Upgrade path to Sonar X1 LE

[dave1z]

Is there an upgrade path from Sonar 8.5 LE that came with my BR-800 to Sonar X1 LE? All the support documents and so-forth on the Cakewalk home site are for X1 LE, and I can't find anything there on 8.5 LE. Are there any drawbacks to using X1 LE with the BR-800 vs 8.5 LE? Thanks in advance.

[64Guitars]

Ah, the old software upgrade racket.   They keep bringing out new versions and dropping support for the old versions in an attempt to make you spend more money. The latest version of SONAR is X2. I haven't seen X2 LE yet but it's only a matter of time before it appears and they start supporting that instead of X1 LE. You can't win.

I don't think there's anything BR-800-specific in 8.5, so X1 or X2 should be at least as good. For that matter, you can use any DAW you like. It doesn't have to be SONAR. The only particular requirement for the BR-800 is that the DAW supports the Mackie Control Surface, as that's the interface that the BR-800 uses. I think most DAWs support the Mackie Control Surface, so that shouldn't be a problem.

A lot of people like REAPER. It's only $60 and there's a lot of support for it. You can download it and try it for 60 days for free.

http://www.reaper.fm/download.php

The current version is 4.32 (released Jan 15, 2013). If you purchase a licence now, it includes free updates till version 5.99.

If you'd rather stick with SONAR, you can get SONAR X2 Essential for $99.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/cakewalk-sonar-x2-essential-daw-software

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SONARX2Ess/

There's also a 30-day free trial offer: http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Web-Trial.aspx

It wouldn't hurt to contact Cakewalk and ask them if there are any special upgrade offers for 8.5 LE users.

[galestermusic]

I have to agree with you 64G. I may get add ons but will never buy cake walk again. It's not because of performance ,etc. because I'm mot versed in DAW enough. It's because you buy one version of SONAR and then there are little hidden things they failed to mention that would be a pro or a con for any reasonable person when purchasing a sonar DAW. Case in point. I'm plugging along with Kenny Mac and the collab we did. I go to convert it to MP3. I get a message  that I needed to upgrade my MP3 license.? WHTF??? I paid $500 for the software and now I have to pay another $20 for an indefinite MP3 license? I should have known, it's software and the whole software thing of all types is a racket.

I still have the free reaper and whem i was messing with it, I never had as many crashes and drop offs as I have had with SONAR. Lesson learned. I tinkered around a bit. There are a lot of features that I can still use from the BR-800 that the DAW pics up when I'm using it as a audio interface.

I think I would have been better served to get reaper and use 3rd party add on's for the amount I spent on SONAR.

[dave1z]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have done a lot of reading on the web this weekend, and it seems that Sonar isn't quite as popular as I thought it was. I used to use Cakewalk years ago (back when it was still Twelve Tones Systems) for MIDI recording and transcription. When I saw that Sonar LE was packed in with the BR-800, it was one of the selling points for me to get the thing. I just now started to play around with the BR this weekend because I was recovering from a broken shoulder and torn rotator. Now, granted, I haven't registered the Sonar online yet, so I don't know if there are updates to 8.5 LE, but it locked up on me several times when I was just trying to play around with the tutorials and demos! Next, I read here (from searching through old threads) that you can upgrade to X1 LE if you register the software on the Cakewalk website. I already have REAPER and have tried to use it in the past, but found it clumsy and confusing. I'm also a Linux fan and have used Ardour in the past, but I find that maintaining a Linux machine for music work can be a full time job in itself! (Anyone who want's to argue doesn't know JACK (an insider joke, not an insult!)) That is one of the other reasons I went ahead and bought a dedicated multitracker-in-a-box. I remembered fondly the days of my youth happily cutting tracks on my trusty TASCAM Portaone, and then discovering Cakewalk when I bought my Sound Blaster AWE32 (essentially a proteus on a card) and got waxing nostalgic and decided to dust off my old Windoze box and give Sonar a try. Now I hear that Sonar has essentially become a bloated, unstable never ending money pit! I've already blown my discretionary funds for the next several millenia so I guess I'll just stick to recording and mixing in my BR and use Audacity on my Linux box for any 'puter related needs I may require. So as not to end on a sour note, I will say that I was pleased with the fact that I can record directly to the BR, via USB, tracks that are played using Timidity++ and Fluid softsynths.  I saves any intermediate steps needed to render to a wave file and then transfering via the Wave converter. Anyway, thanks again for all your help.

[dave1z]

Hey Greg. I was just looking over your profile on reverbnation, and WHAT A COINCIDENCE, it seems that I also have played in a band with the very same two guys you have! Me and Myself. I remember them as being pretty easy to get along with as long as I could keep 'em sober. We had to part ways when Me had to sell his bass to pay off an old bar tab, and then Myself ... well it's the same old story ... he met some chick and they ran off and eloped and that was the end of the M M & I band. Tell 'em I said hi the next time you see 'em.  .... now where did I put those meds I was supposed to take this morning??? .... hmmmmm. 

I have to agree with you 64G. I may get add ons but will never buy cake walk again. It's not because of performance ,etc. because I'm mot versed in DAW enough. It's because you buy one version of SONAR and then there are little hidden things they failed to mention that would be a pro or a con for any reasonable person when purchasing a sonar DAW. Case in point. I'm plugging along with Kenny Mac and the collab we did. I go to convert it to MP3. I get a message  that I needed to upgrade my MP3 license.? WHTF??? I paid $500 for the software and now I have to pay another $20 for an indefinite MP3 license? I should have known, it's software and the whole software thing of all types is a racket.

I still have the free reaper and whem i was messing with it, I never had as many crashes and drop offs as I have had with SONAR. Lesson learned. I tinkered around a bit. There are a lot of features that I can still use from the BR-800 that the DAW pics up when I'm using it as a audio interface.

I think I would have been better served to get reaper and use 3rd party add on's for the amount I spent on SONAR.

[64Guitars]

I'm also a Linux fan and have used Ardour in the past, but I find that maintaining a Linux machine for music work can be a full time job in itself! (Anyone who want's to argue doesn't know JACK (an insider joke, not an insult!))

Have you tried JACK and Ardour recently? When I first upgraded from Windows to Ubuntu several years ago, I tried JACK but could not get it to work. I spent a fair bit of time researching it and trying different things but I got nowhere so I gave up. But many months and several Ubuntu upgrades later, I decided to try JACK again and, lo and behold, it worked! It's been working just fine ever since and I really like it. It lets me connect the output of any JACK-enabled program to the input of any other JACK-enabled program. And it lets me route MIDI between all of my music programs. I think there may have been some problems with Linux audio several years ago that made JACK really difficult to get working. But that seems to be all fixed now and JACK works just great.

I have Ardour 2.8.12 but haven't done much with it because it only does audio - no MIDI tracks. So I've been using Rosegarden instead which does both, though the audio capabilities are a bit limited. However, on March 10th, Ardour 3.0 was released and it now has full MIDI sequencing capabilities.

http://ardour.org/

It looks really good and I'm anxious to give it a try. Unfortunately, it's not in the Ubuntu repositories yet and I'd rather not download the source and compile it myself. Also, the Ardour website makes it really hard to get the software without paying (though you can pay as little as $1 for a fully functional version of the program). So I'm going to wait till it's in the Ubuntu repositories.

That is one of the other reasons I went ahead and bought a dedicated multitracker-in-a-box.

I'm finding that a mix of hardware and software is the best way to go. Hardware recorders are best for recording audio tracks such as guitar, bass, vocals, and acoustic instruments. But a software DAW is best for sequencing MIDI tracks (including drums), and for mixing, editing, and final production. So having a good multitrack recorder like the BR-800, along with a good software DAW like SONAR, REAPER, Ardour, Cubase, etc. gives you the best of both worlds. Record all of your audio tracks on the BR. Record your MIDI tracks in the DAW. Then import your audio tracks from the BR to the DAW for mixing, editing, and final production.

I was pleased to learn that David Wills at ProAudioDVDs shares my view.

http://proaudiodvds.com/hardware-vs-software-where-do-you-stand/

I've already blown my discretionary funds for the next several millenia so I guess I'll just stick to recording and mixing in my BR and use Audacity on my Linux box for any 'puter related needs I may require.

I'm still using Audacity for all my audio editing and final mixing. That will probably change when I get Ardour 3.0. But, for now, Audacity is the most powerful and easy-to-use program I have access to, and I'm far more comfortable with it than any other audio program. The only thing I don't like about it is its lack of MIDI. That's why I'm hoping that Ardour 3.0 will satisfy all my needs. I'd like to be able to sequence my drums and MIDI keyboard tracks, then import my BR tracks into the same program for editing, mixing, and final production.

[dave1z]

64,
  Yeah, I have JACK working really well now. I have been using SuSE linux since about 1997. I tried Ubuntu, but didn't like the fact that it was so Gnome oriented. (I know there is a Kbuntu). I have tried just about every distro on the planet, but have never found any that came close to the scope that SuSE has. I use QJACKctl, Qsynth (for Fluid), Timidity++ and Rosegarden for MIDI stuff now. I don't use MIDI sequencing quite as much as I used to. Really, back in the day, I used it more like a crutch for my lousy keyboarding skills. I use it now more for the ability to use GM/GS soundfonts using Fluid and a MIDI controller. I use Hydrogen for drums. I used to have an old Yamaha rhythm machine, but lost it years ago. I sorta like the rhythm capabilities of the BR because they are very similar to what the Yamaha could do. I have a HUGE collection of MIDI files that I have collected over the years (close to 50,000 files!) and use them to "borrow" drum and other parts on occasion. I did read about Ardour 3.0, but to be honest Ardour and I never really hit it off very well. I've played around with it, but if a piece of software doesn't inspire me within a fairly short period of time, I usually move on to something else. My "productions" have never really gotten big or elaborate enough to warrant anything on the level that Ardour can offer. The same could be said about Sonar. I was only curious about it because my past experience with Cakewalk. Have a good one.

[Auroran]

Thanks for the replies guys.  Now, granted, I haven't registered the Sonar online yet, so I don't know if there are updates to 8.5 LE, but it locked up on me several times when I was just trying to play around with the tutorials and demos!

What are your computer specs? Sonar needs a bit of power. I run Sonar 8.5 (full version) with a dual-core 2.8ghz and 3 gigs of ram, so something like that or above is what it probably needs. There are also a few settings (buffer etc) that can be adjusted. There are a few anti-virus programs that don't get along with Sonar so take a look at their site.

In answer to your question, yes you can upgrade. Here is the link: http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/By-Category.aspx/Upgrades-for-LE-users

I'm a longtime user from the Twelve-tone days. The best features for upgrading are the softsynths that are included. Dimension Pro is an underrated synth that I use a lot (and I have lots of them as I'm a big synth guy). Rapture LE,  the TruePianos and the various other synths are good too. If you like synths, it's a good idea.

I suggest registering LE and see if there are any  fixes. Some of those LE programs are quite good. I've never tried the LE version that came with the BR800 since I used 8.5 already.

[galestermusic]

Dave I have played with those guys for quite awhile. Got rid of them in Texas about 98 and I'll be damned if they didn't hunt me down. Auroran, I had to put SONAR x2 on my other machine. Its a windows 8. 4 gig Ram and 500gig HR. Hate the thought of getting another machine lol