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Trying out the Cakewalk Sonar (BBL) subscription

tothemax

tothemax

Nov 1, 2013
1,462
1,696
Annapolis Area
#1
Last night while working in the studio with the free version of Cakewalk I decided to take a chance and do a month subscription (trial) of the full version. It's basically $15 for a month, they have a $70 annual rate sale going on right now. The one thing that hit me with the free version of Sonar is that you no longer have the multiple views/layouts, Advanced, Recording, Arranger, etc... - only the Advanced view. With the subscription, that changed, and there are additional views in Sonar. Will be working on a few mixes over the holiday and should have a chance to do some comparisons between the versions. Personally I'm not a fan of the subscription model, but I'm not ready to go to a new DAW. The one drawback is that any mixes created in the paid version may not be compatible with the free version. I also realize that product development and support are not free either. So it will be interesting to see where this leads.

Btw: The monthly subscription comes with a 3 day free trial, so your investment is refundable. I don't think I could reasonably test the full product in 3 days, but I think a month should provide a good overview. I'll post any updates on features that stand out.

Merry, Merry,
 
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#3
As long as your legacy version was activated when the new Sonar was released. I've kept the legacy version active on a couple of my WIN10 PC's. The new Sonar free version is similar to the legacy version, with a few of the legacy features disabled. Change is going to happen, can't fight that. I'm hoping the value is there, with a possible one time license option coming down the road.
 
#4
One thing that is interesting and I'm not certain if it is due to the paid subscription or not, but... I was trying to figure out how to configure the keyboard\control surface foot pedal (Nektar Impact 49+) to start/stop the DAW record action. I emailed Tech Support and got a response about 3 hours later, after an earlier response that with the holiday response times may take longer with staff on leave. The message was concise with specific questions... This control surface comes with integration for Cakewalk and works fine. The pedal is currently configured for keyboard sustain, MIDI is not my strong suit...

Merry, Merry...
 

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