Hi Stuart Welcome along.
firstly, I don't mean to dampen your spirits, but if you hope to set up a studio in 6 months, you'll be learning which ever daw you choose constantly between then and now, and for long after that. Perhaps outline some of your objectives and your background? Are you hoping to make this studio a business or an expensive hobby? As Chris said, ProTools has been the industry standard, though that playing field has leveled just a little in recent years. I would have to disagree with chris on his point that ProTools sounds much better than sonar. I've worked in both, and both are perfectly capable of producing highly professional results. Depending on what you want, ProTools has some benafits that Sonar doesn't necessarily have, and the opposite is also true. ProTools is excellently equipped with short cuts and functions for audio editing that most would agree beat Sonar's equivalents in terms of work fflow, but there's no reason why the same standard of audio editing can't be achieved on sonar in my opinion. Sonar has access to a number of functions that ProTools users using the apple Voice Over screenreader do not, such as accessing the midi event list. However there are some highly tallented blind engineers who don't seem to be held back too much by this. In terms of cost, ProTools must be ran on a new apple computer, which will cost quite a bit, but will work very well for you out of the box. For Sonar, it would be advised to buy a PC from a specialist DAW builder as most machines for home or office use won't take the day to day pressures of serious music production. A purpose built DAW machine will still probably come in under the cost of investing in a mac of equivalent power, but you will have to invest in a Screenreader for windows, like jaws, which I'm sure your familiar with. Others use windows eyes with sonar, but I would advise jaws. Then, jaws requires special scripts to gain access to many of sonar's functions. J Sonar is a free set of scripts and CakeTalking are scripts that cost $200 or so the last time I checked. Though they might seem costly, CakeTalking scripts come with extensive tutorials that will get you quickly up to speed with using sonar and with the basics of audio editing, mixing and production in general. So depending on where you're at, that can quickly reduce the learning curve, though it will still be significant. On the other hand, ProTools has no specific tutorials aimed at blind users using Voice Over, and beyond an audio tutorial done by Kevin Reves and the great advice and discussion on the PTaccess mailing list, you will have to rely on the huge expanse of PDF that is the protools reference guide, which unfortunately as is the norm is aimed at sighted users, but still can teach a blind user a lot about ProTools. After all this, you will still need to think about investing in an audio interface and other equipment to get soundin and out of that computer! Personally, I'm completely on the fence about which daw is better, and I use sonar at the moment because access to ProTools was difficult when I bean working with audio, and I hadn't much guidance. So I stick with sonar because I am fluid working on it and can get professional results. I know that any limitations I may have at the moment are not the fault of using sonar rather than ProTools. In the next few years I may well move to ProTools full time, or another DAW if more become usable but again the learning curve is significant, but I say that from t he point of view of someone who is working in the studio all day, so there is little room for major adjustments and I have plenty to contend with at the moment. Hope that helps, Brian. From: stuart young Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 12:51 PM To: '[email protected]' Subject: Pro tools or Sonar? Hi all. I am going to be setting up a small recording studio with in the next 6 months or so and I am currently doing some research in to which digital audio work station to use. I have decided to use either Pro tools, or Sonar, but I thought that I would first ask on this list if anyone has had experience in using either product, and what were there thoughts on using each one. Many thanks for your help on this, regards. Stuart Young Learning Support Unit The West of England School and College Countess Wear Exeter Devon EX2 6HA Tel: 01392 454223 Website: http://www.westengland.ac.uk/ Email: [email protected] Charity Number: 1058937 The information in this email and any files transmitted with it may be of a confidential nature and are intended solely for the addressees. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the email and then delete it without making copies or using it in any way. The West of England School and College has taken reasonable precautions to ensure that this message has been checked for viruses before transmission. However, you are strongly advised to carry out your own virus scan before any opening any attachments. The West of England School and College accept no responsibility for loss or damage caused by software viruses.
