The best time to convert your digital audio workstation software is when you are on a tight time line, right?
Tuesday night I was pretty flushed with getting the guys tracks down for our release of Blue Christmas so I did the unthinkable – upgraded Sonar 8.5.3 DAW software to the new Sonar X1.
Update – Sonar X1b now ready for prime time
If anything could sabotage the project, new recording software is about best way to go about it. From my point of view, what could be worse than the trouble I went through trying to get a backing track last week?
What could be worse was two days of misery trying to get the new software working. But I did it and that suffering is behind me. Sonar X1 is a champ.
Unstable DAWs
Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s Sonar but it that always been a flaky tool. Recording audio is like supporting an inverted pyramid of sound drivers and audio files being processed through the bottle neck called a CPU – central processing unit. People using other programs will tell you their software is better than Sonar. I don’t believe it: the internet is full of support forums with cries of despair.
I started with Sonar release 6 on a laptop which would crash every time I twitched. However laptops are quiet and you can use them in a studio while recording.
After that I tried the first i7 computer that hit Future Shop. It was a snow blower in summer – loud and useless. Next Sweetwater sent me a certified “silent” computer that my Rode NT2 microphone could pic up in the mix. Cost, $200 of shipping back to the US and exchange.
Undaunted, I studied all about zero noise computers and built one around an ASUS mobo and Intel i7 860. It’s the quietest computer I can build and you can’t hear it in the recordings. Some days I get down on my stomach and listen. It has a low whoosh.
Sonar didn’t respond with thanks to the new powerhouse. It kept being flaky. One day the sound worked, next day the midi ports weren’t seen. Starting a recording session has been a series of frustrations.
I usually have 2 good hours of work time before post polio takes over and I’m too tired to work. Thanks to Sonar, most of my time has been spent debugging the setup, despite the fact the computer is never moved and the connections never unplugged.
Crash and burn on the tracks
Lynx Aurora AES16 mixer, so many choices of where to route sound
I started downloading Sonar X1 at 1 AM on Wednesday morning. Until Friday at 6 AM my recording studio was crash and burn on the recording tracks.
The first download failed. Then it failed to install. Download again during breakfast, install after showering and try to get it running before lunch.
Sonar X1 seemed great at first. I made a copy of Blue Christmas then poof- all the sound disappeared. The smile was off my face by 11 AM.
Looking down at the Aurora AD/DA converter the lights were flashing 192 kHz when the song was converted 96 kHz. Nothing would make the light move move. Turn off, on, re-boot, forced clock reset – nada.
The Aurora is a pretty cool AD/DA converter with 16 channels in and out of the computer with a Lynx AES16 card. It does that at 192 kHz with -118 dB noise floor which about as good as it gets, without selling the house. The Lynx on-screen mixer can route anything to anywhere.
Playing a 96kHz recording at 192 kHz will speed it up like the Chipmunks.
At 2 pm, I did the usual and went down for a nap. One hour later, I was on the phone to Lynx Studios in California and talking to Paul Erlandson. Paul took over my computer remotely and about an hour later he had fixed the problem which was mostly Windows 7 and the need to re-set the Aurora after pushing all those buttons. Awesome service.
Mackie Control Universal Pro don’t fail me now
Mackie MCU Pro and CS4 - faders and plugin control
I use a Mackie MCU Pro for a recording control surface. Without a control surface you can only work on one track or channel at a time. Blue Christmas has 41 tracks tonight. The MCU Pro has 8 tracks plus master and you can quickly change banks 8 at a time. Most people start with 8 tracks and add Extenders to 32 tracks. Feels like a real studio sitting there with your eyes closed moving the track faders up and down by sound and feel.
Thursday morning everything was working great.
I also have a Presonus Faderport which is a one channel control surface that is beside my guitar workstation. It’s real handy to queue up songs and start recording without sitting at the computer or MCU.
Since I had to record my guitar and vocal part again, I hooked up the Faderport. First the Faderport wouldn’t work, then the MCU Pro stopped working. Nothing I could think of made them start up.
My plea for help hit the Cakewalk Forum without a ripple.
“X1 worked great with MCUPRO and CS4 until I installed my Faderport. Now it hangs. MCU Pro just says “Connecting” I’ve unchecked the Faderport but the MCU doesn’t sync. Any ideas please”
When no one replied I jumped into another discussion over an different control surface, trying to help. Helping the other guy got my brain working. At 6 AM the next day I blew away the “ini” files from Sonar X1. It was fish or cut bait time.
Eureka – at 7:31 AM Friday I posted “uninstall the control surfaces, quit and re-install – working for at least 10 minutes!”
Two hours later I was ecstatic that the MCU was working with Sonar X1. Sonar X1 was better again, posting “Especially like the orange color mapping MCU to screen.”
Sonar X1 was live, my studio was back up, slicker than before and recording could resume. I’d won!
The Faderport won’t be used until Presonus can help me.
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