Sonar 2025.06 Feedback

[TracingArcs]

Just want to say thank you. been using Sonar since V2. And was happy with Cakewalk by Bandlab. Installed the new "free tier". No issues. It imported all my settings. Scanned all Vst without problems (incl some 32 bit stuff). And just tested some projects for a release that all imported fine (and seemed quicker to load, but may be my wishful thinking).

The "countdown" in order to use the program seems a small price to pay. And any withheld features don't appear to be a stumbling block. This should put Sonar back near the top for "free" DAW software. If I have any critisicm it is that having worked in Market Research for two decades. The launch could be better focussed and implemented. 

With plans for a new audio PC to be built. I do feel I can stay now. After all decades of familiarity are not to be squandered. Again many thanks to the Bakers and Meng.

[John Faughey]

8 hours ago, TracingArcs said:

Just want to say thank you. been using Sonar since V2. And was happy with Cakewalk by Bandlab. Installed the new "free tier". No issues. It imported all my settings. Scanned all Vst without problems (incl some 32 bit stuff). And just tested some projects for a release that all imported fine (and seemed quicker to load, but may be my wishful thinking).

The "countdown" in order to use the program seems a small price to pay. And any withheld features don't appear to be a stumbling block. This should put Sonar back near the top for "free" DAW software. If I have any critisicm it is that having worked in Market Research for two decades. The launch could be better focussed and implemented. 

With plans for a new audio PC to be built. I do feel I can stay now. After all decades of familiarity are not to be squandered. Again many thanks to the Bakers and Meng.

I have to say in terms of marketing, I am stunned at the lack of any type of presence in the marketplace. It’s such a fantastic DAW, but they don’t want to seem to advertise. I always try and tag projects when I post on Instagram, but the social media sites are always dead.

[Under A Mile]

On 6/20/2025 at 10:33 PM, Under A Mile said:

hi, since 2025.06 when I press play, it takes many seconds before it starts, but when I press stop it happens immediately.

This is on existing projects. I tried a new Basic project and this did not occur and recording was ok there too.

I disabled all FX and it still occurred.

ESI U168T soundcard, Win11.

regards,

Paul

Debugging this : In the project where I first saw the problem, I had a MIDI track with >100 unflattened take lanes - set this to Archive and playback started instantly. Then I began culling the take lanes:  I am pretty sure the delay in starting playback is proportional to the number of MIDI take lanes, as the delay got shorter as I removed more. The instrument happened to be Cakewalk SI Electric Piano.  But I think it will occur with other instruments.

On another project, the delay was maybe only 1sec, and the same thing happened. I also think flattening the comp helped.

But, what I think could be an actual bug, is that when freezing a midi instrument, the number of takes lanes is still affecting the p/b start time. I would have thought that while frozen, the midi events on that track are irrelevant as we are just playing back a bounced audio track?

And I am fairly sure this got worse with 2025.06

 

[Tez]

Project start & end makers work when 1st installed in a project, they appear to save with the project, but...

On reopening the project they DON'T WORK and have to be cleared & re-installed.

[HIBI]

On 6/22/2025 at 3:48 AM, msmcleod said:

Plugin oversampling will be disabled.

I would like to check just to be sure, this does not prevent the plug-ins from upsampling themselves, but only applies to upsampling done by Sonar for plug-ins that do not have upsampling capabilities, correct?

[Jesse Jost]

7 hours ago, HIBI said:

I would like to check just to be sure, this does not prevent the plug-ins from upsampling themselves, but only applies to upsampling done by Sonar for plug-ins that do not have upsampling capabilities, correct?

Correct - this refers only to Sonar's upsampling tool. Any processing behavior within the plugin itself would be unaffected by this restriction. 

[Traveler]

I have an issue with the Browser after the update.  I keep the browser docked and minimized on the right in my templates & projects, and now each time I open a template/project the browser has a weird folder'ish view (1st pic).  I have to expand then minimize it in order to go back to a normal view (video), but this only lasts while the project is open because the normal view isn't saving with the template/project.

However, if I add the Track Manager to the browser then the normal view (without all the folders) will save with template/project without trouble (3rd pic).

Just wanted to report this issue for a future update.

1st pic, Folder'ish view.

Video, to get back to a normal view.

2nd pic, Track Manager added to Browser = Normal view (no folders).