I love it when cubase crashes. It makes me happy.
- Thread starter Loren Littlejohn
- Start date
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Never an issue when your DAW is written in hand-coded assembler
More an issue on Microsoft's part than on Steinberg's
.
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
More an issue on Microsoft's part than on Steinberg's
That's just a total bullshit statement. Saw runs on Windows & runs rings around Cubarf & Sonar. The power is in the programming.
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Be happy to in the next day or two. I'm on a shitty laptop right now & about to go do the family thing......ugh.
Anyway, why the hell did I choose SAW? Yeah, I know it sounds a little nuts, as you never read about it in any of the magazines, & has no endorsements by any major players.... oh yeah, that's because Bob never adverstises in any of the rags.... hmm... I wonder if that has anything to do with it??
Seriously though, I went with it for these reasons: It's written by ONE GUY. Reaper has followed Bob's example, but when I made the switch in 2004, this was absolutely unheard of. What that means is a "Clarity of Design" where things are focused, & to the point. Unlike a few others out there where you can tell it's "design by committee" & things are a little bit disorganized.
It's also written in assembler. Which is about 1000X faster than any DAW you've ever seen. Not a bullshit statement, either. Seriously it's so fucking fast is makes any other DAW look like a joke in comparison. I was a diehard SONAR user for years & years until I got the SAW demo. Cubase, Sonar, Nuendo, & PTLE are fucking slideshows.... I'm shocked that anyone can get anything done on them. Especially PTLE. Yech. It's not so much the "Tortise & the Hare" but the "Tortise & the SR71 Blackbird."
I can't speak for a PT-TDM system, as I haven't had the chance to really fuck around with one, but I've got experience with all the others & I'll stand by the above statement, even if it pisses someone off. It's the truth: deal with it. If you want to get real power out of your CPU, you write in assembler. Novice coders need not apply: You've gotta be at Grandmaster level to write a major application in Assembler. ....And Bob's been writing audio software since the days of the Timex Sinclair. (That really impressed the hell out of me.)
Some other reasons I switched: Tech support: Bob has the best in the industry. Not only is he on his forum daily & helps out the users (ever hear of ANYONE at Digidesign doing that?) , if I'm really stuck, I can call him at home, anytime.
Updates: Unlike Sonar's yearly "upgrade? CHA-CHING!" shakedown of it's userbase, there have been roughly 11 upgrades to SAW over the past three years & I've only had to pay for one, (grand total of $100) as it was a major engine update & Bob spent quite a while on it. Well worth it, IMO. I've also read some stories about Steinberg pulling some major bullshit with Cubarf upgrades.... glad I wasn't one of those users!! And Digi? You mean, the Microsoft of the audio industry? Let's not go there, shall we..... ....my bank account's not big enough.
Interface: Seemed really fucked at the beginning. Like, "CTRL-C" doesn't copy?? WTF???? After spending some time with the manual... the learning curve is pretty steep, btw, I realized that this is a really fucking serious tool. Bob has written his interface to make music. He hasn't taken a word processor's interface & thrown it on top of a daw. Copy? Grab with left mouse button. Paste? Tap the right mouse button & drop it into place. Fucking cool! Need to get anywhere in the program? Hit the F-keys. Customize those F-keys to any way you want. They'll get you anywhere you want to go. Instantly. Just to blow the clients' minds, I'll load up a particularity complex project, hit play, & mash the F-keys to show just how fast it can redraw the screen & not crap out while making complex audio computations.
I had a Mackie control for Sonar. I sold it after about 3 months with SAW as it was just slowing me down. Seriously.
Mix engine: It's 64 bit integer based, not floating point. In other words, it's very smooth.
Channel strips: The EQ's & comps on the channel strips are unique: not plugins written by a third party. That & they're exceptionally clean. If I've gotta do an EQ boost, I know I can count on them to do the job & not fuck with the sound. ...and I hate boosting with EQ.
Stability: Yes, it crashes on occasion, but not enough to be notable, that's for sure. Crashes are very, very rare & it has an automatic EDL backup that's very useful for such occasions.
Layers: I love this one: Saw has 8 multitrack layers, where you can stack takes on each other. This always blows people's minds: I can take 12 drum mics, do 8 takes, roll playback & fly them in & out of the mix with playback still rolling Unique in the DAW world to my knowledge. I also use this technique for comping vocals & guitar solos. What a great way to work.
Softedge: I'm sure this has been copied by now, but it's Bob's 'auto-crossface' routine that'll throw a microfade on ever take & make sure there's no pops. Also great for editing. I certainly remember the bad old days of having to listen to every punch in on a Sonar project for pops.... & having to put a manual fade on everthing. I know they don't have to do this anymore, as someone mentioned the Soft-edge feature of SAW on Sonar's message board. Oh yeah, that was me.
There's many, many more features I can go over, but I gotta go for a pre-Christmas dinner & the wife is starting to get pissed. Go to www.sawstudio.com & download the demo. Take some time to learn the interface. It'll definitley have you saying "What the fuck?" for a couple of hours, but as you learn it, you'll see the genius in the design.
Take care & merry Christmas,
-0z-
Torniojaws
They call me Juha
How's the MIDI support in SAW? The last time I checked it out, they had all MIDI features as an expensive and separate add-on for it. How about support for any number of time signatures at any point?
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Midi is still an addon. I don't use it much, so doesn't bother me. ...However, I do have the addon for when it's needed.
Yes, it'll support multiple time & tempo changes anywhere.
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
One further point I forgot to mention:
Bob designed & built his own large-format analog console by hand back in the 70's. I've got a running theory that a lot of that console's basic functions were built into SAW's design by default. ...As Bob originally wrote the program for himself & realized there might be a market for it.
But, I find it kind of cool that the program was designed from the ground up by a working audio engineer who's smart enough to do that much soldering & pull it off.
Anyway, here's some skins. Keep in mind that this is only one screenshot of what is completely user customizable of screen configs :
These are only a very few of the many, many skins floating around out there.
...And a do-it-yourself skinning program:
http://saw.tuxcode.com/content/section/5/28/
Merry Christmas, guys!!
-0z-
Bob designed & built his own large-format analog console by hand back in the 70's. I've got a running theory that a lot of that console's basic functions were built into SAW's design by default. ...As Bob originally wrote the program for himself & realized there might be a market for it.
But, I find it kind of cool that the program was designed from the ground up by a working audio engineer who's smart enough to do that much soldering & pull it off.
Anyway, here's some skins. Keep in mind that this is only one screenshot of what is completely user customizable of screen configs :
These are only a very few of the many, many skins floating around out there.
...And a do-it-yourself skinning program:
http://saw.tuxcode.com/content/section/5/28/
Merry Christmas, guys!!
-0z-
