New FREE version/tier of the venerable Cakewalk Sonar

[Jeremy Oakes]

1 hour ago, Brian Walton said:

To surf the internet you can get a computer that costs $150.  I'm betting your phone was a few hundred dollars.  Assuming you live in America, the options for having an extra computer that just needs enough resources to surf and download things is very minimal.   This isn't 1988.  People donate/recycle perfectly usable computers literally daily all over the country and there are businesses that are in business simply to accept, process, redistribute or recycle these machines.

No, I don't live in the USA............ sorry. I'm retired and so don't have so much money to throw around as before. But as I said, self discipline (simple rules) and you'll be fine.

[Xoo]

11 minutes ago, Jeremy Oakes said:

No, I don't live in the USA............ sorry. I'm retired and so don't have so much money to throw around as before. But as I said, self discipline (simple rules) and you'll be fine.

I have to use a separate laptop for work and for personal use.  It's a complete PITA and the thought of going back to using 2 computers for personal/DAW would fill me with dread (I did it years and years ago when there was less online).

[Xoo]

1 hour ago, Brian Walton said:

I've done professional work across a number of the major fields.  Photography, Audio Production, Video Production, Design Work, etc.

I've also been in charge of IT security for companies that work with some of the largest companies in the world.  I've seen other companies experience massive data loss and security breaches every year.  Just because people "stay online," doesn't mean it is a good idea.   Every single loss I've seen wouldn't have happened if they were offline.

Graphic Designers also deal with small files that are easily backed up in a variety of places compared to these other fields, so that is a poor example.

Goalposts moved.

Seriously, how do people send files to clients?  Download stock images or samples from the web?  Install OS or plug-in updates?  It's a complete pain doing the floppy USB sneakernet approach.

[Brian Walton]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Oakes said:

Well, as i said, there are two ways of looking at things. 

BTW, Me, i would trouble shoot your system. Been using Sonar for over a year, no issues.

CbB is older code, Sonar newer, one software works the other doesn’t - what do they have in common - their OS.

Lets agree to disagree on this, there will be no winners.

I've done troubleshooting and also supplied steps that are repeatable to the support team with the Dump logs.  Thus far they have been unable to resolve.  

The issue won't be widespread for everyone but users of Supertone Clear as part of their workflow should be aware it could impact them (the same vst works flawlessly with CbB as well as Reaper and a couple others on my same system)

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/19/2025 at 7:06 AM, Doug Steinschneider said:

This particular user has done things like that right in front of me.

Why I never use the term "foolproof." Fool resistant is the best any designer can hope for.

Just as a truly dedicated attacker can defeat any lock, a truly dedicated fool can defeat any mechanism designed to protect them and/or their work. And the dedication of fools can be awe-inspiring to behold.

"You would have had to click away a dialog warning you that you wouldn't be able to save anything."

"I never pay attention to those nag screens, I wanted to get to work."

I once took a desktop system support call from someone at my company who was complaining that their computer always had error messages that needed to be cleared when they started it up. I went to their cubicle and asked them to shut it down and restart it so I could see the boot errors.

Before even closing the program they were using, their finger went straight for the power button....🤦‍♂️

This was at least 15 years before the advent of smartphones and tablets that don't mind being "turned off." When all hard drives were spinny.

If someone could have taken photos of the range of expressions on my face as I watched this....Horrified. Pained. Resigned. Patient as if explaining to a child....

Oddly, I have no trouble believing that the mix in question could have been something worth saving. The most elite fools seem to be capable of producing work of enough value that losing it would be unfortunate.

What would be the fun otherwise?🙄

[CSistine]

On 7/22/2025 at 10:21 AM, Wookiee said:

@CSistine apparently you don't need to be online once activated, but your activation will still expire as it, the countdown,  is internal not external. This was explained in the main forum a couple of weeks ago by a senior staff member. 

But in this case there is no automatic re-activation as someone mentioned above.

IMO the offline re-activation is quite cumbersome (if it still exists at all) to do each month on 2 systems (in the past when it had been after half a year I accomplished it though).

[CSistine]

On 7/22/2025 at 5:32 PM, Starship Krupa said:

"You would have had to click away a dialog warning you that you wouldn't be able to save anything."

"I never pay attention to those nag screens, I wanted to get to work."

I think nowadays there are so many warnings and nag screens that almost no one (not only fools!) reads them all. Be honest, have you always read all of them (nag screens, EULAs, terms of service ...)?

By the way it's the same with those modern European cars with 1000 warning sounds: Almost no one will take them seriously! Sometimes less is more!

[Wookiee]

40 minutes ago, CSistine said:

But in this case there is no automatic re-activation as someone mentioned above.

IMO the offline re-activation is quite cumbersome (if it still exists at all) to do each month on 2 systems (in the past when it had been after half a year I accomplished it though).

To put it as simply as possible, and to actually repeat what has been said by the staff themselves. 

All re-activation methods, of the software known as Cakewalk by Bandlab or CbB, will cease, depending on how you say a date the first of August 2025,

or the 1st of the 8th 2025,

or 1/08/2025 or

08/01/2025 (for the Americans)

or 20250801.

 

[TheSteven]

57 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

To put it as simply as possible, and to actually repeat what has been said by the staff themselves. 

All re-activation methods, of the software known as Cakewalk by Bandlab or CbB, will cease, depending on how you say a date the first of August 2025,

or the 1st of the 8th 2025,

or 1/08/2025 or

08/01/2025 (for the Americans)

or 20250801.

 

Hi Wookie!
It shouldn't matter how you 'say' the date.

Dates and times in computer programs are usually** stored as a single numerical value representing the number of elapsed time units from a specific starting point (such as January 1, 1970, at 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)). This numerical representation is then converted to a human-readable format when needed.  This allows for efficient storage, calculation, and manipulation of dates and times (automatically accounting for regional and time zone differences. 

**I say usually because the easiest way to store, retrieve and manipulate date & time values are by using the programming language's built in functions. Now if you write code that stores the date a string (i.e. text) then you might run into such issues - as I ran into when I had to debug code written with an older 90's era programming language.  In that case the American program would throw errors when processing  some dates entered in European format DD/MM/YYYY for example Christmas - 12th day of the 25th month #ERROR!#.

 

Edited yesterday at 05:18 PM by TheSteven

[Mr No Name]

On 7/22/2025 at 1:55 PM, Xoo said:

I have to use a separate laptop for work and for personal use.  It's a complete PITA and the thought of going back to using 2 computers for personal/DAW would fill me with dread (I did it years and years ago when there was less online).

really Imo, your music computer shouldn't be used to surf the internet, I'm just about to change and take my music computer completely offline. 

 

[CSistine]

1 hour ago, Wookiee said:

To put it as simply as possible, and to actually repeat what has been said by the staff themselves. 

All re-activation methods, of the software known as Cakewalk by Bandlab or CbB, will cease, depending on how you say a date the first of August 2025,

or the 1st of the 8th 2025,

or 1/08/2025 or

08/01/2025 (for the Americans)

or 20250801.

 

Frankly, I was aware of this before. But I assume that the re-activation for the new Free Sonar is the same as it has been for CbB in the last months, i.e. re-activation each month. But I don't know if there is still an offline (re-)activation available as with CbB.

[Wookiee]

3 hours ago, CSistine said:

Frankly, I was aware of this before. But I assume that the re-activation for the new Free Sonar is the same as it has been for CbB in the last months, i.e. re-activation each month. But I don't know if there is still an offline (re-)activation available as with CbB.

As far as I can establish the reactivation proccess is exactly the same. If you use the product regularly, with your computer online then reactivation will occur automatically. If you prefer to remain isolated by keeping your computer offline, then reactivation is possible through the CPC, offline proccess.

However I have to say I have no experience of how to use the offline activation as my machine stays online, when it is on. Just use a good AV/anti malware product, stay away from click bait, stay way from websites of questionable content. Microsoft defender is a perfectly good product. Personally I use Malwarebytes. 

[Xoo]

3 hours ago, Mr No Name said:

really Imo, your music computer shouldn't be used to surf the internet, I'm just about to change and take my music computer completely offline. 

 

I can't think of any good reason *not* to keep it online - downloading OS patches and software updates, posting songs to YT or Bandlab or wherever.  Having to do that the old-fashioned way is just, well, old-fashioned.

[Starship Krupa]

5 hours ago, CSistine said:

I think nowadays there are so many warnings and nag screens that almost no one (not only fools!) reads them all.

And there's a big difference between "skim through most" and "pay no attention to ANY of them."

There are plenty of EULA's and "Important: Changes to our TOS" messages, but warnings and nag screens? I don't see so many of those, and when I do, I at least try to check/skim what they're warning me about, at least the first time I have to see them.

Considering how long CbB/Sonar has been around with the same authorization warnings, and how few times this scenario has come up (first one I can remember where someone ignored the warnings, then worked on a project for hours before "discovering" that they weren't able to save it) on the forum, I'd guess that the warnings work well for most.

Anyone who chooses to ignore all of the warnings that pop up on their computer screen....if that's working for them, who am I to say they should change? They are free to do so as much as I am free to regard their behavior as foolish.

28 minutes ago, Xoo said:

I can't think of any good reason *not* to keep it online

I've been using personal computers for about 40 years. During that time I've worked as an IT support person, a software quality assurance engineer, and a network server engineer.

From the first time that always-on connection to a LAN, then to the Internet has been possible, my computers both at work and at home have stayed connected to them. When appropriate (that is not "on the clock" for someone else), I've used all of those systems for multiple tasks that include recreational web browsing.

Since Microsoft began installing its own anti-malware software that defaults to realtime scanning of every disk read and write, I've disabled that realtime scanning on all of my personal computers, relying only on the drive scanning that Defender does during periods of inactivity and ad hoc scanning when I've downloaded an installer (right click, Scan for Malware).

The only times I've ever seen malware infect a computer (anyone's computer) were when a user of the computer actively obtained and installed software that contained malware. It's always required the active participation of the user, I've never seen it arrive passively. Download and install a dodgy program, click on a dodgy email attachment, click okay on a dodgy website that wants to install something, whatever (usually the email and website ones).

While I have of course known some people who wound up with malware on their systems, I've also never known anyone personally who lost data to it. Time and hassle spent removing the infection, yes. But actually lose access to a file or files? Never seen that, never met anyone personally who's had it happen. Plenty of people who will say that it happened to a friend or a friend of a friend, but still, nobody I've met personally.

(I have on the other hand personally witnessed systems rendered practically useless due to the installation and misconfiguration of anti-malware software, but that's another story)

Disconnecting my music production computer from the Internet would be such a pain in the * that it would eclipse whatever risk I was trying to avoid by doing so. The need to buy and maintain another computer to use for recreational web browsing being the biggest pain, followed by not being able to download, validate and update software, followed by not being able to access information pertinent to my tasks directly at hand. And so on.

We all must determine our own way of assessing risks and what will allow us to feel comfortable. In the case of malware/data loss fear, not doing things that stand a chance of screwing up my computer, doing backups and periodic scans for malware (I never find anything) suffice for me.

I'm NOT putting anyone down for whatever safety measures they think they need to take. Anyone who thinks there IS a threat that outweighs the hassles of taking their system offline, go right ahead. Just relating my own experience for anecdotal purposes.

Of course, I'd encourage anyone who fears having their computer connected to the internet to step back every so often and assess whether the risk continues to outweigh the hassle. I've got some risk assessment coming up, all of my systems run Windows 10, and October is looming. Microsoft say that Defender will continue to be updated but that the full range of OS security updates will cease.

I suspect there will be some backing down from Microsoft, and of course plenty of 3rd-party solutions, but we'll see.

[User 905133]

1 hour ago, Xoo said:

I can't think of any good reason *not* to keep it online - downloading OS patches and software updates, posting songs to YT or Bandlab or wherever. 

Several years ago a Windows 10 upgrade changed audio stuff on my PC so that the software (Patchmix) for my top-of-the Line E-Mu Digital Audio System no longer worked.  The audio card and accompanying Audio Dock became useless under Windows 10.  While it still worked as expected on my XP SP3 PC, my XP PCs are no longer in service and not worth repairing.

For several few years after that the firewire port on on the E-Mu cards still worked flawlessly, but then stopped.  Since I had the same issue on several cards (some had been out of service since they no longer worked under Windows 10), it is possible that a Windows upgrade contributed to the firewire port's demise.

If by some stroke of luck I find I have an old bootable HDD that was pulled before the Windows upgrade that bricked my Audio Dock System, I will use it to try to reconstruct a working  Windows 10 Audio PC.  If successful, I plan to keep it off the Internet.  

[Wookiee]

@User 905133 disabled automatic updates, then create a restore point before applying the update. Personally I do that for all OS, driver, and critical application updates.