2018-04-12 11:51:17 (edited by flackers 2018-04-12 11:56:04)

For anyone who's interested an might not already know, Bandlab seem to be offering Sonar Platinum for free to Bandlab users. I don't know if this means you can just create an account and grab a free copy, as they offered me to switch my Cakewalk account a month or so ago, but thought I'd let people know. Nor do I know if there's a catch because I haven't done it. 
https://cakewalk.bandlab.com/

2018-04-13 07:15:04

There's no catch, however, there's also no genuine accessibility for it.  My X-Touch setup will work with Platinum, but unfortunately, it's limited, too, especially with the buggyness of Sonar, that is not on the surface.   Infact, the 2017 September update, or whatever the last one was,  caused more problems than it fixed.  Will they actually fix this DAW?  Only time will tell, but honestly, since switching to Reaper, I have not looked back.

Infact, I've gotten to where I can use Reaper a lot like Fruity Loops.

My Solo album, "A Life Seen Through Broken Eyes", available now:
iTunes Spotify YouTube
My YouTube Channel

2018-04-13 12:26:25

if it was with the sonar 8.5 I would be very happy, it would be a thousand jumps of joy. lol.
I still work with this version and it gives me a lot of comfort and practicality. for me it's the best especially for pre-production.
in the reaper, at least my view is that accessibility in software is something still in progress. I would have to adapt somehow all the hsc's that I use in sonar for the reaper and that would give me some work.
in earlier versions of jaws, some osara shortcut keys give some conflict. I would really like to work with nvda, but since I use kontakt a lot for almost everything, it would not be feasible to replace the hotspotclicker with the golden cursor, which works much simpler and more limited.
in short, if these new versions had a certain accessibility, it would be interesting for those who have the concern of using legalized software. the impression that remains is that the cakewalk is still broken from the legs. offer a software that renowned that has a great story in the audio scene now completely free seems strange to me.

2018-04-13 12:35:43 (edited by flackers 2018-04-13 13:09:03)

Yeah for blind users, unless you have the means to do some serious scripting, it's pretty useless.
I too am stuck on 8.5 with CakeTalking scripts. It still does everything I need for the time being, and all my favourite plugins have a ton of jaws scripts done for them, so the motivation to change isn't strong enough at this point to fully get used to using Reaper. Something important will have to stop working, or something I really want will have to not be compatible with such an old DAW to give me the motivation to do the work needed to get Reaper working as well as Sonar does for me at this time.

2018-04-15 13:42:00

I jumped ships and haven't looked back.  I used Sonar 8.5.3 when I had vision but was on x3 when I lost it.

The problem with using SOnar is that there are a lot of issues regarding  compatibility, and with Jaws, being a system hungry screen reader,   that, and let's face it, the price tag for the scripts, Jaws, and everything else in between, I just can't or couldn't justify  it all.

When Sonar X1 or so came out, the  DAW was ridden with bugs,   infact, there are some functions that I found to work better in 8.5.3 than in the x versions, but  I figured I'd work with what I do for now.   

Truth be known though, only time will tel when we can expect something out of this new  situation, and  as of right now, I have no plans of going back to Sonar.

My Solo album, "A Life Seen Through Broken Eyes", available now:
iTunes Spotify YouTube
My YouTube Channel