John Vere

If I remember my history correctly we all had no problem with Cakewalk/ Sonars graphics up until X1 came out. The comments were pretty much just like we are now seeing since New Sonar was released. X1 also at the time was a regressive version that was unstable and very buggy! And ya, people like me hated it enough to stay using Sonar 8.5. So I imagine that the solution was the theme editor that didn’t come along until Platinum was released as well as the sort of subscription idea too. The X series would go down in history as the most unstable and ugly versions ever. I have always maintained installing 8.5 where I get the majority of my favourite VST’s from. Those have not changed since that time. When you think about it that’s kinda weird! But I just love how cheerful it looks with all the different colours. Anyhow history is repeating itself and I guess if we hang around long enough they will fix it.

Yesterday to try and troubleshoot why I don’t have Drum Replacer in the Free Version I logged out of my account and logged back in using my other account that still has a membership which expires tomorrow. Anyhow Sonar opened and no Nag bar at the top. So was definitely the full version. Still no Drum Replacer so I closed Sonar and rebooted the computer on the off chance that would help. When I reopened Sonar I got the Nag screen and the countdown? When it opened there was no nag bar and checking in About it was definitely the paid version. Oh well, I closed Sonar and moved on to another app and shut down. Later that night I booted up and again when I started Sonar I got the nag and countdown. And once again when it opened it was the full version with no nag bar. Could this be caused by Cakewalk and the product centre being signed in still with other account?

Thanks. Weird that 2 completely different computers are involved ? I keep everything default. Sonar is still scanning on start up because I haven’t bothered to change anything yet. No loss. It’s just that I had posted that it’s one of the things missing from the Free tier version.

Ni

These are the best ones I did. My channel has lots of videos regarding the different daw’s I tested as well.

Attention @Jonathan Sasor As per conversation in another thread. Thought it better to start fresh. Main Desktop - On a fresh install on a brand new OS build with only Sonar X3 and Platinum previously installed. I installed the Cakewalk Product Centre. Log in using John Vere account ( no membership) I installed Sonar, I installed Drum Replacer. As you see in the screenshot all show as up to date. Using the Free Tier version- Highlight Audio clip -Regional effects and there is no Drum Replacer. Re install Drum replacer, re boot computer etc. Check and it shows in the correct folder location. Laptop- This had Sonar installed and authorized with my other Membership Sock Monkey ( membership expires tomorrow) I installed Cakewalk Product Center and logged in using my Membership account. I installed Cakewalk, Updated Sonar and installed Drum Replacer. All show as up to date. No Drum replacer is found in both Cakewalk and Sonar. You can see by the missing Nag screen that this is a full likened version. Is Drum Replacer no longer a regional effect?

Make me realize that if you are not a frequent visitor to this forum or the Facebook groups you will probably have no clue what has happened over the past 2 years. As example I have used Waveform for more than a year now and I don’t even know if they have a user forum? The fact they just put a message in the Cakewalk toast notification is probably going to be a surprise to a lot of users for a long time to come. A lot of people don’t open software for months and even years if they are not active in creating music at the time. There will be hundreds and possibly thousands of Cakewalk users who are going to sit down a month or more from now and see the “So long it’s been good to know you “ message for the first time.

Seems we are told any time after August 1 But the licensing date is in the Help menu under about. Update/- I just checked and this seems like it just changed recently. My copy of Cakewalk I installed a few days ago on my laptop to investigate this fiasco just say activation by Cakewalk or something like that. No date.

@Jonathan Sasor Drum replacer is not available in the free Sonar on the two computers that I in have installed it on. My insert regional effects list only shows Vocal sync. Not a problem as I rarely got it to work as expected. It’s got great potential when combined with stem separation to create a midi drum track using the original recording.

Crashes are easy to diagnose if it creates a crash dump file. The no audio is a common problem ( bug?) with Sonar/Cakewalk where any changes to the audio system can cause the master bus output to set to None.

Once again. Especially anyone who visits this forum. We were told 2 years ago that Cakewalk would be discontinued. They originally said it would be sooner but they then decided to allow more time for people to transition to the new Sonar. There was plenty of warning including all the Cakewalk You Tube channels. So the day comes when they need to get Cakewalk out of their hair and being polite kind hearted folks and not wanting to diss loyal users they came up with a solution. You should be very grateful for the Free version. They didn’t have to do that. As far as transferring projects to other Daw’s it’s actually very simple. I made a few videos on how to do this. I have transferred a lot of my important work to other Daw’s I own and life is now better and simple. No more distractions. But I still have a lot of not important projects that I might need access to so I have Platinum and now the wonderful free version. Thanks to everyone who was involved in this great initiative.

Once again. Especially anyone who visits this forum. We were told 2 years ago that Cakewalk would be discontinued. They originally said it would be sooner but they then decided to allow more time for people to transition to the new Sonar. There was plenty of warning including all the Cakewalk You Tube channels. So the day comes when they need to get Cakewalk out of their hair and being polite kind hearted folks and not wanting to diss loyal users they came up with a solution. You should be very grateful for the Free version. They didn’t have to do that. As far as transferring projects to other Daw’s it’s actually very simple. I made a few videos on how to do this. I have transferred a lot of my important work to other Daw’s I own and life is now better and simple. No more distractions. But I still have a lot of not important projects that I might need access to so I have Platinum and now the wonderful free version. Thanks to everyone who was involved in this great initiative.

I just authorized TH 3 I got originally from x3 and it works perfectly fine in Free Sonar. Back when Gibson ditched us Overloud sympathized with us and gave us unlock serial numbers. This way it wasn’t tied to only Sonar. So if you have any issues log on to your Overloud account. They are really good people. I bought THU last Black Friday for around $30. But it was missing a few pieces.

That’s actually a brilliant idea. Win win. Put your money where your mouth is sort of thing. Bandlab gets members and we all get a version with themes. Lots of software developers leave legacy versions available unsupported for people who have licenses due to needing that version because of OS and hardware compatibility. But judging by their reaction to the question they seem very firm about getting rid of Cakewalk for good. There’s the option we talked about 2 years ago was simply sell us Cakewalk outright. We would quietly go away and leave them alone. It would be very interesting to see those statistics that they have been gathering for 8 years now.

Did you try uninstalling and reinstalling Sonar? Long shot but pretty easy to do. It seems like a graphic bug. You say you’re using File menu? Did you try the Export shortcut?

Well old pal ‘fraid knot. You are definitely not alone in that! You might have missed the first round of grumbling back when they first released it. Welcome to the second round of grumbling!

What it means for you is that yes you now have to make sure you are ready for the day your version of Cakewalk will cease saving and exporting your projects. You have 3 choices. 1-Purchase a Bandlab Membership which might still be available for $49 via the Sonar nag screen. 2- Switch to Sonar and use the free version. 3- Switch Daw’s

And if you have one, use a decibel meter. Louder always sounds better.

No need to shout we hear you! This is possibly due to the fact New Sonar has a whole new graphic engine. A lot of stuff looks different. I see various posts regarding graphic glitches in the Feedback thread. Possibly you can fix one project, save and name that as a new workspace and then all other projects should open the same. That's how it works for me.

You might want to submit this to support. This is just a user forum and the staff doesn’t always check everything. Submitting crashes and the dump files will help them help you. Your screenshot shows where the dump file is located and the blue link takes you to the report page.

And also as I just said in another thread. It shows support for the software.

That’s not as likely as the possibility of the board of directors getting together and asking for a financial report. They look at what they have put into the development of Sonar and Next vs the returns. It seems to me they are only making money from all those other things the membership supplies. If we had access to the data we would be observing a sudden increase in Sonar based memberships. This as Noel even mentioned is how you might support the future of Sonar. It’s been the weirdest release of any software possibly in history. What’s next? Cakewalk users generally seem upset about this transition but as I said in other posts, you were told 2 years ago this would happen. You should actually be happy that there’s still the free option available to you. How long that will last is pure speculation and it’s not something I want to invest in. Free is never going to be forever. So the best thing people who don’t want to switch Daw’s can do is invest in Sonar by purchasing the membership like it or not. It will show Bandlab there’s an actual financial incentive to keep it alive. Otherwise? Don’t complain when the Board of Directors decides that it is not a good investment because it seems like these people only want it for Free! They won’t even buy a membership for $50??

Sonar even the free version is a much updated version of Cakewalk. You are taking no risk at all by installing it along side of CbB. You will find out that your projects will open and should be identical to what you have in Cakewalk. It is not different other than the Graphics and a few new tools. Just make sure and set the plug ins paths and possibly your Workspace the same. I would recommend this over waking up tomorrow morning and Cakewalk can no longer save or export your project. You might have a month left which to answer your questions is found in the Help menu under About. We have had 2 years of warning that this would happen. I guess if you don’t visit the forums you might have not been aware. Bandlabs web site is not very helpful or easy to navigate. This video explains how to get started.

Be warned. I followed those instructions last fall and there obviously were still files hidden elsewhere because it didn’t resolve my issue. I ended up just re installing W11 which was pretty easy to do. Took a few hours to reinstall the software I use and my plug ins. You just have to make sure you deactivate some plug is first. I think it’s only Air that was a problem. But it was worth it as it really zapped all the cobwebs out of the corners and perked up my machine. Lots of issues were now solved. Im still bumping into missing plug is sometimes but most are easily substituted.

I have no sympathy for people who continued to use Cakewalk. We were told 2 years ago the day would come so smart people either moved to the supported version or switched Daw's. You have at least a month now to do what you should have done at least a year ago. Back up all your important work using Midi and Stems. Using Free software is not the same as using software you pay for and especially software you own.