Over the years I've owned five Cakewalk/Sonar DAW's (going all the way back to Guitar Tracks 2).  I really liked Sonar Home Studio 6 XL but (if memory serves) I had to upgrade to 8.5 Studio due to Windows 7.  I liked 8.5 a lot as well and recorded a lot of demos with it.  Then along came a nice upgrade price for X3 Producer (which seemed to have some great new features).  However, almost as soon as I downloaded/installed X3 I had to stop recording until now.  Which brings us to now...
 
I've tried X3 Producer... watched the tutorials... but I just don't like it as much as 8.5 (or 6 XL for that matter).  I was comfortable recording home demos and was very happy with the results.  I'm not sure that I want to tackle the X3 learning curve (it's been three years since I've recorded at all).  
 
My question is two-fold: first, can I load Sonar 8.5 Studio back on my computer while keeping X3?  And - if not - when I uninstall X3 can I keep some of the additional programs that installed with it (like Melodyne, Rapture 1.22, Addictive Drums and Dimension 1.5)?
 
Many thanks in advance!
 
M.G.

Hi. Yes. You can have all versions of SONAR installed side by side. It would be preferable to install from oldest to newest.
All the best.

We all have our favorite versions. its human nature.
I believe Cakewalk realized this and that's why they decided to keep building off the X series rather than create a newer looking GUI like they did when they went from 8.5 to X1.
 
I personally like the X series more than 8.5 but I have heard other say the same as you. so its all good.
Ken is right, you can install them side by side.
Remember the key is investment. we need to invest time to learn new things. im sure you know what I mean. best wishes.

What Zargg said.  Having them both will let you continue in 8.5 while you dabble with X3 until you're comfy enough with X3 to move.  Don't forget the (e) update for X3.

I happen to understand how the OP feels ..I went from SONAR 6 PE to X 3 PE ...
 
When I made that move or more correctly put " that gigantic of a jump in a SONAR upgrade " .....
I was like Whhhaaattt
 
 
I kept using 6 PE for a long while I sure enjoyed all the extra doodads  ..Addictive Drums , Rapture , B T ect...
As far as my 2 centavos goes , I would keep X 3 installed
How else would you be able to deal with the learning curve if and when you decide to tackle it ?
In my case I chipped away at the L C over a period of a couple of years ....
In addition to that , over time I found that there are a lot of excellent plugs, tools and features that were pretty much locked into X3  that couldn't be used in a former version of SONAR...
The Pro Chanel , the Blue Tubes Plugs , ARA / Melodyne  integration where you slide a monophonic audio track over to a midi track where ARA  will then convert the audio over to midi so you can use a VST synth to play the part..
3 Pro Chanel console emulations + all the integrated additional functions of having the ability to custom create your own Pro Chanel signal chains using the plugs that are available as Pro Chanel only plugs in the first place 
I can go on and on with this but I won't ...I'm not over here selling hoover vacuum cleaners door to door 
 
In my case "in retrospect "  , what helped me the most was I started hitting brick walls in what I was able to do in a Pre SONAR X 3 environment ...I had some very good 3rd party stuff , but I found a lot of things seemed disjointed with getting it all to work in a simple easy way ...
Eventually over a long period of time I started doing A B  comparisons of my music by bringing over mix's and stems , or even single tracks I had done in SONAR 6 over to X 3 ...
I found that worked pretty good as a way of cresting the learning curve
IMHO, between the heaver duty mastering grade quality plugs and added functionality that X 3 brought to the table I found that over time it was worth my time to bite the bullet and crest the learning curve ...
good luck OP ,
 
Kenny
 
 

Nothing to stop you from still using 8.5. 
 
FYI I always preferred 8.5 to X-series and truth be told the only reason I eventually bought X3 pro as un upgrade from 8.53 was because I was considering buying melodyne and addictive drums anyway and then it was announced that they were going to be included in X3 pro, so it really became a no-brainer. (ok you have to upgrade melodyne to make it truly useful, but the upgrade price was reasonable, so I was basically getting x3 pro for nothing) Turns out that I don't use AD all that much, but the ARA melodyne integration was still worth the admission price on it's own IMO.
 
I still missed my old 8.5 dark UI console view that I had though and no amount of fiddling with the colour options available could get close to replicating that or anything equally pleasing to the eye and it annoyed me that CW had "improved" something by removing some functionality that I already had, but I persevered with X3 mainly because of melodyne.
 
Then came the latest incarnations and eventually (finally!) the dark UI that had been missing for so long IMO. I was still a bit annoyed at being asked to pay for something that I used to already have, so still I resisted, but then the lifetime update offer was veering an upgrade back into no-brainer territory so I finally upgraded. It remains to be seen how "worth it" that was, but I have my dark UI back so I'm happy enough and in fairness there are a few things like the auto-resizing fx bin in CV that are pretty cool too.
 
So, would I still go back to 8.5 if melodyne worked the same way in that ? No. I opened it up a while back for old times sake and have to say that colour scheme aside it all looked a bit clunky, crowded and "old" by comparison. That's not to say that new is always better, it isn't, but sometimes you forget how much things have moved on - I used to think that my first car was great, but I would be horrified if I had to drive such a thing now.Plat isn't by any means perfect, but I can see that it is better than 8.5 in many ways.
 
One further thing to consider is that the new pricing structure from May 1st will mean that you will no longer be able to pay an upgrade price from X3>current version, so as odd as it might seem to be upgrading something you  don't like for a new version of it, it's still worth considering or you will be back to paying full price if you decide to jump on a newer version in future. JRR shop has the best deals for this AFAIK.
 
 
 
 

Thanks for all the replies and advice!  I 'll reinstall 8.5 and use that while checking out X3 more closely.
 
Kenny - it sounds like I won't be able to use the new plugins (Melodyne, Addictive Drums etc) in 8.5, even if they're installed with X3?  Maybe I'll do what you did and bounce tracks/mixes from 8.5 to X3 and back.
 
paulo - I will consider the X3 upgrade, thanks for the heads up!

No, Melodyne certainly won't work with 8.5 as it uses the Region Fx which aren't a part of 8.5
 
You might be lucky with AD though you'll still have to activate it via the XLN website

Melodyne and AD are VSTs that are not limited to the X series.  You should be able to use them in 8.5 (although I think Melodyne isn't integrated like it is in X3, i.e. you have to use it in standalone mode.)

M.G.
Thanks for all the replies and advice!  I 'll reinstall 8.5 and use that while checking out X3 more closely.
 
Kenny - it sounds like I won't be able to use the new plugins (Melodyne, Addictive Drums etc) in 8.5, even if they're installed with X3?  Maybe I'll do what you did and bounce tracks/mixes from 8.5 to X3 and back.
 
paulo - I will consider the X3 upgrade, thanks for the heads up!

All the is relates to what you may expect to find in 8.5 if you decided t reinstall it alongside your X3
 
Addictive Drums and most of the Cakewalk branded included synths and plugs should  work fine in 8.5
Off the top of my head The Blue tubes , True Pianos ,The Pro Chanel  type of stuff won't work ...
 
Melodyne is a separate install so you should be able to use it as if you were using it in a separate DAW  ...
I even took one of my Melodyne activation's and threw it on my i Mac ...
It's just not as integrated out side of SONAR as if it would be in X3 ..ARA is a big thing that was ahead of it's time
In X3 you can take a mono audio track and slide it over to a midi track and Melodyne will do an Audio to Midi conversion for you ...in my case that type of ARA integration was very important 
 
A cool thing is Cakewalk is pretty generous so a lot of the cool stuff shows up in other DAWs ...
A good deal of theses will show up in 8.5
There's some cool EQ's, Chanel Tools , Percussion Strip, Vocal Type Strip , and a bunch of other real nice things you may enjoy having access  to and using  .
 
I was pretty intimidated w the X3 GUI when I first started using it ...having some of this other stuff show up helped cut the edge ... it sort of motivated me to spend time learning the new X3  GUI ...now you couldn't pay me to go back
 
I know your dealing with X3 VS 8.5 now ..but ..Splat takes it up to a whole new level ...
I'm glad I paid my dues in X3 ...
good luck ,
 
Kenny