Sonar Producer vs new Cakewalk Sonar

[J Giles]

Hello, I've used Cakewalk / Sonar for umpteen years.  Currently have Sonar Producer installed from purchase before Bandlab came around.  I'm strictly home studio, amateur so probably content with continuing to use this.  However, IF I wanted to update how would I go about it?  I'm not familiar with the Bandlab history...does it cost for purchase?  Subscription?  Is the Sonar basically what I already have or would it be improvement?  Is it worth going through whatever is necessary to make the change?  What ramifications such as :  existing files, hardware connections, interface, etc...?

Thanks for bringing me up-to-date.

J Giles

[Bristol_Jonesey]

Both CbB & the new Sonar are light years ahead of your current DAW

There have been umpteen bug fixes and new features added, though this isn't the case with plugins

CbB is currently free and will be for the foreseeable future

Sonar is a paid product which currently is only available via a Bandlab Subscription. There might be other purchasing options further down the line but nobody knows when or how much.

If you decide to upgrade to either platform, do NOT uninstall any existing installation as you'll lose your bundled plugins.

[Alan Tubbs]

Cakewalk Sonar is a subscription buy starting at $14.99 a month, tho there have sells available.  You also get Next, a simpler but Mac and PC DAw..  There is also a SoundCloud like playback software as well as social media accounts.

try CbC for free and see if it entices you to pay for the subscription.

[David Baay]

12 hours ago, J Giles said:

What ramifications such as :  existing files, hardware connections, interface, etc...?

Both CbB and the new Sonar (no longer all-caps) install independently of SONAR Platinum (except for shared folder content in the Cakewalk directory that is compatible with and used by all of them), and will not affect its operation. They are both fully backward-compatible with project files created in SONAR, and you'll be prompted to let them inherit your hardware setup and other settings from Preferences.

Edited September 26 by David Baay