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I'll say this again because I have all of the old Cakewalk Sonar plugins. I love some of the old instruments too! They are cool for nostalgia's sake, and many of them even still sound great! But I have a hard time justifying the hard drive space to keep them around. Time has marched on, and there are much better VST instruments available, even for free now! If you want more, just go out and download the free plugins that are available, or buy professional plugins if you can afford them. Cakewalk as a core DAW is the best free DAW available anywhere. A lot of the previous purchase price for Sonar was tied up in premium instrument and effects add-ons. So just roll your own bundle now, and you are all set!

La Grange. Live...

RIP 😢

The Roland Sound Canvas VA plugin is probably the closest GM plugin to TTS-1. You can buy a lifetime license for the Roland Sound Canvas VA (GS/GM) plugin for USD $69 through the Roland Cloud (free version, no subscription required).

But you said earlier that TTS-1 no longer works correctly with your workflow. And since it is no longer maintained by Roland, you will need a replacement, correct?

Yep, grabbed the free Layers orchestral library first thing...

I agree! That is why in addition to Cakewalk (user since Cakewalk Pro Audio 9), I also have the full versions of Studio One 5, Ableton Live 11, and Tracktion Waveform 11.

Yet another player! This SINE Player seems to be a new breed of sample library player, with a few new tricks! I was not aware of this one. Watch the videos on the website. The majestic horn is well worth 2 euro! Nice legato.

Studio One offers a lot more than Cakewalk. But Cakewalk is most likely enough for most DAW user needs.

Probably means X2 up through Sonar Platinum. The PIB site says:

You know that you secretly want to WUP. All the denial is a sure sign, LOL! 🤣

With all due respect, it's not a WUP scare tactic. If you can do without support and product updates after a year, WUP is totally optional. I have only WUPped once, and that was a good deal IMHO to get the resizable plugin UI's and the modern preset browsers. But I will probably forgo WUP in the future...

Mac owners can probably afford WUP! 🤣

Follow the link to Tenforums and ensure that your PC is NOT setup to restart after a "blue screen". You want it to halt so that you can note the error code... If you are not getting a blue screen (aka: typically a driver failure), then you more than likely have serious hardware issues with your power supply or motherboard.

If you are not really looking for sampled or modeled instruments, I would go to Pigments 3 or SynthMaster 2.9 first, because of their multiple synthesis types. For ease of programming, then definitely go Pigments! They also include many presets that can be used as is, or use them to learn the synth and create your own. If you would consider a virtual modular synth with unlimited possibilities, then I would go to to Cherry Audio Voltage Modular Core (with 105 modules). Comes with various vintage modules, but from the module store you can add FM, Wavetable, Granular, and with mix and match filters, envelopes, arps, sequencers, FX, etc. So you can build almost any synth you can dream of with Voltage! https://cherryaudio.com/voltage-modular I have dozens of other soft synths, but I would consider most of them only good for one or two things. The 3 above suggestions should cover almost anything for me, so they would be the best synths for everything. The rest of my synths are to be used as needed based on their individual strengths, or specific types of music. But sampled and modeled synths are also sitting fairly high on my list, so I don't exclude those possibilities 😉.

I forgot about that one! I have that orchestral companion bundle, but it lost a home on my disk when I needed the space for SampleTank 4 Max, and a few others. If you can get it really cheap, the samples are decent (24-bit dual velocity) with 6 keyswitch selectable articulations, and it's useful in that regard. So, if you just need a horn, then sure! 👍 Just be aware that the plugin UI has a very basic, single instrument window for one preset at a time, with no multis (which might be an advantage regarding CPU). It needs 15GB free space for download and installing (5 GB download + 5GB for the unzip folder + 5GB for the permanent sample library). iLok license manager required for activation. The product is also apparently no longer being developed, yet still for sale. So wait for a deal! https://sonivoxmi.com/products/details/orchestral-companion-brass

If you need 16 channels in a plugin, then either NI Kontakt 6, or IK SampleTank 4 would accommodate that, provided that you can live without GM compatibility. The free Kontakt 6 Player will run many of the various instrument sample library titles published by NI in the NI store. If you still need GM. the Roland cloud has a virtual GM module ROMpler plugin, the Sound Canvas VA, that you can buy a license for.

Point taken! Don't know if classic rock is your cup of tea, but I was always amazed by the rock trios ZZ Top and Rush, and how 3 dudes with 3 instruments totally put up such a huge wall of sound!

It seems as if Waves gives away a different knob each year... probably just to suck unsuspecting victims into WUP,... 😉 "Come on in... the first one is free".

WUP is totally optional.

Same general idea, but they are Waves plugins. And you can use them anywhere, not just Cakewalk. Here's the whole OneKnob Series (8 plugins) bundle for $65.99, or $24.99 each. So far I have collected 5 of 8 for free... https://www.waves.com/bundles/oneknob-series#dial-in-mix-sounds-fast-oneknob-series

The full Kontakt Factory Library has a solo fiddle under "World > Strings".

Spitfire Audio BBC Symphonic Orchestra Discover edition is free if you sign up, and then wait 14 days for a license. Or pay $49, no waiting... https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/bbc-symphony-orchestra-discover/ It has strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion sections. In brass there are horns, trumpets, trombones, bass trombones, & tuba.

I don't use Omnisphere, but as with any plugin that comes in both VST2 and VST3 versions, you can choose whichever version of the plugin instrument you want to insert. Then your MIDI controller input can be routed to whatever active track has your instrument (either VST2 or VST3).