Free version of Cakewalk Sonar now available

[Bristol_Jonesey]

26 minutes ago, kday said:

I agree, I'm tired of the company doing all this versions messing with my recording history. I've paid for sonar. Then they stopped producing it a little later, then they offered a free version to fix bugs, and now they're offer a different lite version with missing features and a lower quality 2D screen interface, and a black color I hate and strain my eyes to see? That's like going backwards from a 3D colorful interface, and tons of legacy features. The only wy I'd personally upgrade back to Sonar again after paying once is is they offer a one time fee option. It's just not worth it to go from a full featured CBB 3D user interface and a bunch of legacy features to a slimed down 2D user interface with only a black screen that looks more like CAD program than a Recording Mixer Audio Workstation to me.  I love the look of the CBB and the New Sonar let alone the free version just don't give me that legacy DAW look or option. So I'll probably stay with CBB until a new Microsoft Windows makes it obsolete.  

Black screen? 

[mark skinner]

On 6/23/2025 at 2:23 PM, sjoens said:

The orange Toasty Sonar reminder only occurs when you're online.  I might be concerned if my DAW is offline because I won't see it or know why CbB is shutting down in the middle of a session or project when a date sensitive detonation device that may have been implanted in the final update goes off.  

That's the way it is Now for an "offline" CbB user. The big difference is that it happens once a month. We used to get a notification about 14 days before it happened but , that's  is long gone. I downloaded the new free Sonar version today and noticed in the help menu it showed it would be active for 1 month. Looks like offline activation is still available.

I think it's going to be a super easy transition but ..   I can't figure out why "anyone" thought the 2d graphics was an improvement.   It does look pretty crisp though . The quick start screen also looks like it's from a completely different DAW.   Don't get me wrong I'm still Happy to get it .       ms

[John Vere]

Please people don’t call it a lite version. It is the same full version as Premium. The features missing is a very small list.
It is common for Daw’s to offer 3 tiers that all functions are available but as you pay more you get mostly add ons. These are usually just more plug ins. 
 

Cubase Elements ( $149) as example can’t do tempo extraction, Audio to midi and a dozen other features Free Sonar has. 

Yes the graphics are now different but it looks like most of the other Daw’s! I honestly can’t tell the difference anymore. You can most certainly choose Mercury theme and it will be blindingly white. 
 

 

 

[Byron Dickens]

As long as it has all of the MIDI editing capabilities, I'm good. 

[pwalpwal]

On 6/25/2025 at 12:33 AM, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Black screen? 

washed out difficult to read grey screen, shurely?

[Bruce Gavin]

I might be interested IF the Free Sonar edition makes full use of multi-core processors.

I'm 51 years in the computer business this year.
Rest assured there is a whole new crop of bugs in Free Sonar, just like EVERY other new piece of software.

The various Microsoft runtime libraries are constantly updated due to the endless bugs found in them.
The failure of Object Oriented code is a bug in the runtime is a bug for every user of that run time.

Those who write their apps to the latest and greatest runtimes are subject to the bugs in those latest and greatest runtimes.

[Canopus]

The Sonar application is based on Cakewalk by BandLab, which in turn was based on Cakewalk SONAR Platinum, which in turn was based on Cakewalk SONAR X3, X2 and X1 in decending order. I’ve had them all. Hence, the codebase is not something new, although recent code maintenance, as well as new features, of course, are. Microsoft's C++ runtime library is indeed an integral part of Sonar, but, as I'm sure you know, the same goes for most Windows applications. 

Bottom line: the free version of Sonar is not a new piece of software. 

[Bristol_Jonesey]

2 hours ago, Bruce Gavin said:

I might be interested IF the Free Sonar edition makes full use of multi-core processors.

I'm 51 years in the computer business this year.
Rest assured there is a whole new crop of bugs in Free Sonar, just like EVERY other new piece of software.

The various Microsoft runtime libraries are constantly updated due to the endless bugs found in them.
The failure of Object Oriented code is a bug in the runtime is a bug for every user of that run time.

Those who write their apps to the latest and greatest runtimes are subject to the bugs in those latest and greatest runtimes.

What new bugs have you found so far?

[Glenn Stanton]

according to the Cakewalk folks here - "free" Sonar is identical to "paid" Sonar EXCEPT some features are disabled ion the "free" version. so if the "paid" version has a bug, then yes, it's likely the "free" version does also. and presumably, when a bug is fixed in the "paid" version, it will be an update for the "free" version as well. 

so far as i know, the MS runtimes are mostly updated due to additional API "features" and the occasional bug fix for security or some backwards compatibility which got tanked so people (i.e. governments mostly) running programs from 1995 complained and they had  to fix it... LOL