Codefreq Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 Hello all, I've been an avid user of Cakewalk/old Sonar for a very long time and I have projects going back more than a decade. With the new Sonar coming out, assuming it is the spiritual successor to Cakewalk by Bandlab, would I still be able to access those old projects? I'd hate to see all my years of hard work go to waste because of a forced change in the app I use. Thank you, Codefreq 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 I, and many others here, would be absolutely shocked if you couldn't. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scook Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 46 minutes ago, Codefreq said: With the new Sonar coming out, assuming it is the spiritual successor to Cakewalk by Bandlab, would I still be able to access those old projects? Yes 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Anderton Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 The only problem I've ever had with loading old projects into Cakewalk is if a plugin is no longer installed. Of course, you can still open the project, you'll just be missing the preset from 17 years ago that used AmpliTube 2 Some manufacturers are better than others at being able to load presets from old versions, but if a plugin has had extensive revisions over a decade or more, it likely won't be backward compatible. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User 905133 Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 (edited) 15 hours ago, Codefreq said: With the new Sonar coming out, assuming it is the spiritual successor to Cakewalk by Bandlab, would I still be able to access those old projects? Part of the issue was actually addressed in the thread announcing Cakewalk Next and Cakewalk Sonar. Understandable if you missed it because it turned into a lengthy thread. Quote What about older file formats (esp. *.wrk files)? Quote Yes .wrk and all other Cakewalk extensions currently supported by CbB will continue to open in Cakewalk Sonar! Edited June 18, 2023 by User 905133 wording edit for the sake of clarity 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 I found a floppy from around 1988 that contained projects from Cakewalk 1.0. Loaded right up into the current version of Sonar. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 I loaded a midi file I made in 1986 on an Atari the other day so I beat you by 2 years About the biggest difference is those files are not GM so you have to figure out what the heck you used back then by looking at the channels and patch change numbers. Cakewalk has a long history of not abandoning old project formats I doubt they have any reason to change that. The new version is still based on the old code from what the staff are telling us. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
57Gregy Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 On 6/18/2023 at 1:09 PM, bitflipper said: I found a floppy from around 1988 that contained projects from Cakewalk 1.0. Loaded right up into the current version of Sonar. And, he still has a floppy drive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 2 hours ago, 57Gregy said: And, he still has a floppy drive! I refuse to resort to medication...oh, you mean the diskette drive. Yeh, I had to dig through some boxes to find one. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Sasor Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 On 6/17/2023 at 8:20 PM, Codefreq said: Hello all, I've been an avid user of Cakewalk/old Sonar for a very long time and I have projects going back more than a decade. With the new Sonar coming out, assuming it is the spiritual successor to Cakewalk by Bandlab, would I still be able to access those old projects? I'd hate to see all my years of hard work go to waste because of a forced change in the app I use. Thank you, Codefreq 100% the new version will work with all your old projects. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio Gabriel Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 I had a problem with some (not all) very old projects, and Cakewalk Bandlab refused to open them. Then I tried using an old Sonar installation on a different computer (32 bit), and it loaded the projects, so I saved the songs again and now all those songs seems ok. Regards, Giorgio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 8 hours ago, Giorgio Gabriel said: I had a problem with some (not all) very old projects, and Cakewalk Bandlab refused to open them. Then I tried using an old Sonar installation on a different computer (32 bit), and it loaded the projects, so I saved the songs again and now all those songs seems ok. Regards, Giorgio They probably would have opened in SAFE MODE. 32 bit plug ins can defiantly stop old projects from loading. I always remind people to always save your projects as a Midi file for back up. Midi is timeless and can be opened in any DAW. Sure you loose the audio but for me most of the hard work was creating the midi tracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo 88 Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 On 6/18/2023 at 10:09 AM, bitflipper said: I found a floppy from around 1988 that contained projects from Cakewalk 1.0. Loaded right up into the current version of Sonar. OMG What a great idea! I have a laptop from 1992 that I can fire up. And a case of disks with all my old projects. If I can find away to transfer files off that laptop. I do not have an old, external hard drive (just the drive in the laptop) ... and thumb drives, internet connections did not exist. I still have all the old midi sound modules that all work except the Casio FZ1 that I used mostly for piano samples. A project for a rainy day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User 905133 Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 (edited) 7 hours ago, Jimbo 88 said: I have a laptop from 1992 that I can fire up. And a case of disks with all my old projects. If I can find away to transfer files off that laptop. Why not use a more modern PC (e.g., XP era), that has a 5 1/4" floppy drive to copy the disks to a thumb drive? Never mind. I don't think XP era PCs had 5 1/4" drives. Edited June 23, 2023 by User 905133 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 8 hours ago, Jimbo 88 said: If I can find away to transfer files off that laptop. I do not have an old, external hard drive (just the drive in the laptop) ... and thumb drives, internet connections did not exist. Back then, software did exist for transferring files over parallel ports via FTP. I remember using it, but that's all. Given that you can still find Pong and Pac Man online, there's a chance some antique software enthusiasts have preserved it. Of course, that assumes you have a computer with a parallel port on it. Cool that you still have your old modules. I have none of mine. Fortunately I used descriptive track names, else I'd have had a hard time of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo 88 Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 47 minutes ago, bitflipper said: Back then, software did exist for transferring files over parallel ports via FTP. I remember using it, but that's all. Given that you can still find Pong and Pac Man online, there's a chance some antique software enthusiasts have preserved it. Of course, that assumes you have a computer with a parallel port on it. Cool that you still have your old modules. I have none of mine. Fortunately I used descriptive track names, else I'd have had a hard time of it. Yep, that might be the way. I believe the midi box connected thru a parallel port (which was really for connecting to a printer). I believe I might have a parallel card laying around that was used in another computer carnation and I can put into my current computer. Dang it Jim, I'm a musician not a computer guy. (Star Trek reference for those of you who are not 100 years old) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msmcleod Posted June 24, 2023 Share Posted June 24, 2023 On 6/23/2023 at 5:00 AM, Jimbo 88 said: OMG What a great idea! I have a laptop from 1992 that I can fire up. And a case of disks with all my old projects. If I can find away to transfer files off that laptop. I do not have an old, external hard drive (just the drive in the laptop) ... and thumb drives, internet connections did not exist. I still have all the old midi sound modules that all work except the Casio FZ1 that I used mostly for piano samples. A project for a rainy day. A few years ago, I went through all my old projects and converted them to CbB projects. For years, I only used hardware synths/modules, so I used SampleRobot to create samples of all of my hardware instruments, and saved them in SoundFont format (I could have used Kontakt, but my SF2 player is much lighter on CPU). I've got a lot of modules, so it took a while to sample them all. On average, it took 24 hours per bank of 128 patches, preceded by an hour's prep choosing the options for each sound (i.e. length of the sample / is it looped or a one-shot / number of keys & velocity layers). Once the prep work was done, I just clicked go and let it do it's thing. I then went through all of the projects converting the MIDI tracks so Simple Instrument tracks using my SF2 player loaded with the appropriate sample. So not only have I got all of my projects in the latest Cakewalk format, I can play them on any of my PC's without needing the hardware modules - and of course I now have access to all of my hardware sounds on all of my PC's. The only downside is editing a patch, which means editing it on the hardware module and re-sampling (although the re-sampling for one patch only takes 10-15 mins). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo 88 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 (edited) Found My solution: $17.99 on amazon https://www.amazon.com/NEWSTYLE-3-5-External-Floppy-Drive/dp/B00KX8EMOO/ref=asc_df_B00KX8EMOO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=321499553671&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=293805867202239948&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021511&hvtargid=pla-637234400848&th=1 Edited June 27, 2023 by Jimbo 88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User 905133 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 (edited) I have one of those usb floppy drives and even thought of mentioning that as an option, but I didn't think that 1992 laptops had usb ports. In fact I looked up usb and the internet said "USB (Universal Serial Bus) was originally developed and introduced in 1996 as a way of setting up communication between a computer and peripheral devices by replacing many varieties of serial and parallel ports." Never mind I had no idea laptops had 3.5" drives in 1992. Edited June 27, 2023 by User 905133 update Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 I was lucky because most of my floppy disks from my Atari Mega ST were IBM formatted so all my midi files transferred into a PC no problem. That was on XP. Later I found a few more that were just live performance tracks but only floppy drive I had was now on a W 7 computer and it wouldn’t read them. So @Jimbo 88 I hope the floppy disks can be read by W10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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