richie2rich4
Well I really don't want to have 2 side by side and tie up memory.
Most of the space the programs take up is content, extras, and project files. The program executable itself takes up little space--only a few dozen megabytes IIRC (not at my music computer right now). There's no significant memory penalty in leaving it installed, and you can consolidate the other folders. For example I just transferred any custom templates, track icons,etc. I did for X3 over to the Cakewalk content folder for SONAR Platinum, and deleted the X3 content folder.
You Ok so it seems my plugins will not transfer over without reinstalling them
You will not need to reinstall them. Worse case is they're in a folder you'll need to include in the scan paths in plug-in manager.
but will I be able to transfer all my cakewalk projects over with no issue or missing audio?
I don't remember if SONAR 7 let you save per-project folders or not, but if so, you can just open the .cwp file in the new version and SONAR will know what to do. The biggest problem is if all your audio is consolidated in the Audio folder. How to handle that situation depends on how many projects you have.
Of course the new versions have many features that weren't in SONAR 7. I have had good luck opening older projects in newer versions, but I've never made as big a jump as from SONAR 7 to SONAR X3. It was always 8.5 to X1 with a few minor changes, a few more minor changes when going to X2, etc. Perhaps others can comment on the backward compatibility with big jumps but overall, I think the consensus is that it works reasonably well.
I see Ebay has the X3 forsale . Which of the new versions is similar to the Producer series.
Platinum is the equivalent to Producer. Make sure that X3 really is a valid copy and was never registered. Depending on how much it costs, you might be better off buying X3 then paying the upgrade price to Platinum.