Trying out the new Band Lab Cakewalk, coming from SONAR X1 Producer.
 
Love a lot of the visual and functional improvements since X1, but, like with every upgrade I've experienced, many things are missing that I like in X1 and some changes are frustratingly inconvenient.
 
I've been with Cakewalk since the early 3.1 days and so I'm familiar with how this is always the case, which is why I decided after X1 I would not upgrade again. Besides, X1 did everything I needed for my personal workflow and worked flawlessly on Windows 10. Because this new version is free I decided to give it a try. Although there are many things I like about it, I'll be staying with X1 for now because the frustration of the changes is not worth it at this point (but I'll keep an eye on it to see if these things are improved over time).
 
The dealbreakers:
Many plugins I use extensively are not available, for instance the native Cakewalk FX (Reverb, Delay, etc.)
V-Vocal is missing. I need my V-Vocal. I hate that the dark clip backgrounds cannot be changed like they could previously. Hate those dark backgrounds. The UI customizing I do keeps reverting back to the arrangement from the last time I opened a project when I rearrange things differently in the current session. The order of synths in the synth rack still can't be re-arranged, and other little annoyances that have been present in every previous version are still there.
 
If there actually are ways to fix these things or work around them that I'm not aware of yet, someone please let me know. Otherwise, for now, I'm sticking with my X1.
 
 

1. Take a look at your VST directories within X1, and add the missing ones into CbB. This should sort it out your missing plugins.
 
2. Change your CbB theme to Mercury. This will make it look like X1 again.
 
Personally I found X1 to be incredibly unstable. I reverted back to 8.5 at the time and waited until X2 came out (which was better) but neither X1 or X2 were as stable compared to X3, SPLAT and CbB.
 
M.
 

1 - those are DirectX so need the 64 bit versions installed (not sure if they all exist as 64 bit though).

Vvocal is if you install an earlier 64 bit version (pretty sure X1 came with it).

Honestly, I understand where you are coming from, but I really think the current version of Cake has so much better advanced features you just need to give it a real fighting chance.  The PRV view is a million times better.  (Staff is not )

X1 was just the start of something great.  It had lots of problems that were not sorted out until X3.  The current product is much better than X1.
 
As for V-Vocal, others have noted it should should up in the new version if you have the 64 bit installed from X1.  However, many people think VocalSync is better.  I don't use either much, so I can't confirm.  

Brian Walton
X1 was just the start of something great.  It had lots of problems that were not sorted out until X3.  The current product is much better than X1.
 
As for V-Vocal, others have noted it should should up in the new version if you have the 64 bit installed from X1.  However, many people think VocalSync is better.  I don't use either much, so I can't confirm.  

VocalSync is not in any way comparable to V-Vocal - are you sure you didn't mean Melodyne?
 

Bristol_Jonesey

Brian Walton
X1 was just the start of something great.  It had lots of problems that were not sorted out until X3.  The current product is much better than X1.
 
As for V-Vocal, others have noted it should should up in the new version if you have the 64 bit installed from X1.  However, many people think VocalSync is better.  I don't use either much, so I can't confirm.  

VocalSync is not in any way comparable to V-Vocal - are you sure you didn't mean Melodyne?
 

Ahh yes, my mistake.  And Melodyne is far more powerful than V-Vocal.  (though that does negate my post, since the OP apparently didn't update in the last 7 years to get Melodyne as part of the upgrade).  

Yes like everyone is saying, all your complaints are unfounded and there are easy solutions to all. 
 
Some things you will have now missed out on by not upgrading in the past because Cakewalk by Bandlab (CbB) needs the full version of Sonar Platinum installed first to benifit from those cumlitave features which are not included with CbB. And that list is long. 
 
But everything you have in X1 will be available in CbB. 
And as said I'm glad your happy with X1 most of us remember it as being the worst version ever. It took until X3e to become stable. 

Cactus Music
Yes like everyone is saying, all your complaints are unfounded and there are easy solutions to all. 
 
Some things you will have now missed out on by not upgrading in the past because Cakewalk by Bandlab (CbB) needs the full version of Sonar Platinum installed first to benifit from those cumlitave features which are not included with CbB. And that list is long. 
 
But everything you have in X1 will be available in CbB. 
And as said I'm glad your happy with X1 most of us remember it as being the worst version ever. It took until X3e to become stable. 

I remember it well, and with a lot of pain.......

Well I guess there had to be someone out there somewhere who loved X1. ;)
 
I don't have the Bandlab version installed as I see no point at the moment seeing as it's just Platinum with a new badge minus a 32 bit option, but FWIW V-vocal is actually far more stable when used via ARA, so there's that to consider if you like using it.
 
Nothing to stop you having both anyway. When transitioning to new versions I always make a copy of the project I'm working on so that the original is still available untouched in the old version if I mess up or something crucial to it can't be replaced or replicated.