Noel Borthwick

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

And this is obviously always on line and phoning home because there's a little blue circle every time you make a move

You are mistaken. The only time it connects is if the app isn't activated or you are accessing something from the online projects tab.  The blue circle just means that it may be busy caching data to build the project list.

You screen shows the membership page which means that your account isn't showing an active bandlab membership. That's expected. 

The default quick start shows recent projects because that is where most users will look first. It's also the fastest to load that list. When you select all if the user has hundreds of projects it could take a few seconds to populate which isn't a good user experience.

12 hours ago, noynekker said:

Something I've noticed with the Nu Sonar . . . when you open Sonar to continue on working on your latest project, the date and time stamp displayed in the Quick Start screen does not reflect the last saved version you actually worked on. Anyone else noticed this ? So, I no longer trust which version I am opening from the Quick Start screen . . . such that I have to go to the Cakewalk Projects folder to make sure I'm opening my last saved version. Doesn't seem like the Quick Start screen is doing it's job to me.

I'll look into this. Is this when it's showing recent projects or all projects. Please list the exact version of sonar you are using from the about box.

I think I see where the confusion lies. It's listing the project duration in seconds not the modified time. It only shows the modified date currently not the time. I'll append the time to the modified date string to make it more clear.

10 hours ago, Bassfaceus said:

Latest version Sonar..

I had to move the dll into the "program files/Cakewalk/ VST plugins .

works now

Please don't mess with the location of internal plugins or it will cause unexpected bugs. That plug-in is supposed to installed to the shared utilities/internal folder alone and it will never be updated if you put it somewhere else. This is where pro channel modules also live. If you remove that folder all the prochannel modules will also stop working. That path is automatically included as a scan path when you install the app.

>>I had to move the dll into the "rogram files/Cakewalk/ VST plugins .

Where did you find the dll before you moved it?

On 5/10/2024 at 4:12 PM, InstrEd said:

SbC a subsidiary of Bandlab  ?

No thats not enharmonically equivalent unlike CbB :-P

Try and isolate if a plugin is causing it. Remove plugins one by one and see if the problem goes away. Some plugin copy protection schemes do weird things with the file system.

This sounds a lot like whatever they are using for copy protection or some system process of theirs is file locking the project file. We had a similar issue a few years ago with Steinberg's Syncrosoft copy protection and I sent them a ton of information to show that their eLicenser was causing this problem due to the Synsopos.exe process. 
This is something that AudioMovers would need to debug on their end. The fact that inject feeder is locking the project file is the problem they need to solve.

This should be resolved in the next Sonar release.

That error message means that Cakewalk failed to load the plugin library at a system level. The only way that can happen is if something in plugin itself failed the LoadLibrary call. Most likely it could be a memory limitation where the plugin is relying on a global  memory pool which is too small or some other static resource is my guess. This is not a Cakewalk specific problem.

I'm sorry to hear that you ran into this issue. I know you said that it corrected itself but if you can get a repro please send us the project files.

On 4/4/2024 at 10:15 AM, aidan o driscoll said:

Hi Noel,

Here is a screenshot when it opens on the RECENT PROJECTS tab:

 

The projects listed to the right - some of them would have been opened yesterday over the peer to peer network via my router from another system. So that might be it? Is there a way to clear that list? Also is there a way to clear the list in the FILE menu?

Cheers

Aidan

This is definitely the problem. If it's taking long to Open the files listed (to show project metadata) then it will slow down the load.

There is no direct way to clear the list today other than temporarily hiding the files and opening the app. That would flush the list if they are missing.

On 4/3/2024 at 1:09 PM, Terry Kelley said:

While I personally think we are being “strung along” at this point,  I don’t think it’s the developers doing it and I get the impression they would give us everything we want - if they could.

I understand that users want to get definitive answers on final pricing and purchase options, but please don’t read too much into this,.
As mentioned earlier, BSP was the quickest way we could make it the software available to users while all the other moving parts are sorted out for an official release. The wait to final releasse was completely expected to be a few months. BandLab is a big company and Its not just engineering - management, marketing, back end, social, support, all of those have to be coordinated to make it happen.

Our team would obviously like this to happen sooner than later and we’ve done our part to communicate whats needed within the org. If you need it now go ahead and use BSP, or wait for the final announcements on purchase options. Its pretty simple.

Which tab of the start screen is it defaulting to for you? Also where are you located? 

If it's taking long to show the data on the online projects or demo projects page it's likely because of Internet delays in accessing the data. 

Also can you switch to a different tab while it's waiting?

My dev PC was bought from @Jim Roseberry at Studiocat.com

These were the specs:
I9 Platinum Studio:
Silent Mid Tower Case
1000w Ultra Quiet Power-Supply
I9-10980xe (18 cores, 36 processing threads, 4.8GHz max turbo frequency)
X299 Chipset Motherboard
64GB DDR4
1TB SSD (OS/Applications)
GT-710 video
Windows 11 Pro

However, the UI smoothness can be seen on pretty much any PC. Its smoother even on my surface book 2.

Yes it is a lot more efficient for drawing the UI, which is visible in the responsiveness of meters and now time scroll smoothness. I posted a video some weeks ago with Sonar and CbB demonstrating this. There have been numerous optimizations to the UI to improve performance.

Yes there are plans to have purchase options outside of backstage pass which was intended to be the quickest way to get it right now.

When details of it are known it will be announced.

Talking about promos, bandlab has 30% off membership including backstage pass that includes both Sonar and Next for 104.99 for the first year.

It doesn't get any better than that for pricing.

3 hours ago, SirWillyDS12 said:

This issue was resolved for me with the 403 build @Noel Borthwick... Also, I'm no longer getting the Audio device has been disconnected dialog box on startup if Sonar resets the sample rate...

Nice. Yes this notification is now masked during app startup. What happens is when the sample rate changes some ASIO drivers request a driver reload leading to that spurious notification.

22 minutes ago, Promidi said:

I would rather have a perpetual licence - a similar way that Sonar Platinum was offered (before the lifetime licence was offered). 

Making 12 consecutive monthly, or one annual payment, gives you a version that keeps working.

If any updates are released while you have an active membership, you have access to those updates.

If, after the 12 consecutive monthly, or the one annual payment, you decide to stop renewing your membership, then you keep the version you had when you stopped renewing.

What I definitely would not like is for the only way to keep using Sonar is via membership.  I think that would annoy a lot of users.

We’re looking into other package options. Anything like that involves back end, and has a lot of other moving parts which is why there is a delay in information being made available.

53 minutes ago, Alan Bachman said:

I do not mind the subscription or plan idea at all.

I have asked some questions for clarification - such as - does bandlab membership include Sonar - with no extra fee?  Just want to know.  I do think it is time for Bandlab to start clarifying pricing, whatever it is.

There are often critiques on this forum and almost always they are made to make sure the product and presentation of the product improves.

Imho, no one should abandon Cakewalk or Sonar.   It is a great, deep, reliable program and for me, it is especially important because I can open files from decades ago in various iterations of Cakewalk/Sonar.  And good luck finding a DAW with as helpful people as the Bakers with this forum, etc.

It includes both Sonar and Next at no extra fee which is a great value if you do the math. Also included are all the standard BandLab membership perks like distribution promotion etc.

19 minutes ago, Tez said:

I documented my experience, others have a similar issue and for me this did not occur to CbB versions prior to "2023.09". The question is how to track this down if it only occurs to some of us,  A windows task manager dump may not capture what's initially blocking  the handshake  which for me subsequently disappears on a relaunch with a now activated notice, incidentally when the Bandlab membership promo notice popped up there was no following activation issues and clicking check for updates shows the CbB version is up to date. Any suggestions?

Sign in is complex because it relies on the browser handshake. If something in windows blocks it there isn't a whole lot we can do. It's not a bug in our code so I can't help you with that in this scenario.

Using offline auth via product center to activate from a different machine is the easiest solution. If sign in fails even from product center then you have a more fundamental problem with your account or credentials.

32 minutes ago, norfolkmastering said:

Worth having another look at text legibility which I’m struggling with in the new Sonar GUI.  My monitors are on maximum possible resolution and I’m struggling with some of the text.

Can you be specific about exactly which areas you find difficulty with? Post screenshots if necessary.

18 hours ago, norfolkmastering said:

I think this sums up the issues with the new Sonar Tungsten theme very well. I don’t mind it not being an exact copy but it should be better, not worse. I hope the themes are not being ‘fashion’ driven.  Totally irrelevant for an GUI you are using for music production.

We need good contrast between functional blocks, easy to see buttons and knobs, and very legible text.  The CbB Skylight GUI does that really well and is the standard to start from in any new Sonar GUI.

Thats a generalization since its not a black and white choice. There are many people who are equally driven by aesthetics as much as function and would not consider using a product that didn’t look and feel clean and inspiring. 
Everyone is different has has varying tastes when it comes to an interface. Personally, I lean closer to favoring function but I am very affected by visual clutter. I hate using products with so many options in the UI that it causes paralysis. That said, the design team takes all of this into account.

15 hours ago, John T said:

I'm personally not interested in a full-blown theme editor. But I think it would be nice to see more colour tweaks available in preferences.

I also think there's a gap in the current set of themes, and there should be at least one that's a bit more high contrast.

More color customization will evolve. There won't be a theme editor since there are no bitmaps to replace. We have some themes not released yet that will fill these gaps when it's complete.

On 3/11/2024 at 1:11 AM, Hillmy said:

So I would advise not making anything related to Cakewalk/Sonar/Next your main anything or permanently move anything to it. Because IT WILL CHANGE SOON! 

Nothing will change that will break compatibility. Both sonar and next are not beta software. Backstage pass has more to do with the delivery of the software than the software itself.

I can assure you that it is not.