Cakewalk Sonar Is No More

[starise]

My favorite daw has fallen on hard times. The Cake forum is busting at the seams with comments about it. I am truly sad since this was my go to daw.

 

Cakewalk Announcement-

 

The servers are still up and running. For how long I don't know. The forum members have made a back up forum in case they unplug the servers. No telling how long the software will continue to function. Realistically Sonar should continue to work for a very long time so long as it doesn't require a validation server.

 

I had Studio One as  my backup daw and have recently upgraded to the latest version of it. In that regard I'm probably ok for what I do.

 

It's just a sad thing to see a large corporation like Gibson lay off Cakewalk workers on the eve of a holiday. Gibson has been in deep financial trouble for a long time. Cakewalk was a casualty of that. It was nothing Cakewalk did. In fact, things were going along really well. 

 

Lots of people angry with Gibson now. I'll admit I'm not happy with them. Many going so far as to boycott them.

[Jim622]

I used a few versions of Guitar Tracks - I really liked the simplicity. It seemed each would become unsupported fairly quickly. Sonar seemed overpriced. I swiched to Cubase. I'm now on elements 9.5. I missed Cakewalk, just always very user friendly.

[starise]

I am hopeful that Sonar will be sold to another company who continues to develop it. Until then there are other choices.

Sonar is cutting edge. Gibson OTOH is almost mismanaged into oblivion, Choosing to concentrate on the consumer electronics market and lay off software programmers.

[john]

I will be contacting the Gibson/Cakewalk technical director tomorrow, and seeing what I can find out about future direction. Assuming he tells me anything, I will share what I can  I was supposed to be reviewing the latest Cakewalk products! Doh!

[Jim622]

Let us know if the check clears

[john]

35 minutes ago, Jim622 said:

Let us know if the check clears

 

If only!

[starise]

It doesn't look good John. My best hope is someone else will get the code and have it further developed. I will have a tough time learning another daw as well as I knew Sonar. I haven't used Studio One much even though I recently updated it to the latest version mainly because Sonar is so much easier to use for me.

 

I think my copy of Sonar should work for a long time so long as win 10 updates don't kill it. I used it tonight and it made me miss the loss even more. The thought of no future updates sucks. FWIW though it was already ahead of many daws. It could stay frozen for 5 years and not loose to most others in capability.

 

Yeah Rob, the whole Gibson thing just sucks man. First it was Roland and now Gibson. At least Roland sold it for someone else to develop. There is still some hope for Cakewalk in the future. Not much, but some.

[Nick]

They are giving the Home version away free on Computer Music magazine this month I see. I'm sure it isn't connected

[starise]

As of now the software will run for quite some time as it is. Nothing on my computer has stopped working. The main problems will be  when the mother server stops working and we need that to validate our ownership. There is a rumor coming from the skeleton crew left that we will have a some future way to validate we bought it

.

From the standpoint of the software, it should go on for years as it is. The program was the best it has ever been when Gibson closed the doors. Maybe one day another will assume the code and continue development.

 

In the meantime, I bought Mixcraft 8 Pro on the advice of a friend, Biflipper over on the CW sire also known as Dave. A few here have said they like the software and they were running a half price sale on it, so I bought a copy. I can honestly say after spending  about an hour in it, the workflow is intuitive.

 

I have Studio One 3 Professional as well. I made a track in Mixcraft and added a few touches to it in SO3Pro. My only regret is I wish I had a month off to play with and learn software. As it stands my time is limited until after Christmas.

 

 

[TCgypsy]

Cakewalk/SONAR was okay but it was overpriced. It was great early on when there wasn't much to pick from and it helped set the standards by which DAWs were judged. It sucks that they just didn't drop the price, and give it a chance to bounce back.

 

For non-loop intensive stuff on a PC, about the only 3 I would RELY on would be ProTools, Cubase, or Reaper. I have an older version of ProTools and used it at first but it just doesn't run on a PC like it does on MAC (and the whole subscription thing pissed me off). I used Cubase when I was a Clinician but I decided to go with Reaper since it was far less money to spend. I have Fruity Loops and Reason - they collect dust for the most part. Of course, if I ran MAC, I would probably have Logic. Ableton has it's place, too, if you are using your computer at live gigs. 

 

You should be good to go for a very long time with your current version. Where the issues may crop up could be plugin compatibility down the road or needing a new computer for whatever reason.

 

My buddy uses Studio One exclusively, and his stuff sounds great. He has one of the mixers, too, and it couples great with the software. I would run that or check out Reaper (as powerful as ProTools or Cubase at a fraction of the price and you can download the full version for FREE).

 

Peace,

TC

[starise]

I agree that it was overpriced compared to almost anything  except for maybe Cubase and  high end versions of Samplitude. If you were an intensive midi programmer and needed to get deeper into midi than the average user, the two main  contenders there are Sonar and Cubase.

Cubase uses a dongle which many people hate. Many of our user base have switched over to Cubase. Mostly the engineers who used the deeper midi functions demanded of a deep program. If anything ever happens to the dongle you'll play heck getting your software registered on another one. On the plus side. Load Cubase onto any computer insert that dongle and you should be good to go. This comes in handy if a computer dies. Cubase in typical German fashion is proprietary as well. They don't use ARA integration. Instead they made something else similar. They do things their way. If you like it great. Cubase 9.5 only accepts 64 bit plugins. If you have a bunch of 32 bit plugins they won't work....and this is why many of our users have moved to Studio One.

 

Probably more of our crowd went over to Studio One Pro 3 though since most musicians who use midi only do it to an intermediate level. That program is intuitive and comes with a similar ARA integration as Sonar had. It's also both Mac and PC. 

 

Honestly if I hadn't  bought in to the lifetime updates I would have balked at the retail price if I were just buying in.. I think this is why many left.

 

There are still some things that I'm finding Sonar does a lot better than many other programs.There's no getting around that.

 

 My next hardware purchase will likely be a Presonus product and I presently use a Presonus interface, so it only makes sense Studio One 3 Professional will eventually be my main daw. I like Mixcraft 8 Pro although I find myself trying to get it to do things it isn't capable of doing. If you can get it like I did on sale at half price it's a no brainer. For a deeper user though it's probably not enough. It was worth the price considering the stuff that came with it and it does video fairly well.

 

Reaper is a program I tried several times and it just didn't sit well with me. I'm not knocking it, but I liked the workflow in Sonar 100% better. There's a thread over on the Cake forum now about Reaper and many on that thread  love it. A lot crossed over to Reaper when Cake started the new renewal plan. I will say it can probably do 99% of everything Sonar can do, but you need to spend time setting it all up . The GUI just isn't as easy on the eyes even with the skins IMHO. More of a learning curve than Studio One Pro and SO has the hardware connection. For most though, Reaper is all you might ever need if you don't mind taking the time to learn it in detail. Routing is weird compared to the others if you start using sends and submixes. 

 

I hear they have a great user forum, so if you didn't know how to do something they can help you over there.