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Ah, that explains the expense and trouble they've gone to to keep the Cakewalk Inc. download and registration servers running (including an update to the client software) for the past 6 years. That coupled with the announcement that Cakewalk by BandLab will remain free to download and use adds up to sheer disregard for the existing userbase. How they could hope to retain a particle of goodwill is beyond understanding.

Really?? It happened at least twice in the past 9 months or so. The last time was back in April. The first one was $69, but unless you're one of the few people who doesn't have a cache of JamPoints, the JamPoints discount took it down to $49.

Questions for the "BandLab is only interested in subscriptions and won't be offering Sonar via perpetual license" people, and I'm being sincere this time, I really want to know what people think if we can set snark and innuendo aside: How many people should they expect to go for it, based on what? So far the most common arguments I've seen are that we haven't been told for sure yet, so far the only way to be able to use Sonar is in a subscription bundled with Next and all of BandLab's other services, and that most (not all) software companies would rather have users on subscription plans. I agree that all of those things are true, but I believe that there are other factors to consider. BandLab has spent the last 6 years building a large userbase of people who were attracted to Cakewalk by BandLab because it was free. Surely for other reasons as well, but I wouldn't have paid it much attention if I hadn't been curious about the way they turned SONAR into freeware. Can they expect enough people to be drawn in to BandLab subscriptions to make the development costs worthwhile? I personally see that as unlikely, but I don't know, I'm asking for opinions here. No snark intended, not a rhetorical question either. This is what I see when I look around: Software licensing by subscription is gaining more traction in the consumer segment. That said.... There's only one other DAW you can only get as part of a subscription bundle, and that's Adobe Audition. I of course don't know how much of Audition's userbase is made up of people who would be using it if it weren't included in the bundle with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, but I suspect that it's a small group. IMO, Adobe were able to force the subscription model because Photoshop owned the market so completely. They rightly calculated that the pro's who had to have Photoshop would pay for the subscription even if they preferred a perpetual license, and that the number of amateur users they would lose wouldn't be significant. There are a number of competing DAW's in the under $100 perpetual license price range, including Mixcraft, REAPER, and Studio One Artist. While the number of features these DAW's have may not be much greater than what Sonar has to offer, the features they do have tend to have been implemented in more recent years, so they include features that may be more likely to attract younger users. They are all solid, well-supported programs. Next, aimed as it is at first time DAW users, is a hard sell on subscription, because I don't think that someone who wants to try this DAW thing out is going to want to pay for a year in order to do so. The venerable Waves not long ago tried to make their product line subscription-only and the blowback was so hard that within a week, they had abandoned the approach and gone back to offering perpetuals once more. On this forum and on YouTube, there seem to be a majority who at least say they would rather switch to another DAW than pay for Sonar via subscription. So, given all of the above, I still think it is unlikely that Sonar (nor Next) in its final released form will only be available via subscription. But if you don't think it's unlikely, what are you basing it on other than the fact that we don't know yet, and that companies prefer subscription licensing? Do you think it makes business sense for BL to try it? If not, do you think that they are short sighted and/or misguided? I'm genuinely curious.

Dang. Between this and the $50 SampleTank MAX deal, a person could assemble a freakin' juggernaut of IK goodies for $100. IK Multimedia get a lot of flak around here for their puzzling upgrade policies and difficult and confusing installation/validation methods, much of it deserved. But in the end, the products are just really excellent. I have Analog Lab 5 and hardly ever touch it, whereas I've gotten multiple song ideas based on the vintage emulations in Syntronik 2. And there's so much content in SampleTank MAX that I wonder if I'll ever even be able to audition all of it. As for T-Racks, IK giving me a freebie on their Fairchild 670 emulation revolutionized my approach to mixing due to introducing me to what I could do with mid-side compression. As I said about the ST MAX deal, I would consider this from the viewpoint not of whether I wanted all of them, or how many of them duplicated processors I already have, but rather how many of the ones I don't have it would take to make it worth the $49. If 5 of them interest you, that's $10 a processor. If you don't have their Fairchild 670, it's the best of its type I've tried (gets great reviews, too). Equal, Master Match, whatever you don't already have. If you like attractive GUI's, they're great. A large number of them include mid-side processing, which is something I find essential.

I suspect that in a poll that reflected the entire current market, which now includes a TON of hobbyists, video makers, podcasters, VO pros and so on, Focusrite would be #1, followed closely by Behringer, Presonus, etc. I mean, how often do you run across a YT talking head who doesn't use a Scarlett 2i2?? Inevitably paired with a SM7. The outliers use RE-20's. AVID would be way down on the list, UAD might be somewhere in the midfield with MOTU, if that. Interesting experiment would be to create a similar poll on this forum. The DAW scene has changed a great deal in the past decade. There's been an explosion in the hobbyist segment. Creating music using personal computers is so much more popular than it was.

So it's basically a poll of Pro Tools users, or at least heavily skewed in that direction. Production Expert casts its net wider these days, but it started as a Pro Tools blog. After AVID left PT's lunch out on the counter long enough for all the other companies to start gobbling it up, they branched out. A planet where Antelope is more widely used than PreSonus is one that I don't recognize. And UAD? Great stuff, but it's too pricey to be that mainstream. Behringer, Steinberg and Tascam being so rare is also not realistic. This is a poll that reflects the hardware choices of people who built Pro Tools studios over a dozen years ago. Interesting, but it doesn't reflect the entire market.

That issue of Amazing Computing is very interesting. Anyone who's curious about this topic should check it out. There's a screenshot in there of a piano roll that has most of the important elements of the ones we use today, down to velocity display, articulations, etc.

There's probably an easier/faster way to do that. I'm not sure what you're doing in the Process menu, but here's how I do it. Split the clip right before the mouth noise I want to remove, then drag the edge of the clip until the breath is edited out. If you split the clip by using alt-click, it goes very quickly. Split, edit, split, edit. Faster to do than to type how to do it. And, yes, I, too, think a "repeat last command" would be a good thing for Sonar to have. Matter of fact, I wasn't even aware that it didn't. It's such a standard thing.

I get the left to right part. People from Western countries would expect the playhead to go from left to right. I was wondering more about the part where the tracks are horizontal, with headers on the left. That doesn't seem like something that DAW's picked up from something else, except maybe seismographs and other paper chart recorders. I know that trackers, which were a hip thing for a while and never really went away, and actual physical piano rolls scroll top to bottom. The traditional DAW/NLE layout lets the user watch as events are triggered, get an overview of a whole song or project. Maybe it's a simple as real estate: monitors are wider than they are tall, so horizontal tracks lets you display the greatest amount of timeline. Then there's Waveform, and Ableton Live, who put the track headers over on the right for no good reason I can think of, except unless the other stuff in Ableton Live need to be over there. These features are the way they are because someone thought of the best way to present the information, tried it, it worked, and then other developers adopted it. Draw and paint programs have floating palettes because it works. It's great to have access to those tools right there where you're working so you don't have to look away. I just get curious about things sometimes. Why is this program that I stare at so much the way that it is?

I'm not losing any sleep over the question, nor would I ask anyone else to. I'm not trying to develop my own DAW so there's nothing to fix other than satisfying my curiosity. Speaking of which, do you think I'm putting myself in danger asking about DAW development history?? If so, I'd like to know what pitfalls to watch out for. If it's too dangerous to even speak of, I understand. But a vague hint or two might not hurt?

Today's freeware pick, and highly recommended by me, Soundly Shape it EQ. Recommendation: do not write this off as "oh boy, another paragraphic to add to my collection of over a dozen of them." Try it first. Even though it doesn't do anything that the sonitus EQ doesn't. Even though MEqualizer and TDR Nova have more features. In this case it's not about having one single EQ plug-in that can do everything. It's how it does it, with everything right where it needs to be. What they say about it being lightning fast to set up the usual EQ tasks is true. Just fire it up, try doing your standard highpass, lowpass, notch, and boost. See how many clicks it takes you. Then decide whether to keep or trash. Single click to add a node, and if you do it at the ends, it's smart enough to start with a highpass or lowpass, depending. Then, once you have a node in place, when it's focused, it will have a small (but not too small) pop-up box attached with various parameters like Q, shape, etc. Changing the Q is as easy as clicking on the parameter and dragging up and down. The important thing for me is that you don't have to travel to another window or another part of the UI to do anything. It's all right there at the active node. I like it so much I'm wondering if it's going to replace MEqualizer as the first EQ I reach for for basic tasks. It has 10 bands to MEQ's 6, but I never use that many bands anyway. If you know what a drooler I am about MEqualizer, that should tell you how stoked I am. Also, I'm not just about freeware, I have some heavy hitters as far as this type of EQ. sonible entropy and proximity, Kilohearts Slice and Carve, T-Racks Equal, the entire Melda line, and all of iZotope's. I'm a hard sell. It doesn't do all of the fancy things others do, but that's what those EQ's are for. This is bread and butter. I fired it up in PluginDoctor and it was in the ballpark with MEqualizer for performance, which is my benchmark for that. Try their other freebie, PlaceIt, which despite the name is more of a sound designer's tool than a spatial placement tool. You can emulate the sound of laptop speakers in an office, the traditional telephone, "Wish You Were Here" transistor radio, party next door, and so forth. If I were doing soundtrack work, I'd consider it essential. I'll use it on dialog samples for my ambient stuff.

Argh, I seem to have missed the follow ups (good idea to use quoting, it alerts people). I've found that with some of these, you must click on the Input Echo button for the instrument's MIDI track for them to work properly. Otherwise, Cakewalk defaults to only input echoing on the currently selected track.

Something I've long been curious about: what DAW's or NLE's were the first to adopt the design/layout paradigms that are now pretty much standard. Whatever their differences, the "classic" DAW's seem to have settled down with a standard layout paradigm. You know you're going to see a main window with tracks laid out horizontally, track headers at one side, and another window with a piano roll for MIDI editing. The piano roll has a graphical representation of a piano keyboard at the left and a grid where you enter and edit notes. From there, it's down to the finer points of how you navigate those things. Also, over the years, many DAW's have added an optional "inspector" at the left that lets you access more parameters relating to a focused track. Same with a vertically-arranged "browser" either at left or right that acts as a table of contents for plug-ins, loops and other such things. Most of them now have some sort of layers or lanes or equivalent that allow for different iterations of the tracks. Cubase has this, Sonar, Pro Tools and of course the REAPERs and Mixcrafts and Studios One and Mixbuses that came later. Even Waveform and Ableton Live have it, with the difference being that the track headers are at the right for whatever reason. Who were the firsts? Who did the first piano roll with the keyboard at the left? Who first did the horizontal tracks with headers? Lanes? Everyone copies features and workflow from each other, but someone had to do them first. Later, who was first to have the floatable dockable rearrangeable windows for the views? Who put that inspector over at the left? The bulk of my experience is with Cakewalk, Mixcraft, and Studio One, all of which are close enough to each other that it's down to specific differences, IMO. I have no experience with pre SONAR X Cakewalk stuff, so I don't know about that. The reason this came up for me is that I visited with a college professor friend whose specialty is media, and when he wrote a paper on the influence that computers have had on how we create music, he chose Cubase as his starting point. I think that was because he had to start somewhere, and to him, Cubase seemed to be the first widely adopted MIDI sequencer.

Where on earth did you find that sketchy link? The CbB download is still on BandLab's site.

Recommendation: do not write this off as "oh boy, another paragraphic to add to my collection of over a dozen of them." Try it first. What they say about it being lightning fast to set up the usual EQ tasks is true. Just fire it up, try doing your standard highpass, lowpass, notch, and boost. Then decide whether to keep or trash. Single click to add a node, and if you do it at the ends, it's smart enough to start with a highpass or lowpass, depending. Then, once you have a node in place, when it's focused, it will have a small (but not too small) box with various parameters like Q, shape, etc. And changing the Q is as easy as clicking on the parameter and dragging up and down. The important thing for me is that you don't have to travel to another window or another part of the UI to do anything. It's all right there at the active node. I like it so much I'm wondering if it's going to replace MEqualizer as my go to. It has 10 bands to MEQ's 6, but I never use that many bands anyway. If you know what a drooler I am about MEqualizer, that should tell you how stoked I am. As do we all, I have some heavy hitters as far as this type of EQ. sonible entropy and proximity, Kilohearts Slice and Carve, T-Racks Equal, the entire Melda line, and all of iZotope's. I'm a hard sell. It doesn't do all of the fancy things others do, but that's what those EQ's are for. This is bread and butter. I fired it up in PluginDoctor and it was in the ballpark with MEqualizer for performance, which is my benchmark for that. Cause for rejoicing among a vocal subset of forum buddies: to download it, you click on the button that says "download." Then your download starts. Then you run the installer and the plug-in is installed. Period. No newsletter, no "liking" them or downloading the installer shell or online verification or any of that. Rigmarole don't bother me, I'll crawl over broken glass just to try out a free limiter from a favorite plug-in house.? But I got yer 6. Also try PlaceIt, which despite the name is more of a sound designer's tool than a spatial placement tool. You can emulate the sound of laptop speakers in an office, the traditional telephone, "Wish You Were Here" transistor radio, and so forth. If I were doing soundtrack work, I'd consider it essential. I'll use it on dialog samples for my ambient stuff.

Different animal. PlaceIt is more soundtrack-y sound design-ish than it is spatial. So if you want to emulate laptop speakers, telephone, old radio, party in the basement, etc. PlaceIt is the thing, and it does it well. Fun to play with. Gotta try doing a "Wish You Were Here" transistor radio effect some time. As others have said, no issues here in Sonar or CbB.

Other than the Tutorials subforum, which we are now posting in, there are no other resources that I know of for text-driven tutorials. Curious: my installation of SONAR Platinum doesn't have a set of tutorials in its help files. Can you be more specific about where/how to find them?

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It was a joke aimed at people like me who are capable of being jaded by a manufacturer giving out free licenses for what is actually a pretty great plug-in in its category. Be grateful that you didn't get it.? "Pizza again? We always have pizza!"

I was actually aware that both of the plug-ins have been given away many times over the years. A free license for TrueVerb was my first Waves plug-in, 10 or more years ago. My comment was meant to be amusing, ironic, "wishing" for something to happen that is known to happen rather often. I could also wish for brainworx to release more vintage hardware emulations (especially console EQ's) or for UAD to give some consideration to MacOS compatibility. Or for MeldaProduction to focus less on endless documentation and hand-holding. Glitchmachines could get outside their comfort zone and release something more adventurous. Maybe Freakshow Industries' ads could show a sense of humor once in a while instead of rote descriptions of what the processors do. BandLab shouldn't be so hasty about rushing Cakewalk Sonar's release and AVID should take copy protection more seriously. If only more REAPER users could speak up and help spread awareness about the product in social media and YouTube comments. Apple could stand to get some synergy happening with sales of Logic Pro and MacOS computer systems. And if only users of this forum could speak up and let BandLab know their opinions about pricing, subscription licensing, and where Cakewalk Sonar will fit in the marketplace. That would surely be entertaining and informative, and it would serve to let BandLab know that we stand united in our opinions. For my own part, perhaps I should be more verbose....

So there's free, which means that you're legally entitled to use it without paying a license fee, and then there's "almost free" which means that you're not legally entitled to use it without paying a license fee but you can use it without paying if you're willing to ignore a prominent notice reminding you that you're not legally entitled to use it without paying. For instance, Cakewalk by BandLab and Audacity and Ubuntu are free, REAPER and GoldWave and Windows 10 are almost free.

Here it comes, here it comes, here comes your 7th Berzerk Distortion.... If only they'd do a freebie of TrueVerb or H-Comp Hybrid Compressor.

I don't know what the FL Studio channel rack looks like, but if you want to program beats using the step sequencer and use your own sound files for the drum sounds, Speedrum Lite will do the job. It's freeware. TX16Wx is more complex and will also do the job. Also freeware.

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I really should analyze what's up with the unintended consequences thing, because it wasn't that way with Mixcraft. I didn't wear a shiny spot on my Control and Z keys as quickly. Also not that way with Vegas or Audacity or Paint.NET. My first thought is that it's down to differences in how Cakewalk clears selections. Some convention in other Windows apps that I'm used to but is different in Cakewalk. Maybe something to do with right clicking and context menus....what happens over and over is that I delete something and it takes something else with it that I didn't expect it to. Stuff often seems to be selected when I was not expecting it to be. One of my earliest WTF's with CbB was right clicking on a track header, selecting Delete Track and then being asked if I wanted to delete multiple tracks. This happened over and over again. Hmm.