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Keith,
may I ask where you saw this?:
"the every 6 month deactivation feature will go away, and the old program will remain permanently activated."
Thanks.
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Expert
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Joined: Jun 2003
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Keith,
may I ask where you saw this?:
"the every 6 month deactivation feature will go away, and the old program will remain permanently activated."
Thanks. So far, I can’t find where I saw this exact language, only that it remains available. I know that I saw it somewhere but it’s not where I expected to find it. I’ll keep looking.
Keith
2026 Audiophile Windows 11 RYZEN THREADRIPPER 3960X 4.5GHZ 128 GB RAM 2 Nvidia RTX 3090s, Vegas,Acid,SoundForge,Izotope Production,Melodyne Studio,SONAR,3 Raven Mtis
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Don't. Save your time. I don't think it was clearly mentioned... yet by developers. Lets just wait and see what happens. Noel said that likely roll out of new Sonar/Next is by the end of the year.
While most of the DAWs are very capable these days, I am married to Cakewalk. Meng (owner) proved that they are serious about it by updating/patching it very aggressively in the last 5 years. I will definitely buy a license, if the price is fair and will not make me sell a kidney.
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"[I switched to Studio One after it became clear Cakewalk was going to be killed off, and before BandLab picked it up.]"
I also switched to Studio One before BandLab picked it up. As things have turned out, I am glad I did. Studio One is a better product than Sonar.
.......................................
Billy
Same here and I agree that Studio One is a better product than the original Sonar. can any of the people who like Studio One better than Cakewalk post a few observations about why it's better?
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Hi Pat. That first line quoted was me.
My reasons aren’t going to apply to most people, but what I like best about Studio One is the tight integration with my hardware. I have a Presonus audio interface that I bought because I couldn’t stand the Focusrite control software. Once I had that, I bought a Presonus Faderport for mixing, and a Presonus Revelator mic for Zoom. All of it works seamlessly.
You know I’m a composer and arranger. I should mention that I’m a beta tester for Presonus Notion notation software. I paid for everything but it helps me that the notation in Studio One is tightly integrated with Notion.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Journeyman
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I have mostly Presonus equipment.
...Deb
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Journeyman
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Pat, I started with Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 and had all the Sonar Versions. I first got Studio One Pro V2 and have been with them ever since. The speed and ease of the drag and drop sold me right off the bat. I too also use Presonus hardware including the Fader Port. As others have stated it has tight integration with the software and hardware.
I own Melodyne Studio which is also tightly integrated with Studio One. In fact Presonus co-developed ARA with Celemony which even Sonar and others also use.
Studio One is cross platform which I own a PC and a Apple iMac and releases at the same time.
As Matt mentions it also works with it's Notion notation software.
Some of the features I like is the Arranger track, Chord track, The Scratch Pad, Lyrics Track.
One particular feature I like is just being able to drag over a effect on a send and it will setup and create everything for you including a aux track.
Another feature that is cool if drag and drop a Virtual instrument it will create everything for you and if you drag another on top of that one it will ask you if you want to combine them or replace the other one. This also works with effects. You no longer need to use a separate track for parallel compression just drop another compressor and make a splitter. They have features for doing live shows, beat making ,video and the list goes on and on.
I do have other DAWS including Logic, Reaper and so on but by far my favorite is Studio One.
BIAB 2026 Ultrapack- Fender Studio Pro 8, Windows 11, Mac Mini M4 with Logic Pro 11, Melodyne Studio, Luna Pro
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I guess I missed the boat.
I was planning to download Cakewalk to replace my aging Master Tracks Pro MIDI sequencer.
All I want it for is the MIDI sequencing and editing abilities.
Is the last free version still available?
Master Tracks Pro works just fine, and has great editing features, but it's abandonware, so someday it won't work anymore.
Notes ♫
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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To me the difference between cakewalk and studio is personal,choice. Both work well. I have track many projects in both programs. Studio one seems to handle things in a slightly and mean slightly simpler approach. I like the way studio one has a simpler setup when you open it. Yes I know you can template cakewalk to open up to you custom screen template, but after fussing with it for over an hour one day I got nothing that was saved. I don’t like the pro channel on each track in cake. It is cluttered and confusing. I like the signal chain capability of studio one. Simple and straightforward. Studio one does a video track as well. Nice feature. It also has a mastering page to finish a album like project. Lastly it comes with far superior plugins. Yes you pay for them. But they are really good. I don’t like the sonitus stuff when compared to the studio one plugins.
As mentioned above studio one is cross platform so I can run the exact same program on my Mac and my win laptop.
If cake goes to a paid system then to me it is a non starter for me. Cake is only interesting since it is free. For paid I want more than it offers.
Is cake a good DAW? Yes very good. Especially for free. And it was free since it stripped out the extra content. I want the extra content. I want a full suite of native plugins, a nice library of sounds.
I do agree cakes comping is really cool, but studio ne does almost the exact same thing. You just have to know it’s workflow. I love you can template even at that level. Jeff Pettit showed me a while back how to setup a one button arrangement that opened up a track and eight comping tracks for dragging the BiaB plugins original multiriff output this was so cool. One click and you could comp a finished lead track.
Finally it falls to familiarity. Which are used to. For me I started on cake and have used it a lot, so familiar. I Switched to studio one simple because it was for my mind more intuitive. For someone else like my friend Misha, he things differently, so cake is more intuitive to him. This just personal opinion.
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
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Got it. Thanks. Now I'll figure out how to use it. If I like it a lot, I'll go ahead and get the paid version if the price is right. I met the guy who wrote Master Tracks Pro, he came to one of our gigs, and he said after he updates Encore, he'll work on MTPro. But he also said that after GVox bought the apps so many years ago, they messed up the code, so it'll be a huge, time-consuming job. I like MTPro because it's MIDI only. That means it's quicker, and the menus are easy to acess, no menu->sub menu->sub-menu so every editing dialog is no more than a hover and click away. Plus the editing features are great. Notes ♫
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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