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Welcome to the forum. It sucks you're experiencing the behavior you describe. It's definitely not typical. I hope you get to the bottom of it.

I just got naturalized, so I get to say it as an American for the first time: Happy 4th y'all!

Most obviously definitely Them Themes . . . "Old Cakewalk" = Cakewalk by BandLab or CbB Sonar Free Tier vs CbB: 1 Arranger track vs many Arranger tracks No Plugin Oversampling vs Yes No Elastique Pro vs Yes No POWR Dithering vs Yes

Ah, you're right. I mistakenly looked at the 2022 version, not the 2024 version.

Initially I installed it on an XP SP3 PC and then installed it on my first Win 10 Pro PC (converted from a retired Win 7 PC). The Creative Labs Authorization Server was still working for that installation, but when I got a newer improved model (mid-2020) they had already killed the server. No idea what years they were first installed on the PCs where the Emulator X3 worked. Hope this helps.

Please read the FAQ about the free tier. This has been rehashed many times. The free tier only includes the Core features of Sonar, not all features you could find in now discontinued. cbb. Many of those older features have been greatly improved in Sonar. If you want the full Premium Tier feature set of Sonar you will need to purchase a BandLab membership Our free tier is very generous compared to other free DAW offerings but it won't include the entire Sonar feature set now or in the future, as new features are added. Again just core features.

A forced update is not related to activation. It's when there are certain bugs or backend changes that mandate everyone switching over to the new version for consistency. We do this periodically but relatively infrequently to sync the user base with the latest version. In this case we're working out some issues in the system and this required the update.

Happy 4th😎

Don't hold your breath waiting.

You could look here, 2 clicks away https://bandlab.github.io/cakewalk/docs/Cakewalk Sonar Reference Guide.pdf

Just came back from a week in NW Florida visiting my brother and family. Returned with a SAGA guitar kit and an Angus Young hat. I'm free to build a fake Les Paul and thrash in A for as long as I want! Happy day to everyone!!

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I have been running a client’s sessions all week with the “new” Sonar. It’s a project that we’ve been working on now for two months, every week for long sessions. Until I downloaded Sonar out of necessity, since end of life has been announced for CbB, I have been using CbB many hours every day for years and have never once felt like my DAW would either let me down or fail to inspire some level of creativity by its looks. We are visual primates after all. There have been problems with Sonar, some graphics problems (minor annoyance in the grand scheme) and some audio problems, which are major. When using external inserts there is a two to three second freeze of the audio engine when toggling on/off. That makes real-time comparison of the effect impossible and a bad look when previewing mixes for your client. This issue does not exist in CbB. Certain plugins now pause the audio toggling on/off that didn’t in CbB. Not sure if they are related. The audio glitches and stutters when scrolling in Console View, either front to back of tracks or up and down the strip. And, there is a graphics glitch where items show up in the wrong place. I have posted examples previously here: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/topic/85548-graphics/ If I may ask, please make the active plugin in the FX bin highlighted in all themes. Also, please make the active track indicator at the bottom of the console strip more apparent in all themes, not just a thin blue outline. Please add hash marks and more detailed numbers to the meters like the way the used to be. And, please give us the ability to change the color of the markers and text. Overall, I feel that CbB was a more elegant and stable version. I’m sure there are a hundred things done since the last CbB update including the new vector graphics but this version of Sonar feels somewhat like a downgrade for me in both looks and performance. I have too many years invested in the program and a booked out studio to switch so my hope is these issues will be addressed.

A difference in behaviour from CbB, which seems like a bug - apologies if this is not new to 2025.06, this is the first time I've really used new Sonar 1. Click and hold on the timeline to begin a selection 2. Hold and drag mouse pointer off the far right of screen In Cbb, this would advance the selection end, and the waveforms displayed in the track view would scroll in sync with the end of the selection In Sonar, the selection end is advanced, but the waveforms only refresh their display once either a) the mouse is released or b) the mouse pointer is moved back to the left to be on screen. This makes it very difficult to fluently select ranges longer than what is currently displayed on screen as you can't see the waveforms for the current end selection point.

That's it!!! 👏🙏 Nice detective work @Tim Elmore. I can reproduce it now, and will look into a fix right away. Many thanks, Ben

Regarding the issue of plug-ins disappearing under the CV: Open the Help module. The standard shortcut for this is "y". When the Help module is open, plug-ins that are displayed over CV will stay visible even after you click on CV. If the Help module is fully closed (not just minimized), then clicking CV will put any plug-ins underneath CV (not visible). To keep them on top, the Help module must be open. Since I don't want to have the Help module displayed all the time, I save screen space by docking it to the Browser, and then keep the Browser minimized when not needed. This keeps plug-ins visible even after clicking on CV. This costs a small bit of screen space where the Browser is shown as minimized, but it is the only workaround I have found.

Just keep in mind that it's FREE and there's no obligation of any kind for BandLab to maintain this version. Anyway, after August 1st you won't be able to update your activation for Cakewalk By BandLab, so that package will become useless shortly. I'd suggest first thing to do is to check if your existing projects & plugins work under the new free software. Personally I'd probably run it for a while to finish existing projects and then move to a DAW with a perpetual license, as I definitely don't like the subscription model. But I won't complain, as I've been able to use CbB (a fantastic DAW) 6 years for free. And honestly, nothing in the world is free, now is it?

I have Platinum and X3 still on my drive simply for the available plugins to use in CbB and now Sonar Free. I also kept all the add-on plugins! I also have every version of Cake products from Pro Audio 9 up until Gibson buried it! Along with the registration keys! It is possible to reinstall those older versions with just the key codes, no hooking to the dead server to register. I have all the add-on plugins as well! When Gibson put us out to pasture, I immediately went to my account and backed up everything there! What was not there is maintained on the original disc! I feel like a museum director!!

Yes .. every so often we still have to do a login to bandlab/renew license type thing with CbB. One could argue this is not too far off whats being asked with the new Free Sonar, that is, wait 15 seconds and off you go. It has to be mentioned too i suppose, that the new Free Sonar will be regulary updated now while CbB will no longer be. To wait for 15 seconds, I dont see that as a big issue TBH, but then that me. I have quiet a few DAWs i collected over the years - Ableton, FL Studio, Reason, Waveform 13 Pro, Reaper, latest free Studio One, Luna - all installed but mainly use Cakewalk and Reaper. In a band with 4 others, three have Macs, two have PCs - Reaper is a good solution as a reasonable DAW for CROSS PLATFORM Work. I then use Azslow's ReaCWP installed in Reaper which allows you to open Cakewalk/Sonar project files directly in Reaper and from there Save as .rpp reaper project file. https://www.azslow.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=57 Outside that, of all the other DAWS, I would use ableton the most. I never paid full price for a DAW. Over the years I would avail of black friday and other offers to climb on the ladder, then upgrade from there. Actually I did pay full price for Reaper - princely sum of $60 I am happy with the Cakewalk / Reaper usage along with Azslows tool to open CW projects in Reaper. Best of all worlds .. especially when working with Mac band members as Sonar is not available on MAC. As a band and as we are scattered all over - US and Ireland. We use the cloud exclusively with Reaper Project files. Shared Google Drive folder. All project folders uploaded there. We all open them from the cloud in Reaper, do our edits and additions and then SAVE DIRECTLY to the Google drive folder .. not using the local computers drives at all. The google drive folder is added to windows/mac file managers via google drive for desktop: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10838124?hl=en

4 some reason the default 4 modules are limited to one instance per track while others can be added multiple times. Don't know if it's recommended but you can clone the 4 with differing names to make additional copies that will show up in the list - without thumbnails. These can also be inserted multiple times but with have simple control sliders instead of the usual GUI and their title bars will have actual names instead of the generic ones. The original PC76 & PC4K compressors started out as "one unit" toggled by a switch.

Yes

This video shows him downloading the free Sonar. Towards the end he shows the pro channel with console emulator and tube emulator and Jacques said the tape emulator is included so it looks like ur all covered KS.

The ProChannel plugins are included in the free tier, but not all of them. I don't know which ones are omitted though. But Console and tape are there.

If, @John Vere , if you did not use it for a certain period S-Plat and it cousins would phone home. Truth, most software that has a software manager, Arturia, Toontrack, Cherry Audio, The Native Instruments collective, phone home, reasonably regularly. Some without a manger like, Moog, Gforce also do, how do you think you get those, " There is an Update, or new version" alerts that popup, withou getting an email? As for keeping count, which I don't, at the last count, Bandlab has over 100,000,000 registered users. Now I am not naive in thinking they are 1. All active, 2. All Cakewalk Sonar or Next users, but I suspect there are more than 10,000 happy Cakewalk users. Personally I have been a Cakewalk user since 1992, when it could not record Audio and was just a MIDI sequencer. It took over from my Amiga, which used Dr. T's and Bars and Pipes to sequence MIDI, that I recoded on to my Tascam. I have been using their products for the last 33 years. Like many I got bitten by Gibson in the lifetime update "deal". It is apparent though that, unlike some, I have read and groked the press releases and announcements, since the Gibson debacle. (Groked - it means to fully understand something or someone. Robert A. Heinlein introduced the word in his Book Stranger in a Stange land. It is a Martian expression where they literally eat their dead so they could fully understand them.)

You can't even have the common decency to spell my name right and then just to show your total ignorance you miss quote me. But we all know how you like to misslead providing misinformation, or just stir the brown sticky stuff because you have nothing better to do. Your thread got shut down because of these facts. I did not say it would deactivate. As with CbB every 30 days activation has to be refreshed. If you are using it on a near daily basis this refreshment is transparent and happens automatically. If by chance you don't use it for more than 30 days then you will need to manually reactivate, from the help menu. This is done to give Bandlab an idea of how many users are using the Product. Historically even S-Plat used to phone home regularly and would require reactivation if unused for 30 days. With regard to Bandlab changing something in the software, it is their product, they can do what they like, especially when it is being given away for free. This is another example of you stirring the brown sticky stuff with your misinformation. I don't know whether you have noticed but 99.9% producers change their product on a regular basis without discussing it with you. Think about that. One final thought ***********,, no software is owned. You purchase a End User Licence Agreement. EULA, perhaps you should read it, it grants you the right to use the software for as long as the owners say you can. Yes for as long they deem you can, it actually says they can revoke your right at any time.

It refreshes the license periodically in the same way that CbB does now.

Evaluation is the free tier, that does not expire.

I've been using CbB up until today. Just installed Cakewalk Sonar for the first time. This is a big upgrade for my setup. I have a 4k monitor - it looks much better which I think is important. I've mixed for an hour and added a few tracks. Nothing I use is missing.

If you want all the features you have to buy the full version, all the money people spend on VST's and software synths, you're DAW is the most important thing. you can't have your cake and eat it too. stop being such tightwads.

Themes, obviously 😉

The time has come to introduce new product forums for our newest products, Cakewalk Next and Cakewalk Sonar. The purpose of the Cakewalk Sonar forum is to improve the clarity and quality of our product discussions by properly delineating between the two lines. Cakewalk by BandLab has been, and will continue to be, a trusted tool for many. The team has worked incredibly hard over the past 5 years to make the software the best it can be. Cakewalk Sonar, as the latest lineage that builds on the excellence of CbB, and SONAR Platinum before it, aims to break new ground in performance and usability the landscape of the modern DAW. As Cakewalk Sonar represents the lion's share of our new development focus, this forum is where you'll first see news about new features and other improvements. Even though CbB will see less frequent updates, the CbB forums will continue to serve as it otherwise has done over years, and any information for CbB updates will be posted to that forum accordingly. We appreciate everyone's support to date and look forward to ongoing discussions as we continue to improve products we love! ~The Bakers