Exporting Files from Sonar to Cubase

[Rick Ranum]

Has anyone exported a project from sonar to cubase? Does it work to export the project as a omf or xlm file? I have never tried this before. Ok, thanx for any help.

[Matthew Sorrels]

OMF files are audio only so if you project is all audio tracks you can export/import them, but no plugins/MIDI/etc.  They could include some audio edits/clip names/track names but in my tests it looks like CbB/SONAR just renders the track down and ships that off.  Doesn't keep the volume audiomation on clips(fades/etc)/edits/etc.  May be a limit to the OMF export support, or maybe it's a limit on Cubase's import.

MusicXML only exports from the staff view MIDI tracks.  You can import them into Cubase, but again no synth settings/plugins/automation etc.  A normal MIDI export is just about as useful.

[Jeremy Oakes]

I have, in the past imported omf files that were created in Cubase and then opened them in Sonar. I assume i could do this in Cakewalk, and also that if it works one way, it will work the other way round. 

Or am i being an optimist ?

Jerry

Edited May 8, 2019 by Jeremy Oakes

[Matthew Sorrels]

Work yes -- work well, no.  Here's an example

Two tracks in CbB, some ACID loops with some simple audio fades.  Nothing fancy.

Imported into Cubase 10

[John Vere]

I ported over a few projects back when we were all looking for a new DAW to replace Gibson Sonar. It was possibly an hours work, but I had no issues. 

Firstly, if your project has a lot of midi then your more than half way there. Just save your CbB song as a midi file.  Name the tracks after the synth used and in my case I made sure they were using different midi channels just to be safe. Also have presets saved for each synth.  

This will open in Cubase and play using the default GM player. Now just re assign the tracks to the  synths you used in Cakewalk and load the presets. This should result in the exact same playback as Cakewalk.

For audio bounce all audio to create a continuous tracks .  Make sure to name them clearly. 

Drag and drop these from the cakewalk project audio folder to blank Cubase audio tracks. 

For me it all worked easily but you will be missing any  pro channel stuff from the mix.