Michael Vogel

There are likely many Mac users who subscribe to Bandlab who obviously can’t use Sonar but can use Next and all the other Bandlab products, files etc. Bandlab members far exceed numbers who buy dedicated DAWs. The community using online and collaborative tools is much larger than you probably credit.

Congratulations. Best wishes for your success.

After much internal debate I decided to pay for the annual Bandlab subscription. Using Australian micro pesos it came to about AUD$178. It saved me about 2 months compared to paying the sub monthly. That’s about what an annual update used to cost back in the Gibson days. At least US$ converted to AUD$. I’ll try it for this first year to see if a perpetual license becomes an offering and to see how development on a paid for product continues. I’ve got a 30 year investment in having bought every update/upgrade along the way from the Twelve Tone days to protect. If no perpetual license, I’ll probably leave for another permanent DAW that I can use fixed at what ever upgrade level I stop at. I’ve always used numerous DAWs for compatibility with clients when I was pro but now retired and on a pension I’m skipping update cycles to save money. Even Waves I can opt out of the WUP but still have full access to my licensed products. If a perpetual license isn’t offered, when I don’t pay my annual Bandlab sub, I will lose access to my Sonar software around this time next year. I seriously doubt that CbB free will still be accessible then. I appreciate Cakewalk having had life breathed into it after the doldrum days under Gibson but with a subscription mad world now the norm reality forces me to make financial not emotional decisions based on sentiment. I’ve had to cut streaming services for music and video to rationalise the spiralling costs. For example I was paying AUD$9.99/month for a video streaming service which then wanted an additional monthly fee for “No ads”. I couldn’t believe it but it’s happening more and more. I’m now paying to watch reruns of programs I used to watch on free to air TV. Unfortunately subs are here to stay. Sadly.

The only thing I can add after many years of using V-Vocal, is to only apply it to small chunks/clips at a time. It never worked for me if I tried it on a whole track or a large part of a track. I still have it installed but tend to use Melodyne more often due to its predictable stability.

And on the other side of the world in oztralia, Covid smacked me down 3 days ago. In my misery I turned to read the Coffee House forum and lo and behold here’s a fellow current sufferer telling his tale of woe. get better soon flipper of bits. The good thing about typing is it doesn’t hurt my throat which feels like it’s been cut.

If we have to purchase Backstage Pass to access Sonar beyond the free (3 day) trial, haven’t we already purchased it? I find the whole thing quite confusing. Not in the sense of not understanding, rather the whole Sonar release process seems unnecessarily convoluted. While I use CbB still and very grateful for the free support provided since the post Gibson debacle, I’m glad I’m no longer reliant on having a stable DAW to earn my living. Stable in the sense of having a clear picture of where the product line is going. Just too long a lag between announcement of its “soon to be released” status to “where the flaming’ ‘ell is it?

Not too long ago I watched one of Mike Enjo’s videos on his Creative Sauce YouTube channel and his new channel, Cakewalk Revealed and was very surprised by the number of enhancements between the last CbB version and new Sonar. Might be worth checking out Mike’s videos. https://youtu.be/_pSYI2hb83E?si=1l_B92j0Qp0937Zv.

Thanks @Jim Roseberry I currently still using my 8700k workstation that you spec’d for me back in 2017. As I’m using Waves DIGIGRID hardware for sound card and off loading plugin processing the dated CPU is still quite usable. In light of your comments I might have to change my focus and get a lighter duty laptop for productivity but will still give me reasonable performance when I’m away from my main rig and need to do a bit of audio/video editing. Wife and I are moving to a retirement village so will need to scale down as I’ll no longer have any dedicated studio space. Everything is now about compromise with no real up sides to be seen.

@Jim Roseberry, I need a recommendation for a new laptop, primarily for audio but also productivity like Office 365 and adobe creative suite V5.5/6 last one on DVD. Sadly I fried the mobo in my ASUS Zephyrus GM510M today. I figure it’s not good economics replacing a 4yr old mobo. I’d rather put that money to a new laptop. I’m in Australia so the lousy exchange rate will probably put me in the $5-6k bracket. A cheaper option would also be good to consider as an alternative.

Pardon my ignorance - clearly I’m missing something as I’ve been focussing on watching for a release announcement but have either missed it or misunderstand what all the discussion is about. Do I need a Bandlab Backstage Pass to access Next and/or Sonar? Is that the full release of those products or are they still in beta levels of development with a release announcement yet to be made? Or is there a yet to be announced alternative way to purchase Sonar?

Cal files complete set this is a folder of Cal files I’ve accumulated over decades. No guarantees as to their viability but I have used many of them over the years. There are files included about the actual language used to write the CAL scripts as well. The link is good for a week from now. All the best

I’ve been using a Waves DIGIGRID system for about 7 years now. Audio or MIDI in and everything interconnected with 1gb Ethernet. Still using an 8700k i7 processor. Haven’t found an upper limit yet. See my signature for details running Win 11 pro.

Pg 1889 of the Cakewalk Reference Guide lists numerous pages where Keyboard Shortcuts can be found, The shortcuts are sorted according to the various windows opened by menu commands. There is also a comprehensive section that explains how to create keybindings of your own choosing. A link to the reference guide can be found in a thread near the top of this page.

The Sonar that will be released is the CbB that existed 12 months ago plus all the development not invested into CbB for this past year. You’ll note this latest 23/09 release of CbB hasn’t included any new features, only bug fixes and stability over last year’s last release. The last 12 months has all gone into making the Sonar that will be released a far superior product than what we get for free now with CbB.

While I’m online at times, I only use the pc for music so never visit any dodgy sites. I don’t use the pc for emails so no bad links to click. I have an MS wireless keyboard and mouse combo as well as a wireless trackball. I get the flickering cursor in the exact same spot when it happens the bottom centre of screen. I have the latest drivers for the trackball and whatever the most recent graphics drivers though it’s onboard graphic with my mobo. its not predictable either. I’m thinking the only solution might be a complete rebuild but it seems so much overkill. Unless it fixes the problem of course. I’ll explore the malware possibility. Thanks for the suggestions thus far.