WDI
...I am not averse to hearing other points of view at all. But it does seem to be the other way around. This is what I'm talking about. Besides, regarding your response stating why you question why someone wants to do something a certain way, I responded already and said "Fair enough".  Also, you pretty much took my quote out of context by taking only part of the sentence...

 
I was just responding to the pieces of text that I quoted and directing my responses to the forum generally, not to you in particular. Nothing that I posted in this thread was about you (until now).

Well, thanks but no one's holding a gun to my head...I was just hoping to inject some reality into the premise that Cakewalk consists of incompetent negotiators who have a blatant disregard for their customers. Now, I do agree it would be convenient for some people if MP3 export was right there when you opened the program. However, that convenience comes at a price, which is a concept some people can't quite seem to grasp - let alone suggest ways to meet that price other than the three alternatives I presented, none of which I like.
 
Product management is all about choosing priorities. Sometimes the choice isn't between something "good" and something "bad," but what would be good for the greatest number of people, with the understanding that a solution may not be as good for a lesser number of people. I just don't buy the argument people buy SONAR primarily to generate low-resolution files, thereby elevating forced MP3 encoder inclusion as a priority that requires some other tradeoff. I think the way Cakewalk handles this makes a lot of sense. I particularly like that SONAR has been engineered to be so open-ended that it's easy to integrate any kind of encoder you want.

The whole mp3 thing and the cost and licensing problems would all go away if cake were to issue a license to the mp3 addon to each customer as an incentive to upgrade next year.
 
Since the license would still be independent of teh sonar program itself the cost to cake would be one time and not for each new version.
 
 
Just a thought.

Paul P
Is there a warning message during the first 30 days (once you've bought the product) that the function will be disabled shortly, or only once it has ?

Well it's been a long time since I opened a version of SONAR without the encoder, but IIRC, it was done the same way Cubase did it at the time...the encoder shipped unlocked, and a dialog came out that let you export, but said it was a limited time and that the encoder would lock after that time (30 days, maybe?). Don't know if that's what it says these days but I doubt it would have changed much. So, you can export quite a bit of material before you have to decide whether you want to purchase the encoder or roll your own.

Related question to the current discussion.  Like many of you here I am a long time Sonar and related products user.  I have a couple of older Cakewalk Products called Pyro 5 and Pyro Audio Creater that have MP3 conversion capabilities.  I assume that the cost of this product included the requisite Fraunhoffer license fee since it does MP3 encoding of files.  Is this license transferable/substitutable for the required Sonar Platinum license or do I need to pay an additional license.  I seem to remember when I bought these I had to activate a license, but I am not sure about this.  It was a long time ago.  TIA  

Agree with Bob... I bought this way back at Sonar 5ish... never had to reload, rebuy, or whatever... also, if you've wiped your system it's in your cake account and can be downloaded.
 
can't believe this thread is still here... regurgitating the same stuff ad nauseum... 

19 frets
Related question to the current discussion.  Like many of you here I am a long time Sonar and related products user.  I have a couple of older Cakewalk Products called Pyro 5 and Pyro Audio Creater that have MP3 conversion capabilities.  I assume that the cost of this product included the requisite Fraunhoffer license fee since it does MP3 encoding of files.  Is this license transferable/substitutable for the required Sonar Platinum license or do I need to pay an additional license.  I seem to remember when I bought these I had to activate a license, but I am not sure about this.  It was a long time ago.  TIA  

Hi Jim
 
I got my encoder with Pyro too, and yes, that purchase does count as your licence for all Cakewalk products.
 
When I needed to activate the encoder on a new PC, I just emailed Cakewalk and they sent me the details I needed to do so.

Doktor Avalanche
It wouldn't be an incentive for me as I configured LAME myself (10 min job) and that cost me $0. All that will happen is that the customer will burden the costs, or development will get reduced as it would take a slice of Cakewalks profits. This has already been discussed over and over again in great detail. I guess some people will never see this. Cakewalk here has done the right thing here imho.
 
Also I'm only seeing a few people complain about this, vast majority seem happy with the situation.

I installed lame also but it took me more that 10 min to get it right. LOL. However it would be nice to have the ability to modify the export settings without having to create several encoder configs.

mudgel
Have a look at the library ni in my signature. It takes you to tythe first post in the software forum.. Quite a few MP3 options there and more to no too.

Thanks I'll check it out.

I'm totally on Craig's side in this.  If CW has to pay a royalty to make mp3 conversion 'free', why?  There's already 'free' software like audacity and itunes that work great.  Sonar lets you drag a copy anywhere which makes porting mixes or samples simple.  Sonar is fantastic and personally I want them to keep it as reasonable as possible.

Vastman
THIS STUPID ISSUE HAS BEEN BEATEN TO DEATH A THOUSAND TIMES!!!!  6 STUPID PAGES???
 
GET A FRACKIN' LIFE!

If you don't want to buy the Sonar MP3 encoder
DownLoad lame for 32bit & 64bit
http://www.digital-digest.com/software/LAME_MP3_Encoder.html
 
For 32bit
Create a "Lame" directory in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
UnZip a copy of the 32bit Lame.exe and Lame_enc.dll into the new Lame directory
----------------
Load Sonar 32bit - Go Utilities/External Encoder Configuration Utility.
Or outside of Sonar
open C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\EncoderConfig.exe
 
Click New & Enter a the following
Friendly Name: Lame High Quality Stereo 320
 
Source Format: Wave
 
Description: Lame High Quality Stereo 320 using the inbuilt "insane" preset (You can write anything in here)
 
Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
 
Command line: (Copy and paste the whole line)
Lame -m s --alt-preset insane --tt "%T" --verbose --ta "%A" --ty "2015" --tc "%C" %I %O
 
Select: Modal Encoder
Select: Save source file if you also want a copy of the .way file created in the process
 
SAVE IT!
-----
For 64bit
Create a "Lame" directory in
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
UnZip a copy of the 64bit Lame.exe and Lame_enc.dll into the new Lame directory
 
Load Sonar 64bit - Go Utilities/External Encoder Configuration Utility.
Or outside of Sonar open
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\EncoderConfig.exe
 
Click New & Enter a the following
Friendly Name: Lame High Quality Stereo 320
 
Source Format: Wave
 
Description: Lame High Quality Stereo 320 using the inbuilt "insane" preset (You can write anything in here)
 
Path: C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
 
Command line: (Copy and paste the whole line)
Lame -m s --alt-preset insane --tt "%T" --verbose --ta "%A" --ty "2015" --tc "%C" %I %O
 
Select: Modal Encoder
Select: Save source file if you also want a copy of the .way file created in the process
 
SAVE IT!
-----
*** Exports the highest quality 320Kb/s Mp3 possible, embeds the track name, the author as 'Contributing Artists' and Copyright as 2015.
 
NB: You have to change the copyright in the Lame Command Line every year!
 
MORE HERE http://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/lame/lame/doc/html/switchs.html

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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.

 
This ^^^^^^ Should be a sticky imo!