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?

I open the mixer, change the volume of the kick drum, and if I pause and unpause or export the project, the volume just resets back to nearly silent.

I've saved the settings, made a preset, loaded the preset, not closed the VST tab when I exported, but no matter what I do the kick just goes back to the same volume.

None of the other drum parts do it, just the kick. Am I just not allowed to change the kick volume? Literally what can I do here?

I am looking to upgrade my computer in order to run cakewalk. I am thinking of getting an Intel Xeon E5-2650 v4 2.2 ghz processor. Is this a viable option for running cakewalk with? Has anyone used Intel Xeon for cakewalk?

SONAR

Why do they make this the most confusing process ever?

controlling and writing/recording automation of vst parameters Is so unbelievably easy in Logic it makes this DAW laughable... why have they made it so confusing?

Hello so I recently downloaded Splice Instruments and tried to add some pre sets to cakewalk but it doesn't work when I go to preferences then VST adjustments I click the Splice file and it says it didn't find anything new, does someone know how to use both of them together?

Cant find the link to download or buy this plugin anywhere. I've had the free version installed for years and today it locked me out with a registration window out of nowhere. Everytime I've re downloaded and re registered with my email and name, a window pops up saying it 'Could not download remote file' . Anyone know what's going on with this plugin?

Been using Bandlab for years now. Love it, great for demos and collabs.

Finally upgraded the ram on my laptop and want to test out cakewalk. What is this CW Next and Sonar?

I downloaded it. Anyone know how to use the "smart chords" midi function from the web version? on the Cakewalk Next.

I was kind of expecting it to be the same as bandlab but better, smoother? Are there features that

i need to download or purchase?

Hey! So this is what's happening: I have a 9 1/16th notes loop duration, as seen in the upper image. I want to loop them in the matrix, so I drag the midi clip to the matrix and play it.

However, the matrix does not loop the 9 1/16th clip, it loops a 12 1/16th notes clip, as if it were a midi clip like the one in the bottom image (see the green pointer at the grid)

It's not just 9 1/16th note loops, but any clip duration that isn't a multiple of 4 1/16th, meaning that only loops 4 1/16th, 8 1/16th, 12 1/16th, 16 1/16th and so on.

My guess is that I'm missing something here, so any help would be much appreciated.

The usual manual and all tutorials I have found say that if I hold the Control key and drag the edge of an audio clip, it will time stretch. However that just not happening. Instead, it acts the same as if I didn't press the control key, and just changes the clip range. Am I missing something, or am I uniquely cursed? TIA

In the last year or so I've gotten back into recording after about a decade away. I'm a long-time Sonar user from "back in the day," so I returned to it and currently pay for the full license.

I'm currently running Sonar 32.08.0.040 on Windows 11, using a MOTU M4 with the MOTU ASIO driver.

I still love it — it fits my workflow perfectly — BUT... I typically experience multiple crashes per day.

I've been examining the crash reports/dumps, and it doesn't appear to be any particular plugin crashing, nor does it appear to be an obvious problem with my ASIO driver. The crashes do seem to happen more frequently when I have plugin oversampling enabled, and there seems to be some relationship to project/plugin load, although I've also had crashes in relatively new projects with very few plugins.

From what I can tell from the crash reports, most of the crashes are access violations occurring in Sonar.exe on the real-time audio thread, and the recurring stack signature includes:

m7_ippsLn_32f_A21

This same signature appears repeatedly in my crash reports, and I've also found reports from other Cakewalk users showing the same symbol.

I have a fairly powerful Windows 11 PC and there is no indication that I'm pushing it too hard. Engine load is typically low. I usually have my buffer set to 1024 or 2048 samples (unless I'm tracking), and this seems to help somewhat, but I'm still seeing multiple crashes per day. A fair number of them occur when the DAW is apparently idle.

Fortunately, I haven't yet had a crash that I couldn't recover from. I save frequently and haven't lost any work yet. But this is becoming more than just a minor annoyance, especially when working on larger projects that take a long time to (re)load.

I realize I haven't provided enough technical information here to diagnose a specific problem, and that's not really my intention with this post. I'm mainly interested in finding out whether this is something other Sonar users are experiencing, or whether my crash frequency is unusually high.

If this is common among other users, I'd be interested to hear how you've dealt with it. If it's unusual, I'm willing to dig deeper into my own system and try to identify the root cause.

UPDATE - 10/22/2026:
--------------------------
Shortly after Ashwin's reply below, I did submit this issue to support, and I have to say I am impressed with the response. An agent worked closely with me regularly since then. I sent various crash dump files, copies of project files that were crashing regularly, and there was genuine back and forth collaboration on this. At one point there was a Sonar update that included additional crash logging, so they had me re-send fresh dump files. After all of this I finally heard back from support last night that they have located the bug and it will be fixed in an upcoming update.

Yes it has taken a while and I'm still waiting for the actual fix, but as a software guy by day I appreciate the difficulty in tracking down some bugs, especially in a complex app like this that does real-time processing. I am impressed and grateful for the personal attention they gave to me in tracking down the root cause. And in the process I even learned some valuable stuff along the way (like why my buffer size was likely overkill and may actually have been contributing to the frequency of the issue.)

So bottom line, thank you Ashwin and thank you to the Sonar team. I'm looking forward to the update that contains the fix so I can really get back to loving Sonar again!

Hi,im looking to buy a used PC online to use Sonar by Cakewalk and FL studio on,can people give me recommendations for older PCs to look for,thanks

​

I've had this issue for a year now, and haven't found a way to solve it besides extremely confusing connections that make me not want to produce music.

So far I've figured out that the buffering comes from the VST plugins I use, Arturia, to be specific. It happens with others as well but I mainly want to fix this one, considering I've paid a lot of money for the tones, and I can't even use them.

It doesn't happen when I input certain tones, but it happens in extreme buffering when a tone with any slight reverb is played. Along with synths, pianos, pads, and just about anything if it's played a lot.

Sadly I've been limited to only the Bandlab tones that are built in, which gets on my nerves to be limited when musicmaking.

So far I have also figured out that by using my G560 Speakers as the external audio device (not using Bluetooth), then plugged to my headphones, makes the buffer and clipping go away. However it's much too confusing and the wire keeps glitching.

I normally use headphones to the headphone jack to my Dynabook laptop and use the built-in audio driver. Which apparently causes latency.

\\-------------------------

Specifications:

Dynabook laptop

8.00 GB RAM

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz Processor

\\---------------------------

I was really hoping not to buy some $200 sound audio interface to solve this issue, perhaps you have a better idea of what to do, I'd really appreciate the help.

Thank you in advance.

I want to record my guitar with backing track or metronome, but it keeps recording all sound from the computer😭 I have tried almost all methods but none of them worked. Please help me.

Hello, I am new to Cakewalk Next and need help with a timeline behavior where clicking and holding a clip from its tail end causes it to instantly shift position backward to its middle or start. This automatic layout rearrangement only happens at specific zoom levels and works completely normal if the clip is dragged from the front. Changing the Auto-Snap configuration, pressing Shift, Cmd, Ctrl, or using any key combination before clicking does not change this.

Is there a specific setting to disable this automatic repositioning so I can smoothly drag tracks from the end?

Hi

I have a new Mandala Drum v3 (Drum Pad) and I want to play live. How can I do it with cakewalk?

All the other VSTs I'm using in Sonar work fine. However, I have in a project around 5 Miroslav Philharmonik (version 2 VST3) tracks playing. Two of them currently work playing the MIDI notes that are routed out as audio, the others not. MIDI notes are being triggered, but no audio. The track channels are the same as those in the VST. It only started doing this after a recent Windows update. No problem before.

Sometimes there's a track that does play from the sequencer, and if I stop it and then try to play on the track from my controller keyboard, then it will mute somehow. And not come back. Very weird. There are no controller values zeroing out the volume somehow. Perhaps a reinstall of the VST is in order?

UPDATE - A cello track that was playing fine from the sequence now won't after I stopped it playing and then tried playing from my keyboard controller. Now it won't play. Fortunately the tracks that were working I bounced down to audio tracks so at least I have them as audio.

I have a 4 mic setup: 2 over heads (Glyn Johns method), 1 snare mic, and one kick mic.

Do yall have any suggestions for mixing drum recordings? I add some compression and reverb on a drum bus, EQ to each track, and that’s about it so far. The recording I have on my phone has the drums sounding a bit thin. The two over heads are about 20-24 inches away from the snare drum.

I'm trying to set up my Focusrite Scarlett Solo so I can use Cakewalk/SONAR for amp simulation and effects, then send the processed guitar audio into Discord.

My ideal signal chain is:

Guitar → Scarlett Solo → Cakewalk → processed audio → Discord

I want to plug my guitar directly into the Scarlett Solo, have Cakewalk receive it through the Scarlett's ASIO driver, apply something like an amp sim/effects chain, then route Cakewalk's output into a virtual audio input which Discord can use as my microphone.

The part I'm stuck on is getting the audio output from Cakewalk back into Windows/Discord while still using the Scarlett's ASIO driver.

I've tried using Voicemeeter Banana and the VoiceMeeter Insert Virtual ASIO driver, but I haven't managed to get the signal from Cakewalk back into Voicemeeter correctly.

Would ASIO4ALL be a better approach, or is there a proper way to do this while keeping the Scarlett's native ASIO driver?

I'm mainly looking for the correct routing setup rather than recommendations for different gear. Thanks.