Thing is, they didn't include LANDR itself, but the ability to export to LANDR, should you choose to use it.  Whether a subscription itself is worth it, well, that's a different story...    But in my mind it's still separate from the ability to conveniently do that export, which was CW's part.
 
For those SONAR edition plugins...  I love em!  And I've used most all of them along the way.  Repeatedly. However... I've read many user posts over the years stating that CW needs to stop bundling "lite" versions of stuff since that's only for the intent of up-selling to the full versions.  And because everyone already has all the 3rd party plugins they need.   I never bought that argument.   In general I guess I sorta look at LANDR the same way.
 

Does anyone know if you can pay for individual tracks a la carte?
 
I do know you can just buy a sub for a month. So if you're ready to release a collection, you could sign up for $25 to generate as many WAV files as you wanted during that month. 

+1 on the verbose install option from within CCC

Beepster
Okay... I want to make clear what I was saying because I think I've been lumped in with some of the more... uh, colorful opinions about LANDR.
 
I have essentially NO opinion on the service. Until yesterday I had never heard of it.
 
My problem with this (and it's something that's been brought up quite a few times but is being ignored or dismissed as LANDR "hate"/mastering snobbery) is that it seems to have been surreptitiously crammed in with the main installer download.
 
Strip the client out of the main download and most of these posts complaining will become entirely moot (and all but the most unreasonable folks satisfied).
 
That is it. That is all. It is a third party client. I don't know (therefore do not trust) the company. I've had crummy experiences and performance issues with similar uploader clients in the past (by them merely being on my system). I do not even want the exe file on my system (from what I'm seeing said it has to omitted during an advanced install so the package has to be unpacked at the very least).
 
Everyone here should know I am a big fan of Sonar and Cakewalk but I'd like to think I've retained some objectivity. It doesn't matter if LANDR is the greatest doohicky in the history of doohickeys. It is how it is being distributed and although I am loathe to say it's "bloatware" it really does strike me as the type of thing that gets jammed into downloads from CNET or loaded onto preconfigured store bought computers designed solely to sell something.
 
It is product placement right inside our most crucial piece of software. Get it out of there so we can decide for ourselves. Many of the other additions to the Sonar package are separate downloads so there is no reason this client needs to be any different.
 
There have been a few other seemingly frivolous actions/liberties Cake has taken recently that have also raised my eyebrows as to the direction things are going. As much as I dislike posting less than glowing approval (because then I get walloped from both sides) if the more rational users don't say anything then Cake won't hear the concerns and the program may go down the wrong path.
 
As for LANDR... it does seem quite gimmicky and definitely expensive (considering there are quality mastering tools with presets that could likely do the same thing or better AND are tweakable) BUT that doesn't mean I think it's crap or I'm not willing to give it a try. I probably will... just not directly from the DAW. It will get used the way I use all these other types of cloud services. I will go to their website and manually upload. If for some reason the ONLY way to use it is to install a client... then no, I will absolutely not try it because that's just sketchy.
 
Best of luck to them either way.
 
As far as all the "mastering" stuff I was prattling on about... that was in no way an admonishment of LANDR or any other such service/tool. I was merely pointing out that a) many of us would prefer to do this type of thing on our own inside Sonar and b) we have been told for YEARS that Sonar includes tools good enough to create quality masters. So if acquiring new tools isn't possible at this point then templates, FX Chains and Sonar specific educational materials that are created by those who DO know how to make it work in such a capacity would be a welcome (and IMO more useful) addition.
 
If LANDR is essentially just using algorithms for analysis and fx presets for the end result then surely an ever evolving library of genre specific Sonar templates and presets could be conjured up. Then the USER becomes the algorithm in the equation.
 
This is no diss to Craig, LANDR or any of the people who like this new thingie. It is just my opinion on how this has been foisted upon us and some general blatherings about other, semi related things that would be extremely useful to my little setup.
 
PS: I actually DID read the eZine blurb on this before even entering the thread. I read/download the eZines every month and keep them with my manuals.
 
tl;dr
 
Make the LANDR thingie a separate download/installer and I'll be more than fine with it.
 
A criticism of the distribution method is NOT a criticism of the product, people who use/like it nor a statement about "mastering"... small m, BIG M or otherwise. If something works for you use it.
 
Not here to argue, bash or be bashed. Just voicing my concerns about this particular aspect of this particular update.
 
Peace.

 +1 what he said.

Anderton
Does anyone know if you can pay for individual tracks a la carte?
 
I do know you can just buy a sub for a month. So if you're ready to release a collection, you could sign up for $25 to generate as many WAV files as you wanted during that month. 

Yes you can do the free membership and pay a la carte.

OK , I just got done upgrading my version of SPlat to Newburyport on one Win 10 laptop ..my test dummy ...
This was  a CCC install (non verbose )
Of course the first thing I wanted to do was try out LANDR  ...
I have a mix of a song that I have been working on ...(one I wasn't 100% happy with BTW )
My levels were conservative , I hadn't done any pre mastering or any major EQ work other than as per track ...
There was no master buss  mastering type of chain going on or even a master buss compressor to bump up my levels ...
This mix was exported as a LANDR wave ...
At first LANDR was not very intuitive for me , So I opened up the Ezine  PDF and read the instructions this time while using SONAR ...
I guess it's one thing to read the Ezine while having morning coffee , and  whole other thing all together to just dive in .
I'm gonna keep my impressions of LANDR strictly as a tool ...meaning not how it wound up on my machine or the politics or any other number of side issues that have people on the forum concerned .  
 
For me personally I'm happy LANDR was included in this months upgrade ..
A week ago I wasn't expecting it and now I have it sitting on my machine ...
Already I can see and hear that it is gonna save me a lot of time and aggravation ...
My typical workflow "MO" has been to work in SONAR for all the elements of my song creation and mixing .
When I'm in the ball park I like to export a mix out of SONAR and place it in a 3 rd party audio editing DAW and do a lot of refinements while there ...
What that means is I like to keep my SONAR project at a point where it is a least moving forwards and never backwards ...meaning my SONAR project is saved at least at a point where I am somewhat happy ....
As a result of doing things that way I may have one song with 10 or 20 orphan projects floating around ...
 
Already I can see and hear the benefit of using LANDR to preview my song while it is still in SONAR ..
That alone may save me from all those extra orphan mix's and files of my songs during various stages of development and listening ...
 
Anyway here's what I did ,
I took an export out of SONAR and uploaded that VIA LANDR , then I dialed up a Mix of the same song that I thought I was happy with and placed it on my desktop ...
that mix BTW was the best that I could do given my current situation over here .I had received crits and feedback of that mix online in various places ...
OK while listening in LANDR I had the choice to preview my song unaffected , low setting , middle setting and high setting ...Plus I had the mix I was somewhat happy with on my desktop ....
I listened to all 5 mix's ...w fresh ears ....
OK here's what happened ,
The mix I had exported out of SONAR was the one I liked the least ..remember this was a non mastered song that was still being created ,it wasn't fully prepped and it topped out at about - 12 Db ...
The song  Mix that I had posted online VIA social media turned out to be my second least liked mix  ...
BTW I had a very strong idea of what need to be done to improve the sound of that mix ...VIA folks online trying to offer constructive criticism plus my ears and my gut .... i put the song on the shelf because some of the things I need to do I still have to learn how to do ....
Now comes LANDR ...
I was actually pleasantly surprised with what LANDR had done with my song file .
The low setting was very nice and the EQ curve went to places I was afraid to go ...some frequency's were enhanced and I found it very interesting to hear with my own ears how my song would sound if I had more chops production wise and a better listening environment to mix at ....
The medium setting was actually the setting I liked the best for this song ...that in itself did surprise me at first .
the nature of the song originally was very dynamic ...it had plenty of head room before converted - 12 Db and nothing got squashed ...
I didn't even bother with the high setting ...after  10 seconds worth ...
an interesting side note .....some of the crtits and feedback I had gotten to improve the song were things LANDR did to my file ...it didn't go 100 % it hit about 70 % ...
I honestly found that interesting and because of that I'm probably end up doing a lot of free previews ...
 
I'll take all the help I can get at this point , even if it's from a Robot
 
Kenny       
 
 
 

Kenny your experience mirrors mine with Landr. I did pretty much the same experiment as you except I compared the results with my professionally mastered mixes. Landr retained all of the dynamic range (I hate excessive compression) and additionally cleaned up some of the more unpleasant midrange stuff that was in my original mix. With a few exceptions I preferred the Landred versions.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Kenny your experience mirrors mine with Landr. I did pretty much the same experiment as you except I compared the results with my professionally mastered mixes. Landr retained all of the dynamic range (I hate excessive compression) and additionally cleaned up some of the more unpleasant midrange stuff that was in my original mix. With a few exceptions I preferred the Landred versions.

Full disclosure: While trying to decide whether to include LANDR or not, Noel sent me two tunes and said one had been done by a professional mastering engineer, and the other by LANDR, but didn't tell me which was which. I assumed the one with the more squashed dynamic range was LANDR because like many other people in these threads, I assumed it would do a caricature of mastering. Finding out I was wrong was what caused me to investigate further.

Beepster
Strip the client out of the main download and most of these posts complaining will become entirely moot (and all but the most unreasonable folks satisfied).

^^THIS ^^^
 
Please stop adding to the Sonar main package!
The main package is in vital need of a diet and needs to be slimlined!
The bundled plugins, legacy plugins, and any other obvious separate package should be split into entirely separate packages IMHO.
 
MORE MODULARITY PLEASE.
LESS IS MORE.
 
(Having said that, you don't have to install LANDR if verbose mode is engaged within the Cakewalk Command Center, but that's not the point here...)
 
Thankyou for listening...

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Kenny your experience mirrors mine with Landr. I did pretty much the same experiment as you except I compared the results with my professionally mastered mixes. Landr retained all of the dynamic range (I hate excessive compression) and additionally cleaned up some of the more unpleasant midrange stuff that was in my original mix. With a few exceptions I preferred the Landred versions.

Hi Noel , I'm glad to hear that my LANDR experiment mirrors yours  .
I'm encouraged to hear that you had favorable results using some of your professionally mastered mixes .
WOW that certainly says a lot to me .
 
I have done a few more files over as previews and there is no doubt in my mind for my current situation that LANDR is gonna turn out to be a very useful tool .
Once I tracked down where the app was installed and found out that I can use it as a stand alone I was gratified to see that I could just point LANDR to the music files on my computers HD ..
 
I wanted to go for the 320 MP3 option ...my checking acct was light by 2 bucks  and I would have had to run down to the bank in person and pull the money out of my wallet ...
I'm actually very pleased to say that I'm able to cover the 192 MP3 option for now ...so I signed up for it ....
 
Thank You for including this in SONAR . I may not of ever found LANDR on my own ..
 
Kenny