Only $499.00 US to Upgrade to Sonar Platinum!

[europa_man]

Only $499.00 to upgrade to Sonar Platinum from Sonar 3X Producer!

(I hope everyone knows I'm being Sarcastic)

That's why I'm lovin' Reaper!

It's too bad many of the plugins included with Sonar won't work with Reaper.

Many do which is nice since I paid for them.

Sonar has some great features but I'm very comfortable and happy with Reaper!

[billybk1]

As with many things in life timing is everything. Back in the Spring of 2016, Cake offered "Lifetime" membership for current SONAR Platinum customers for $99 for a limited time. I jumped on it, as I usually do the annual update to stay current anyway. Now my SONAR license has an expiration date of "Infinity" and I will never have to pay another update fee for Cakes flagship app for as long as I live! Hopefully that will be a long time! Ironically, now with the monthly rolling updates, SONAR gets updated (new features, bug fixes, improvements, etc) far more frequently than REAPER nowadays. When was the last REAPER update.....back in March. SONAR has had 5 monthly updates since then alone and (18) monthly updates since Jan 2016.

Hey, I really like and use REAPER and have upgraded to each new version since its 1st release back in 2007. But having regular "free" monthly rolling updates (by the 1st of every month) and never having to ever pay for a DAW software update again is pretty fantastic in my world.

Cheers,

Billy Buck

[LOSANO]

I left Sonar in November 2012 for Reaper. And I have no regret. Some of my sonar plugins and softsynth are working with Reaper (Z3ta, TTs-1, Pentagon I, Studio instruments,Dimension LE...)

[Tod]

SONAR gets updated (new features, bug fixes, improvements, etc) far more frequently than REAPER nowadays. When was the last REAPER update.....back in March. SONAR has had 5 monthly updates since then alone and (18) monthly updates since Jan 2016.

Heh heh, well that just shows you don't know about Reaper's "Pre-Releases". Not only that, but it's the Reaper community that is a huge part of the updates and fixes. I doubt you'll see anything like that in any other DAW.

Incidentally, I was also a big Cakewalk fan, but when I got Sonar 4, and they left it with all kinds of bugs behind, I decided it was the end for me (I started with Cakewalk back int the early 90s). If you don't truly know the difference between Sonar and Reaper, it's because you still don't know what Reaper can do.

[michael diemer]

Former Sonar user, switched to Reaper about a year ago, when it was clear they wouldn't fix their notion feature, and Reaper now has it and will be improving it routinely. Still, Sonar is a great DAW. All my Reaper projects for the foreseeable future were former Sonar projects.

I would love to know how you got TTS-1 working in Reaper, Losano!

[LOSANO]

Originally Posted by michael diemer

Former Sonar user, switched to Reaper about a year ago, when it was clear they wouldn't fix their notion feature, and Reaper now has it and will be improving it routinely. Still, Sonar is a great DAW. All my Reaper projects for the foreseeable future were former Sonar projects.

I would love to know how you got TTS-1 working in Reaper, Losano!

You will need to go to your Sonar/Cakewalk plugin folder, than locate TTS-1.dll, than drag it to your desktop. After that, open your Reaper plugin folder, and drag TTs-1 from the desktop to that folder. Once you open your Reaper, you will see it. Or you will have to re-scan all your plugins. I hope this will help you.

[InLight-Tone]

Sonar: Can't draw a midi clip in the arrange view so you can go in and manually write notes in the midi editor. Resurrect CAL for gods sakes, Reaper has Lua Game over, that should be the first monthly update...

[Tod]

Originally Posted by InLight-Tone

Sonar: Can't draw a midi clip in the arrange view so you can go in and manually write notes in the midi editor. Resurrect CAL for gods sakes, Reaper has Lua Game over, that should be the first monthly update...

Aah CAL. Yes, I forgot about that, it was one of the many things I loved about Cakewalk. Their midi sequencers are still a very pleasant memory and I still miss some of the things, I could do with it.

[Pashkuli]

Tried Sonar Platinum (latest) a few days ago. First impressions:
1. meters were freezing for no reason
2. FX chain was unclear, when it was on the input, or in the chain
3. Instruments and content had to be purchased separately I think

Couldn't stand it more than three days.

[europa_man]

Originally Posted by Tod

Aah CAL. Yes, I forgot about that, it was one of the many things I loved about Cakewalk. Their midi sequencers are still a very pleasant memory and I still miss some of the things, I could do with it.

We still use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 when playing live gigs using midi files.

Great little CAL file that I still use is for setting velocities for say bass tracks in a midi file or any type of instrument really.
You can set a high and low range and the CAL sets random velocities between the two settings.

The natural progression back in the day was to advance to SONAR from Cakewalk but I never made the change 100%.
I switched to Roland VS-880s and 1680s to record instead. That was a journey.

Being able to open the VS880 files with Reaper led me here.

Being able to rescue all that recorded material from the Roland hard disk recorders and bringing them back to life in Reaper was a small miracle for me.

I still do a lot of work with midis in Cakewalk and import to Reaper.
That's becoming less & less as I'm using the midi features more in Reaper.

[squibs]

I started with pirated Cakewalk Pro Audio back in the 90s. I became a loyal paying customer until one day I was tracking a session for a friend's band and it kept dropping out of recording. In a tight spot, I fired up an evaluation copy of reaper, which coasted through the session. I bought a license there and then, and have hardly opened Sonar since that day.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by squibs

I started with pirated Cakewalk Pro Audio back in the 90s. I became a loyal paying customer until one day I was tracking a session for a friend's band and it kept dropping out of recording. In a tight spot, I fired up an evaluation copy of reaper, which coasted through the session. I bought a license there and then, and have hardly opened Sonar since that day.

Yeah, I used Cakewalk Pro too back in the 90s. As I recall it was free, or actually I got it with some software I purchased back then. I think I ended up with 3 or 4 copies of it. It was a great little program at the time.

[Irvin]

Originally Posted by europa_man

Only $499.00 to upgrade to Sonar Platinum from Sonar 3X!

The days of $500+ DAWS are long gone, as are the days of the $150+ plugins.

ANY $200-300 (or less) DAW plus a few well-selected plugins will do a great job when used by a knowledgeable musician/engineer.

[lowellben]

Originally Posted by Tod

Heh heh, well that just shows you don't know about Reaper's "Pre-Releases". Not only that, but it's the Reaper community that is a huge part of the updates and fixes. I doubt you'll see anything like that in any other DAW.

Incidentally, I was also a big Cakewalk fan, but when I got Sonar 4, and they left it with all kinds of bugs behind, I decided it was the end for me (I started with Cakewalk back int the early 90s). If you don't truly know the difference between Sonar and Reaper, it's because you still don't know what Reaper can do.

Also a former SONAR refugee. I used Cakewalk wayyyyyyyy before SONAR was SONAR. We're not so different

[JamesPeters]

Originally Posted by europa_man

We still use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 when playing live gigs using midi files.

Great little CAL file that I still use is for setting velocities for say bass tracks in a midi file or any type of instrument really.
You can set a high and low range and the CAL sets random velocities between the two settings.

Here are some scripts you will probably appreciate for Reaper:

spk77's "Set random velocities for selected notes"

spk77's "MIDI velocity tool"

Julian Sader's "js_LFO tool"

All can be downloaded/installed with ReaPack too (so no need to download them from those links).

I know what you mean about CAL. It was one of the things that kept me using Cakewalk (and later Sonar) at least until they adopted some of the features natively. When they dropped CAL, by that point I was already looking at other DAW software.

[karhide]

I still use both for different things plus I jumped on the lifetime updates offer. With the monthly Sonar updates it is good to see the program moving forward and bugs. I still find it easier to write my own tracks in Sonar but when I record other bands I normally use Reaper. I also use FLStudio and Live as well so I don't get bored.

[ivansc]

Just as an aside, my years worth of updates expired back in April & since then I havent seen a damn thing I would miss.
I am on Sonar Pro & never saw the point of upgrading to Producer, but I seem to recall the upgrade from any version of Producer was $119 last time I got an email. I hesitated and then decided even at that price I wasnt going to bother keeping THAT much up to date.

Shame - I joined the sonar club back at version 3 and baled at 8.5.2 due to audio engine unreliability on my rig. When the X series was introduced, I got seduced back mainly because of MIDI and the $79 special offer on X3 Pro at the time! But then the devs did some work on Reapers MIDI and it was bye-bye sonar time. No real regrets.

[jinotsuh]

Only $499.00 US to Upgrade to Sonar Platinum!


About $450 to much in my view. I was a long time Cakewalk user, (Pro Audio 9) and am a SONAR Platinum lifetime member, however I haven't really touched it in over 2 years. I switched over to Studio One 3 upon release, and now only use Studio One and REAPER (now and then)

SONAR seems to be falling apart, things get broken every month, something that worked last month will not necessarily work next month. SONAR is built on old code (Nothing inherently wrong with that) except its full of long standing bugs which haven't, and seems will never be fixed, and that number is ever increasing as they continue to break stuff and never fix it. Workarounds, wow, I have never came across a piece of software that requires as many workarounds to get things to work which should work as advertised but don't, long cumbersome, convoluted and unnecessary workarounds (well necessary for SONAR, but if they would just fix things?) SONAR feels and looks old, simply because it is, at it's very heart it IS old. It's clunky, very flakey, temperamental and well more than just a little buggy. There is heaps of posts of late at the forums about the audio engine dropping out, seems lots of folks are having the issue. I had it a few times in the past, and I know how to make it happen at will a few various ways lol, but to be honest I have never seen the issue with ANY other DAW I have used.

I never had much trouble with SONAR myself, I knew what to avoid, knew the required workarounds, but I just grew weary of the constant updates and constant breakage and basically of the direction since not long after Platinum's introduction, plus I just found something that for me was infinitely better, Studio One 3. The lack of official support since well over a year ago isn't a good look, many folk are still finding hard to get official support, and phone support seems to be a thing of the past, but they say the forums is all you need, and I guess a lot of the time it is, unless you have an authorization issue or the like, SONAR itself and many of the Cakewalk instruments were dropping back into DEMO mode for a long time back a while, so users couldn't even use the products, and couldn't contact support to remedy the problem, another not so good look. Speaking of the forums, best be on your best behavior, their reputation is well deserved, as long as you praise Cakewalk and SONAR you'll be right, but if not, as many have found it's a different story.

Myself, it wouldn't surprise me if in the not to distant future we saw the demise of Cakewalk and SONAR, but you never know, at least I don't have to pay for the privilege of checking out the latest from time to time, which is a good thing, because I would never spend another sent on SONAR, it's just not worth it, and certainly not at the prices they are asking now, I can't understand why they changed the pricing structure as they did, maybe they thought that people would pay more for 'Vintage' software, and I guess you can't just keep giving away all those bugs for free a lot of them would be among the oldest bugs know to man