John Vere

Sorry it’s called Movie Studio. The installer is dreadful and will install a ton of bloatware if you let it. For the cheap price it costs you get the Movie editor as well as full version of Sound Forge and then a DAW I forget it’s name. But there’s way too much weird other stuff too. And then it nags you to install it later!

Here’s what I’m pondering after seeing what other DAWS cost. The 2 that seem the closest to Cakewalk are Studio one $500 can Cubase- $750 can. Sonar possibility will be priced similarly. A lot depends on upgrade pricing down the road. In a few years Sonar will possibly need a major update and with out knowing what those will cost me I’m then gambling which payment method will work out the best over the next 10 years! Hmm! Pay upfront $400-? Plus upgrade costs? This is the normal cost of using a DAW and you can ignore the upgrades if you choose. In other words I have control over the cost of this DAW for a long time. Hopefully this version will not require constant re activation. That will be a huge negative. Pay for membership $142 can? Pros’s this will probably give you unlimited upgrades. I can afford it right now and get back to work for a year with peace of mind. I can change my mind later and cancel. I will have Next as a cute toy I never use. I can use Bandlab as a music delivery platform?!?! Cons- This is a sale and I have no guarantee of what this membership will cost 1 year from now. ??$200?? It will / could exceed the full price of Sonar within 3 or more years. This will require constant internet activation. My first reaction to this is I feel they are totally holding off on announcing the pricing because Bandlab is pushing Memberships on us. Why the sudden sale price after a few weeks? Not enough people took the annual fee bait?? Just me. But dang it’s tempting! My hands on my credit card and it’s shaking!! Why can’t life be simple!

Sorry it’s called Movie Studio pro. What’s weird is it still shows as Vegas Movie Studio sometimes. I like how it uses ASIO as well as you can use any DX or VST2 plugins. It’s supplied plug ins are all DX so that sort of dates it.

I bought Movie makers 14 Pro for about $30 on sale. It came with a full version of Sony Sound Forge which clued me in to the fact that Movie Maker was a re branded Sony Vegas. Cool. All the tutorials were for Vegas. A few year later I was offered to up grade to 17 which I still use. It will crash after 5 edit moves if you don’t save it! I was later sent an offer to upgrade to 2023 but it sucks and it’s like moving from Cakewalk to Garage Band! So I never used it. I just got used to saving every minute, I have Filmora which I really should learn. But Vegas is just so easy to use. Until it crashes and you loose you last 20 edits. Magix, Steinberg, Ableton and FL Studio all install invasive ASIO generic drivers. I just found that out the hard way!! I personally won’t miss them if the fold. The only thing purchasing 2023 did is got rid of the nag screen from 17 that you couldn’t disable. Somehow I don’t think the original Sony Vegas was this buggy.

Yes. I just realized I should have made that # 18- Does this software have a good user forum. It’s certainly important to me. I haven’t logged into the Steinberg forum for a few years but last time I did I never got an answer to a simple question. If you use Elements you are not allowed to post in the main forum. I see lots of people still post here even though they switched to Studio one.

I just spent 2 hours with Mixcraft using it for the very first time. I have yet cracked the manual. I created a drum loop dragged it out with out issues. I added my guitar- I quickly edited a few bloopers. I even used Melodyne which seems to work better here. I recorded bass, converting it to midi and just finished editing it. If it had a smart tool I’d be happier but you quickly get used to shot cuts. The thing that makes this work is everything is clearly labeled and intuitive. Not bad at all for a super low price ( it’s on sale) I too am planning on carrying on with Sonar but have definitely decided I will not Lease it. And I now have a general idea of what prices are offered by the competition.

I’m a Steinberg customer and they have sent me promo emails since 2007 When I bought Wave lab. They always have sales throughout the year. They could probably care less what is going on with Cakewalk/ Sonar because my guess is most of their users are on Macs. Cubase is definitely at the top of my “other DAW “ list because I think it’s the closest workflow and features. I own Cubase elements 7. So I can upgrade to Artist for a very reasonable price with my discount. I have the demo of The full version installed and they give you 2 months free. So you have zero to loose to find out for yourself. Just don’t bother with the user forum it sucks. I’ve never needed support from them so can’t comment on that. Very good tutorials and solid stuff as far as I’ve experienced over my long time with them. I just like Cakewalk better. This video I just released shows you the options. It was pointed out that I missed Waveform. But I’m working on a video about free DAWS so I’ll include it in that one. https://youtu.be/6rG1PjJgcFg?si=Yvi3EKi7QNhQ-7_F

OK that was easy, I didn't read the manual for UVR 5 yet but it seems very promising. It must use a similar system to Next as you will hear there's no noticeable difference between Next and UVR. Mixcraft is just plain unusable as all track come out sounding under water. This screws up the midi conversion of the bass track which is my new workflow to create backing tracks using the original song as a building block. So I will probably just uninstal Next as I can't even record a simple song with it. It seems it's target market will be to currant users of the Bandlab app which is apparently HUGE! . Hmm, it doesn't show the titles. on my view the one on the left is Next, the middle is Mixcraft and the right is UVR 5. The mixcraft one is pretty obvious. I used the Bass because it shows the fuzziness you get. The original bass track of course does not sound that bad. It'a Ample P bass lite. Next Bass.mp3 UVR 5 Bass.mp3 Mixcraft Bass.mp3 Next Bass.mp3 Mixcraft Bass.mp3 UVR 5 Bass.mp3

I will do a side by side test. It might have been the song I chose in Mixcraft. So I had the idea of exporting one of my songs with the 5 tracks Bass, Drums,Vocal,Guitars and then Piano. No reverb or stereo effects. Then I'll run this though the three programs. I'm just downloading the one @azslow3 posted now.

Right! Now I remember what it was. It has changed for Cakewalk now too. If I opened a project directly in windows explorer then when you close it the recent?? button would take you back inside the project folder of the project you just closed. This might have changed back a while ago for Cakewalk. I don’t often work that way. Yes I like the way the start screen works now. I set it to the root of my Audio storage drive. But I like that I have the option to go directly to a folder now. I have about 10 different sub folders. Some people were saying there’s nothing big that changed in Sonar but some of these little things are definitely improvements. I especially love the way it basically copied everything from my Cakewalk custom settings over. My keyboard shortcuts, workspaces etc. Only tweak I made was the template folders. And after staring at a few other DAWS the graphics are slowly growing on me.

Yes that is it. It might phone home checking for updates every time it is opened. Some people probably will object to that. But then this is not the actual full release yet so they probably are keeping closer tabs on users. The start screen would be the perfect place to activate a “John is now starting a new project “ check in. Just kidding. One thing is in Cakewalk if you opened a. Project and then later saved and closed it would return to the inside of that project folder when you chose either the existing or recent projects tabs. That seems to have changed.

Only thing I did notice is it opens way faster. Overall it’s seems pretty perky to me. Only weird thing is the start screen is sluggish and a circle gizmo goes round for what seems too long compared to Cakewalk.

I got that at first but the new update it has gone away. It’s just reminder that you are on Lease for 1 month at a time. I noticed that term is used if you open you “About “ screen in Help. It says something like Status Leased. I also noticed there’s now a serial number. I think it was a bunch of xxx last time I looked.

Thanks @azslow3 for the tip. It seems stupid to keep a whole DAW installed just for stem separation. I just bought Mixcraft on sale as a good alternative DAW. I like it a lot. It has Stem Separation but compared to Next it’s almost useless. Very underwater sounds on all tracks. Your explanation of the different source models makes sense. I read that there is basically this one open source AI that any developers can use. Which explains why in Next it uploads and downloads the files. I will definitely check that out because this is a tool I’m finding very useful now for backing track creation.

Seems the mistake you are making is you are starting the mixing process before you have finished tracking. When collaborating you want project you share to be bare bones. If it is just midi then use VST instruments that are free so everyone can obtain them. Or freeze those tracks. You should not be using effects during tracking. Musician don’t need glamorous sounding backing tracks. As matter of fact just the opposite is true. You can save any Cakewalk project as a midi type 1 file and it will open in most DAWs. Some are better than others but generally the song will open and the midi tracks will be titled with what VST you used. I’ve even collaborated with Pro Tools this way. If some of the musicians are not savvy to using a DAW you get them to install Cakewalk and help them get it working. Then back at your studio you freeze all the midi instruments and add few tracks ready to record to. and send that to them. All they need to know how to do is arm the track and set levels. I have a portable laptop I lend to my band mate all the time for this. As long as the tempo is maintained all you need back from them is the stems. I’ve never observed any time drifting on a 4 minute song. Then there’s the version of the project that will be used for the final mixing. But that’s not the one you pass around. Keep those simple. Best to use midi if possible to make file transfer easy. But these day even 48/24 audio files don’t choke the internet too much.

Another way I test things like this is open it in another DAW. I am testing a bunch of Demos right now and most of the top DAWS support ARA. Example Mixcraft, Studio One and Bitwig. The demos are free to use for a month.

I just learned the other day that adding tags is a waste of time with You Tube. I used to spend a lot of time adding the maximum amount of tags thinking this would help people find info on the internet. I believe those videos have “Cakewalk ripple editing “ in the tags but it obviously doesn’t seem to work. Glad it helped but you gave me a good title for a future video! I’m holding off on putting out anything about Sonar just yet. I’m hoping they will make official videos like the seem to have done for the Bandlab App. .

I do this a lot. Often I need a count in or often after you drags audio file to the timeline to extract the tempo you then need to drag everything to be on the grid. This I have demonstrated in a few videos. But really it’s as simple as activate ripple editing for all. Then CTRL A to select all and drag the whole project to where you want it. If it’s only going to be everything to the right of the cut then make sure to choose that setting in preferences editing. Then when you make the split everything on the right is selected automatically. If it was locked to the grid make sure to choose an appropriate snap setting. Make sure to turn off Ripple when done. I think I demonstrate this in a few videos , try these https://youtu.be/HCOt74rENRg?si=w1j0-NhWsPk1aHBG This is Number 2 in a 3 part series but I think it’s the one that I show splitting up songs if not it’s in part 3 https://youtu.be/EceLttY9dAw?si=IquFY_z-TUiVRpQb

I just rebuilt last November. I generally do my audio interface then install Cakewalk and then activate all my plug ins. And it seems that you probably need to activate Melodyne when installing it and before opening Cakewalk. So maybe your fix will be uninstall Melodyne. Open Cakewalk and do a full scan and check that Melodyne is gone. And then re install Melodyne and then open Cakewalk and scan. I don’t really think reinstalling Cakewalk changes anything unless you do a 100% clean install.

Actually the Halion is one of my least favourite of the GM players. If you look on my You Tube channel you will see I demoed all the different players and played a midi file through each and then compared the sound quality. The Halion was down the list. Example the guitar patch sounds like a Dobro? I just installed the Cubase 12 and I see it still sounds the same. There’s a few free sound fonts players I demonstrate in the video that work fine.

I think I covered this in detail in one of my tutorials but the workflow I use starts with midi velocity. Example I only use 2 different Bass VST s. Ample p bass on most and I have settled on the velocity set at 106. So that is the starting point. Then the VST is set at 1.0 on its volume control. I leave track level it unity. This usually gives me about-3 db on the bass buss. I will then adjust to around-4.5 depending on song. But for my backing tracks this is set in stone. I too use AD for the drums and I built a kit and saved the preset. I do swap out snare drums but once again I start with the kick and snare velocity is never over 110. This way it always puts out about-3 db on the Drum buss. And then I dial in around-4 db depending on song but backing track this is set in stone. Definatly invest in the You Lean loudness meter it is a huge time saver with the paid version to be able to drag and drop individually tracks as well as your export mix.

Warning- I’m being attack in another thread for calling it a demo. But I can’t help but think of it otherwise. To me a Demo is what you have when you can try software but you haven’t bought it yet. It will expire if you don’t buy it. Im also demoing a bunch of the most popular DAW’s. Each one is different but all have a similarity in what they can accomplish. There’s just one deal breaker that is interesting and that is none of them so far use a smart tool! I find it now prehistoric to have to manually switch tools for midi editing. But none of them are subscription only. Most have different levels at different prices. I see no signs of needing re- activation. In the end Cakewalk/ Sonar has the best workflow for midi editing bar none. Problem I have right now I hope they fix is all the themes except Mercury have dark PRV. So for me Sonar is crippled. I’m still using Cakewalk in the meantime.

I don’t know why you choose to defend a company that you are not even an employee of . I am only stating what I observe buy being in the middle of Demoing 10 leading DAWs. They all allow saving so far. I haven’t gotten that far with all of them. It will take a while. Some like Cubase give you 2 months. They can call it what they like but Sonar is just another demo along with the rest. To me a Demo is software you can try out but you don’t own it yet. And I can compare different experiences between all of these different companies with what it takes to acquire the demos. Most require you create an account and register to access the demo. Bandlab was the only company I had to actually pay them something up front to demo their products. I don’t mind this because I support Cakewalk. I’ve had a free ride for 7-8 years thanks to them so $15 is a bargain. But that’s me. I’m not sure how Joe Public would think.

Does the stand alone version work. Did you re register the new computer on Celemony web site? Do you own your copy or was it the demo? The demo expires after a month.