Third Take

Cakewalk just announced a special offer to upgrade to Sonar 7 Producer for $129. The special pricing is good until June 29, 2008. It’s a tempting deal, but I’m going to pass for two reasons.

First, I’m in the middle of that big project and I don’t want to risk breaking anything. Sonar 6 PE is working excellently, and I don’t need anything going wrong. I guess I could buy it now and keep it on the shelf until the project is done, except for reason two….

Sonar 7 PE doesn’t work with Windows XP x64. I jumped on the x64 bandwagon for the sole purpose of running Sonar, and I’m a little bitter that Cakewalk dropped official support for it. I’ve heard mixed reports of Sonar 7 working in x64, and I’m not taking any chances.

Upgrading to Vista is not an option at this point. It’s more money, and XP x64 is rock solid for me. There’s no reason to take chances.

However, if you’ve got XP (normal 32-bit) or Vista, this might be a good deal. Keep in mind that in August, Cakewalk usually offers a free upgrade to the forthcoming version when you buy the current one. There’s no guarantee that they’ll do that this year, but they have in the past.