New FREE version/tier of the venerable Cakewalk Sonar

[Kamikaze]

Downside seems to be,

Some functions not available

This 15 second countdown to evaluation option every time you open the it up. 

This banner at the top of every session taking up real estate and niggling at you.

Monthly sign-in 

But other wise it looks good to me. When I'm ready to pay for a license and I see a deal option, I may upgrade. When it expires I can revert back to the Evaluation option until the next deal comes around and I'm feeling it's worth paying. 

 

 

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, Wookiee said:

It was only with the last iteration of the SONAR family,  Platinum, Professional & Studio did we see the theme editor arrive.

That's what I thought, that it was a relatively recent feature.

Theme Editor was fun while it lasted, but as far as making the DAW sufficient to my needs, not necessary. I don't have to have REAPER or CbB-level control over the program's look to be happy.

I need to be able to make out my measure and beat lines, and their colors weren't determined by Theme Editor. It was Color Preferences. Although the interface to the feature is still there, it no longer has any effect on parts of the UI that I want/need to modify in order to make them legible. I can't figure out what elements it even CAN control any more.

I have a feeling that Color Preferences dates back a good many Cakewalk/SONAR/Sonar revisions. I'll take a guess and say at least as early as the first X, probably earlier. The dialog has that "party like it's 1999" look about it.

One thing that gives me some hope is that among the current fixed color schemes we can get an idea of what screen elements can have different colors. If we're allowed to once again choose our own custom colors, the elements that I'm most interested in tweaking should be tweakable.

The aforementioned clip backgrounds and lines, text color in the Browser, various buttons, various backgrounds. As soon as they let us at it I'll be working on my own custom color schemes/themes.

I hope that it's just a matter of the devs wanting to rework the Color Preferences dialog panel to match the new Sonar look before we get it back. I didn't realize until I used CbB how much more inspiring a program is when I can set the colors myself.

[Chaps]

I've tried the Free Sonar a couple of times now. The first time it I uninstalled it because the menu language switched to French after a couple of uses. It also changed the menu language in CbBL to French. Yesterday I tried it again and installed it with Cakewalk Product Center and it changed to menu language to German, also changing the menu language in CbBL. Very perplexing. Maybe it reacted poorly to my VPN (which are using USA servers). It's simple enough to change it back to English but is still annoying. Not sure I'll keep it because I really don't like the way it looks. I'm going to really miss CbBL when it's gone.

[ZincT]

Hmm, just tried the Sonar evaluation. After the timer countdown I clicked on Continue Evaluation and...nothing - just went back to the desktop.

Tried again after a reboot - same thing. I have had most major DAWs installed and never had a problem like this before. 

Update: Someone on KVR just pointed me to this thread in case anyone else is having startup problems...

 

Edited Thursday at 07:01 PM by ZincT

[sjoens]

Color options have been around since the early days of SONAR.  Sonar 8.5 had a ton.  X series actually broke them.  Some in the list didn't work but you could import a color set from 8.5 or earlier and get them back.  New Sonar almost closed the door with no option to import from earlier versions.

[Starship Krupa]

3 minutes ago, sjoens said:

Color options have been around since the early days of SONAR.  Sonar 8.5 had a ton.  X series actually broke them.  Some in the list didn't work but you could import a color set from 8.5 or earlier and get them back.  New Sonar almost closed the door....

Hmm, so with each big move in the UI, Color Preferences has become less capable of allowing the user to set colors? Disturbing.🤔

Between Theme Editor and Color Preferences, I was able to get CbB to mostly bend to my will, color wise. There were some elements that were impervious to color customization, notably the Browser background.

With NuSonar, the Browser background color can now be changed, you just have to be a developer to change it.😆

[pwalpwal]

5 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

With NuSonar, the Browser background color can now be changed, you just have to be a developer to change it.😆

let me just hard-code that for you sir

[sjoens]

AFAIK all GUI elements have an image or color assignment in order to be visible. Whether they are user changeable or not depends on the developer.

Interestingly, Mixcraft has no user theme editor but it is set up to apply custom skins.  Its GUI files are all available thru an image folder and INI file (simple text file) where you can recreate the entire GUI at will - with some limitations.  By editing the INI file (at your own risk), some of the images can actually be replaced with a color and vise versa.  Colors can either be solid or fades.  PNGs can be replaced with BMPs, and so on.  Cakewalk's Studio Instruments have a similar approach with separate Graphic, Text, and  Layout CWRES files (simple text files) allowing  you to rearrange the entire layout, tho the image formats can't be changed.

Edited Thursday at 07:54 PM by sjoens

[CSistine]

17 hours ago, Promidi said:

This is a direct quote from Noel Borthwick on a Facebook group.

"Activation automatically renews at the end of the actual month"

This is only half the truth! It is if you are always online!!!

I have seen a lot of people having trouble with the required browser login since the developers introduced this in CbB! It's following the motto "if it's simple make it more complex"!

2. The complains about having no ThemeEditor anymore: Democrathy in the user - company relation is not modern anymore! Nowadays developers force a lot of things to their users, if they like it or not!

Edited Friday at 06:47 AM by CSistine

[aidan o driscoll]

The 15 second countdown to be able to click on evaluation is similar to REAPER. However Reaper allows you use the DAW straight off but leaves the "Advertising Panel" up for an increasing amount of time well beyond 15 seconds. However you can drag it out of the way off screen. So at least ye know with Cakewalk the "Advertising Panel" disappears after 15 seconds every time. Fair trade I think for a FREE, very usable and most likely regularly updated DAW?

@CSistine corrected what I said above:

"There are certain differences, too:

You can buy a perpetual license for Reaper (it is totally offline!) for only $60 if you are an individual that makes no or not a lot of money from your music!

The evaluation version is not sold as "free", it is meant to be for evaluation.

If you want a real free capable daw, then you may use Tracktion.Waveform. The second newest version is always free (can also be installed totally offline)."

Edited Friday at 05:10 PM by aidan o driscoll

[CSistine]

11 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

The 15 second countdown to be able to click on evaluation is similar to REAPER. However Reaper allows you use the DAW straight off but leaves the "Advertising Panel" up for an increasing amount of time well beyond 15 seconds. However you can drag it out of the way off screen. So at least ye know with Cakewalk the "Advertising Panel" disappears after 15 seconds every time. Fair trade I think for a FREE, very usable and most likely regularly updated DAW?

There are certain differences, too:

1. You can buy a perpetual license for Reaper (it is totally offline!) for only $60 if you are an individual that makes no or not a lot of money from your music!
2. The evaluation version is not sold as "free", it is meant to be for evaluation.
3. If you want a real free capable daw, then you may use Tracktion.Waveform. The second newest version is always free (can also be installed totally offline).

Sorry, forum guards that I infringed the rules here! But such comparisons above demand a response.

[aidan o driscoll]

Yes @CSistine .. your differences noted and added to my post above

[Mr No Name]

4 minutes ago, CSistine said:

There are certain differences, too:

1. You can buy a perpetual license for Reaper (it is totally offline!) for only $60 if you are an individual that makes no or not a lot of money from your music!
2. The evaluation version is not sold as "free", it is meant to be for evaluation.
3. If you want a real free capable daw, then you may use Tracktion.Waveform. The second newest version is always free (can also be installed totally offline).

Sorry, forum guards that I infringed the rules here! But such comparisons above demand a response.

popular misconception is that the Reaper license is perpetual, it lasts for a certain amount of versions,  

but the free one that it would revert to is the exact same so you could use it,

£60 every 2 or 3 years is something people are happy to pay.

[Peter Hintze]

The 15 sec evaluation screen is pretty annoying. 

What do you guys think how long CbB is still working / activeable?

I only have a 99$ option instead of the 49$ mentioned above. EU pricing?

[CSistine]

13 hours ago, Mr No Name said:

popular misconception is that the Reaper license is perpetual, it lasts for a certain amount of versions,  

but the free one that it would revert to is the exact same so you could use it,

£60 every 2 or 3 years is something people are happy to pay.

The license for usually 2 major versions is perpetual! But yes, you are right it is not for all major updates.

2nd: My license that I bought is still valid for updates after 5 years!!!

Edited Saturday at 06:41 AM by CSistine

[CSistine]

12 hours ago, Peter Hintze said:

What do you guys think how long CbB is still working / activeable?

It would be great if BandLab would do the same as Tracktion, i.e. make CbB, that is some kind of previous version, kompletely free (without re-activation requirement). This would be a really generous, token gesture! 😉

[Mr No Name]

1 hour ago, CSistine said:

The license for usually 2 major versions is perpetual! But yes, you are right it is not for all major updates.

2nd: My license that I bought is still valid for updates after 5 years!!!

If it doesn't last forever it's not perpetual 😄

 

perpetual /pər-pĕch′oo͞-əl/

adjective

Lasting forever; never-ending.

 

although nothing really lasts forever, but I have a disk of Sonar 7 that I recently loaded onto a win xp machine, that is perpetual, If there was a nuclear war, all that would survive are cockroaches and software disks old Sonar programs.

 

 

[Kamikaze]

14 hours ago, Peter Hintze said:

The 15 sec evaluation screen is pretty annoying. 

What do you guys think how long CbB is still working / activeable?

I only have a 99$ option instead of the 49$ mentioned above. EU pricing?

I was also only seeing the $99, but then I clicked on CLarry's link and now I see the 49.99

https://www.bandlab.com/membership/get-membership?productAttribution=cw-cbb-offer

[Mr No Name]

3 hours ago, CSistine said:

The license for usually 2 major versions is perpetual! But yes, you are right it is not for all major updates.

2nd: My license that I bought is still valid for updates after 5 years!!!

you are indeed correct, after checking it is perpetual as long as you don't update past a certain version.

[aidan o driscoll]

On the Reaper License thing. This blog post explains it pretty well:

https://nolabelnoproducernolimits.com/indie/production/reaper/reaper-license/

Your Reaper license is a perpetual, one-time purchase. You don't ever have to pay for it again. But . . .

Upgrades

You can use whatever version you buy, until you die of old age or AI-driven robots enslave us all.

In practicality, you'll want to upgrade. Your Reaper license covers two versions of Reaper.

So if you buy @ version 7.34, you'll be good until version 9.0. This will likely last a few years. I've done the math and my Reaper expenses work out to just a little over $1/month for the past 14 years or so.

What If I Don't Want To Upgrade?

Don't, then. You'll miss out on new features, but Reaper is yours to use.

 

MY COMMENT: I did go looking ( NOT VERY HARD ) for this detail at the Reaper site and tbh did not find it very obviously. Not even on the purchase page:

https://www.reaper.fm/purchase.php

Edited Saturday at 11:17 AM by aidan o driscoll