Hello, I am a long time user of Cakewalk, I have a bunch of project files in Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.  What would be the best way to upgrade to a recent version of cakewalk/sonar.  I basically want to retain the tracks in each project plus the velocity/pan/envelope settings (less concerned with the effects settings)

You're in luck. Sonar can read Pro Audio files as native with no issues at all. So you upgrade to Sonar Platinum with no worries. WRK files are supported.

awesome, thanks for the quick reply, John.

Hi, and welcome to this forum. I recently opened projects made both in Cakewalk PA 9, and SONAR XL 2.2, without a problem in latest SONAR Platinum. The only issue was missing plugins. You will have to locate the audio files, to be able to use the project. (IIRC it was a single audio folder in the older versions) You could demo the new versions, but I do not believe they allow saving.
All the best.

Right, welcome to the forum Ioneskylab. You may have a shock when you open Sonar.  This forum can help you through the future shock you may experience. Sonar may be very strange to you but I strongly believe you will like it a lot once you get use to it.   

You will have issues with the *.wrk files. Not deal breakers, but, there will be anomalies. My advice would be to copy and paste (or export/import) the track waves into a new project (with identical tempo) in your new choice of DAW. Doing it this way seems to clean the data so to speak.

I have a lot of wrk files and have not had any problem with them. 

Wow! Pro Audio 9. I hope your projects survive their transition into the 21st century.

John,
It's been awhile but, I remember something with volume offsets or something, among other weirdnesses.

I went from pro audio 9.0 to sonar 8 and it was a big jump as far as features and learning curve.
After sonar 8 I've gone through every single X series (sonar x1 thru platinum)
and its been well, well , worth it.
 
check out some videos on you tube and if you can swing it, grab a groove 3 video (Sonar platinum)
but I believe between you tube and cakewalk(also has a great stock of videos on site)
start here:
https://www.cakewalk.com/CakeTV/SONAR-University
 
you will be pleasantly surprised how much your world will change.
The problem with pro audio 9 for me was I had trouble running it in windows 7 (ya I tried to open it)
even with compatibility settings it was missing some features.
 
but all your old projects should work fine but I don't need to tell you that because these other guys
have covered that nicely.
Welcome to the best forum on the web.