Hello everyone,
I am a new Cubase user from France.
I haven’t already read all these pages about migrating from SONAR to Cubase, but I will try to. Thanks Cubase for the generous crossgrade offer and the help.
If you are a MIDI user, I can tell you that I don’t see any program that could be better than Cubase. I do like SONAR Platinum very much, I remember the wonderful first year of updates, but within the last year, the software wasn’t really improved anymore, especially about MIDI. The best example is the awesome Cubase chord functions, that we asked Cakewalk to implement and it was never done.
I have been working with Cubase Pro 9.5 (not the latest update) for more than 1 month. I created one of my best tracks very easily. The incorporated VST synths are awesome. There are 12 VST synth playing along with a few audio tracks. No stuttering, very stable (one crash upon saving but there is a strong autobackup function). Since Windows 10, I had BIG stability problems with SONAR and people said that my Roland interface wasn’t good anymore. Now I can tell you that it works well with Cubase, with unnoticeable latency and very stable. I think that there were problems between Cakewalk and Roland, hence no optimization efforts…
I’m not saying Cubase is perfect, but certainly it’s very close to this. Some little things like ARA or 32 bit VST support aren’t there, but there are so many things to discover too.
That said, it’s very difficult to understand some differences of concepts and vocabulary. I will now read the manuals (something like 2000 pages) to have a more precise experience and improve my skills. I must admit I have not much tried audio recording, I have focused on VST MIDI, where Cubase is outstanding.
SONAR community is excellent. I hope to find here as many kind and helpful people as in the SONAR forum.
As a conclusion, if you’re a MIDI hero, buy Cubase… If you’re more into audio, I also think it’s the best tool now available but I have to test it a little bit more.
Thank you Steinberg!