David Rubenstein

I tried that, but got the error code shown in this screenshot.

Colin, Thanks for the suggestion! I was able to open the projects in Safe Mode. By looking at all the individual plugins, I discovered one that I did not explicitly add: "LRS track bus groove player". When I turned off this plugin, the project opened correctly. Further investigation showed that this plugin is used by the metronome. In preferences / metronome, I switched from "Use Audio Metronome" to "Use Midi Note", saved the project and exited. Then I re-opened the project in normal mode, and switched back to "Use Audio Metronome", saved and exited the project. Now when I open the project, it opens correctly in normal mode. So, there may be a bug (?) in the metronome settings that causes Sonar to crash.

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).

Of course I realize it. I have used Sibelius ever since it became available for Windows, and more recently Dorico, for many years. But, while I often compose in Cakewalk/Sonar, I find that seeing the score is more useful for composing, than the piano roll view. Then, to make my music production sound better, the piano roll view becomes much more useful.

In staff view, there are layout options for 8va Treble and 8va Bass. Unfortunately, they do exactly the opposite of what they should do. They should both act to reduce the number of ledger lines above or below the staff. For example, 8va Treble should lower the appearance of the notes, thereby reducing the number of ledger lines required. Instead, 8va Treble increases the number of ledger lines. Below I show an example. The first image shows two measures with the Treble/Bass layout. The second image shows the same two measures with the 8va Treble layout.

A minor problem in staff view; sometimes the staffs are not numbered correctly. Here is an example, showing the track view (with tracks that are numbered correctly) and the corresponding staff view (with track numbers that are incorrect). The track view shows tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, while the staff view shows the staffs labeled 1, 2, 4, 5, 6. I think that it is the folders that are messing up the track numbers.

In Track view, I press the "+" button to bring up the "Add Track" dialog menu (see attached snapshot). Under the "Instrument" tab, there are some radio button options, like "Record Enable", "Open Virtual Controller", and under "Advanced" there are additional radio buttons; "Create Folder", "Instrument Track per Output", and "Split Instrument Track". When I click on any of these options, the radio buttons do not light up, so I am not sure what is happening. Likewise, under the "Audio" tab, the radio button options do not light up.

The Erase tool icon has a poor design; it is ambiguous as to where it points. In addition, the Erase tool is buggy. In staff view, depending on precisely how I place the Erase tool over a note, sometimes, 1) I place the erase tool over the last quater-note in a measure, and the correct note is erased, or 2) I place the erase tool over the last quater-note in a measure and the first note in the measure is erased, or 3) I place the erase tool over the last quater-note in a measure and both the first and last notes in the measure are erased.

I have been actively assigning new keyboard shortcuts to cakewalk functions that I use often. However, many functions are not assignable. For example, SHIFT-R turns step-record on/off. But, there is no function to close the step-record menu. This function requires using the mouse. It would be great to bring more (unassigned) functions into the Keyboard Shortcuts menu, to allow users to assign more key bindings.

Do you use Windows 10? I ask because it has a built-in video record function. It is intended for recording video games, but it works for me, for all sorts of purposes. The shortcut is Windows-Alt-R to record. Also, the shortcut Windows-Alt-G brings up a set of menus for screen captures and other things.

Right now, the duration of a copyright is something like 75 years after the death of the author. Every so often they are lengthened, so that Disney can keep its copyrights forever. Copyrights should be shortened.

I found a possible answer to this problem in the old Cakewalk/Sonar forum here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Export-Audio-issue-m3747886.aspx I was having freezing and export problems; Long MIDI notes were shortened, and the result was unsatisfactory. Increasing the Mixing Latency/Buffer Size to the "Safe" zone did not help. Instead, this suggestion by scook helped: Try increasing BounceBufSizeMsec in Preferences > Audio > Configuration File My default value of BounceBufSizeMsec was 0 ms. I changed it to 20 ms, and the problem was solved.

John, I've been trying your articulation maps on several of the instruments. So far, they look good. Thanks--very helpful! --David

I have been having a problem with both freezing tracks and exporting. I am using the 2020.11 version of Cakewalk by Bandlab. When playing the music inside Bandlab, it sounds fine. However, often--but not always--when I export a track, some of the instruments do not come out in the WAV file sounding correctly. Long-playing notes only play as short notes, sort of staccato. This happens regardless of whether the reverb plug-in is in the individual track or a bus. In order to mitigate this problem, I have tried freezing the problematic tracks. But the same problem occurs when I play back the frozen tracks. Another thing I have tried, is to turn off the "fast-bounce" option when either exporting or freezing a track. This often helps, but of course it is time consuming. I have also played around with various options in the Export Audio menu, such as bit depth, 64-bit engine, and sample rate. There are many possible combinations of options, but I haven't found a combination that is fool-proof. Any advice on what is happening? Thanks for any suggestions!

Thank you, Scook. This is great news! This new feature may really speed up workflow, and also be much more intuitive than using keyswitches or separate articulations per Midi channel.