Exporting MP3's with Sonar 7

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!