Third Take

Don’t buy the MP3 Activation…

Thank you for contacting Cakewalk Technical Support.

Mp3 encoding directly out of SONAR is not currently available for the
x64 platform. The activator is not activator the mp3 export options
because it is not compatible with x64. The encoder that SONAR uses is
a third party encoder. It has not yet been updated for x64. Also mp3
encoding on x64 in general appears to be in the beta stage. It is not
known when mp3 encoding will be available for SONAR 6 on the x64
platform. There may be some third party software encoders available
on the web, however we are not aware of any official releases.

MP3 encoding works just fine in my ancient copy of SoundForge XP 4.5 running on x64, but Sonar 6 can’t do it - even if you buy the plugin.

(UPDATE: I wrote a tutorial about Sonar MP3 encoding with LAME.)

Acoustic guitar is one of the most difficult instruments to record. I haven’t come close to mastering the art, but I have figured some things out along the way that I think are worth passing on to other home recorders. Some of these are sure to be controversial, and other people may have had great results with other techniques. However, after reading everything I could find and applying it in my own home studio, this is what has worked for me. Read more

In the last month, Toontrack has not only released a software update for EZ Drummer (now version 1.1.0), but also a couple of weird new EZX drum libraries - a hip-hop library called Claustrophobic and a weird “Twisted” drumkit with trashcans, hubcaps, and other oddities.