I just purchased the upgrade to Sonar 7. I was HOPING that I'd be able to export mp3's without the usual message, "you need to purchase an encoder. go to www.cakewalk.com." But, this is what I got, again.

I'm going to give Cakewalk the benefit of the doubt at this point and guess that I've missed something along the way and I should have the encoder through one of the the many, many upgrades that I've purchased, but just missed it or did it wrong at some point.

Can someone point me to where I need to go to resolve this problem.

If this is just an annoyance that can be fixed by a free download, I hope sincerely that Cakewalk fixes it before their next version. If I indeed need to purchase this encoder, I cannot tell you how inexcusable this is. I got Cubase LE free with my purchase of an audio soundcard. I use it to edit audio at work, mainly because I can export mp3's straight from the program without having to load a second program and import the wav file, blah blah blah.

Thanks

Greg Garner
www.BlueGooStudios.com

The mp3 encoder included with SONAR is a 30 days trial. Cake do it this way so we all don't have to pay the license fee.

SONAR allows you to use a 3rd party encoder, free ones like LAME or you can buy the one that comes with cakewalk and you get an unlock code to make it work past the 30 days.

This has been discussed ad infinitum on this forum so if you want more details you can search the forum for more info.

I'll try to find the thread or see if I have the relevant info and post back with in a day or so if you've had no luck finding it yourself.

Mike V.   

SONAR X2a (x64) running on
STUDIO Rack Mount Win7x64 
ASUS P9X79 PRO 
INTEL i7 E3930k 
nVidia QUADRO FX 3800
32GIG DDR3 18000
JBL2300 system 
LOCATION HP DV8 18.4"
Presonus studio Live 24.4.2 
i7-720 8GIG DDR3 nVidia GT230M 2 X 500GIG SATA3 HDD
WIN7x64

I should have the encoder through one of the the many, many upgrades that I've purchased,

It's on the Cakewalk 9.0 CD

Ok, I have located my Pro Audio 9 CD in the sleeve next to my handy Windows 98 CD. I opened it up and there's no seperate install (that I can see) for the mp3 encoder. I went to start the install with the hopes of just selecting that and before I knew it, Direct Show is now installed on my Windows XP computer. Before I knock my computer back to the year 1998, does anyone have any pointers on how to get the mp3 encoder that was incredibly free with Pro Audio 9 onto my PC?

Thanks for all of your help and I apologize for my negativity here. But this really, really blows.

Greg Garner
www.BlueGooStudios.com

Do you at least have another program which can convert wav to mp3?

I use CoolEdit to normalize all my songs and add fades. After saving the wav, I immediately save an mp3. So, I never use Sonar to create mp3s. I guess if I normalized using Sonar I might.

There's tons of utilities out there to create mp3s from wavs. I like CD-Ex. http://www.cdex.n3.net/

Yes, I have musicmatch, iTunes, I even have Pyro. What I'll do though is export as a wav from Sonar, then close Sonar, open musicmatch, then go through all the steps to find that wav file and convert it to an mp3. Ideally, wouldn't you like to be able to just export as an mp3 and save yourself that time? The majority of stuff I do I'm uploading to a website for others to listen to, so it'll always need to be in an mp3 format. It's idiotic that I have to go to another software application and finish the process off. With Sonar 7, Cakewalk finally added the ability to import CD tracks and even burn from within the application and I applaud them for this great step. Now, if we could only get around this stupid mp3 encoder bunk, Sonar would truly be the best thing out there. Total project creation from beginning to end.

Here's another example. Imagine taking a bunch of pictures on your digital camera. You load them into photoshop and make a bunch of changes. You go to export as jpeg's for your website and whoa, you need to purchase the trial version of the jpeg encoder. Huh?! So, to save yourself some money, you just export as a bitmap and import it into Corel Draw and then export it as a jpeg for your site. Yeah, that's no big deal...right.

Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm still just very peeved about this. I was convinced that they would have changed the mp3 business with the addidtion of the publisher functionality in Sonar 7.

Greg Garner
www.BlueGooStudios.com

I agree with you. It should be included.

Although I fully understand the whole licensing things (I have read most of the endless threads). Cakewalk would save them selves a ton of grief and make "PR" pints if the just bumped the price up by $30 and bundled it.

No matter what their reasoning may be, it looks absolutely foolish that their Bottom of the line product can make mp3's but their flag ship cannot. Especially when their flagship's new Publisher feature ONLY works with mp3's[sm=rolleyes.gif]

Sonar X2 PE Expanded
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It's idiotic that I have to go to another software application and finish the process off.

I agree that it's an inconvenience. However, I got used to it, and, several hundred mp3s later, I don't even think of it as an inconvenience anymore. It's moot for me, because I don't know how to normalize a mixdown using Sonar; how are you doing that part?

I just got the registry file of the install CD, "LAME MP3 High Quality Stereo.reg" and edited it so that the line which has:

"CommandLine"="LAME %I -b 96 -m s -h -c -V 4 -B 256 %O"

is changed to:

"CommandLine"="winLAME %I -b 96 -m s -h -c -V 4 -B 256 %O"

Run the edited registry file.
Then download winLAME, and install to the directory "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\External audio Encoders\LAME". Works great.

You don't need to install the mp3 encoder from your Pro Audio 9 discs you only need to authorise the one included with SONAR 7.

Mike V.   

SONAR X2a (x64) running on
STUDIO Rack Mount Win7x64 
ASUS P9X79 PRO 
INTEL i7 E3930k 
nVidia QUADRO FX 3800
32GIG DDR3 18000
JBL2300 system 
LOCATION HP DV8 18.4"
Presonus studio Live 24.4.2 
i7-720 8GIG DDR3 nVidia GT230M 2 X 500GIG SATA3 HDD
WIN7x64

Anyone have instructions for install Lame 3.97 into Sonar 7?

Hear my Sonar work at ..... http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=23718

ORIGINAL: Dale Aston

Anyone have instructions for install Lame 3.97 into Sonar 7?

This tutorial is written for Sonar 6, but it should be similar for 7.

Third Take : a blog about home recording

Thanks. I followed the instructions but Lame doesn't show up in the "Save to file type" box. Any ideas?

Hear my Sonar work at ..... http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=23718

Well, you have to download and install LAME of course.

One thing many people don't realize is that the LAME that usually shows up first in searches is an UNCOMPILED version of the program. The compiled version is basically a comand line program. There are many GUI front-ends for the LAME core, but you don't need them for this application. Do a search for the compiled version and note the directory you stash it in.

Then follow the instruction on this forum (and in all the SONAR support WIKIs) to install.

===========
The Fog People
===========

Intel Q6600
4GB RAM
ASUS P5B Plus
Presonus Firebox
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SONAR 8.5.3
SONAR X1b   
Project5 v2.5
etc.

I bought the MP3 key installer from the Cakewalk Store for $19.00. The whole transaction/install took less that 15 minutes. Considering all that you have spent with Cakewalk you shouldn't have to buy the MP3 encoder, but it sure is handy for a quick mixdown.

DaveT

If you read the instructions given it gave a link to a compiled version which I downloaded and followed all instructions. Oh yeah... I installed Lame too.

Hear my Sonar work at ..... http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=23718

hmmmm, lame sounds pretty cool, i'll have to check it out. Would be awesome if sonar picks it up as an mp3 export option. currently iv been exporting .wav and using a 3rd party converter. would be nice to do it inside of sonar.

i was wondering, since xp sp2 and the latest media player has an mp3 encoder, is there anyway a regedit would allow sonar to pick up the windows media player mp3 converter?

"5 out of 4 people have a problem with fractions..."

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www.dantesjuice.com

I paid for an MP3 encoder years ago, and I'd be pissed at having it included again and again. It costs money to license it from Fraunhofer for a software developer to distribute with their product. Which is why many software products no longer include it.

Either use the LAME encoder (it's very good) or buy one for $19 and get back to making music!

-Gordon
Win 7 Pro x64, i5, 16 GB, Profire 2626, Sonar PE 8.53/X1

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. - Leonardo da Vinci