Sequencer of Choice ... and Why ?

[Shane D.]

Hey guys and gals ;-)
Just curious as to what most of you are using to sequence your productions.

I'm using Sonar 7. Been a fan since the early Cakewalk days, so making this transition was easy for me. I like the simple layout and ease of use that it offers. Also, being more of a Hardware Synth man myself, I found intergrating my MIDI gear into it extremely simple.

So, what are you folks using, and why ?

Look forward to your replies. :-)

[Danny Lewis]

Hello Shane, seeing as I have a few spare minutes i'll give you some of my feelings.

I use a bunch of platforms, mainly as i get bored quickly and need a fresh environment sometimes to stimulate me. My core platform is Cubase 4 and i've supported that platform since Cubase 3 on the Atari, i'm currently running it on Desktop PC and Macbook Pro. The latest version is the best for me so far and i find it incredibly fast for laying down ideas. Its strengths are lightning fast and flexible audio editing and Halion One - the VST Instrument that has a Yamaha Motif soundset.

I also love working with Logic 8 - in its current incarnation is very fast to work with and has the strongest collection of instruments and effects. I find the audio side clumsy though compared to Cubase. If you want to make an edit to audio you need to copy the file first as all edits in the Sample Editor are destructive.. this is tedious and is not an issue in Cubase.

Reason is fantastic for Club Music and also Hip Hop flavours.. i love the hardware based look and feel and have come up with many initial ideas very quickly.

I've never used Sonar, it doesn't seem to be so popular platform here in the UK - i know it's popular in the states and some other territories.

I sold all my hardware so i'm 100% In the Box now .. no turning back for me although i miss the hands on control.

[Eugene]

Hi Danny; regarding the above how do you find the stability in comparison between the two (cubase 4 and logic 8) many people are quick to jump on board with Logic being the main mac program; crashes wise is there a big difference?

I just moved from a PC with Cubase 4 to Mac with Logic 8, the main reason being stability, I sold my copy of Cubase 4 (doh) as I started using Logic and got on well with its ease of editing midi for example.. a month down the line I couldn't agree more about the audio, Cubase 4 is very quick for editing audio particularly with its warp tabs and stretch function, the midi not as quick maybe but Cubase 4 is sorely missed.

Im using an imac with Logic 8, yamaha an1x, adam a7's and soundraft desk.

Eugene

[Danny Lewis]

Yeh, well the points you talk about are the very reasons I enjoy having both platforms available. To be honest the perfect platform would be a combination of both - the midi programming, audio editing and non destructive processing of Cubase 4 combined with the Mixing, Routing, Effects and Instruments of Logic 8.

With regards to stability i've only ever had one crash with Logic 8 but several more with Cubase 4. For me, Cubase has definately crashed more.

[Eugene]

that was the impression I got as well, Cu 4 crashed nearly every 2 or 3 days for me on PC possibly because I didnt maintain it enough, then the move to mac and now im thinking mac and Cu4, fingers crossed it wont be as bad..shame its not like the old atari days cubase 2 never crashed for me.. rocksolid!!

Danny you mentioned that you were using a mac and pc have you managed to network the two?

Shane sorry to hi jack your post mate..no more questions I promise ;0)

[Danny Lewis]

No.. not networked them yet but plan to some time in the future for sure. need to research how first though!

[ZWEIKLANG]

Hi Shane, I also use Sonar 7 Producer with Hardware MIDI Gear. For me its the perfect sequencer. Easy to use, fast and it gives me a lot of options to adapt it to my working style.

My brother prefers Pro Tools, because he needs all the RTAS plug-ins for his drum programming.

Cheers from Germany, C

[Shane D.]

Hey Zweiklang ;-)
Glad someone else is feeling Sonar man. I was beginning to feel a bit isolated here with everyone on Cubase and Logic ... LOL !

Danny & Eugene, WRT networking the Mac, check these links for some useful info :

http://www.homepcnetwork.com/pcmacovrf.htm

http://www.mac-connect.com/

Hope that helps a bit ;-)

[Eugene]

Cheers for hunting that out Shane will do

[Danny Lewis]

Thanks Shane.. will be looking into this. Gotta do my leopard install first! Think i need to allocate some serious time to sort that.

[Nade Soul]

Hey Peeps,

Just thought I would add to this.

I bought Logic 8 this year and never really sat down with it until 2-3 weeks ago and I really like working with it. However I would like a warp feature that is simliar to the one in Abelton and I am not 100% keen on the sampler so will use Kontact as my main one but apart from that for the price you cannot fault it.

The only down fall is that I am running it on g4 Powerbook 1.5ghz with 512k :-)
I can manage to run about 6/7 instruments with effects on each channel and about 6 audio tracks! But the thing is screaming to a standstill:-)

John.

PS is there a way to use vsts in Logic?