bluebeat1313
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Sonar Home studio alternatives
Hi folks.
Opened this forum to ask a different question... but saw the Cakewalk RIP post and my heart stopped.... briefly.
Used Cakewalk for 15 years now... Stopped upgrading since X1 and last year bought Home Studio. The main reason for that was "touch" compatibility. I use it mostly for live vocal tracking using Surface PRO. Now with this dark news I do not know where to turn...
I have over 70 cakewalk projects.., but that I can live through... Looking at future, now it seems to be a bad idea to keep recording on Sonar. Windows could change something with updates and without upgrades to Sonar it might quit working.
I tried Reaper and Cubase, but they are not suited well for my needs. Steinberg actually has an amazing ios program Cubasis, which I can compare in "friendliness" to Sonar, but it is only for ios...
Can anybody suggest an alternative to Sonar Home...(other than reaper or Cubase)?
Thank you!
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Cactus Music
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 00:31:01
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You missed the flood here of page after page of this very topic, a lot of them got moved to Software sub forum. You can go there to futrther research the topic. Then there was the offers from other software vendors to crossgrade and fe people took the bait. A majority of us after trying the software, finding how good Sonar was all along, have desided to just stay put. We are taking action to make ourselves future proof. I won't repeat what's been said but Home Studio at least is a very stable version and you should get many years out of it yet.
It won't be broken if your using W7 or W 8.1 or if you stop updating W10. And possibly W10 might not break it. There are people here still using Sonar 6.
Personally what I did was installed Sonar and Home Studio to 7 different computers. I have it running on W7, W 8.1 and W10. Download and back up all your files from your products page just in case the servers do go down. Cakewalk has told us that there are no plans to shut down the servers but nobody trusts anybody. They have also said they would try and release an autorization for us that will work forever so at this point I am 98% optomistic that I'll still be using Sonar for at least another 10 years.
At worst case for me I can return to X3e. Which is still better software that all the others I demoed.
I also have Cubase elements 7 but I find Sonar is still all I need. It really comes down to what you use and need a DAW for.
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 02:05:52
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Cactus Music, Thank you! Now reading your post, I calmed down a bit :) It was a major panic attack I guess. You are absolutely right, software should last for several long years at least. After your post I will not even look at other software. Hopefully, somebody with brain and heart will pick up Cakewalk, if not maybe in years ahead converter will be available Cakewalk projects to other Daws.... Thanks again.
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Karyn
Ma-Ma
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 08:39:54
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PreSonus have a light version of Studio One that is equivalent to Sonar Home Studio, but there's no real need to rush out and change unless you're having unresolvable issues.
Mekashi Futo. Get 10% off all Waves plugins.Current DAW. i7-950, Gigabyte EX58-UD5, 12Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD, 2x2Tb HDD, nVidia GTX 260, Antec 1000W psu, Win7 64bit, Studio 192, Digimax FS, KRK RP8G2, Sonar Platinum
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kevmsmith81
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 09:20:16
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A lot of people are recommending Studio One as an alternative. Having used its free version, I can say it works well and has a nice interface.
There's a crossgrade offer currently, specific to Cakewalk Users at 50% off ($149) for its top-whack Professional Edition until the end of the year, and this has to be said is an excellent deal. You can also download a demo of it which runs for 30 days I think which will allow you to see if it meets your needs.
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JonD
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 18:20:31
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AFAIK, the competition crossgrade offers are still in effect. They won't be good forever though. Spend an hour or two reading the many threads in the software section about the alternatives. Then download one or two and give them a whirl.
Some recommendations:
Acoustica Mixcraft (3 different versions to choose from). Probably the easiest workflow, at a reasonable cost.
Reaper - $60 for a hobbyist license. Lots of customizing options (Some say too many).
** Studio One (You'll want Pro if you use VSTs, so unfortunately, not the cheapest alternative).
Cubase Essentials or Artist - Sonar's closest competitor. Deep program, lots and lots of features. Requires a dongle.
** I'm not sure if the current crossgrade deal to Studio One Pro for "Cakewalk customers" is only for Sonar Platinum users or for any version. If it's the latter then that is definitely a deal worth looking into.
SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 19:15:16
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Thank you all for great replies!
However.... I tried Cubase, Studio one, Mixcraft, Reaper and Samplitude.
The closest thing for me was Mixcraft... But...
There are two main reasons, why I was using Sonar Home.
1) Touch control (zooming tracks width AND length) And (track) navigation!
2)"Take lanes" workflow. Press record=new take lane
Mixcraft has very similar "take lane" workflow, but not touch friendly to zoom in tracks... only length, no touch navigation!
Also, Mixcraft does not look "clean" seems to me that design is kind of lagging 10 years back or so. For example buttons... looks like something from Windows 98 times. Not a fully modular interface... Not bragging just comparing.
What is strange to me, that computers for music making are leaning to touchscreen options. As far as I know (I might be mistaken) Sonar was the ONLY DaW that tried to enable touch option. And I believe in most part that was a success.
Maybe I missed something, and maybe somebody can share knowledge on DAW that would have similar TOUCH enable track navigation to Sonar Home? I could not find anything close to it...
P.S. As hard as I tried to think of a good reason why mr.nogoodgibson is completely shutting down cakewalk, I came up with none. Not profitable - sell it! Or at least keep the "bug" team for "lifetime" users and make paid updates to all others willing to pay.... And I am sure there will be a lot of those "others", including me :)
Sonar is modern (compared to many other DAWs), it should sell as it is for couple of years.
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JonD
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/19 22:47:46
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Well, since Home Studio is still functional, and CW has promised not to leave us in the lurch when the servers eventually go unplugged -- you don't have to stop using Home Studio.
Yes, it's risky, but you can hedge your bets by getting the Home version of Mixcraft and gradually learn it just in case Home Studio does goes dark one day. If that day never comes, you're only out $40. If it does happen, then you're not left totally unprepared.
SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Sonar Home studio alternatives
2017/12/20 00:45:24
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JonD thank you for encouragement, I am sure I will use Sonar for at least a few years, but my main concern is future DAW of choice. (Still hoping that somebody will adopt Cakewalk) Got so sad, had to write a small poem... Greedy, sneaky gibson gave us deadly hug tricky sleazy gibson pulled the sacred plug stepped into the shadows and pretends it's mute mr no good gibson treasuring his loot dear mr. gibson please release the code maybe not for nothing sure there is dough Cakewalk is no mummy, no comrad Ilyich (Lenin) aging won't preserve it Nor will make you rich
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