Sonar 25/06 requirements

[opera]

Hi from France. I use Sonar Cakewalk since decades and I have a lot of projects running. I see that the minimum requirements for the processor is nine cores. Actually CbB runs perfectly on my computer. It  has a Intel Core I5 10400 with 6 cores. Does it mean that I have to upgrade the processor or to buy a new computer ? Or simply that Sonar will not react correctly with an heavy charge in case of a big project ? 
Rem : I have a 32 GO ram.   
Thank you for the answer.

 

 

[Jonathan Sasor]

17 minutes ago, opera said:

Hi from France. I use Sonar Cakewalk since decades and I have a lot of projects running. I see that the minimum requirements for the processor is nine cores. Actually CbB runs perfectly on my computer. It  has a Intel Core I5 10400 with 6 cores. Does it mean that I have to upgrade the processor or to buy a new computer ? Or simply that Sonar will not react correctly with an heavy charge in case of a big project ? 
Rem : I have a 32 GO ram.   
Thank you for the answer.

 

If you're running CbB fine, you should also be fine with Sonar, so long as you're on Windows 10 or 11. 

[pedwal wally wally wha]

9 minutes ago, Jonathan Sasor said:

If you're running CbB fine, you should also be fine with Sonar, so long as you're on Windows 10 or 11. 

so the minimum requirement is not 9 cores? so how many is it? (tbf is says 8 on the webpage https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021857753-What-are-the-minimum-requirements-for-using-Cakewalk-Sonar )

[sjoens]

I have 4 cores and 8 threads and it runs fine here.  BTW, Windows 10 is about to lose support October 14 this year, as well.

Edited July 1 by sjoens

[Jonathan Sasor]

46 minutes ago, loyal user said:

so the minimum requirement is not 9 cores? so how many is it? (tbf is says 8 on the webpage https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021857753-What-are-the-minimum-requirements-for-using-Cakewalk-Sonar )

You can think of it more like a recommended minimum. Can it run with less than 8? Yes. Will it run as well? No. Does anything prevent you from trying it on a system below those specs? Nope.

EDIT: Unless you're trying to run on an older version of Windows...

[pedwal wally wally wha]

4 minutes ago, Jonathan Sasor said:

You can think of it more like a recommended minimum. Can it run with less than 8? Yes. Will it run as well? No. Does anything prevent you from trying it on a system below those specs? Nope.

EDIT: Unless you're trying to run on an older version of Windows...

yep, it uses the word "suggested" 8 cores here https://www.cakewalk.com/

[pedwal wally wally wha]

18 minutes ago, sjoens said:

loose

*lose

[sjoens]

5 minutes ago, pedant said:

*lose

loosen ?? 

o key must have stuck

Edited July 1 by sjoens

[opera]

Thanks for each of the numerous answers. I'm comforted. Nothing prevents me to try. In France Sonar users can say : "we are not alone".

[TracingArcs]

I'm running both Cakewalk by Bandlab and the new Sonar free tier on an i5 - 10600. Without any issues. Infact it seems more efficient on the new Sonar.

[Starship Krupa]

My laptop has a 2-core i7 in it and runs Sonar just fine. Most of my projects consist of half a dozen virtual instrument tracks.

I guess it's a good thing that my laptop can't read.

A thing that I don't understand is why, if Sonar is more efficient than SONAR, the recommended system spec is higher for Sonar than it was for SONAR. 5 years ago, CbB ran fine on my old laptop with a 4 core i7 and 8G of RAM. 7 years ago, it ran fine on a Core 2 Quad Q6600 system. A couple of years ago, I set up CbB on a friend's Core 2 Duo 4G laptop. For all he wanted to do with it, record singer/guitar sketches, it worked just fine.

Notably, the personal studio of Cakewalk developer Mark MacLeod is based around an i7 3770 system. 4 cores of Sandy Bridge goodness.

The plug-ins I use have increased in both number and complexity in the past 10 years, and that's what's driven the upgrades I've made to my systems.

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/1/2025 at 11:20 AM, Jonathan Sasor said:

You can think of it more like a recommended minimum.

I know it's not your bailiwick, but it would be nice if that wording were on that page.

The reason I mention it is that I think that Sonar is a great option for people with older Windows systems and I wouldn't want them to be discouraged from using it.

The minimum system I would expect to be able to run Sonar on successfully would be an i5/7 four core system with 8G of RAM and an SSD system/program drive. Although I built a CbB system that only had 4G of RAM and it didn't suffer too badly. I think that even with a healthy track count, such a system would do okay as long as you didn't expect to never have to do any freezing.

AFAIK, Sonar itself doesn't require more horsepower than it did 10 years ago (I could be wrong). I think what's changed is our expectation of what's possible. Plug-ins use more resources and we use more of them. We expect everything to play back glitch free without having to freeze tracks.

But does the DAW itself eat more cycles and use more RAM than it did 10 years ago? I think we just expect to be able to run 6 instances of Chromaphone with Neutron and Neoverb on every track, and Ozone on the Master bus.😄

[msmcleod]

The minimum specs are determined from what a sensible PC set-up would be for the average user (based on what is on the market now), assuming zero tuning of their BIOS or Windows installation.

One of the most common things we hear from noobs is that they're getting clicks & pops, when they've loaded up their project with 100+ tracks containing an overkill of plugins that they saw on their favourite you-tube channels and a bunch of CPU intensive VSTi's.

Having a more generous minimum spec helps to mitigate issues from these users.

Of course Sonar will run on far slower hardware, and as @Starship Krupa says, my main DAW is an old i7 3770.   

My workflow is pretty old school though.  I only started using VST's around 10 years ago - prior to that, all my instruments and effects were hardware.  My 2 x DS2416 cards may have given me hardware EQ & Compression on 48 tracks, but it only gave me 4 effects processors.

As such, I learned to use them sparingly, which has continued with how I use VST's nowadays.

[Starship Krupa]

9 hours ago, msmcleod said:

One of the most common things we hear from noobs is that they're getting clicks & pops, when they've loaded up their project with 100+ tracks containing an overkill of plugins that they saw on their favourite you-tube channels and a bunch of CPU intensive VSTi's.

So I guess I was right about that. The "minimum requirements" are more about the (over)use of plug-ins than about the DAW itself. Heaven knows, when a n00b wants to fix something, the first thing they reach for is another effect plug-in. When I revisit my own early projects I'm astonished at how many friggin' plug-ins I thought I needed. Or actually did need.

Also, in the hours and hours I've spent watching YouTube tutorial videos, I don't know if I've ever seen one that got into freezing tracks. Which is a pity, because it can extend the useful life of older/low spec systems, or let me be productive when I can't be at my usual DAW computer. 25 plug-in laden tracks become 25 audio tracks. We don't even seem to recommend it much here on the forum. WTH happened to track freezing?! Cheap RAM and faster CPU's I guess.

Maybe I'll recommend a "track freezing" tutorial to one of our YouTube people....but it could just be my own perception that they are few. I think it could be valuable for "expectation management" to educate n00bs about track freezing: either cool it with the plug-ins or learn how to freeze.

My frugality expresses itself in a preference for plug-ins that don't gobble resources (also tuning my system like it's an F1 car). MeldaProduction FX and AIR synths are staples around here. I also like A|A|S synths, but even they are not terrible when it comes to resource usage. Especially if you knock down the voice count on those loooooonnnng factory pads.

Edited Thursday at 01:22 AM by Starship Krupa

[sjoens]

I would think "Minimum" should refer to resources needed to run the core program, and "Recommended" for running the program with added accessories, like plugins.