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There will be another final CbB release with bug fixes. We're wrapping up the details on that...

On behalf of BandLab Technologies and the Cakewalk team, I’m thrilled to announce the following updates and hope you share our excitement for what's to come! The brand Cakewalk by BandLab is now Cakewalk, standing as an independent brand within BandLab Technologies, focused on delivering the next generation of music production software for desktop. Since BandLab’s acquisition of Cakewalk in 2018, we made it our mission to prioritize stability and performance enhancements to make Cakewalk by BandLab the DAW of choice for Windows users. During that time, we’ve witnessed incredible adoption and an ever-growing user community. These forums remind us that one of the software’s best features is its community, and we’re supremely grateful for the positive engagement we see here daily. In order to build our community further, the Cakewalk brand now encompasses two key products. So we’d like to introduce you to the newest member of the family: Cakewalk Next. Next is a creation-focused DAW, built from the ground up to better address the needs of creators and meet the demands of tomorrow. It’s designed to be easy to use yet powerful, suitable for creators regardless of where they are in their musical journey. Learn more about Cakewalk Next and request participation in the public beta. We can’t wait for you to experience it and share your thoughts! Additionally, we’d like to announce a product with a name that is both familiar and new: Cakewalk Sonar. In deference to the audio production legacy that has been a critical tool of choice for so many over the years, this name reflects our continued commitment to serving core production workflows and providing the best all around audio solution on Windows. Cakewalk Sonar will bear a dramatic UI refresh and carry forward as a new product with ongoing improvements and features. Note that Cakewalk Sonar will install alongside Cakewalk by BandLab and any legacy editions of SONAR you may have installed in the past. New products will be available later this year. These changes also bring a new visual identity, which you’ll be seeing across our products, website and everywhere the Cakewalk brand is represented. Check out some examples of our new logos (below) and more at our redesigned website: www.cakewalk.com. So what lies ahead? Our roadmap is filled with some exciting updates, and we’re just getting started. But in short, our focus remains fixed on enhancing your productivity and joy of music creation. Stay tuned for more news to come!

That's effectively what's happening and I can assure you we have no interest pulling the rug out from CbB users. Please understand that we cannot comment on specifics at this time, as pricing details and options are not yet available. In the meantime, we appreciate your perseverance - stay tuned!

So Cakewalk which became SONAR which became CbB which soon will become Cakewalk's SONAR (again)? Groundhog Day Deja Vu all over again.🤣

I paid for Cakewalk for MS DOS, Cakewalk for Windows and then for Sonar, etc. If the quality is there and the price is within my budget, I would not mind paying again. To be honest, I will be happy if all the malcontented entitled freeloaders drop out from the forum. 😜

That's an entirely different company who no longer exists, so I guess you need to ask Gibson about that rather than Bandlab. There's been a lot of good faith so far with Bandlab allowing compatibility with old products locked to the previous company, and access to old accounts and all of that stuff, so while I wouldn't expect any company to just give away a product that was sold by a completely different company, I'd expect whatever they do to be at least fair.

Next isn't browser based at all. Like many apps today, even CbB, Next will leverage web technology in some places - loops browser and project uploads for example. But the architecture is 100% native desktop code and not a javascript based core like Electron.

Read it here https://www.kvraudio.com/news/bandlab-technologies-reveals-new-brand-vision-for-cakewalk-57991

I hate to say it...and I LOVE Sonar....but at this point, if they start charging me after it being free for so long, I'll use something else.

Theming capabilities will change and there may be little to no customization in the first release of Sonar. That said, a tremendous amount of thought and effort have gone into this rework and we hope that the need for theming will be greatly diminished moving forward. The way that theming works in CbB is tortuous, so we're moving to a simpler, more elegant presentation idiom. The core customization capabilities that are needed most will likely be introduced in the future, but in a far more user friendly way than what's available in the current theme editor.

Oof. Looking forward to them making good on the lifetime license I've already paid for.

As someone who worked very closely on Project 5... I can say that much of the philosophy that went into the design of Project 5 has guided the development of Next. 😉

Yes .wrk and all other Cakewalk extensions currently supported by CbB will continue to open in Cakewalk Sonar!

Personally I'm happy to see Cakewalk get "monetized" again with Next and Sonar. For one thing it creates a revenue stream to sell to a future owner along with the intellectual property should the current owner ever decide to get out of the game for any reason . And while the "stigma" of using a free DAW instead of a "professional" one never bothered me, it will help to restore Cakewalk's reputation as a developer to be reckoned with by all the major players, including plugin and control surface vendors, which will be good for all of us. The king is dead. Long live the king.!

as long as i will not have to learn a brand new DAW system, i'll stick with cakewalk. I'm with them since 25 years! please make the transition effortlessly and don't change the "user experience" too much. Otherwise, if i have to "learn" too much things and have to change my workflow too much, switching to cubase may have added values such as extended compatiblity with external controllers...

Will the old SONAR Lifetime Support/Updates Customer be grandfathered?

I'm sure someone at Gibson will be glad to take your call.

OK... Just finished reading everyone's first responses. I did make a couple of quick replies along the way, but here's my thinking right now. When Gibson dumped us I would gladly have paid for a new version from whoever bought us as I had been paying since the 12Tones days... Instead... Surprise! It's free! So it's been great for years of this advantage. Now to continue it's progress changes are needed and it's going to cost. Oh well, it was nice free, but I'd have to pay someone else as well and there isn't a DAW out there that I prefer to Cakewalk/Sonar. I have an old copy of Studio One and I'm sure I could use it if forced but I'm not comfortable with their interface.... I have others and have had others. I still prefer Cakewalk and I'm thrilled that they're going to continue it's development as Sonar and not transform it into Next! Unless their cost is ridiculous compared to industry value. I will be more than happy to go back to paying for Sonar! ...and my guess is that they might even offer some incentives for existing users to transition? I'm sure many will think this way. I'm quite surprised when I see people speak surprise at a product going from free to paid successfully. It's one of the most tried and true methods I've ever heard of.

Please don't limit us to "Dark Mode" only

It makes Kontakt v6 nag you about upgrading to v7. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/kontakt-6-8.140331/ https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/13823/kontakt-6-8-0-aka-you-got-to-be-kidding-me

Workspaces will remain intact for Sonar.

Even if they give you a free coffee mug and T-Shirt?

It's a completely different company though. Gibson was who owned the Cakewalk brand and charged the price. It was the code that was bought by Bandlab, and hired the dev team that found themselves out of a job when Gibson pulled the plug. We (including me - I paid for lifetime licenses, etc.) paid Gibson this money, not Bandlab. No company is going to go "well we bought the code and released a product but since you gave money to someone else, I guess we'll give our paid product to you as well because the name is similar" - it doesn't make any kind of financial sense. I have no insights at all to what the plans are, but considering the good faith shown since 2017 with compatibility and letting us use locked products with CbB, etc. etc. then I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of fair deal.

>>"Annual" means no expiry / no deactivation after one year, just no further free updates after the year, right? Exactly. We were one of the few companies offering this model even in the SONAR days. How it works is you either pay for 12 consecutive monthly subs OR you purchase a one year subscription upfront. In both scenarios the last months version is permanently unlocked for you and you own it. This is essentially no different than buying an annual version of the software outright. Many people who dislike subscription are unaware that we always did this. Also, an advantage of monthly subscription was that once you crossed the 12 month boundary you could continue consecutive monthly subs for however long as you want and you would always own the last version you paid for. All subs are not bad and are actually better for some people who prefer paying in smaller increments. So definitely read the fine print. Disclaimer: To be clear I'm not saying that this is going to be our model. We're still very much working out the details here. I was quoting how it was done in the SONAR days and saying not all subscription schemes are the same.

Why is no one talking about the paler shade of orange?!

I'm neither surprised nor especially disappointed by this news, I also purchased the 'lifetime licence' back in the day, but I have zero expectation of that being honoured or of receiving a preferential discount. Different company, different times, different business model - it can't always be that sons have to pay for the sins of their fathers. Time to let it go in my view (appreciate others will disagree). An issue for me is consistency, I have put a deal of time and effort recently into learning CbB and establishing a consistent workflow. If I have to re-learn a significantly different product and pay for the privilege, I may as well re-direct that effort into S1 Pro - as I already own a copy. However if the new version remains functionally and visually similar to CbB, then I'm likely to stick rather than twist - as long as the price is right. Wait and see I guess. Andy

Quote from Meng from 5 years ago: "our steadfast goal is that former SONAR owners (of all versions) will not need to spend any money to cross-over/cross-grade to the future flagship product" "Future flagship product" could be taken to mean the Cakewalk by BandLab that has been licensed by free subscription for the past 5 years, but for anyone concerned about having to pay for Cakewalk Sonar, you might cite this if BandLab decide to charge you for the upgrade.

I would agree with you completely Colin, except it is Bandlab's own fault. They make this announcement with no product, pricing or even a time frame that the product will be available. Speculation and histrionics were inevitable.

Anyone else completely out of patience with threads like this? How about you all just wait and see, on features; on pricing; and my god no good deed ever goes unpunished. "I can't believe this fully-featured product is now free! How wonderful" *record scratch* "I can't believe they have the gall to even hint that future updates might involve a transfer of funds! How dare they!" JFC.

Maybe they'll walk it back to the old model a day or two after release of the new model

My hopes: - no subscription. - that there will still be a basic free version of this new Sonar, with very little effects, no instruments, but not other limitations, so that people can still use Sonar as an entry point to the world of DAWs. And then more complete versions bundled with more effects and virtual instruments.

I look at music forums, studying for deals

https://soundpaint.com/products/smiley-drum The player is free and this instrument is free (a few others also on the SoundPaint site)

I'm sure everyone and his Grandma is trying to get the freebie!

Zero changes to compatibility or program function. It will install side by side to Cbb and load all your plugins without needing to even rescan.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/komplete/irish-harp/ For K7 😒

Sonar is built from the identical codebase of CbB so no change there. What's new at least to start with is some new features and a massive revamp of the UI to make it DPI aware so it can run on higher resolution monitors without pixelation. Note that this doesn't change the UX in anyway other than new vector-based graphics and a crisper look. It will be supported and added to in the future unlike CbB which will not get all the latest developments that have gone in since the start of this year.

It would have been cool if Next was a revival of Project 5....

Lars, maybe change the the thread title to BandLab Technologie$ reveal$ new brand vi$ion for Cakewalk

Cakewalk would have to do something revolutionary to convince anyone to pay for it at this point.

No, this is a no-brainer! YEP! t

Congratulations and best wishes for success with the new products. Also, thanks for keeping SONAR/Cakewalk alive, for making improvements over the past several years, and for allowing older users to continue to use Cakewalk by Bandlab in case they cannot make the transition to the new products.

Probably a common sentiment. I want to stay with Cakewalk Sonar as it's what I'm familiar with.. but it really does depend on the pricing. The free updates and new features were lovely while they lasted, but obviously couldn't continue forever... so now we'll need to see how Bandlab value Cakewalk against the competition, and if us old timers who have paid for the product previously get any kind of accommodation. I totally understand the comments about being two different companies, and it would be completely justifiable to start from scratch, but if that happens then personally I'd have a good look round at some of the competition... Having said that, we have to be thankful that Bandlab kept Cakewalk alive, and has continued to invest in it... and has one of the best DAW forums around (which, actually, counts for a lot!)

Next is cross-platform. I'd be surprised if they try the Mac route for Sonar any time soon though. I'd love to see one, mind you! I'm stoked for Sonar, but I think Next is actually the more interesting product out of the two. I have a lot of clients who do recording at home, and people I've introduced to recording that I've set them up with CbB. Having something that opens up the platform to Mac users and beginners is super handy, and integrating it into Bandlab itself is smart - it looks like it's kind of a computer front-end to the Bandlab editor and their sound library, which could mean creating a project in Next, uploading to your Bandlab account and then being able to Browse Bandlab Projects in CbB or Sonar to get those tracks in to keep working in the flagship app.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like they're sunsetting Cakewalk by Bandlab and replacing it with Next and Sonar. You should still be able to use it after they release, it just won't receive any updates.

It is obvious it is for everyone. I am a continuing student of mixing and mastering so I chose Other and explained exactly that. Absolutely nothing wrong/deceptive with taking advantage of this opportunity. Looks like the code won't work until the Webinar is Live per this statement. "When you join us live, you will be given access to Focusrite's FAST Bundle of powerful AI plugins, including FAST Compressor, FAST Equaliser, FAST Reveal, FAST Verb and FAST Limiter, 100% free!"

Wow. Not gonna lie, having the Sonar name back is giving me the warm and fuzzies This is starting to explain the long wait between updates this time!

Save up to 75% off Heavyocity's vast collection of modern scoring tools, effects, Kontakt instruments and Reaktor ensembles. Prices start from £12.95 / $14.50 for a limited time only. https://www.pluginboutique.com/deals/show?sale_id=13459

...... aaaaaand it worked!! Restarting my laptop and opening Cakewalk before anything else seems to have done the trick. Tried opening Youtube and Spotify after that and it still works. So you were right, something must have been hijacking my audio. Turns out you were the Smart Person Of The Forum 😁 Thanks again for your help Tim, and I hope you have a great day!

I updated like an idiot