dubdisciple

6 minutes ago, Christian Jones said:

That'd be the legal side of it. But one could argue that there was still a moral obligation there when Meng slammed that home when he himself said:

"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"

He was obviously overly optimistic there, and of course no expressed promise was made there, but he said what he said and one could argue that BandLab, in soon charging for their future flagship, is now not standing by their word, or at least the "steadfast goal" they set for themselves and us. 

I don't feel like BandLab owes me for the Lifetime Updates I bought. For the rec I'm not so much pissed at the lost money as I am at being taken by Gibson's final Cakewalk grift - something Gibson pulled knowing that ultimately they wouldn't be honoring it for long. 

And with Meng coming in and applying sav to that burn w/ that "steadfast goal".. we can understand how one could be pissed at BandLab right now. I'm not. I got way worse s#!t going down in my life to care. 

But probably no one should buy (into) anymore 'Lifetime' or 'Steadfast Goal' bs, and that is what that is. 

I think everyone should be rightfully pissed at gibson since they knowingly took that lifetime fee while knowing they were folding

I double checked. Bandlab didn't acquire rights to cakewalk until months after they were dead. It was a resurrection rather than an acquisition that continued business.

22 minutes ago, Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann said:

Because when you acquire something that has liabilities/debt attached to it you normally have the obligation to meet those liabilities

Note: in bankruptcy proceedings a judge may discharge some of that liability and, depending on the situation, determine if the party losing their rights should get some compensation but I don't think that happened in this case

If I'm not mistaken, they acquired cakewalk after it had folded, rather than while it was active. It was dead and bandlab revived rather than took it over. I think that is a huge difference in expectations for honoring previous agreements

10 hours ago, Moskus said:

As stated by others, pricing is everything!

I would recommend going the route of Davinci Resolve. It has a "free version" which works great and has like 99% of the features, but if you really want the advanced (and cool!) stuff you need the "Studio" version. Which is a one time payment, no subscription.

And please keep your price reasonable.

As an owner of paid version of resolve, i can say the reason they can do that is because (like Digidesign in the early days of pro tools) is a hardware company selling software as gateway to high margin hardware. You can tell software is more of a hook Than main income source. I do think it's a q better deal than most, but possible because of unique position 

27 minutes ago, Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann said:

Nowadays most DAWs come with a bundle of plugins and tools. I have purchased a few DAWs just for the included plugins, Reason is probably the best example of a product that people may want to buy for what it includes, no matter if Reason is their primary DAW or not.

I've heard newcomers sometimes regretting not having purchased Sonar when it was available, because of the bundled items that were not included in CbB (not just 3rd party but CW plugins like Dimension Pro, Rapture, etc). When Sonar gets resurrected as a paid product, maybe that will open up the doors for including a nice bundle of plugins again and e.g., reviving and revamping the CW plugins that have been languishing in limbo.

Speculation: Perhaps that would be an easier transition from free to paid, making it freemium where the bare DAW is free, but not the better versions with bundled products

oh, and I agree with the principle that lifetime subscribers to Sonar should not have to pay a new subscription (or a fixed price)

Please help me to understand why you think Bandlab should pay for Gibson's mistake? 

11 hours ago, Nick Blanc said:

I'm surprised that something like Renoise hasn't gained much tracktion (ha!), being a modern tracker with VST support. For only $75. I'm sure all of us 80s-90s kids can still read hexidecimal.

Renoise did get a little attention, but hardware ones seem to making a mini-comeback. The downside of software trackers are that they don't offer the freedom from computers that hardware offers.

2 hours ago, Zo said:

Dan make a great point , but i think his video is dangerous for non educated people ... and i think even he , was kinda off ...

i discovered since years that a great digital eq can reproduce 90 % of analog ones but the real question is would i have made those curves without A/B and the answers was abvious ....and why greaat manalog eq or eq s that bring workflow enhancement (claro ect ...) are alwkays worth ... and i ll’ take my 1081 , 32c or pultec over my pro Q 3 in a lot of scenarios ....beacuse on a kik it take me 3 sec , on a snare , 3 sec ect .... and the results are here ....

 

i do think analog eq are really pedagogical  and fulll digital eq s are for more advanced users that understand their role .

I don't think he was so much saying digital and analog made no difference but debunking Harrison's exaggerations.  From a workflow stance, i think the simplicity of the default curves are more beneficial than anything unique about sound. I agree that analytical youtubers like him and other plugin doctor types often nitpick over minor things. I have not used Harrison's but other similar plugins i have found quite useful ,even if the hype is somewhat hyperbole from a technical stance. If i can get the melda plugins to sound close to the UAD ones, good enough. Cheers

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

What bothers you most about subscription? It's essentially a pay as you go lease model and is beneficial for those who can't justify putting down a lumpsum of cash at one time...
 

When phrased that way it doesn't sound so bad, but that highly depends on the model. I think Sonar's old model was better than most in that it allowed you to keep what you had paid for. Most don't.  Also, your response in some ways answers the question in part. Just like leasing something like a car is not for everyone, leasing benefits certain types of customers.  Leasing is awesome for a person who needs to be in the newest version at all times but not so much for the guy who is cool with the car that is paid off and runs well.  Although it's true we never truly own software, the standard model at least gives the perception of ownership 

Another thing that is "bad" for some people about subscription models is the forced upgrade vs stability.  The pricing is often compared with the assumption that people upgrade annually. Some people skip multiple upgrades if their current system is stable and the upgrades are heavily loaded with features they don't use. Sometimes the same individual can fit on both sides of that equation at different points.  When I was regularly doing video production, motion graphics and photography, the adobe subscription wasn't too bad and it paid for itself. When I found myself doing less video work, it was just a costly bill that was not worth it. Davinci Resolve was a much better deal for me and for some is a better product with the exception of Photoshop.  In any case, I have saved hundreds ditching Adobe.  My fear is the lack of choice for subscription model. For me that is a definite dealbreaker.

3 minutes ago, Bapu said:

 

Notepad++ is awesomly superb.

Notepad with Lifetime Subscription is what's up

For those still salty about the lifetime license fiasco, do you really think Bandlab owes you this when it had nothing to do with them? They bought a dead product . Cakewalk literally folded and they purchased after that. It's like bugging a guy who lives in the house of a guy who owed you money. 

Still not working 

There are a number of products that started free and went to paid. Typically there was a leap in what was offered

12 minutes ago, craigb said:

I'm sticking with Notepad!!!

Notepad XL is better!

2 hours ago, User 905133 said:

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. 😜 

I agree that this forum has always attracted people who think everything should be free and will take any chance they can to rationalize borderline piracy. In this case though, the wounds of "lifetime subscription" never healed.  Logically that was the misstep of a totally different company, but still stings. My concern is one of pure pragmatism. I am a longtime Cakewalk user who paid for many editions.  Sonar was often innovative and were early to have features like channel strips, ARA intergration and analog emulation.  DAWs have since caught up in those areas and have always handled issues like sampling better.  A paid version of Cakewalk would have to outshine a lot of competition both paid and free.  Pro Tools is still pro tools. Logic has Mac crowd locked. Ableton and FL Studio have tight grip on EDM and hip-hop crowd, along with not exactly full DAWs like Maschine and MPC.  Reaper is also a powerful option for powerful low cost ( and some count as free) option. Not to mention the slight resurgence of hardware trackers and workstations. 

I do give Bandlab a bit of a chance because they have a large base of cakewalk and bandlab users. Unfortunately that base, particularly the bandlab base are used to free. The ones that are willing to pay likely already own other paid DAWs.

I love PA but the game of when to buy because the best price is hard to predict from week to week. 

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

I'm an educator . I signed up

1 hour ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I'm starting to think about the same idea but for Harrison plugins.

Dan Worrall has already shown that ReaEQ nulls with the harrison channel strip 

My initial response to this was, "why should i bother when i have no interest in subscribing?" and then I had a thought.  I wonder if in 3 months I can get some of these plugins to null in my melda products?  If I succeed with even one, it may be worth it.  One thing I have discovered about Melda products is that with a lot of patience and technical know how, you can get them to sound damn close to other products.  

I think some of these are as good or better(the comp diode jumps out) than UAD equivalents 

I got a crossgrade price of only 99. Considering the few Arturia fx that I have were freebies, the price was more than fair.  So far, I have one big regret. These have made a lot of plugins I have collected obsolete and I feel like I have a bunch of hard drive filler.  These plugins are the truth and I have to redo a lot of templates.

The fact that I am not sure if i already own this is a sign i should not be looking at these sales 😂

I purchased a few years ago. I tried for free and went back and donated

Just a reminder that although this can be had for free, you can set a price to show your appreciation. I think this is a one man operation.

Loom is one of the best low cost synths available