scook,
 
Re: "Could be some products are associated with imaband instead of imaband2 or the program got lost in the SSO migration. "
 
I migrated everything from my old account a long time ago. I frankly don't recall if the encoder was part of the product list. I do know that I had one though and now I don't.  I feel like I'm being railroaded into buying a product I'm not convinced is a good idea right now, just to get a stupid MP3 encoder to work. I mean, it's really not even the money. I don't recall paying more than $40 or so for it. I'd happily pay that again and more if it means getting my production system back up to EXACTLY the way it was before. I downloaded BandLab and took a gander at the interface and it looked completely foreign to me. I gig a lot and don't have time right now to learn another interface. And it even appeared to be web based which I REALLY HATE! And I don't want a product that auto-updates every few weeks either, nor do I care to be on a subscription plan. So for now I'll try the BandLab support link. Thank you for providing it!
 
Jeff
 
 
 

ARRRGGHHH!! The "Bandlab Support" link just takes me to another forum post! KILL ME NOW!!
 

Yes, the link in msg #6 above points to a post by BandLab with two methods for contacting support. One of them is a direct link to the BandLab support form.

imaband2
I feel like I'm being railroaded into buying a product I'm not convinced is a good idea right now, just to get a stupid MP3 encoder to work.

The CbB upgrade is free (so were the other recommendations).

imaband2
 I downloaded BandLab and took a gander at the interface and it looked completely foreign to me.

You must not have downloaded Cakewalk by BandLab (there is another DAW called BandLab which sounds like what you downloaded). CbB is a Windows program just like X3. Its Mercury theme looks very much like X3. By default CbB uses a dark theme but is still laid out the same as X3. BTW, there is no requirement to apply updates. There is no subscription or fee for using CbB.
 
 

This is kind of silly... You get the MP3 encoder FREE with the latest version of Cakewalk which is FREE. 
In the time you spent complaining about something from a long time ago you could have downloaded and installed Cakewalk by Bandlab and opened your song and exported it as an MP3 easy as pie :) 
You don't have to uninstall X3. 

Cactus Music
This is kind of silly... 

Seems he's stuck in a panic room …… SCNR
 
Cheers :)

 
My bad. Didn't see it was a link to a link. Thanks!
 
https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
 
 
 

For converting WAV to MP3 I find it more convenient to use Audacity rather than Sonar. Audacity is free:
https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

I use Gold Wave, it's not exactly free but you can use it forever for free. I keep meaning to send them the $50 for lifetime as I feel guilty,,, sometimes about this... But It has the batch converter so I can convert a whole album in one fell swoop. That's about all I use it for. 
I would never export directly to an MP3 as then I would be skipping an important step,,, Mastering which I do in Wave Lab. 
But as said, MP3 encoding is now free in the free version of Cakewalk so forget X3 ( I did)  

That's similar to my workflow: export to a lossless format, then use that one single master to render the other formats for distribution: AAC, MP3, FLAC, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, etc.
 
Going back to the DAW project file and having the DAW churn out a string of different formats feels like hiring a stretch limousine to take me on my afternoon errands.
 
My favorite so far is MediaHuman : https://www.mediahuman.com/audio-converter/