John Vere

I think it is quite safe to say at this point that some version of Sonar moving forward will be affordable just for this reason. On the small chance that I don't continue with Sonar, I would for sure still purchase a basic version. Because.... Yes- we can use older versions but those better be X3 and backwards to be "Server proof" And ya, not a great choice unless you are desperate. I'm not that desperate. Sonar Plat still ultimately requires the old Gibson server to activate. They have no solid reason to maintain that as time goes on. Write that version off too! You get a artificial view of the Cakewalk user base from this forum which is mainly made up of long time users. The option to use an older version of Sonar is NOT an option for a huge majority of currant FREE Cakewalk users. A huge chunk of these people will look at other free DAW's. This is why I think they will come up with a real stripped down version that is either free of super cheap.

Thanks David for your back up. I honestly hate to see people struggling with audio systems as it is the biggest roadblock when trying to use a Computer to record audio ( unless you own a Mac? But there’s a simple solution that being a proper audio interface.

I just had a look at the web page. It has way too much against it as an audio interface. It actually breaks most of the rules. First- No ASIO driver Second- 44.1 / 16 recording quality the lowest standard. The USB return has no level control but it sort of looks like it can be sent to the headphones. You definitely don’t want it going to the Main outputs as for sure that would create the Loopback. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you would have been making music a long time ago if you had a proper interface.

Deleted See next post

Normally in Cakewalk all audio recording is a Wave file not a Riff. Does the clip actually show as a RIFF file? That seems wrong. Did you record it with Cakewalk or another app?

You are most likely using a 32 bit plug in. They need Bit Bridge to work on your 64 bit system. Most of us avoid using any 32 bit plug ins as they are often unstable. Lots of old freebies are only 32 bit but just not usually worth the bother.

If you don’t buy Sonar you will have no way to open CWP file once Cakewalk is de activated which will probably happen with in this year. You will need to have an older version of Sonar which the majority of CbB users don’t have. These are the people who are the most upset about all this. They have all their last few years of projects in a format that will now cost money to use. Im optimistic that they will solve this huge issue by offering a free version. A Sonar Home Studio 2024

That’s not Cakewalk. I haven’t seen any Activation notifications but those probably happened with the last update a few weeks ago. Please Don’t get Sonar and Cakewalk mixed up. Sonar is being constantly updated right now as well as you are reminded of the status of your lease every time you open it . I kinda doubt they will update CbB again now they put out that last couple of fires. Note they really didn’t need to do that but they did because it seems they still listen to the complaining here on the forum and deal with it Notice how quickly they added a couple of legacy themes! I think all smart people have moved on and are now waiting for the pricing of Sonar or trying other DAWS too. Why cling to a sinking ship. Move on. On my test computer which I just re built from my old machine, are demos for I think 7 DAWS as well as Next the new Sonar and Sonar Home Studio (2015) I didn’t even bother installing CbB.

Reading and looking at your screen shots on the other thread your issue is totally a matter of using the correct theme for Cakewalk You’re using a theme with a dark background which for some reason is the default. I also totally cannot work with that. So we have custom themes that fix that issue BUT. The new Sonar doesn’t support custom themes yet. The only theme with a white PRV is Mercury. Then track view looks terrible. So try Mercury the PRV has seen a million improvements since Sonar 4 and once you learn about them you would never go back. Id say it’s strongest asset is the smart tool. You really need to learn all its options to see how powerful it is compared to all other DAWS. You really have little choice but to move forward. We all had to do this and there’s always a short period of transition. All of us are going though this right now with Sonar. Just look at the thread titles on this page.

All I can say is anyone who has used Cakewalk would never survive using Next. The best example is Cakewalk’s user manual is over 1,900 pages and Next’s manual is only 246 pages. It is totally nothing todo with Cakewalk or Sonar it is like using a completely different brand. You can’t open Cakewalk by Bandlab projects. It is more aimed at the people who have been using the Bandlab app so they can work on a computer instead of a mobile device. You have nothing to loose by signing up for the free 3 day demo.

It’s usually the top of the list of how to optimize your PC for Audio and using a DAW. In Windows 10 it was easier to find it.

So are you just using a Demo version of Melodyne? Possibly that is the problem. This feature might be disabled.

It's been online activation since Bandlab took over. There's an Offline activation but the software was NEVER unlocked for permanent use. They obviously new from day one what they were going to do in the future. As Meng said in his first announcement " We are Baking up something special for you"

You cannot do anything to any audio clip that is open in Melodyne editor. This is why that is greyed out. That's why I said above I un-did the regional effect before I dragged the Kick drum. For the audio to midi you don't use Regional effect. You just drag the audio to an instrument or midi track and it will ask you which Algorithm to use. Use Melodic for bass and percussive for drums, And then If you want Guitar chords you use Polyphonic sustain. I highly recommend you watch the Celemony videos on their web site, they are very well done. I use Melodyne for way more than pitch correction. You can adjust time and level as well. As I said it's the best money I ever spent on software.

I fired up my Laptop. Checking in my apps it only shows Melodyne 4 installed. I open the stand alone and you see that it is not activated and if I click on Activate it takes me to the Celemony web site. I opened a project which has real drums and bass tracks and I dragged the Bass track to a midi track and it converted the audio to midi just like it always has for me for a long time. But what I never saw was the dialogue that asks you to choose the algorithm. I've think I always see that. It just asked me if I wanted to proceed. I then clicked on the Kick drum track and applied regional effects and this opened the editor with same toast message as the stand alone. It seems the Kick drum was represented in the editor and I noticed there's no option to choose algorithms they are greyed out. So I undid the regional effect and dragged the kick drum to a midi track. It took a long time and the progress bar was moving very slowly. It eventually crashed Sonar ( new version) But what will be different for you is you probably don't have Melodyne 4 installed. Check your Program files under Celemony. I come to the conclusion that people who started fresh with CbB over the last 2 year won't have Melodyne 4 and therefore the conversion no longer works. And I've never seen this crash before so obviously the Player version which doesn't have the option for the algorithms is touchy.

Instead of drums try a monophonic track like a Bass? But @Craig Anderton mentioned the other day that the Polyphonic separation works even if you don't have the Versions of Melodyne that support it in the editor. I think you can purchase Elements dirt cheap. It's most certainly worth it. I couldn't function with out Melodyne now. It goes on sale a lot. But what I did was started with elements and every year Black Friday sale, took the discounted price upgrades and so now I have the full version and I think it worked out a lot cheaper that way.

You could be right but I also don’t think I have a way to test it as my older computers all came with Melodyne 4 which doesn’t seem to expire. I was to understand this changed when 5 came out and I guess Melodyne very basic version stopped being free. But I do think it’s called Melodyne Player remains. So possibly it still does the converting. Lots of the DAWS I’m testing do ARA audio to midi conversion. My test computer doesn’t have Melodyne Studio 5 installed. All the software on that computer is free stuff. But that’s also where I installed Home Studio. I know HS always did audio to midi. I do have one Laptop that is W7 and CbB I use for live shows that I could try it on.

I don’t know the answer but I found I get quick accurate replies on the official MS users forum. You are sort of automatically logged in if you are logged in to your MS account for all that other wonderful stuff like One Drive and Outlook.

The new Sonar has a much updated track manager which allows you to quickly change what tracks are showing or hidden and the toggle is now in the upper left corner where it’s easy to get at.

This. Melodyne Audio to midi makes a huge mess of a drum track. It's useless for that. I only use it for Bass. I used to have a tutorial for it but it didn't get very many views so I took it down. For sure spend some time in the manual but depending on the recording it most defiantly will extract kick and snare. The rest is to complicated so I never bothered. The one trick people are not aware of is once you apply the regional effect to the track and it is still active, You can drag and drop that track to a VST instrument drum track ( or a midi track) and it will convert it to midi. The built in sounds in Drum replacer are terrible. It all gets tricky in the case of a multi track drum recording of a real kit. You can use drum replacer to convert the snare and kick, but you can't really move those midi notes around much because of the leakage into the overheads and other mikes will still be out of time. So you sort of have to edit the audio tracks anyhow if there's timing issues.

I think this is exactly what just happened to me with the upgrade to 2023. I assumed it was the new update. No it seems totally striped down and completly weird layout. Dupped again. I really like Filmora compared to Resolve. So I just need to stop working long enough to figure it out. I actually went looking for an older version of Vegas thinking they were probably more stable! That's like being a Sonar 8.5 hold out!

You need a license for Melodyne for this to work now. This changed when Melodyne 5 came out and Cakewalk no longer includes the basic version of Melodyne. Only a demo for a month. You don’t hold CTRL you hold Shift to keep it aligned.

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.