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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.

Happy 4th😎

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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.

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

Themes, obviously 😉