Colin Nicholls

My DAW is frozen at a relatively older version of Windows 10 and I've never had any issues whatsoever. Microsoft ended support of it years ago. The sky is still blue and the sun comes up in the morning.

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3 hours ago, Chaps said:

Another feature of AD2 I like is the ability to link the kick and snare with the Flexi instruments

Today I learned. Thanks!

3 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

I’ve been working this way for years, and it’s not because I don’t know how to use multi-outs — it’s because it offers flexibility you simply can’t get when everything is tied to a single AD2 mixer.

[..]

Multi-outs make sense if you want to treat AD2 like a traditional kit, but for hybrid, layered, or heavily processed productions, multiple instances is the way to go.

Uh, okay! I would never to this, but if it is working for you, great! there's always multiple ways to get things done. Respect.

Did you save the session with a known name to a known location? Portable hard drive no longer connected? Search your drives for the file name, or heck, *.cwp? 

If Sonar didn't actually crash or show an error , then I bet the .cwp does exist somewhere.

I don't know why they are not freezing but that sounds like a sub-optimal way to achieve your end-goal. You really have a separate instance of AD2 per drum ?

Any reason why you are not using a single virtual instrument track for AD2, driving it by multiple MIDI tracks? Just one instance of AD2?

Oh - and we can still fire up CbB and load themes as a source of inspiration, going forward. That hasn't gone away.

Shucks Erik, thank you. It's amazing what you can achieve when you are between jobs and have people appreciating your efforts.

I echo your sentiments. I've been mourning the loss of theming also, but looking forward to what is coming - cross fingers - with respect to color customization in New Sonar.

However for those of you expecting a "Young Lady's Primer to Color Theming in New Sonar", please don't hold your breath waiting for it 😄

3 hours ago, jimlynch22 said:

because I use Snap to Scale all the time

Ugh, I've never used it. Yeah that's suboptimal for me too. I don't know whether we should log bugs/feature requests for individual color tweaks or just group them all under a general "hurry up with user color customization already" thread.

https://www.cakewalk.com/sonar

Download, execute, follow the instructions

@jimlynch22  Given your constraints I recommend you stick with Mercury or Mercury classic.

In PRV, If you are a fan of "light background PRV" - like me - it's about your only sane choice.

In Track View, you can adjust the data zoom level (as I think you have done, I think) to make the note blobs larger, and choose track colors that improve the contrast of note blob to background.

I'm not sure which module would be appropriate, or even if it was suitable for every Audio Driver type, but I feel like so many "Sonar sounds like crap" posts might be eliminated if the buffer size were obviously visible without drilling down into the preferences dialog

"Sonar" is not "Cakewalk By Bandlab", it is a different program with different user interface engine that is vector-based instead of bitmap, and is able to be variably scaled but retain "crisp" appearance.

In other words, the graphics you see are not generated the same way, and there is no method to make them look any closer to the CbB appearance. 

With respect to the colors, try adjusting the Saturation slider in Preference > Customization > Colors 

From your screenshots, it appears it may need moving to the right in order to match what you see in CbB.

Check the status of the Preference > File > Advanced > [ ] Allow only one project open at a time

43 minutes ago, greg54 said:

This is a Sonar issue, because I never had this issue with CbB.

I'm not so sure, because I've been able to configure CbB also such that I can't record anything,  😉

Seriously though, I would start with the basics. Enable one set of inputs and one set of output only.

Then create an empty project, no plugins.

Add an audio track and assign output to the one output that you enabled. 

Drag a known good test audio file into the track and test playback. Works? Good, discard that track now.

Now add a new adio track, and set the input to the one input you enabled. 

Arm the track for record and press Record in the transport. Are you getting data printed into the audio track? (could be a flat line (i.e. no signal) but is it recording?

If so, great. Now double-check that your mic is plugged in to the right input. Does it need +48V phantom power?  Re-do the test. Getting signal? (Whether you can hear the output as you record (i.e. input monitoring enabled) isn't the test you're doing right now. That's for later.

Report back on your progress. 

Yay!

If you have a blank project that exhibits the problem, I would try opening it on my system and seeing if the problem is saved with the project. It might not be a content-dependent problem.

27 minutes ago, Jim Stamper said:

My PC is a NUC 11 Enthusiast built by Intel, with Intel and Nvidia on board graphics.

Off-topic, but I love the NUC form factor. I use a NUC 12 myself. 

On-topic, I have not seen this behavior recently. Are you able to share the project?

4 hours ago, David Rubenstein said:

I am finding the latest version of Cakewalk Sonar (Version 2025.07 (Build 097, X64) to be very very unstable. I am using Windows 11.

The program often crashes when I open a saved project. So instead, I am often forced to open an old version of my project (one that was automatically saved).

I have a single audio track in my project, and 6 Midi tracks, using the same Midi instruments that I have in the past, with no problems. I only use a few plugins (Sonitus Compression, Channel Tools, and EW Spaces II).

Can you open the projects in Safe Mode ? 

1 hour ago, Russell said:

Is the butt ugly interface by design?

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Also... bear with me here... what if you try to export as "test_.wav" - do you get test__.wav ?

what if you attempt to export to a filename without a file extension? 

I'm clutching at straws here but could there be a hidden file test.wav that is forcing the underscore? I mean, i would have expected test (2).wav or similar rather than an underscore but... ?!?

I didn't see anything immediately obvious in the video, thanks for sharing that.

16 hours ago, Doug Steinschneider said:

He worked for hours on a song without saving and left it open for me to check out which was the next day

This has nothing to do with Sonar and a lot to do with very stupid choices

Is there any chance you guys can post a short video showing the problem? This is intriguing. 

There's no chance your filename includes pesky higher-order ascii (or unicode) characters is there?