Hi guys, just wondering if anyone's used cakewalk sonar for live backing tracks with IEMs as well. I want to get into the world of playback engineers and i was just wondering what i could do with what i have at the moment. Thanks in advance!

All input welcome!

I currently use next. It is quite simple, but the choice leaves a little to be desired.

Can anyone recommend sonar, what are it's perks, how long did it take you to learn?

Thank you!

So I’ve been using Cakewalk Sonar for almost a year and it’s been a fine DAW for what I’m doing but just over the weekend I started getting cracks and pops randomly in my recordings. I’ve worked through the help section online and updated drivers and buffering speeds etc…still getting pops and cracks. I’m using an older Presonus itwo interface and a Shure SM57 mic for my recordings.

Wondering if anyone else has resolved this issue or if it’s a sound card problem on my laptop? I’m leaning sound card but before I start looking at a new laptop etc I just wanna be sure.

When i change my buffer speed and sample rate the pops change locations on the playback. They even appear in my exported files.

I’ve doomed in on the wave forms and there’s no indication that it’s the recording itself.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

Apologies if this is a dumb question or not possible, I'm still fairly new to using DAWs including Cakewalk Sonar. I am on 2026.10 Build 021, X64 on the free version if that matters here.

I haven't found anything relating to my issue online yet, but essentially I want to change what currently happens when I double click the top ribbon of a MIDI clip in track view.

I could have sworn before I updated that double clicking the top of the clip would move the Now Time bar to the beginning of that clip and also open Piano Roll and everything would be lined up, ready to go at the beginning of said clip.

Now, when I double click the top banner of a MIDI clip, it does open Piano Roll, but the Now Time stays exactly where it's at and I have to zoom in on my project and exactly line up my click so it moves to the beginning, which if you're doing this a thousand times, it gets incredibly repetitive and disrupting. I again am on the free version so I can't rollback an update.

Is there a way to change any settings to bring this behavior back if possible? I'd really appreciate any insight or help here. Thank you!

Newbie here, just switched from BandLab to Cakewalk Next, and i cant seem to find the option to change the scale on an instrument? Like, on BandLab it was right there on the piano roll

I can't find anything on the User Manual, and Google just keeps saying to use the "Track Inspector on the View menu" but theres no such option on the menu? Or to use the 'Virtual MIDI Controller' but the scale just changes back to C Major when i close it.

Something to note is that since i'm on the free plan, theres some updates i couldn't download. Is it possible that changing the scale is locked behind a paywall?

I'd really appreciate the help here, im very confused

OK, So cakewalk just got a new update, and as far as I can tell it added a bunch of bandlab instruments to cakewalk. I have NO idea what's going on or how to explain it, so watch the beautifully put together reenactment of figuring this out that's attached. To give my best try at explaining, the bandlab midi controller that comes with the bandlab update seems to also control the other bandlab controlled instruments, but its conditional, idk what the connection is, but the midi from other instruments bleeds onto whatever trach you have selected. mind the god awful sounds you will hear, i was experimenting lol. Love and thank yous yo whoever comments with advise or explanation <3

Hi- I've never composed music or used Cakewalk before, so this is probably super basic, but I can't figure this out. I've got one drum from one drum kit I want to use, and another couple drums from a different kit- I want them to play at the same time, but right now they switch to entirely one drum kit or the other depending on which I've got selected. How do I get them to use the seperate drums? I've attached a video since I'm aware I have no idea how to properly explain this

So I was working on a new project for almost two hours straight.

Then, the message “An unexpected error caused Next to close” was suddenly displayed.

I had not manually saved my project beforehand. This may be a lesson learned for future projects… but I feel like the situation isn’t exactly justified. Even if I had forgotten to save my work, the software crashing was unexpected and wasn’t supposed to occur.

I’ve already contacted technical support to see if they can somehow help me with the issue. They already replied saying that project recovery is unlikely because I had not enabled autosave nor backups, but that they will verify the dump file to see if they can do anything about it.

This project meant a lot to me so it’s why I’m so insisting with it. I had nearly an entire song crafted. The thought that I have lost everything is, well, terrible.

Do you guys have any recommendations or suggestions about the likelihood of project recovery? If it’s possible at all? Where I can find it? I’ve been hours looking through my files and nothing shows up. I’ve even resorted to file recovery apps/websites, but I either have to pay or the actual file isn’t fully available.

Thank you in advance.

Will this make a difference in my final sound, or is it just a matter of preference? I've been wondering the same thing when deciding between using track FX vs the ProChannel when it comes to compression and EQ. I am a few weeks into using Sonar and I am still kinda confused about when to use which, or what the ProChannel actually even is.

im trying to find some saw synths

If anyone has advice on getting Sonar to play nice with Behringer ADAT, help a home studio amateur out 🙏🏻

I've been working with Cakewalk Sonar (Free Tier) for a while and I've noticed today a pop-up that says "The saving option is disabled until Sonar is reactivated", so I decided to do all the updating and signing up process on the Product Center, but I just keep getting this pop-up after countless times of reopening! Is there anything I can do or do I have to pay money I don't have yet?

Please note that Sonar Premium and Sonar Free Tier have been updated to 2026.10 Build 03

Update via Cakewalk Product Centre.

Please note:

Driver Mode is now under Preferences > Audio > Devices

Previously, this was under Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording

Pan Law and Dim Solo are now exclusively reside in the new project Inspector view.

For more information about this and the many other enhancement, please read the release notes.

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/topic/97690-current-release-sonar-202610/

PARTIALLY RESOLVED!!

Turns out i just needed to press CTRL + CTRL to reset the CTRL bug but i could not tell you what is causing it.

Hey so Ive been using cakewalk for a while now but I got a new laptop and well whenever I use cakewalk not only do the keyboard shortcuts not work properly (for example now instead of R being for record it selects/deselects all of the tracks i have open for recording, and it selectively chooses when to record upon pressing R. Or in general it just chooses which keybinds it wants to let me use. I tried any available shortcuts recommended to me in the keybind area of the preferences section but it actually doesn’t change anything.

One persistent problem I’ve been having though is that after using Cakewalk, if i may want to save my file and name it, or even if i close Cakewalk and wanna use a browser for example it doesn’t let me type, it presumes that I have CTRL held down with everything I think, as every key I press just acts as a shortcut, like I type Z and it’ll delete a tab in my browser, whatnot).

The only way I’ve been able to resolve this is through resetting the laptop every time.

I only use Cakewalk to sing btw and my CTRL button is 100% not broken.
Hopefully someone knows wtf is happening it feels like such an obvious issue with an obvious solution yet I’ve been searching for answers for a while now and found no one else with the same issue, or at least not the same solution.

repost, if that helps

i added some custom effects on my track in bandlab, and i wanna do the mastering in cakewalk sonar. if i imported my work from bandlab, are the effects still there? or maybe i should export it to .wav first?

(edit: im a vocalist guys i really dont know how to use instruments)

cause i finallly bought a proper microphone so that i wont have to rely on using my phone anymore, was thinking of getting FL because i wouldnt really need to record on my phone. now i see that the parent company of bandlab has a pc daw that can be installed so, i've been thinking of switching to cakewalk.

How similar is it compared to bandlab, and is the switch worth it?

im coming from soundtrap to cakewalk, and i only use the piano roll. (which was hell in itself to find with the horrid tutorials out there) and i have been searching on how to highlight notes that are in a specific scale (as shown in first image on soundtrap). i have found out that aparently this is impossible and i have to use snap to scale insteast. which all the tutorials i have found are not for the piano roll. is this also impossible? are there free addons that can do this for me? am i out of luck? any and all help is appreciated.

My dad got a new laptop today and upon trying to sign in to cakewalk he doesn't know his password from 2019 (shocking)

I heard somewhere the password reset system is defunct but I know nothing about cakewalk, I'm only savvy with computers.

Thought I'd ask here as: When In Doubt, Ask Reddit.

Does Cakewalk have tools like manual EQ or compressor ? Not just random FX presets ?

Can you retake vocals as much as you want without paying for premium ?

In terms of audio quality, is it loud enough ? Not compressed for web/mobile app ?

I don't know if what I am calling virtual keyboard has a specific name in Cakewalk Sonar. I would like not to have the letters of the keyboard corresponding to each music virtual keyboard shown, because it is confusing to me - A on a c note, S(i) that is B in Italian on a D, D on an E and so on. Is there a way to turn off these letters on the music keyboard? thanks

OK, for reasons that are a long story, I need to record approx 15 tracks of vocals in about10 days. I switched to Cakewalk because my copy of REAPER is fried (and I haven't used it in a while, again, personal reasons, long story).

I just need to record the vocals, I'll build the rest of the songs around them later. Here is the stuff that I think is relevant:

1) I am using a behinger U-phoria plugged directly into my laptop.

2) I need to be able to run something in my headphones at the same time to keep me in rythm and key.

3) When I tried to get REAPER to work, I got terrible lag and echo. (I think, it seemed like it was randomly slowly my vocals and did this thing that made it sound like I was stuttering.)

Please, I just need to know the easiest, most direct way to record vocals into Cakewalk, and I can build the rest of the tracks around them later.

Thanks very much in advance.

Hey all! I'm a bass player and looking for some decent free plugins. We're talking compressors, distortion, chorus etc. Any recommendations?