Hello,
 
A friend of mine has Sonar Platinum.  I'm thinking of getting Sonar so we can collaborate on some upcoming recording projects.  My question is, if I purchase Sonar Artist instead of Platinum, can I open the Platinum bundles with Artist?  If certain effects that are only available in Platinum are applied to a track, and I open the bundle using Artist containing that track, if I make other changes in Artist, save the bundle and he re-opens in Platinum, will his Platinum-specific effect still be there, or will it have been stripped out by Artist?
 
In the end, I just want to be able to make changes I can make in Artist, to his bundles that originated from Platinum.  I expect that the Platinum-specific effects will be disabled in Artist, but I just want to make sure they'll still be there when he opens the bundle after I have made some more basic changes.
 
Anybody have any experience working between Sonar versions?
 
Thanks.
 

You can open any project made by any version with any version. Clearly if the version that created the project uses things not in the the other version they wont be loaded or work in the other version. However, you can still open that project.  Once saved on your end it will lose reference to the missing parts not in your version. I would advise your friend to send you projects that have all its audio with effects frozen.   

mottlywatts
...If certain effects that are only available in Platinum are applied to a track, and I open the bundle using Artist containing that track, if I make other changes in Artist, save the bundle and he re-opens in Platinum, will his Platinum-specific effect still be there, or will it have been stripped out by Artist?

 
When you open a project that has been created on a different Sonar platform and some plugins are missing, the absent plugins will be greyed out but will not be affected any subsequent edits to the project and will be operational again when project is opened on the original platform.

Kev999
 
 
When you open a project that has been created on a different Sonar platform and some plugins are missing, the absent plugins will be greyed out but will not be affected any subsequent edits to the project and will be operational again when project is opened on the original platform.

This was true in Sonar X3. Of late however I have had many instances where disconnected synths have lost their patch settings when the project was  loaded and saved on a system that did not have that particular vsti loaded. I have yet to find the combination to consistently reproduce this, but it is a good reason to ensure you have an unchanged backup as a reference in case you need to restore patches.

mottlywatts
...A friend of mine has Sonar Platinum.  I'm thinking of getting Sonar so we can collaborate on some upcoming recording projects...

 
I'm just wondering how you envisage the collaboration working that requires you and your friend to both have Sonar. Assuming that it is a musical collaboration rather than a technical one, it would be inconvenient to use a relay method where the different contributers take turns editing the same project. I wouldn't want to go down that road. The normal way to work is for each contributer to maintain his/her own separate project and to to export, send, receive and import audio files. It's not necessary for each individual to have the same software, or even to care what the others are using.

Kev999

mottlywatts
...A friend of mine has Sonar Platinum.  I'm thinking of getting Sonar so we can collaborate on some upcoming recording projects...

 
I'm just wondering how you envisage the collaboration working that requires you and your friend to both have Sonar. Assuming that it is a musical collaboration rather than a technical one, it would be inconvenient to use a relay method where the different contributers take turns editing the same project. I wouldn't want to go down that road. The normal way to work is for each contributer to maintain his/her own separate project and to to export, send, receive and import audio files. It's not necessary for each individual to have the same software, or even to care what the others are using.

Very good point. 

Depending on the level of musical and technical competence it can be really handy to just receive a project with some markers "guitars here please" though.

Thanks for all your responses. 
 
We are recording using Sonar Platinum onto a desktop PC at our usual practice location.  Once we have the basic tracks down, I would like to be able to bundle it, take that recording home to work on.  Then using my own Sonar PC at home, make my edits, and then restore it on the original desktop PC at our practice location, where it will be further edited by someone else.
 
I don't forsee a lot of back and forth editing like this.  It's more of an issue where following the basic recordings, I can take the bundle home, clean-up the tracks (noise gates and whatever), and EQ the drums how I'd like them to sound.  Then I could save the updated tracks as a bundle, and give it to the person who will be doing most of the rest of the edits/production/mastering on his Sonar.
 
Before I purchased Sonar, I just wanted to make sure that if the recording does have things applied to it that I don't have in my version, that they would simply be disabled, and not removed.

If you're basically the only one using the system you can install Sonar at home too. Many of us have a laptop and desktop with a single license.