Graeme McTaggart
Wow, $499 for a programme that doesn't export an MP3 :0(

If your comment was about Sonar - they have a licensing agreement with the developer of the MP3 encoder, which is why they have to charge the $20.  That encoder is available separately for free, and you can add it into Sonar - for free - and it is the same one - choose either way - get it through Cakewalk for $20 or download it for free and follow the instructions for adding an MP3 encoder into Sonar.  Your choice.
 
I export projects to MP3 format ALL the time, using the $20 encoder version from Cakewalk - works great, never have any trouble.
 
IF I want to simply create a conversion MP3 from an existing wave file, I would NOT normally choose to do it in Sonar, because Sonar would be WAY overkill for a simple conversion.  Instead, I use the free version of the YTD Video Downloader, and it does a great job of reading a wave file or even video files, and can convert those formats and others to produce an encoded MP3 file - for THIS task, it is far faster to do outside of Sonar.
 
But exporting audio from a Sonar project to MP3 is something I DO do all the time, with no problem.
 
So, I disagree with your conclusion - if it was describing something you think Sonar cannot do. :)
 
And Vlada, I happen to have 785 plugins, and Sonar opens quite quickly, as it only is scanning new plugins, AND the plugin scan process is spawned as a completely separate parallel background process for several releases now of Sonar, so even if it is scanning you can still proceed to do whatever you wish in Sonar.  So I am not sure what your plugin scanning issue is - unless you are literally doing a full scan every time you open Sonar - which is NOT needed and quite a waste of processing power.
 
Bob Bone

Its really simple to export multiple wave files to MP3 in a batch using SONAR's MP3 encoder. I do this all the time. Here are the steps:
 
Open a new blank project - you can use the blank project template
Open the browser and navigate to a folder that contains your waves to be encoded.
Select and drag them all into your project on separate tracks each starting at time zero
Now choose Edit | select | None  (its important that you do not select anything or it will export all tracks at the max length)
File | Export | Audio
Select Source category Tracks - this will pick all tracks in the project
Select Files of type MP3
Select Bit depth 16
Sample rate 44100 
Enter something in the file name like "mp3export". This is just used as a prefix since multiple files will be exported.
Click Export
The MP3 encoder dialog will be displayed for each file to be exported
Enter any metadata you want and click OK. Depending on how many tracks are present you may have to enter the data multiple times.
 
Thats it - each wave will be exported independently at its original length in parallel if you have the MP engine on.
For convenience you can save these settings as an export preset so that next time you just pick the preset.

Yup - and again - Sonar DID make it so that you could manually insert the exact same MP3 encoder that they offer for sale, and you could do that for free, as the encoder IS out there legitimately offered for free.
 
It is only because the developer of that encoder worked out a licensing deal with Cakewalk, where they can offer the encoder for download - but only for that $20 fee.  That fee gets passed on to the developer.
 
If you don't want to have to locate the free version, or don't feel comfortable manually adding it to Sonar, you can alternatively purchase the $20 license and it will do that install/authorization for you.
 
It really is not any kind of big deal - and has been like this since time began, many many years back now.  :)
 
To be honest: 1) I am happy with the offered $20 encoder, and 2) I REALLY like that Sonar allows you to hook any MP3 encoder you want to into Sonar, so if you like a different one better, you can make that one just as seamless to use as the one they offer.  That's pretty nice of them.
 
Bob Bone
 

Anderton
There are many ways to convert to MP3 (for example, iTunes), and because Cakewalk has to pay a license fee for the codec, it makes no sense to force all the people who don't need MP3 export to pay for it.

IMHO that's a very short-sighted view.  Most audio product have MP3 support tightly integrated.  This is a really stupid move by Cakewalk.  It makes the product seem cheap and amateurish, period. 
 
In addition to the cost and hassle of setting it up. the lack of integration makes saving as MP3 extremely slow.  I paid the $20, but it is so blasted slow, I just generate WAV files and convert using a batch utility.  Really half-assed aspect of the product.
 
Thinks like this make Sonar appear unprofessional compared to other commercial products.

Yes, a one-time $10 fee (at least that is what I see in the store at the moment) for a perpetual license to unlock all future versions of SONAR is not worth a lot of discussion time. Cakewalk also provide a mechanism to chain any command line conversion utility to SONAR via the External Encoder Configuration Utility.

Anderton

cparmerlee

Anderton
There are many ways to convert to MP3 (for example, iTunes), and because Cakewalk has to pay a license fee for the codec, it makes no sense to force all the people who don't need MP3 export to pay for it.

IMHO that's a very short-sighted view.  Most audio product have MP3 support tightly integrated.  This is a really stupid move by Cakewalk.  It makes the product seem cheap and amateurish, period. 

I always thought MP3s themselves were cheap and amateurish  I think it's much more "professional" that SONAR includes DSD and FLAC import/export.
 
There are two main issues. First, every product has a bill of materials. What's paid to third party developers (XLN, Overloud, Celemony, Fraunhofer, etc.) is a fixed cost. Including MP3 conversion means that either something else needs to be taken out or the price needs to be raised. Given that there are so many ways to convert to MP3 and only one way to get Melodyne, Addictive Drums, REmatrix Solo, etc., I think most users would prefer to pay for elements that aren't redundant.
 
Second, I believe MP3 is a fading format. Internet bandwidth keeps getting faster and memory keeps getting cheaper. I can't remember the last time I encountered a 128 kbps MP3 file and that used to be the lingua franca. Windows 10 emphasizes FLAC and Apple is more interested in their lossless compression algorithm. With SONAR supporting FLAC, Ogg, DSD, etc. I think there are plenty of professional conversion options.

I wouldn't question Cakewalks support for professional formats. However, you know as well as I that most people are going to want to output a compressed format to carry around with them on their portable player, most likely a phone, which is most likely their primary listening source for music. What format do you think they are going to use? My guess is MP3. This is why you have people again and again coming to the forum upset about needing to unlock the MP3 encoder or trying to configure Sonar to use a free encoder which is an obscure process and isn't nearly as convenient as the one they can unlock by purchasing the license or what ever from Cakewalk when most software provide this functionality by default. You can tell people again and again about licensing cost etc. But when most software provides this functionality by default it's difficult for people to understand. They just expect that professional audio software they payed money for is going to be able to do this when a bunch of free programs can already do this.

WDI

Anderton

cparmerlee

Anderton
There are many ways to convert to MP3 (for example, iTunes), and because Cakewalk has to pay a license fee for the codec, it makes no sense to force all the people who don't need MP3 export to pay for it.

IMHO that's a very short-sighted view.  Most audio product have MP3 support tightly integrated.  This is a really stupid move by Cakewalk.  It makes the product seem cheap and amateurish, period. 

I always thought MP3s themselves were cheap and amateurish  I think it's much more "professional" that SONAR includes DSD and FLAC import/export.
 
There are two main issues. First, every product has a bill of materials. What's paid to third party developers (XLN, Overloud, Celemony, Fraunhofer, etc.) is a fixed cost. Including MP3 conversion means that either something else needs to be taken out or the price needs to be raised. Given that there are so many ways to convert to MP3 and only one way to get Melodyne, Addictive Drums, REmatrix Solo, etc., I think most users would prefer to pay for elements that aren't redundant.
 
Second, I believe MP3 is a fading format. Internet bandwidth keeps getting faster and memory keeps getting cheaper. I can't remember the last time I encountered a 128 kbps MP3 file and that used to be the lingua franca. Windows 10 emphasizes FLAC and Apple is more interested in their lossless compression algorithm. With SONAR supporting FLAC, Ogg, DSD, etc. I think there are plenty of professional conversion options.

I wouldn't question Cakewalks support for professional formats. However, you know as well as I that most people are going to want to output a compressed format to carry around with them on their portable player, most likely a phone, which is most likely their primary listening source for music. What format do you think they are going to use? My guess is MP3. This is why you have people again and again coming to the forum upset about needing to unlock the MP3 encoder or trying to configure Sonar to use a free encoder which is an obscure process and isn't nearly as convenient as the one they can unlock by purchasing the license or what ever from Cakewalk when most software provide this functionality by default. You can tell people again and again about licensing cost etc. But when most software provides this functionality by default it's difficult for people to understand. They just expect that professional audio software they payed money for is going to be able to do this when a bunch of free programs can already do this.

But surely, you DON'T need the Cake mp3 encoder when you can integrate Lame for free. C'mon, whay make such a fuss about a one time manoeuver with Lame which is downloadable and fits perfectly into Sonar's Utilities.
 
Personally I use Goldwave (a one time licence) for all conversion for convenience. Each to his/her own, but lets face it, the Cake mp3 encoder is a bonus, not a necessity.
 
Cheers,
Jerry

Anderton
 
I always thought MP3s themselves were cheap and amateurish 

EXACTLY.
Also if you can't be bothered to spent less than 15 mins adding it for free, or just spend $10, then that comment probably applies to you (that's only if it matters to you). If you want to be professional about it all you are looking for is a full solution, which there is.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

cparmerlee
IMHO that's a very short-sighted view.  Most audio product have MP3 support tightly integrated.  This is a really stupid move by Cakewalk.  It makes the product seem cheap and amateurish, period. 
 
In addition to the cost and hassle of setting it up. the lack of integration makes saving as MP3 extremely slow.  I paid the $20, but it is so blasted slow, I just generate WAV files and convert using a batch utility.  Really half-assed aspect of the product.
 
Thinks like this make Sonar appear unprofessional compared to other commercial products.

Huh? MP3 is fully integrated there is nothing non native or slower about it. We use the latest LAME encoder and it encodes each buffer that is written. It doesn't get any more integrated than that. 

All I know is Save As MP3 takes about 3-5  times as long as saving in WAV format.  And if I do the batch processing in TAudioConverter, it flies.  This is not just an impression.  There is a HUGE difference in speed.  Something is just not right about your implementation.  I suspect that the TAudioConverter people have streamlined their algorithm.  One thing in particular, they support lots of parallelism.

joakes
But surely, you DON'T need the Cake mp3 encoder when you can integrate Lame for free. C'mon, whay make such a fuss about a one time manoeuver with Lame which is downloadable and fits perfectly into Sonar's Utilities.

Cakewalk/Sonar also uses the LAME encoder, so I really wonder how much is getting back to whoever claims rights to mp3.

cparmerlee

Anderton
I always thought MP3s themselves were cheap and amateurish

And that is not a very productive attitude, IMHO, considering how many people use MP3 and expect files to be delivered in the format they can handle.

 
I notice you did not include my smiley in your quote, which related to the phrase to which I was responding. I'll assume it was a simple oversight and not a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what I said.
 

Let me ask you a marketing question.  Would you pay $10 to begin a relationship with a new customer that might result in 5-10 years of subscriptions to Platinum?

With respect, your question is not relevant. The relevant question is whether customers who already have multiple ways to convert files to MP3s (including having already unlocked the non-expiring encoder) want to pay $10 in order to subsidize other customers who find following 9 steps "a pain," or who don't think to look in the Help file (or do a 1-minute search) to find out how to convert files for free from within SONAR to MP3.
 
It's not like MP3 conversion is some rare, cutting-edge technology. Pro Audio 9 included the encoder for free because 16 years ago, it was a big deal feature like convolution reverb and was included in the bill of materials. As for today's reality, I think Cakewalk says it very well in their documentation, which you don't even need to own SONAR to access:
 
Cakewalk does not own the license to the MP3 format and because not all users require the MP3 format, Cakewalk does not force you to pay for the license. If you need to export your projects as MP3 files, you can purchase the encoder directly from www.store.cakewalk.com.
 
*Note: If you purchase the MP3 encoder, you can continue to use it with future Cakewalk products.
 
So it's not even like QuickTime Pro, where you have to keep buying new versions when Apple changes QuickTime.
 
[Edit: I stand corrected, I thought it was $20 for the encoder. It is $9.99. (Hey, I bought mine a long time ago, its price is not front of mind. Or maybe it was $20 back then.) Well, $9.99 is still enough to see a movie in a lot of theaters.]

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
The license fee is paid to Fraunhofer by any commercial application that uses MP3 encoding. There is no getting around that. LAME is just an MP3 encoding library that itself is "free" but that doesnt mean encoding is free.

Thanks for clarifying this.
 

cparmerlee
This is a no-brainer.  The company should eat the $10 and have the product ship with seamless MP3 support.

I hear you.. I've been asking Cakewalk to supply me a hovercar for many years now with Sonar and they completely ignore my requests. I don't see why Cakewalk should get away with it.

Everybody needs a hovercar obviously... Duh...