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The Fine Print II: Updates Released for Cakewalk's SONAR Platform

Here’s an excerpt from Cakewalk CTO Noel Borthwick’s report on the new features that exist in Cakewalk’s SONAR 8.3 and SONAR V-Studio 700 1.1 updates.  To view the entire discussion, Visit the Cakewalk Forums.

We’re happy to see so many of you enjoying SONAR 8.3. I know some of you enjoy the trivia that goes into a release so here is the unabridged version of what went into SONAR 8.3 aka “the making of SONAR 8.3” aka the 8.3 fine print. If details aren’t what you like wading through, just go ahead and enjoy using the product and skip this – what you don’t know wont hurt you 🙂

Disclaimer: This text is not an official Cakewalk endorsement of any features in 8.3 and has not been officially proof checked for accuracy, so I reserve the right to edit the content at will. The sole purpose is to provide more detail on the depth of some of the features in 8.3 that some of you have requested and to hopefully answer some common questions.

8.3 was a particularly intense point release for us and everyone involved spent a lot of long hours and effort to make this happen. Special thanks go out to our beta testers on this who spent long hours trying out all the new risky stuff. Posts from beta testers and Cakewalk engineers going into the wee hours of the morning attest to some of the dedication in this cycle.

As most who have been our customers awhile may know, the typical Cakewalk product lifecycle goes somewhat like this:
– We work on a major release
– Post release we typically do a quick minor point release to address any immediate or urgent issues that might arise
– We then hibernate a bit and do a major point release that makes some feature improvements and addresses any old or new issues that are common customer complaints.
– The cycle repeats

This time around when it was time to do our point release we wanted to continue working on the optimization theme we started in S8, but also revisit some common complaints and workflow issues with some of our existing features that needed some TLC. So we identified the following broad areas that we needed to work on in 8.3:

1. External Insert Improvements
2. Optimization and multi-core enhancements
3. VS-700 updates
4. New/Enhanced Features
5. Bug fixes
6. New content

Read Noel’s Fine Print In Full at Cakewalk.com

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More Sounds, Features, & Better Performance in SONAR 8 & V-Studio 700 Updates

Cakewalk today announces free updates for SONAR 8 Producer, SONAR 8 Studio, and SONAR V-Studio 7.

The updates, for Windows XP and native Vista (32bit and 64bit), are available as FREE downloads to registered SONAR 8 and SONAR V-Studio 700 customers.

The SONAR 8.3 update adds classic Roland sample content for Dimension Pro and Dimension LE, drum kits for Session Drummer 2 and new usability enhancements and engine optimizations. The SONAR 8.3 update also addresses performance issues reported by customers after the initial release of SONAR 8.

Sound On Sound highlights a few of the latest improvements to SONAR 8 including Snap Presets, an External Insert facility and new content for Dimension Pro and Session Drummer 2.

Additionally, since the initial Winter NAMM update announcement, numerous enhancements are now included in a version 1.1 software update for SONAR V-Studio 700 and a firmware update for its onboard Fantom VS hardware synthesizer.

Click on the following links to download the SONAR 8.3 Update and SONAR V-Studio 700 1.1 updates.