Sonar Free - setup issue?

[Jere Moore]

So, like everyone else, I installed the Sonar Free version. In installing, it askes which workspace to use, saying that this could be changed later. I chose "Basic". When installed, however, every time I tried to change the workspace, I got the nag screen with no apparent way to change the workspace to, say, "Advanced", or whatever. Do others have this issue? Did I miss something? Is this intended? 

[57Gregy]

4 hours ago, Jere Moore said:

So, like everyone else, I installed the Sonar Free version. In installing, it askes which workspace to use, saying that this could be changed later. I chose "Basic". When installed, however, every time I tried to change the workspace, I got the nag screen with no apparent way to change the workspace to, say, "Advanced", or whatever. Do others have this issue? Did I miss something? Is this intended? 

Yes, others who use the free version all have this occur. It's not a problem; workspaces aren't included with the free version. The dialog you see upon installation seems to be something left over from the full version which needs to be removed, I think.

[Anders Svensson]

Whaat?
Same issue here, though, I selected Advanced at setup, so that's what I have now. But this makes me worried. Are they going to keep cutting features just like that? Isn't the nag screens and lack of the current complete toolset enough for the free tier? Come on, Workspaces? Really?

[reginaldStjohn]

Workspaces is a feature they didn't initially mention was only part of the paid version, but apparently it is.

[Colin Nicholls]

On 7/7/2025 at 9:56 AM, 57Gregy said:

It's not a problem; workspaces aren't included with the free version.

I would think it was a problem if you chose "Basic" and then decide you'd actually prefer the fuller menu set... etc. with no way to back out of the initial choice.

[Promidi]

I did a fresh install of Sonar Free on a PC that had never had a previous version of Cakewalk installed.

When running Sonar Free for the first time on this PC, and it came to the workspace choice, it only let me select “None”.  Clicking on the other options did nothing.  So maybe if you are running Sonar Free, “None” is what it uses.  

Of course, if you signed into the Cakewalk Product Centre with an account that has Bandlab Membership, then you would be able to select a Workspace.

I think that the part of the initial Sonar start up that asks about workspaces, there should be the gold crown present like other parts of Sonar to indicate a premium feature (if you are using the Free Tier).

[57Gregy]

On 7/8/2025 at 5:36 PM, Colin Nicholls said:

I would think it was a problem if you chose "Basic" and then decide you'd actually prefer the fuller menu set... etc. with no way to back out of the initial choice.

I can see that it would be a problem for the user, but it's not a problem with the software.

On 7/8/2025 at 3:03 PM, Anders Svensson said:

Are they going to keep cutting features

They have cut no features from the free edition. It's like it always was.

[reginaldStjohn]

I think he is talking about Workspaces which were not mentioned as being only a premium feature but appear not to work for the free version.

See this post

 

Edited Thursday at 06:31 PM by reginaldStjohn