Cakewalk SONAR in XP under Bootcamp?

[dXTC]

I'm a recent switcher here, and I'm wondering if any of you have had any experience running Cakewalk SONAR in Bootcamp. I'd like to use my new iMac for both OS X and XP rather than keeping my other PC around just for Cakewalk.

Any opinions or anecdotes are welcome. I guess snarky comments are too, as long as they're funny.

 

[dXTC]

I didn't get much in the way of advice, so I decided I'd dive in, now that I have my iMac. I have good news, bad news, and good news, in that order:

(1) Cakewalk SONAR 5 Producer and Project 5 version 1 will indeed install correctly in Windows XP under Bootcamp. The software itself performs as one might expect.

(2) The iMac's Realtek High Definition Audio hardware, however, doesn't. The latency is horrendous. I cannot emphasize this enough.
HORRENDOUS.
There, that's more apropos. Even updating the Realtek drivers straight from Realtek's site didn't help.

(3) Using external USB or Firewire audio hardware such as the Edirol UA-1A, which I happen to have lying around unused, removes the latency issue and makes Cakewalk SONAR perform acceptably.

Long story short: Want to use Cakewalk SONAR in Bootcamp on an iMac? Avoid using the iMac's internal hardware and go the external audio route, and you should be fine.

 

[jbuser]

I will soon be in the same boat...

So how's Sonar working out under bootcamp?

I currently use Sonar 5 PE on XP, but I'm switching to Mac. I love Sonar, and I got a little case of sticker shock when I started looking at ProTools, so I would really like to be able to keep using Sonar. The Sonar 7 spec sheet says it runs under bootcamp, but I haven't had much luck on the Cakewalk forums tracking down anybody who's actually tried it.

I use an Edirol UA-1000 interface (USB 2.0), so I shouldn't have the latency issue you mentioned with the native Mac audio h/w. Have you used the same interface on both platforms, and if so, how's the latency under bootcamp vs. native XP?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Cromulent]

and if so, how's the latency under bootcamp vs. native XP?

Boot Camp is native XP.

Windows XP does not run under Boot Camp. It runs exactly the same as it would do any other PC. It is not emulated or anything. It is Windows XP running natively. In fact you can install Windows XP without even touching Boot Camp in Mac OS X if you have 2 hard drives.

Just thought I'd clear that up.

 

[jbuser]

Interesting. So presumably any performance difference in Sonar (or any app) would be directly proportional to the difference in performance between the Mac and my old hardware. But since the whole reason I'm buying a Mac is because I don't want to move to Vista, it sounds like I'd still be hosed when MS eventually drops support for XP.

 

[dXTC]

Interesting. So presumably any performance difference in Sonar (or any app) would be directly proportional to the difference in performance between the Mac and my old hardware.

This is pretty much correct. My previous Cakewalk workstation had an AMD Athlon64 3500+ chip, and performed somewhat nicely. When I run it on XP on my iMac, the dual cores kick in and allow me several more channels worth of softsynths and effects.

But since the whole reason I'm buying a Mac is because I don't want to move to Vista, it sounds like I'd still be hosed when MS eventually drops support for XP.

No, not really. As long as Cakewalk itself doesn't become a Vista-only app, you'll be set.

The ONLY reasons I have XP on my Mac is for Cakewalk and after-hours tech support for my work. I do everything else in OS X. And even that may change, now that Symantec has released a pcAnywhere client for OS X and I can get onto my PC at work without having to leave OS X.

 

[pianodwo]

Cakewalk Sonar in XP under Bootcamp?

Hey I'm new to the mac world but I purchased an imac in July and have not been able to use Sonar 8 in bootcamp with either XP SP2 or XP SP3. The sound is so garbled it is not even funny. XP will not work with my Presonus FireStudio Project using Firewire. I have a raid 800 firewire coming out of the imac then it goes to the Presonus which is Firewire 400. This setup works great in mac mode but XP doesn't hook up even though it says it's there. Project 5 Version 2 works fine but still doesn't hook up to the FireStudio. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks

 

[dXTC]

Hey I'm new to the mac world but I purchased an imac in July and have not been able to use Sonar 8 in bootcamp with either XP SP2 or XP SP3. The sound is so garbled it is not even funny. XP will not work with my Presonus FireStudio Project using Firewire. I have a raid 800 firewire coming out of the imac then it goes to the Presonus which is Firewire 400. This setup works great in mac mode but XP doesn't hook up even though it says it's there. Project 5 Version 2 works fine but still doesn't hook up to the FireStudio. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks

There may be interference between your FW800 RAID disk storage and your FW400 Presonus. At the very least, the Presonus will slow everything down to FW400 speeds. If you're using the RAID disk as your Audio/Scratch disk, that may make it even worse, as the Presonus sends the data to the computer via FireWire, then the audio data gets saved onto the RAID disk by the same FireWire connection.

Make sure you're using the latest firmware and XP software drivers for your audio interface. I'm using a Tascam US-144 now (the Edirol UA-1A has been retired to storage), and when I first got it, I had a good bit of lagging and sound mess. I did two things:

• Downloaded and applied the latest firmware and drivers for XP.
• Whenever I was ready for some serious music sessions, I turned my wireless connection off.

When XP detects that it is using a wireless network connection, it will attempt to keep the connection alive every minute or 30 seconds or so, suspending many other activities -- including audio playback-- for a split second. This manifested on my setup as an occasional yet very annoying audio glitch. Turning off (disabling) the wireless connection while running Sonar made the audio silky smooth.