I played around with Cakewalk Gold when it came with a soundblaster soundcard, but never did anything serious until Sonar 4.  and I've skipped a few versions.  I didn't own 5 or 7 but I have X1 Expanded and all of the bells and whistles now.

It was Guitar Tracks 2 for me.

I still think it's a great piece of software.

When I started using Cakewalk (v. 1.0), Greg was still fulfilling orders in his living room and answering the phone himself. How times change. Orders are now fulfilled by enslaved children manacled to their workstations in Central America, Greg's on a fishing boat in the Caribbean and nobody answers the phone.

@Rain... That looks cool. What is and where buy? WHAR BUY?! :-p

I found a 5 1/4 floppy with 12 tones cakewalk DOS on it .. but have no way to access it.. so there..

Early 1999 I think. 

Guitar Studio 1. My father-in-law had to order it for me, online I presume. Didn't have internet or a credit card back then and we lived hours away from any store susceptible to even cary music software like that. 

I had a radio shack PC and used an MPU 401 and a portman PC parallel midi interface with the DOS 12 tones program.Had some early multi channel modules, with a Korg Sqd sequencer synced up.. Ahh those were the daze....

I started with Pro Audio 9. I was heavy in to it. It wasn't on my PC so when I lost contact with my bud who had it, I lost contact with Sonar until we got back together some years later and he was on Sonar 4 at that point.

Some of the stuff we did with PA9 was very impressive. He had an AWE Gold card with the Sound Font daughter board add-on card IIRC. It was quite an impressive setup, especially when playing games. IRQ=7, DMA=1, Port=330. wow! now there's a flashback for you! :) He was really in to making his own soundfonts but I could never understand how it all went together.

I really liked working with someone who had the same musical ideas as I did and both of us knowing the software made it a lot of fun.

I have the cash to get my own gear and set up a small studio in my house until around Sonar 8PE. I've upgraded every time since then.

Ah, Pro Audio 9 - darn fine piece of software. :)

bitflipper


When I started using Cakewalk (v. 1.0), Greg was still fulfilling orders in his living room and answering the phone himself. How times change. Orders are now fulfilled by enslaved children manacled to their workstations in Central America, Greg's on a fishing boat in the Caribbean and nobody answers the phone.

Yep!  Same here.  Got to talk with Greg on the phone to work out some bugs.
 
(Greg-a-sis 1:1 "In the beginning there were the Bakers..." )