The future of Sonar

[Stephen Mendes]

After experimenting briefly with several DAW's many years ago, I decided on Sonar because of it's interface, that seemed to mimic what I was accustomed to in hardware multi track tape recorders and analog mixing desks better than Ableton, Cubase or Protools.

Even though Sonar continued to advance through successive upgrades, basically, as far as I am concerned..... Sonar 6 runs on many hardware challenged laptops..... is very, very stable..... and does everything that an 'out of the box' engineer in a 'home studio' would require of an 'in the box' solution.

We are told that development on Sonar has ceased and it is to be retired ?

But that does not stop Sonar 6 from working in all versions of Windows.... a product that is so simple and intuitive no manual is required...... and what more do you really need ?

Whether working with MIDI tracks or Audio tracks or a mix of the both...... as long as you are NOT using lots of tracks you will be fine.

On my laptop, I am only ever recording 2 and playing back at most 8 tracks...... so no latency.

For other musicians who do not require an enormous track count, I have made some videos to show how nice it can be...... I include one below

 

[happyrat1]

Cakewalk Sonar and all other Cakewalk IP was purchased by Bandlab.com last month.

Here's an email they sent me today. I've edited out the personalized links.

​

In case you missed the news, Cakewalk is very much alive!

Last month, the team at BandLab Technologies were very pleased to welcome Cakewalk to the Bandlab family. We’re now very close to announcing our product plans, so get ready for some more exciting news in the coming weeks!

In the meantime, it’s important that you make a Bandlab account to ensure that we are able to keep track of your past purchases and ownership history. You can also sign up on your mobile device by downloading the BandLab app from the Google Play Store or the App Store.

Please jump in and do this in the next two weeks so we can tag your Cakewalk ID to your new account as we migrate databases and wind down the legacy server. Your BandLab account will be what you use to authenticate and activate the new flagship product when it is launched and will bring more features and services to your Cakewalk experience in the future.

Signing up for a BandLab account is completely free and also means you get access to the full suite of Bandlab features and tools for creators.

In order to make sure you get the appropriate upgrade or crossgrades in the future, if and when they are available - please make sure that you sign up for BandLab with the same email you used for your Cakewalk products.

For the thousands of Cakewalk users who have already signed up for BandLab with the same email address as your Cakewalk account: you don’t need to do anything, we’ve already tagged your Cakewalk ID to your new BandLab account!

Gary

 

[Stephen Mendes]

Cakewalk Sonar and all other Cakewalk IP was purchased by Bandlab.com last month.

Here's an email they sent me today. I've edited out the personalized links.



Gary

Hi Gary,

Thanks for that ..... amazingly (the coincidence is interesting) ..... I received the same email as you, yesterday ..... and have already signed up at the 'personalized' link.

Since I have bought quite a bit from Cakewalk over the years..... it's worth seeing what these do with the brand.

Best Wishes,
Stephen Mendes

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Yes, it's nice that someone bought Cakewalk, because I know a lot of SONAR users were very upset about Gibson shutting it down. It will be interesting to see where BandLab take it. (I keep wanting to call them "BandCamp"!)

 

[Stephen Mendes]

The BandLab is a music sharing and collaboration platform...... I cannot see myself going further in that direction...... but as I said in previous posts, for most keyboard players..... even those who write their own stuff..... the current Sonar is more than adequate..... and In fact, I like to work in my Roland FA-06 workstation because it's simpler and more hands-on direct.

There is this trend in software to add more whistles and bells into every new release..... then the whole interface becomes so complicated that it takes ages to learn it..... and you forget it quickly, if you use it infrequently.

I am still using a simple program that I bought in the 80's..... and one of the reasons I love it so, is because it's so straightforward to use that it's plain simple common sense.

I know I should not be complaining about having to memorize shortkeys and how to quickly access features of programs...... after all musicians are supposed to have the best memory in the world ..... we sit down and play whole passages from memory in front of people without score.

But we love music.... and it has RELEVANCE ...... remembering a hotkey that has no relationship to anything is hard to do.... if you don't use it all the time...... because it has no relevance to anything.

What do you all think ?

 

[happyrat1]

Personally I use a legal 1990's copy of Cakewalk Home Studio 9.01 for all of my sequencing. It runs beautifully and predictably under Wine in Linux and does everything I need.

I also have a legally owned copy of Cakewalk Music Creator 5 which no longer seems to want to install itself on any of my machines because of all the DRM crap built into it.

To be honest, I'm looking around at alternatives these days since Cakewalk has been passed around from owner to owner more often than a groupie at Woodstock and with each iteration it's gone further away from supporting standard MIDI hardware and more and more towards a phone based vst squeak simulator for DJ's to play with.

I'm thinking of downloading Tracktion since it is both free software and available to run natively under Linux. I've also fiddled about a bit with Reaper in the past and though it sort of does the job I always end up going back to my ancient copy of Cakewalk Home Studio.

Gary

 

[SeaGtGruff]

I agree about complexity-- less really can be more. I sometimes use a program called SynthFont, and it has menu options that let you choose between different UI complexities-- essentially it either hides or displays certain controls based on your choice. Some programs let you customize their UIs, but learning how to do that can often be just as overwhelming as learning how to use the program itself.

 

[KeysDude]

I've had Sonar X2 Studio for sometime and always found it great to work with. It's good news that another firm has bought it out. When I bought it along with a Roland A500 Pro controller (labelled as Cakewalk A500 Pro) Roland owned Cakewalk, I had no idea it had changed hands with Gibson. I've since moved on to Ableton Live, so much more straight forward and great as a jamming partner.

 

[Biggles]

https://cakewalk.bandlab.com/

This version is apparently now a free download.

I have no idea how good or otherwise or how feature rich or otherwise this version is.

 

[happyrat1]

Holy schmugolies Batman!!!!!

Thanks for the info.

Hopefully this version runs under Wine.

Gary

 

[KeysDude]

I just installed this yesterday on my Win10 PC. This version seems to have a lot more features than my X2 Studio version so a free upgrade for me. Looking at the about window, I noticed the license goes until October this year so wondering if this is an initial free download to get users on board for 6 months and then it will expire and you'll have to pay. I think that is actually a great idea as you can ensure the DAW is for you in that time. I'm a long time Sonar user so I'm happy and will pay for it when I have to as long as its not a stupid price or requires a monthly or yearly fee.