SONAR Steam Editions

After nearly 3 weeks of going back and forth with the cakewalk support, I am complied to warn people people, that Bandlab dose not want to support it's legacy products.
The DRM checker just stopped working and it just in "demo mode". The support agent was just incompetent.
They just kept asking me questions I all ready answered, did nothing to to fix the issue.
Do not support this company.
This company has bad reputation and does not uphold licence agreements.
I will not use or recommend this software my clients to use your software in my studios from here on out.

Oh, Cakewalk, how you have fallen. Confusing, and just stops working at times. Crashes unpredictably. Basically I use it for MIDI, which then gets exported to another, far more intuitive and easy to work with program that doesn't have MIDI capabilities, and not much else. Not supported by the company, which I think at this point may not even exist. Buy Reaper instead.

This program is amazing, but there is a more modern version that is entirely free; Cakewalk was purchased by Bandlab some time ago. Look up 'Cakewalk by Bandlab' it's this very same software, entirely free, no restrictions.

This DAW is now completely FREE for download, without the DLCs. Now it's called Cakewalk by BandLab...
So I paid and shortly after its free... great.
There are a lot of fre VSTs you don't need the DLCs to begin with music production.

Wow. After 2 years of uses and several Updates I suddenly can't change the instruments. I just can't. I didn't change the save folder etc. I Can only play those instruments who I have saved from other projects. I wont change this review until something good happened.

Software that i sno longer developed or supported still being offered for sale. DO NOT BUY.

Steam refused my refund as I have exceeded the maximum of 2 hours "playtime" - this is not a game FFS it is a product sold on the basis of continual updates, features bug fixes and support, none of which will be available now.

I fail to see how my FIFTEEN hours of PLAYTIME amounts to a significant benefit of the software - for a game, I get it, 15 hours could be enough to complete. But an application like this 15 hours (most of which I am pretty sure where on the demo) barely scratches the surface. And yet Steam STILL are offering this for sale nearly a week after the announcement was made. How is that right? It is still being advertised on Steam with "2018" season pass...to what exactly?

As above I get these things happen but even after the official notice the product is on sale with benefits that can no longer apply as advertised. Disgusting.

So Steam, thanks for effing nothing. Don't be surprised that my account will now have no future purchase of anything.

Broken AGAIN - i actually kinda like sonar, it is just way to unstable, you have no idea if it works next time you start it up.
i do not mind fixing small issues that comes up from time to time, but this is often a mess.

i really wish updates were optional cos with sonar you can bet your ass some new things are f'ed up and you can expect to spend a fair ammount of time seeing if you can fix it or wait and see if a workaround shows up in the forums - some times solutions come pretty fast.

but that is another issue WHY do people need ti fix it themself, i got other DAW's non with this ammount of dificulty and work to be able to use it.

as i said new patch new issues - now it has gone from working ok to no sound on both my computers i have no issues on any other DAW not with ASIO, MME, Wasapi only sonar and first after update - i work with different DAW's daily - but this one is a riddle there is no reason for it to claim silent busses when there is nothing wrong with the soundcards (tested with samson, behringer, creative, m-audio)

my guess is the latest update broke something in sonar - and it is not the first time


i started really enjoying this software - but it keeps turning more and more into shit i almost stopped using it because there are no guarentee it will load next time, will it mess up the song again, will i be able to use it the first two hours or will i be trying to fix it again.


i think what im saying is DO NOT BUY


PS. support is slow and mostly useless - and from their response not sure if they know how you setup audio in a DAW

I started using CW products since MC6. So this upgrade was a huge bonus for me. I've used this for professional work alongside Kontakt 4 and I'm happy that its shortcuts are easy to use and having multiple screen views for different purpsoes work nicely.


Great for me as I was looking for a good easy to use Windows alternative DAW.

EDIT (November 2017)

Please read:
http://www.cakewalk.com/announcement

Don't buy it
I just hope that I'm still gonna be able to download the DAW in the future
I also feel sad for the people that bought lifetime passes, what a scam

Thanks Gibson


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Until FL Studio comes out of Greenlight, this is the best DAW on Steam atm (and even if FL comes out, it's still a great daw)

Even though I have 135 hrs with this daw, I've using cubase 'til last year so I know my way around music softwares

Lots of quality (Edit: And I mean Quality, as of June 15th, Studio Instruments has been an excellent plug-in, specially for the strings stuff) freebies, i.e you get rapture session, the original Z3TA session drummer and studio instruments

If you already come from using another DAW it shouldn't be hard to get used to the interface but if you are new you really should look up some tutorials to know what the fuck you are doing

Besides some little bugs here and there and the kinda annoying way to export stuff, this DAW has all the basic stuff for a bedroom producer; not to mention that when there was a Steam ed. it was a really affordable software for ppl making videogame music like me; it has video import option which is great if you are gonna sync. audio fxs to a loop or
animation

It's like a jack of all trades for DAWs; works if you are gonna make sound effects, works if you are gonna make a demo/mix and works (if you have the necessary plug-ins) if you are gonna master something

Sadly the Steam edition can't be bought anymore, but if you find some strange way to get it, don't even think twice and just get it, it's good

So, I'd reccomend getting the Sonar Profesional edition in a sale and get 3rd party plug-ins for free or buy some or just save money and go full nuts and buy Platinum ed. which has all the necessary stuff for music production

I bought Pro and upgraded to Platinum. It was a srtruggle but as I am new to this and over 50 I thought it might be. What really helped me to understand it all was Seth's various explanations and feedback to those with queries. Anyway my DAW is stable, it works fine with all plugins, the sound is phenominal and even I can work with it.

As someone who has used cakewalk's products from the infancy of the company, I cannot reccomend this product enough.
It is a premium Digital Audio Workstation, that has all the features you would expect from a professional grade product. The learning curve for this software is mid / high, and it helps to watch youtube videos or post on forums asking questions if you are new to the digital audio world. The fact that you can get this at the price-point that it is sold for, is also a bargain, and you receive discounts when you buy upgrades to the next tier of the cakewalk product line. For Beginners, I will say this.

If you are serious about audio production, and you need a piece of software that is easy to use, yet powerful enough to compete with the big boys, you can only go right here.

to buggy for my taste still...

Sonar x3 was bug ridden as hell. Now things are better but still enough to be infuriating. I would not recommend something that doesn't fully work.

Gibson informed Cakewalk to cease further development on their Cakewalk line of products, such as Z3ta+, Rapture Pro and Sonar. This means this great application will not see any further updates. I really hope they will sell the assets to a company that cares, as I have no good words for Gibson and the way they deal(t) with Cakewalk. Cakewalk put their hearts and souls into these products and they really improved over time... and now, it is basically left for dead. I hope some other company is allowed to snatch it up. As, for instance, Magix has shown they could revive Sound Forge and Vegas... I wish, I wish... *sighs*. Fuck Gibson! You never delivered on Deckadance either...

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Updated message:
Recent updates have made the situation a lot more stable. Have been running this now on two machines and I have seen less crashes

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Original message:
Recent update made Sonar unstable (and slower than before)... it hangs (unrepsonsive UI) and crashes often now... For this, I can not recommend it.

As an exampe: dragging an audio sample from the audio track to a midi track, will result in a crash while trying to 'insert regions'.

As a music composing software I was pretty satisfied while it still worked, but SONAR for me is the 1 out of 100 cases that a program just bugs and where, even after months of testing tech forum suggestions, Ive still not been able to restore basic functionality. It all went wrong after I decided to reinstall SONAR on a new backup SSD, having formerly had it on the main-drive. From that moment the program has refused to rescan for musical instruments, and even a reinstall back to the main-drive has not changed anything. No instruments. The program is dead for me.

An comparatively affordable DAW which include various features, but for Cubase users, SONAR does not contain the right-click menu, so it's less convenient to draw notes and move them around, but I do recommend SONAR if you are a geeky songwriter.If you want a professional DAW, buy Cubase. Otherwise,SONAR is a great choice.

After testing Magix Music Maker, which crashed on me way too much at any given moment, I haven't had a single crash with the demo Sonar and now SSE. It's a professional DAW that comes with a nice amount of instruments/VST's. I like to work with custom soundclips/loops too. Just plug in an iPad or any other sound device simply to the PC mic input and directly sample and edit in SSE. No hassle.
Very pleased with this purchase.

-It is the most convenient DAW program with which I worked. And I chose a long time from Cubase, FLstudio and other programs. The program is designed specifically for musicians, not teenagers who think that downloading DAW and a couple of plug-ins, you can already create GOOD music. SONAR is a good tool for learning. Its intuitive interface gives an understanding of what is needed and what is not for recording instrumental music, at the initial stage. If you certainly in music even a little understanding.
-It is quite possible to write music professionally.
-Although there are flaws.
-Working with a music editor is still quite optimized. We need a certain skill in order to write notes. On the other hand, in my opinion, it is more convenient and FASTER than step by step in the Guitar PRO register, if you master the technique of course. But the functional does not suffice all the same, in the musical editor. Pauses can be set only when deleting a note, for example.
-In my, the step-by-step sequencer has not been finalized, although I do not use it yet.
-In the version of Steam Edition VST tools and AudioFX plug-ins have not been updated for a long time. But all that is, there is enough in the field.

I followed Seth's suggestion, tried to install ASIO4ALL and now SONAR starts and works no more crashes.

I apologize for my impatience and inappropriate words in previous review.

I compose Soundtracks for games, started with Cakewalk 8.1 and moved on to Sonar X3 all the way through and never feel any inconvenience for all these years. I can safely say that Sonar is one of the most convenient and elegant DAW on PC which includes extremely useful tools and effects. I definitely recommend to anyone who is either adept or inept.

Why I'd like to work with sonar against cubase or nuendo...
There is some simple reasons that I can see as a sound recorder.
You can record lines in one line, on each other without any problem,but in others you need 2or3lines that you can record and have a line without problem.
You can insert fx's on a line and another split sounds in the line and you can easily copy fx's to wherever you want without reset.
Everything is pro in sonar \m/