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Should I stay with CW/BL?


Gary Edelman

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5 hours ago, John said:

I wish I could list all the improvements in Cakewalk but there are simply too  many from X1 to attempt it.   

You could write a book just about the feature additions and improvements in Sonar    through the years of Platinum in 2015-2017.

But the good news is that the core workflow and UI has not changed significantly on the surface, so you can jump right in and feel at home with the latest CbB!

But if you are curious about what was added during the Platinum years, it is all documented here: https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Whats-New#start

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3 hours ago, abacab said:

You could write a book just about the feature additions and improvements in Sonar    through the years of Platinum in 2015-2017.

But the good news is that the core workflow and UI has not changed significantly on the surface, so you can jump right in and feel at home with the latest CbB!

But if you are curious about what was added during the Platinum years, it is all documented here: https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Whats-New#start

I think you hit on a very important point. I believe that CW brought Skylight out to make it possible to add all the features we have seen plus I think they had developed the old UI and its underlying code and core as far as they could. That is why Skylight came along. 

 

They sort of hinted at it at the time. 

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I was a hold out on X3 until late 2016, and even then I had a lot to catch up on. Many of the articles, especially the eZines in that "Whats New" link were helpful in getting me caught up!

But it was very smooth transition, because the changes made were incremental, and not disruptive to workflow. Many new features were things that had been on the feature request list for a while, so were welcome additions.

I think a few of my favorites  are direct synth recording, patch points, and aux tracks. Ripple editing was also a big deal for many!

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I think I'm sold on sticking with CW/BL.  Everything works fine & it does everything I need it to do so my only concern is not capability but keepability.  I want to be sure if my HD crashes or if I want to build a new DAW that I will have no problems being able to reinstall the program with all my extras.  Backing up CW bundles is easy but without the program to open them they wouldn't be of much use. I haven't figured out how to back up my vst's & Native Instrument stuff but I guess that's for another thread.         

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Use a place on a HD other than your C drive to store any programs add ons and anything you want to keep so if your C drive goes south you have all your stuff safe. 

For example, I use my download directory on the C drive for programs and stuff I don't need to keep. On another which is 4 TB I use that for downloads for all the stuff I want to keep. This also includes serial numbers in txt documents. However, most developers have a copy of your documents.  Just remember your passwords. LOL  

 

You also use a external USB 3 drive for this. 

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I would not use bundles for archiving projects. This has been discussed at length. Bundling in CbB (and for years in SONAR for that matter) is for backward compatibility and project sharing. It is not a suitable format for archiving.

When moving to a new machine, the DAWs will need to be installed from scratch along with most software (including plug-ins) that use copy protection (the exception being dongle based copy protection).

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22 minutes ago, scook said:

I would not use bundles for archiving projects. This has been discussed at length. Bundling in CbB (and for years in SONAR for that matter) is for backward compatibility and project sharing. It is not a suitable format for archiving.

When moving to a new machine, the DAWs will need to be installed from scratch along with most software (including plug-ins) that use copy protection (the exception being dongle based copy protection).

+100

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I remember the infamous date of November 2018 when we found out Sonar was a dead end.  One of the big topics was how to hold on to what we have and for as long as possible. Hopefully everyone here who had owned the older versions of Sonar followed through with a backup strategy. I myself have at least 5 copies of everything. As well as Splat and Home studio installed on 5 computers. I don't use them, but they are part of my eternal back up pan still.

One fear was going to be the day Windows updates would kill Sonar Plat dead. We figured we had about 10 years before that would happen.

Then there was the issue that when the servers died you would be hooped for a new install authorization. Everybody was demanding that Gibson supply us with a offline authorization code. I was sceptical that it would ever happen. That would have entailed a lot of work for someone with no profit involved. 

Well in a short period of time this became a none issue as we got something much better out of the deal.  But still---

 I do hope that everyone  has a good back up plan in place as you never know. The one small thing about CbB that bugs me is we are told it needs to be re authorized every 6 months. So what happens if this ship sinks?   In a way we were better off with the old system of having the 2 authorization codes like with X3.   Splat can still be authorized but if this ship sinks then what?   So don't delete your Splat installation ever, you might just need it again, hopefully not.

 

 

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I am only in a Home Studio but have been with CW forever. I also am one of the peole who is always on the internet. Never , ever ha an issue like viruses, malware, etc. I am very dilligent about protection.

 

That said I have been going back and forth about staying with Sp[lat or going full time with CWBL. 

I now, have finally made the move to use ONLY CWBL because as many mentioned it is a much improved version.

For me, just the visual reminder that Ripple editing is on or off is a great thing. Among many other improvements. 

My experience with Wi0 and CWBL and staying online is the same as Cactus in post above this one-all good.

Edited by Pathfinder
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