I have Sonar X1 producer and am in the middle of a 12 song project. I'm considering upgrading to the latest best Sonar Cakewalk. Seems like they change frequently. what's the latest? Is it significantly better? Would I be in jeopardy of compromising my current project from changing midstream?
 
thanks!
 
David

You can keep your old versions installed when you upgrade. There is no danger of loosing your work  X1 to X3' is pretty straight forward/ 
Sonars CWP files are happy with most versions other than missing the odd plug in, But those will all show up in the new version anyhow.
 Go to the Cakewalk tab- Products- in the header here and follow the links to upgrading. You will pay $199, 
 
X3 is "said" to be more stable and less buggy than X1 was.. Hmm that all of a sudden makes me wonder>> some folks paid $599 and 2 years later have to fork over more money because the software was buggy.. oh well. That's why I waited.  There where probably better deals you might have missed so you should subscribe to the newsletter. 

You can continue to use X1 after upgrading to X3, most things belonging to X3 are kept in separate release-specific folders.  The Plugin Manager will change to the revamped one from X3, but X1 will work just fine with the X3 Plugin Manager.  There are a couple of other things, but I don't recall what they are, and in any case, they do not adversely affect X1.
 
X3 has been quite stable, and has had a great deal of attention from Cakewalk, in terms of maintenance, thus far.  There have been 4 maintenance updates already, and a fifth one is in the works.
 
X3 also bring in Melodyne, as a replacement to V-Vocal, and is quite good.  There is also VST 3 support, improved video support, and the full Addictive Drums, which is quite good.
 
You can now download an X3 demo, and check out the base product - meaning that though the add-ons will not come with the demo, the audio engine, VST 3 support, and such will be there.
 
Bob Bone
 

Thanks guys for the informative response!

Sure - happy to help 

Be sure when opening any project files you have now in X3 that you immediately save them as a NEW name (preferably with X3 in the name) so you can easily keep track of which project files belong to which version.

If I upgrade, it will be from Studio X2 to Producer X3. I see here that there have been 4 maintenance upgrades to X3: Are these all incorporated when I upgrade, or do I have to upgrade/download, then download the maintenance packs?

In terms of upgrading in the middle of a project, I don't think it's all that advisable. Or at least, if you do, assume you're going to be adding in some time to get used to whatever is different (because you will be).

Taller
 Are these all incorporated when I upgrade, or do I have to upgrade/download, then download the maintenance packs?

You will need to add the final update after installing X3. The X3d update contains all the previous updates.

John T is correct in that there are some differences between X1 and X3. I don't know if I would call them "major"

So you will have to consider time spent just learning the new ways.

And use the advise given by mettelus. Save your X1 projects with a new name in X3, just in case!!