New Guy here: What will I gain/miss switching from Sonar 8.31?

Money's tight so why/why not spend the money to upgrade Sonar to 8.5 ($100) and buy a license for Reaper? Please let the responders have direct experience with both DAWs TIA! Kevinlane

I've gone the same way you're thinking of going: Sonar 8.3.1 to Reaper... I never got Sonar running smoothly on my Vista 64 and refused to pay for a point update that should be free. What I miss: some of the plugins that came with Sonar (But most of my plugins are independant, so no great deal) What I don't miss: Stuttering engine, bad compability with my plugins, no mp3, the direction the forum was taking (third Reich anyone?) I had been using Logic 5.5 (Last PC version) before changing to Reaper, I find Reaper very easy to use, I've NEVER EVER had a crash (fingers crossed)

I've used Sonar all the way from 3 to 8. Even upgraded to 8.5. I keep trying to go back to it, if only to justify all the yearly cash I've paid for it. But every time I open it I feel lost since I started using REAPER. I get way more done with REAPER, and it runs way stabler on my system.

Honestly, Studio I work in used Sonar. My boss was big into Sonar , until I started using Reaper and editing speed is increased by 50%, and he quickly realised how pale Sonar is in comparison to Reaper. Here's some of the main features that I hated about Sonar ... and Reaper has it. For a fraction of the price. 1. Tab to transient (with custom sensitivity threshold control!) 2. Multiple video import 3. Free upgrades till 4.99 4. Ripple edit , and Group edit mode. (after this you will never want Sonar) 5. Fully customizable theme (you can change EVERYTHING. Seriously) 6. Customizable shortcut macros (meaning you can create a shortcut of combined commands such as (move-to-next-bar/paste/quantize) 7. You can ditch Cakewalk's vst manager which takes longer to load than recording the birth of a calf. 8. You have shortcut functions such as move edit cursor by grid size 9. You can search/filter shortcut functions, without having to spend 5 minutes just to look for a specific function, which in the end turn out that Sonar doesn't even have. 10. You can use mouse scroll to zoom horizontally, vertically, both ways, whichever you prefer. Give me a shout out if you need more reasons to ditch Sonar. I'm very willing to entertain.

oh, and downloading, installing AND starting Reaper takes about as much time as starting Sonar ;)

you will miss the sonar forum. i miss going there because it gave me an opportunity to experience hell on earth with the option to leave at any time. It was either go there or a Black Eyed Peas concert. I think I chose wisely.

kevin ... I should just ad a couple of points, they've been mentioned before but worth reiterating: 1. Sonar and REAPER have some things in common, but many things work differently. There IS a learning curve, but there many people here who will be happy to help you if you run into any problems. 2. Try before you by. You can d/load for evaluation the real deal with REAPER - fully functional, not crippled or restricted at all. There is a 30 day evaluation period. Good luck!

To be honest, I miss some things: - V-Vocal - Vintage Channel 64 (only works in SONAR) - Native realtime/groove quantize - Track non destructive time shift - Track archiving - Audiosnap Apart from this, I feel completely satisfied with REAPER, and I work much faster and reliably. - Mario

Also get the SWS extension and finger's groove extension from around here on the forum. They add crap loads!! :) also mabian what's "Track non destructive time shift"? I'm intrigued, I tried out and got into most of sonar but not sure what that is and if it's something we don't have?

Doesn't mabian think of slip editing, which is what you get when you press Alt and drag your audio item? Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass :P