Activation required???

[Adam Gill]

A notice in red on the right:

"Cakewalk must be activated within 10 day(s). Update activation status before time runs out."

What does this mean?? We have to purchase a license now??  If so I'm off Cakewalk to some other DAW - free and hopefully Open Source

I don't have money to buy a license - I am a composer on very limited budget.

Please advise.

[DeeringAmps]

@Adam Gill the answer is in the linked thread.

HTH,

t

Edited May 19 by DeeringAmps

[John Vere]

You will have to pay for Sonar eventually. There is a remote possibility of a bare bones stripped down version that may be free or very inexpensive. 

In the meantime definitely download Waveform and try it out it’s free. Pro tools  also has a free version that is worth having. Those are my top picks out of a half dozen other free DAWs. 

Edited May 19 by John Vere

[sjoens]

Don't know why but for me not a single DAW out there will install or run right on my system without some hangup except Cakewalk.  It owns me. 

[Adam Gill]

13 hours ago, John Vere said:

You will have to pay for Sonar eventually. There is a remote possibility of a bare bones stripped down version that may be free or very inexpensive. 

In the meantime definitely download Waveform and try it out it’s free. Pro tools  also has a free version that is worth having. Those are my top picks out of a half dozen other free DAWs. 

Thanks for that ....  all my compositions are in Cakewalk format and I compose mostly in MIDI then convert/then bounce to audio later  - So I would need to have Cakewalk in the background for converting formats if i were to change to another .. What do you think of Ardour? - it's totally free if I can compile the source code - there's some tutorials how to do that on YT

This is a good YT video by Benn Jordan who discusses the free DAW scene - He talks highly of CbB and Bandlab:

 

Edited May 20 by Adam Gill

[Byron Dickens]

2 minutes ago, Adam Gill said:

What do you think of Ardour?

MIDI editing is not ready for prime time.

[John Vere]

If your projects are midi then you should make sure you save each and every one of them as MID. files. The sooner the better. 

Midi files  can be opened in any DAW that I demoed which was 12 over the last few months.
Most will play a GM format with out fuss. My own creations all show up with the synth I used labeled correctly in the track names. So all you need to do is insert the correct synths and recall the pre set you used. 
It’s a matter of having all the information about that project written down and easily duplicated in the other DAWS. 
 

I think Ardour was sort of like Reaper which was so weird I didn’t like it at all. They all have there fan clubs but I was basically looking for a familiar workflow. 

Yes CbB is not easy to replace because it was a full featured DAW that was only temporarily made free as part of a brilliant business plan.  
 

That’s not a problem for me. I’m already renting Sonar and I’m saving Gig money  and I will purchase it the minute they release it. But I also have a few other DAW’s on hand just in case something stupid happens.