Thank you for all the input!
I'm better prepared to move ahead with your advice.
 
I'm an old Cakewalk user from the 90's.
Still use Pro Audio 9 for midi & Playing live gigs.
Rock solid all those years.
 
I appreciate all the information.
Eric
Nova Scotia
 

timidi

mudgel
Any and all versions of Sonar can co exist. 

This is not accurate. 8.53 does not co-exist with Sonar Platinum beyond Dec 2016 version.

 
Please explain.

Kev999

timidi

mudgel
Any and all versions of Sonar can co exist. 

This is not accurate. 8.53 does not co-exist with Sonar Platinum beyond Dec 2016 version.

 
Please explain.

Kev, Splat screws up the plugin manager in 8.53. The Dec 2016 version seems to be OK. 

I didn't know about 8.53 and Sonar 2017. I'll have to check that out. Interesting.

And yes I should have said Professional not Platinum. Purely an oversight. Nonetheless the principles behind what I said are still accurate.

I had the chance to try SPLAT and used it heavily for a month or so, now back to X3 :(
It IS light years ahead.
It IS more responsive.
It IS more stable.
You'll not be sorry,
I'll not be either, Once I can find the funds to upgrade.

timidi

Kev999

timidi

mudgel
Any and all versions of Sonar can co exist. 

This is not accurate. 8.53 does not co-exist with Sonar Platinum beyond Dec 2016 version.

 
Please explain.

Kev, Splat screws up the plugin manager in 8.53. The Dec 2016 version seems to be OK. 

I didn't know that, so I just opened up 8.53 to see what happens and yes indeed projects that I know full well were written in 8.53 and only edited in 8.53 not will not open - error message saying that the project file is not compatible with this version. I know that this is not because I have subsequently altered things in a later version, because before I did anything with the newer version (X3) I first did a save as "filenameX3" and then worked on that version so that the original 8.5 project was preserved as is to protect it from exactly this kind of scenario.
 
However opening the project in safe mode and clicking on "yes to all" when the plug-ins prompt window comes up allows the project to open and it plays normally, so not sure what that's all about, but at least they can still be opened in 8.53, not that I'm likely to want to do that in all honesty, but I didn't know it was even an issue until I read this thread.
 
The other thing I noticed was how quickly the 8.53 program opens compared to it's modern day counterpart. 

Freex
I had the chance to try SPLAT and used it heavily for a month or so, now back to X3 :(
It IS light years ahead.
It IS more responsive.
It IS more stable.
You'll not be sorry,
I'll not be either, Once I can find the funds to upgrade.

You can get by with just the one kidney you know! 
 
Not sure I agree with the stability bit though. X3pro hardly ever crashed on me and if it did it was probably because of me doing something too ambitious whilst in playback mode with many plug-ins on the go. Plat has behaved better of late, still prone to the odd one or two during a 2 hour session, but was an absolute crashfest when I first installed it (2016.12). 

Has to be said - I've forgotten what a crash looks like running Platinum

Bristol_Jonesey
Has to be said - I've forgotten what a crash looks like running Platinum

Age can be very cruel. 

The thing is you can save a little bit of money going with Artist or Professional,, or even Home Studio, but one has to look at the feature list and decide what they can live without.
Example I had no issues when I used X3 Studio and then I upgraded to Professional coming from using 8.5 producer
( skipping x1 and x2.)  
Because you get all the stuff you had in the older versions held over, all is good even when using the lesser versions. Like say I install  Home Studio on my main DAW which already has 8.5, X3studio, Professional and the latest Splat. I would not be missing any VST's or Plugs,, I think I'd even have Melodyne and AD2. All that would be missing is some of the tools and a few miscellaneous features one may not even notice if they don't used them. 
It just once you've had those features and tools you will miss them instantly if they are gone.
 
All I'll say is I'm thank the Cakewalk for the deals they have offered me over the last few years which put me sitting pretty with lifetime version of the flagship version.
 
With some of the money I saved from these deals I bought Home Studio just to support the company and for fun. It is a great version and was well worth the $50.