New FREE version/tier of the venerable Cakewalk Sonar

[aidan o driscoll]

So - things you can do during the 15 second evaluation screen:

Ill start

- Go make that cup of Joe
- Tune de guitar 

Edited Saturday at 05:03 PM by aidan o driscoll

[fjz]

2 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

So - things you can do during the 15 second evaluation screen:

Ill start

- Go make that cup of Joe
- Tune de guitar 

- Purchase another reverb plugin

[kitekrazy1]

5 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

So - things you can do during the 15 second evaluation screen:

Ill start

- Go make that cup of Joe
- Tune de guitar 

Most of my DAWs take 15 second if it's a plugin scan.   All it takes is for Melda or Arturia update.  

[FrankP]

I'm afraid those of us who don't want to switch subscriptions will have to follow Mike (Creative Sauce)'s example, and search a perpetual licensed DAW .😞

"Cakewalk by BandLab will no longer support activation renewal after August 1, 2025. Existing installations will continue to work until their activation period expires, but no new activations will be possible after that date."
 

Edited Tuesday at 07:34 PM by FrankP

[Brian Walton]

1 hour ago, FrankP said:

I'm afraid those of us who don't want to switch subscriptions will have to follow Mike (Creative Sauce)'s example, and search a perpetual licensed DAW .😞

"Cakewalk by BandLab will no longer support activation renewal after August 1, 2025. Existing installations will continue to work until their activation period expires, but no new activations will be possible after that date."
 

well if you were ok with the previous CbB situation the new Free Sonar offer is basically the same going forward.    I would throw in the UI difference between the two but since you are looking at jumping ship for another DAW that clearly isn't a concern for you.

[Patrick Wichrowski]

11 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

well if you were ok with the previous CbB situation the new Free Sonar offer is basically the same going forward.    I would throw in the UI difference between the two but since you are looking at jumping ship for another DAW that clearly isn't a concern for you.

They killed the use in on old PCs with Windows 7.

[CSistine]

Very early in the beginning of CbB I remarked that the re-activation of a "free" DAW is very suspicious. The top developer told me then that it is only to collect some information about usage ... What a mean lie!

I think this kind of "free" is just a trial with undefined duration! Not usable if you want to do some serious work with it IMHO, but YMMV!

[FrankP]

For more than half a year now, Cakewalk has been using up my processor when I first start it without starting playback. That's why I always have to restart my computer to make it stop. I don't know what could be going on during this, because I haven't found the reason for the increased processor load. Maybe this "feature" was part of the weaning process.

[Brian Walton]

46 minutes ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

They killed the use in on old PCs with Windows 7.

Windows 7 has been end of life for 5.5 years and there is a free update to win 10 (also set to be eol in a few months) and now free Win 11.

 

I get the fact win 7 is the last user controllable windows os, but honestly I've literally done hundreds of upgrades moving 7 to 10 or ultimately 11 and the sky hasn't fallen on me yet.  I was worried about some sound cards with no 10 drivers but they worked fine.  

While I have new computers that are high spec.  I also have 10 year old machines that don't support win 11 that I was able to get it installed on and so far so good there too.

 

Of course all of this is YMMV.  But if you have 10+ year old computers even going used might not be the worst thing to get some modern performance.

Edited Tuesday at 09:41 PM by Brian Walton

[Peter Hintze]

yeah, on 1.8.2025 is CbB runnig out. 

26 years of using Cakewalk, and I seriously consider for the first time moving to another DAW..

 

Traktion Waveform looks good, but it will take a bit of getting used to. the first things I already like and I've been wishing for Sonar since 20 years:

1. the option for continuous scrolling during Playback 

2. step-less zooming with right click drag 

Edited yesterday at 08:33 AM by Peter Hintze

[pedwal wally wally wha]

13 hours ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

They killed the use in on old PCs with Windows 7.

doesn't win7 have a compatibility mode for win10? 🤔

/jk

[aidan o driscoll]

17 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

well if you were ok with the previous CbB situation the new Free Sonar offer is basically the same going forward.    I would throw in the UI difference between the two but since you are looking at jumping ship for another DAW that clearly isn't a concern for you.

Yes .. every so often we still have to do a login to bandlab/renew license type thing with CbB. One could argue this is not too far off whats being asked with the new Free Sonar, that is, wait 15 seconds and off you go. 

It has to be mentioned too i suppose, that the new Free Sonar will be regulary updated now while CbB will no longer be.

To wait for 15 seconds, I dont see that as a big issue TBH, but then that me.

I have quiet a few DAWs i collected over the years - Ableton, FL Studio, Reason, Waveform 13 Pro, Reaper,  latest free Studio One,  Luna - all installed but mainly use Cakewalk and Reaper. In a band with 4 others, three have Macs, two have PCs - Reaper is a good solution as a reasonable DAW for CROSS PLATFORM Work. I then use Azslow's ReaCWP installed in Reaper which allows you to open Cakewalk/Sonar project files directly in Reaper and from there Save as .rpp reaper project file.

https://www.azslow.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=57

Outside that, of all the other DAWS, I would use ableton the most.

I never paid full price for a DAW. Over the years I would avail of black friday and other offers to climb on the ladder, then upgrade  from there. Actually I did pay full price for Reaper  - princely sum of $60

I am happy with the Cakewalk / Reaper usage along with Azslows tool to open CW projects in Reaper. Best of all worlds .. especially when working with Mac band members as Sonar is not available on MAC.

As a band and as we are scattered all over - US and Ireland. We use the cloud exclusively with Reaper Project files. Shared Google Drive folder. All project folders uploaded there.

We all open them from the cloud in Reaper, do our edits and additions and then SAVE DIRECTLY to the Google drive folder .. not using the local computers drives at all. The google drive folder is added to windows/mac file managers via google drive for desktop:

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10838124?hl=en

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:33 PM by aidan o driscoll

[Brian Walton]

3 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

 

As a band and as we are scattered all over - US and Ireland. We use the cloud exclusively with Reaper Project files. Shared Google Drive folder. All project folders uploaded there.

We all open them from the cloud in Reaper, do our edits and additions and then SAVE DIRECTLY to the Google drive folder .. not using the local computers drives at all. The google drive folder is added to windows/mac file managers via google drive for desktop:

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10838124?hl=en

 

 

Hard to imagine using anything other than Reaper for that use case.  

Sadly so many people use Macs.

[Doug Steinschneider]

I used Reaper free for a couple of years - I think the delay got up to about 30 seconds. I just wasn't recording that much so I didn't buy it until I got busier recording. The delay never bothered me; I always tuned my guitar while it it counted down. 

[aidan o driscoll]

And @Brian Walton .. Sadly so many people use Macs AND PROTOOLS still. This goes for many studios also. Jeez I HATE protools. Our drummer is one of them,  .. luckily our keyboard player who is also a sound engineer has protools, so he has to make a protools project out of the reaper project - essentially using stems 

Edited yesterday at 04:10 PM by aidan o driscoll

[kitekrazy1]

2 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Hard to imagine using anything other than Reaper for that use case.  

Sadly so many people use Macs.

If I did I would just go with Logic

[Brian Walton]

17 minutes ago, kitekrazy1 said:

If I did I would just go with Logic

I'd agree if one was stuck in that ecosystem, but if you work cross platform yourself or with bamdmates that lands right back to the Sonar situation.

I guess it also depends on what you need and how you work with the DAW.  Reaper is a lot less expensive even though Logic came down dramatically in price since the early days.

[kitekrazy1]

7 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

I'd agree if one was stuck in that ecosystem, but if you work cross platform yourself or with bamdmates that lands right back to the Sonar situation.

I guess it also depends on what you need and how you work with the DAW.  Reaper is a lot less expensive even though Logic came down dramatically in price since the early days.

I think Logic is now a pay once like FL Studio.

Studio One is now like Waves with their WUP.

It seems like some developers are doing better updates.  

I've become more of a fan of the EDM type DAWs like FL and Live.

I still haven't installed this new Sonar yet.  I just need more DAW shortcuts on my taskbar.

[kitekrazy1]

Anyone thought of installing the last version of Sonar that was under Gibson?

[ZincT]

3 hours ago, kitekrazy1 said:

Anyone thought of installing the last version of Sonar that was under Gibson?

I still have it installed.