Sonar 2025.07 Feedback

[Jim Stamper]

2 hours ago, User 905133 said:

While you are waiting for some possible visual changes, maybe it would help if you left part of the folder open so the folder details show?

I gave that a try, it takes more screen space of course, and in my opinion doesn't help readability very much. I also tried making all the folder tracks a single background color that's not already used in the audio or midi tracks. That takes more time and also doesn't help readability enough in my opinion. 

[Wookiee]

@Shaan I have to ask have you considered why the track(s) not in focus is darker and more transparent. You do know you can display a list of the tracks on the right of the PRV this allows you to quickly switch between tracks. You can also use that list so that only one track, the focus track, is visible at one time.

Most software I use that allows the display of multiple tracks, only the focus track is front and centre, the others are either grey (Melodyne) or darkly transparent. 

[Noel Borthwick]

17 hours ago, John T said:

Got a strange behaviour which I think is new to the latest build. Every time I load a new project, then save and close it, the Quick Start menu grows vertically. 

I don't mean it adds new items to the list, that's expected. I mean the actual window itself. It's now too tall for the screen, and I can't access the X to close button. It resets itself after restarting the program.

 

 

Fixed for next release

[bmarlowe]

On 7/30/2025 at 1:41 AM, Chaps said:

Yes, it has to be inserted as a plugin on an audio track and the track's Input Echo has to be enabled. The audio track must be receiving the output of your audio interface where your guitar's signal is coming from. There are different methods to select the Cakewalk Tuner and all of them are confusing if you are new to the program. Here is one way that may be the simplest for right now. Press b on your keyboard to open the browser. Click the Fx Audio FX tab. Click the > arrow to the left of DirectX, click the > to the left of  Cakewalk to open the menu of Cakewalk DX Plugins. From the list of plugins that opens, Left-Click and Drag the Tuner plugin to the track FX Rack. It's all downhill from there.

There are also free Guitar Tuner VST plugins online VST and VST3 are newer plugin formats and may be more reliable than the older DirectX (DX) format in the long run. I use the GTune VST, myself, unless I'm using the tuner of a guitar synth.

So where is my tuner?

[Chaps]

25 minutes ago, bmarlowe said:

So where is my tuner?

I fooled around with the browser and the and Cakewalk Plug-in Manager discovered that it won't show up in the browser if it is excluded in the Plug-in Manager. So first I would check the Plug-in Manager to see if it excluded. If it is, then enable it then close and restart Sonar. You can also look and see if you actually have it in C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Plugins where it will be listed as CwTuner or CwTuner.dll if you have it. If you don't have it for whatever reason then you can either download a free VST tuner like Gtune (Google it to see multiple download sources) or use the built in tuner in a guitar amp simulator. I use the tuner in the free Native Instruments Guitar Rig 7 Player to do my guitar intonation and am pretty happy with it. Native Instruments has many free plugins it you're interested and have the free hard drive space.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/catalog/software/free/

[Wookiee]

@Chaps as was stated in an earlier post, Overloud's Guitar sim has a tuner built in to its GUI. 

[Chaps]

44 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

@Chaps as was stated in an earlier post, Overloud's Guitar sim has a tuner built in to its GUI. 

I wasn't aware that Overloud TH-U was included in the Sonar free tier, which is what bmarlowe was asking about.

[icu81b4]

Apologies if this is in the wrong thread, but I have only noticed this issue since the update, 

I have most projects in 44.1k sample rate, and a few in 48k. 

Usually if I swap projects, Sonar interacts with my hardware i/face and switches it accordingly without any problem, however, If I do this now, the PC crashes!. 

I have tried this in another DAW (LUNA) and it doesn't crash the PC. 

I am using Universal Audio apollo x8 and apollo twin as my audio interface. 

note. If I set the interface at 48k before I open Sonar - then it's fine. it's only when Sonar tries to interact with the UAD hardware. 

Update:-

OK - Ignore the above, I have just created a new Project with 48k and managed to switch between 44.1k and the new 48k project without anything crashing. 

So the problem must lie in the one specific 48k project!  Hmmm. 

 So it's still a problem, but probably not related to the hardware interface, which is good news I guess!. 

Another update:-

So I disabled all FX on the project that was causing the issues and save as a new project name 

Then switching between 44.1 and 48k and back worked fine. 

Then re-enabling FX and  performing the 44.1 / 48k switch between project now works fine too. 

So simply by saving the problematic project (with a new name) has fixed my problem. 

Carry on. 

 

 

Edited August 1 by icu81b4

[Wookiee]

@icu81b4 it is more likely a plugin in the project. Try opening the project in safe mode rejecting plugins in turn until it doesn't crash.

[bmarlowe]

12 hours ago, Chaps said:

I wasn't aware that Overloud TH-U was included in the Sonar free tier, which is what bmarlowe was asking about.

No I have Sonar paid

Edited August 1 by bmarlowe
more info

[bmarlowe]

 

Thx for the info. No it is not excluded and I don't have the CwTuner file.

I have a couple of other guitar tuner plugins, including the one in Overloud TH-U. I was just curious as to why your particular installation has that DirectX tuner and mine does not. 

Edited August 1 by bmarlowe

[Noel Borthwick]

 

There is now a new 2025.08 release. Please continue any further feedback relevant to the new release in the corresponding thread.

[Chaps]

2 hours ago, bmarlowe said:

 

Thx for the info. No it is not excluded and I don't have the CwTuner file.

I have a couple of other guitar tuner plugins, including the one in Overloud TH-U. I was just curious as to why your particular installation has that DirectX tuner and mine does not. 

My bad, it was Sandor Kundrath who asked about a tuner in the free version of Sonar. The most likely reason I have the Cakewalk tuner and you don't is because I probably got it with a previous version of Cakewalk that I own and have installed, Cakewalk SONAR X3 Producer.

[dreamcache]

On 7/7/2025 at 11:05 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

Not a bug. Its intentional that clicking the title bar dismisses quick start. Most users try and interact with the menu or close the app when the quick start is open so we facilitate this by dismissing it.

Is it possible to make this toggleable somewhere? I would also love it if Cakewalk remembered the placement and size of its last known window placement and resumed that positioning when re-opening the program. I work on an ultrawide monitor, and I have to manually lay out my windows every single time I open the software.

See here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19e9RaI3HgAtVOoHzXDKrQxjoIu9lepl_/view?usp=sharing

I know it's a small issue to complain about, but these two things seriously add up for me.

[Noel Borthwick]

We remember the size and placement of the main views of the app and plugin windows but not the quick start window.