Following the acquisition of certain assets and the complete set of intellectual property of Cakewalk Inc. from Gibson Brands on 2/23/18, BandLab Technologies announced the relaunch of SONAR as Cakewalk by BandLab - available free-to-download to all BandLab users worldwide.
As of Feb 21st 2018, information elsewhere on this website may no longer be accurate.
Boston, MA, (SEPTEMBER 30, 2016) – Cakewalk, dedicated to powerful and thoughtfully designed software for modern musicians, announces the new SONAR 2016.09 release for SONAR Artist, Professional and Platinum versions. This month’s “Rolling Update” continues Cakewalk's commitment to improving and optimizing SONAR's core functionality, while delivering new world-class technology every month.
SONAR’s new Plug-In Load Balancing option helps users tap into the full power of multi-core CPUs to ultimately achieve greater processing power in projects. To accomplish this, when possible, SONAR now efficiently balances DSP workloads across multiple cores on FX Racks and FX Chains if any of these contain two or more un-bypassed plug-in effects. This results in fewer spikes in the audio engine, as well as the minimizing of audio dropouts that are caused by unbalanced processing loads.
Adding in conjunction the benefits of Plug-in Load Balancing, SONAR now has more helpful and selectable CPU Metering Modes. This update to the Control Bar’s Performance module extends the ability to monitor what’s happening with CPU—including monitoring the global CPU consumption across all cores for all aspects of the OS, audio processing load, and a single meter for SONAR’s total CPU utilization. These meters include:
- Audio Processing: This default mode measures SONAR’s audio processing load, which is the ratio of the actual time taken to process a buffer to the buffer duration.
- System Performance: Displays the global system-wide load across all cores, as reported by the operating system rather than by measuring SONAR’s audio processing load.
- Overall App Performance: Displays a single CPU meter for the entire SONAR process CPU utilization across all cores.
SONAR 2016.09 also includes Quick Group Freezing. In SONAR, a user can free up resources by “freezing” a track to alleviate the amount of CPU power needed by temporarily bouncing down MIDI and audio. Quick Group Freeze now allows users to freeze and thaw multiple tracks at once. This feature combined with the new metering options enables users to better monitor and utilize system recourses.
For more information on the curated improvements and enhancements in this update, please see the free SONAR Membership Release monthly eZine, and visit here to learn more about the new SONAR 2016.09 release as well as see a preview of what’s planned for the near future.
Availability
The SONAR 2016.09 update, a free download from the Cakewalk Command Center, is available to all current SONAR Artist, Professional and Platinum customers. All three SONAR versions are available globally through music and sound retailers, Valve’s Steam Store, and the Cakewalk Store. Please visit www.cakewalk.com for complete version details and localized pricing/availability options from our distribution partners.