatcher lock”

In Vista and earlier, on a highly multi-threaded system (e.g. SONAR running on an 8 core hyper-threaded Intel Core I7 PC), you have many threads all processing tiny audio buffers at low latency. All these threads are ultimately waiting on the dispatcher lock when it comes time for them to be managed by the Windows scheduler. This global lock becomes a bottleneck in the system and prevents efficient multi-core workload distribution and scalability. This problem gets magnified as you increase the number of cores since they are all gated by a common lock. In Win 7 the kernel team changed the logic in the Windows scheduler to abolish this global dispatcher lock and use per object locks. This effectively removes this age old bottleneck and allows Win 7 to scale better even under workloads of 256 processors.

This change means a lot to applications like SONAR that rely on multithreaded processing of very small workloads. Initial benchmark results have been promising in this regard. SONAR performs more efficiently at low latency on multi core machines.

Improved Memory Management – PFN database lock

The PFN (page frame number) database lock was used by the memory manager to lock pages of memory in the working set. Like the dispatcher lock above, this would gate memory access from different threads causing resource contention. Work in this was first done in Windows server 2003 SP1 and Windows 7 has now has this optimization as well, improving asynchronous access to memory.

Power Optimization: Core Parking

Windows 7 has a new feature called Core Parking. Core Parking is a power saving optimization that shifts processing load to one or more cores and puts other less busy cores to “sleep”. The objective is to let other cores idle if workload levels allow for it. This optimization had us scratching our heads when we ran a benchmark test on a Quad Core I7 machine. At any point in time, we would notice that some cores were idle in task manager. The reason for this turned out to be Core Parking. Core parking can be useful to save battery life while running projects on laptops.

Better WaveRT Performance

Unlike Windows Vista, Win7 now uses event mode internally. This is good news, since it will help guarantee that HDAudio drivers in Win7 support WaveRT event mode properly. Additionally event mode is now part of WHQL logo certification for driver vendors, so any WAVERT device must support this to get a Win7 compatibility logo.

Ed. note: The plain-English translation here is that WaveRT, Microsoft’s own real-time audio driver facility, now is more likely to work the way you expect. Cockos, makers of REAPER, actually provided the ability to turn off WaveRT Event Mode at the end of last year because of unpredictable results. Windows 7 should resolve these issues.

Other Improvements

Peter: Noel also assembled some other improvements worth noting in Windows 7. They’re subtle, but useful: you may finally be able to avoid installing QuickTime/iTunes just to play some video files, interfaces with audio and MIDI jacks don’t have to show up separately any more, there’s improved FireWire support, usability improvements, and multi-touch on mainstream computers is now nearly here.

Noel:

Additional File Format support

Windows 7 adds native playback support for media in MP4, MOV, 3GP, AVCHD, ADTS, M4A, and WTV multimedia containers. It has native codec’s for H.264, MPEG4-SP, ASP/DivX/Xvid, MJPEG, DV, AAC-LC, LPCM and AAC-HE

Yes you read that right – QuickTime MOV file support is now natively available in Windows 7 so you don’t need to install QuickTime. Another big plus is that this is supported under the X64 version of Windows 7 as well, something you cannot do with Apple’s native QuickTime itself!

All media files using these codec’s should play in Media Player. It appears that these new codec’s are exclusively available to Media Foundation applications and not via other legacy API’s such as DirectShow etc.

File format transcoding

File format transcoding of many popular formats is now built into the Windows 7 shell. I.e. dragging and dropping files onto a device automatically performs the necessary format transcoding if the format is supported. This was primarily done to copy formats to portable devices like cameras but should be useful in other scenarios as well.

Multi-function devices and Device Containers:

Prior to Windows 7, every device attached to the system was treated as a single functional “end-point”. While appropriate for single-function devices (such as an audio interface), this does elegantly represent multi-function devices such as a combination audio/MIDI interface. In Windows 7, the drivers and status information for multi-function device can be grouped together as a single "Device Container", which is then presented to the user in the new "Devices and Printers" Control Panel as a single unit.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/Device/DeviceExperience/ContainerIDs.mspx

Note: this should not be confused with device aggregation as is available with Core Audio on Mac OS. On the Mac, you can treat multiple audio interfaces as though they’re one interface, so, for instance, you could get extra outputs by combining a couple of audio interfaces, and your software will see them as if they’re just one box. But SONAR provides this capability on its own, so if you’re a SONAR user, you can get the same functionality.

FireWire/USB

Windows 7 contains a new FireWire (IEEE 1394) stack that fully supports IEEE 1394b with S800, S1600 and S3200 data rates. According to reports, USB 3.0 may be supported in a future Windows Update. It was initially planned for Win7 but is not supported in the shipping version of Win7 due to delays in the USB 3 specification.

Multi-touch

Windows 7 includes integrated support for multi-touch displays.

Libraries

Libraries are user-defined collections of content including folders. It’s a handy way to categorize and create shortcuts to samples, music, etc. Special shell folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, and so on) are now Libraries.

Accelerators for Windows

Windows 7 Accelerators provide a way for learning more about selected text, optionally using voice control.

Virtual hard disks

The Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 incorporate support for the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file format. VHD files can be mounted as drives, created, and booted from.
An installation of Windows 7 can be booted and run from a VHD drive, even on non-virtual hardware, thereby providing a new way to multi boot Windows.

Leaner Footprint

Win7 has a leaner footprint and has been tweaked to work well on less powerful PC’s, laptops and Netbooks. I have heard reports of Win7 working more smoothly on machines that would be slow under Vista.

Listen Mode

Another nice touch in Win 7 is that they now have a listen tab in the audio properties. Turning on "listen mode" basically routes input to the default output device allowing you to monitor an input device in Windows itself. Sadly this runs via the Windows audio engine which is always running in WASAPI shared mode, so it’s subject to a 30 msec delay. Of course you can always load an application like SONAR and route the audio inputs to an output for low latency monitoring.

Compatibility: What to Watch

Upgrading from Vista

Peter: Relative to Vista, are there any changes that are likely to introduce new compatibility issues with hardware or software?

Noel: With any new OS there is always the potential for compatibility issues. Win7 is built on the Vista foundation and one of its goals was better compatibility. As such most applications that are Vista compliant should work as well or better in Windows 7. UAC in Windows 7 has been improved so this might also help with general compatibility problems with some applications.

We have run into only a couple of compatibility issues in Win7 during the course of our development/testing of SONAR 8.5.

The MMIO API in Win7 (typically used for writing RIFF wave files) has a compatibility issue with the mmioDescend API with LIST ‘WAVE’ chunks. This caused our code that reads audio bundle files to fail and read scrambled audio data. We worked around this problem in 8.5

In WASAPI exclusive mode under Win7, the minimum latency you can achieve is now unfortunately 3ms and the code reports an error if lower. The fact that Vista has no such limitation has been reported to Microsoft. Hopefully its a mistaken fence in their code and this issue is fixed via an update, since it’s a step backwards for low latency in WASAPI mode.

Ed.: That last issue is an interesting one for anyone really pushing the envelope with low latency, so I’ll keep in touch with Noel if there’s any update.

Upgrading from XP

Peter: What hardware and software compatibility issues should users be aware of if they’re thinking of migrating not from Vista but from XP to Windows 7?

Noel: The compatibility issues that typically affect users migrating from XP to Vista/Win7 are:

UAC problems: Many applications and plug-ins are not built to handle the newer security settings in these OS’s. For example, if an application relies on something that requires administrative access it will fail when running as a limited user in Win7. This is a serious issue since in Vista/Win7 even if you are running from an administrator account; programs are launched by default with limited user privileges. Unlike XP, you have to explicitly run as an administrator to use such programs. To be Win7 logo-compatible, all applications need to should support running as a limited user.

Drivers: Although for most practical purposes audio drivers in XP and Windows 7/Vista are similar (you still need to write WDM drivers) there are sometimes quirks in specific drivers may cause problems. Most typical driver issues here are caused by installers that make assumptions about the OS version. In many cases this issue can be solved by the end user by setting the “compatibility mode” to Vista in the file properties for the appropriate driver installer file. (Right click the setup exe file to set its properties)

Ed.: I don’t feel either of these is a deal-killer, as I’ve been living with Vista for some time, but they’re still worth watching out for if upgrading from XP. And it means if you have an older machine that’s still working properly, you’re just likely to leave it on XP and worry about sorting the upgrade on a new box.

Less Nagging?

Peter: We talked when Vista came out about User Account Control and particularly audio-specific tasks that required elevation or different handling of permissions in Vista. I know UAC has been streamlined in W7. Do these changes impact audio apps at all? Are there corresponding under-the-hood changes?

Noel: The UAC changes in Win7 are primarily to allow more customization over the UAC elevation prompting process. There are no changes to the fundamentals of how UAC itself works that I am aware of. The classic problem with audio applications with UAC is when programs or plug-ins write to areas of the registry or file system prohibited from standard user access. Even when you are running as an administrator, by default when you launch a program (or the program itself launches a secondary process) Windows 7 will run that process with standard user privileges. If a program or plug-in attempts to write to an area which it doesn’t have write privileges for, virtualization will kick in. While this may allow the program to work, in general it is bad practice to rely on virtualization, since it can cause many unwanted side effects and behaviors in applications.

There are now four customization settings for UAC:

1. Never notify (least secure). The user is not notified when a program tries to install software or make changes to the computer. The user is not notified when they make changes to Windows settings or when programs try to do so.

2. Only notify me when programs try to make changes to my computer. The user is not notified when a program tries to install software or make changes to the computer. The user is not notified when they make changes to Windows settings. However, the user is notified when programs try to make changes to the computer, including Windows settings.

3. Always notify me. The user is notified when a program tries to install software or make changes to the computer. The user is also notified when they make changes to Windows settings or when programs try to do so.

4. Always notify me and wait for my response (most secure). The user is notified when a program tries to install software or make changes to the computer. The user is also notified when they make changes to Windows settings or when programs try to do so.

Customization and Tuning Advice

Peter: How much customization would you advise people do to their OS? That is, you’ve just installed a build of Windows 7 for working with SONAR on a test machine. Do you run the stock configuration, or start turning off services, disabling disk indexing, etc.?

Noel: Optimization and customization is a topic that can’t be fully discussed in the scope of a brief article. In general you need to optimize a system when you have known bottlenecks. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time tweaking things that have little effect on the end goal. In fact, you may even end up destabilizing a perfectly working system. A stock Win7 machine is not optimized for audio necessarily but it appears MS put some thought into trimming out unwanted startup tasks to cut down on startup time. For example there are now “Triggered start services” in Windows 7, so out of the box you can have fewer services running after a fresh boot. There are probably many background services in a modern DAW that could be suspended if you don’t need them but they should be evaluated on a case by case basis depending on what you use the machine for.

Peter: A lot of users were advising running Vista with Aero off, certainly in the early days. Do you think it’s now advisable to leave Desktop Window Compositing switched on for audio work? (Note: I am aware that there’s actually no way to *completely* disable the Aero windowing environment in a way that it reverts to XP, as even in Class mode with no compositing settings the engine has been altered.)

Generally speaking, turning off Aero will free up some resources on your system, since it uses more costly 3D graphics rendering and transparency a lot. However on any modern graphics card, Aero offloads a lot to the GPU so unless your DAW is also competing for the same GPU resources, turning it off may or may not make an appreciable difference to performance. Most applications that are not graphics intensive use GDI for rendering to the screen and since GDI doesn’t take advantage of DirectX hardware acceleration it’s normally not contesting with the GPU. If you are using plug-ins that use Direct 2D or Direct3D, you are probably better off disabling Aero.

Launch Party, After All?

Thanks, Noel. So, the big news behind all of this is that a move from XP to Windows 7 is finally advisable.

I would still caution, as I did recently with Mac OS Snow Leopard, that you typically don’t want to upgrade to a new OS the day it launches. You’ll want to verify compatibility with your software and hardware before making the jump.

That said, this is an unusual upgrade in that it appears to resolve more issues than it introduces. I actually haven’t been able to find a single user out there testing Windows 7 who has found any issues with audio or music production. Of course, when it launches, we’ll have a much larger test base, so I expect we’ll find something – even Windows Service Packs and point releases of Mac OS have been known to create some issues. As we get closer to launch, I’ll review how you would backup your existing XP or Vista system to ensure that if you do choose to upgrade, you can revert to a previous version.

I am, however, cautiously optimistic. And now is an especially good time to make the jump to 64-bit. It’s easier on Windows than any other OS at the moment, and easiest in SONAR, because SONAR allows you to easily migrate 32-bit plug-ins into the 64-bit environment. You’ll need a 64-bit machine and enough memory to make 64-bit worthwhile, but if you’re building a new workstation, as Noel is, the timing could be perfect.

I also think there’s plenty of room left to talk about issues that go between operating systems, particularly how audio software can better support multi-threading and processing on the GPU, multi-touch, as well as emerging I/O standards like USB3. (OpenCL, much-touted in Snow Leopard, is also supported on Linux and Windows, and Linux actually beat both Mac OS and Windows to the punch in providing a first implementation of USB3.) Correction: I should also add that the excellent Reaper has also added this feature. With full 64-bit support in Cakewalk’s own Dimension and other instruments, NI’s Kontakt sampler, and the bundled 64-bit-native plug-ins in Reaper and SONAR, that means you can build a really capable 64-bit rig on Windows.

With fixes getting the OS out of your way, we can return to issues that really matter, many of which apply to every OS.

Music is, as always, the perfect place to talk about these issues. We push our machines harder than just about anyone, and in ways that are the least tolerant of timing discrepencies and glitches. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you want to look into the future of computing, ask a musician.

And that calls for a party.

Previous coverage:

SONAR 8.5 and how it can smooth the transition to 64-bit (8.5 is the build that includes Windows 7-specific improvements)

Vista Tweak: Use the Audio Profile Cakewalk’s CTO Uses

Optimizing for Vista: Inside the Mechanics of SONAR 8 with Cakewalk Engineering

Adieu, XP; How Vista SP1 is Doing, and Why This OS Generation Has Been So Tough

Vista for Audio, 1 Year Later: Talking OS Plumbing with Cakewalk’s CTO

Vista for Music + Pro Audio: Exclusive Under the Hood with Cakewalk’s CTO

And yes, I think Noel deserves an Honorary Contributing Editor position for all he’s done giving us absurdly-precise inside details for how Windows works.

Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation.