Lee D

Totally agreed on the loss leader theory. But loss leader for what? This is what I'm pondering. And full transparency, I have used Sonar in the past but currently don't because I prefer another DAW. But Sonar is wonderful, especially for free. I'd like to see it and Bandlab do very well, and I'd certainly consider trying something innovative in the future. So I'm more of a spectator at this time, not an ungrateful recipient

I guess that's theoretically possible that they are doing it as advertising and PR to sell more of their other products. But that can't be the only driver. . . that would be a lot of money and effort just to get their brand visibility up. Now, if their other products integrate with the free CbB better than the competition, that's a different story.

I agree that CbB is more than enough to create professional music (other than VST instruments, of which there are zillions of cheap / free options and zillions more not-so-cheap options anyway). And I don't think there's any better free option right now available. What I was actually wondering though is how Bandlab is going to monetize CbB. I'm thinking about it more from the business perspective. That's on the assumption that they acquired it to help them make more money in the long run, which may be incorrect. Perhaps they are doing it as something charitable. Assuming it's to make more money, then at some point they will either need users to pay or advertisers to pay for something. I'm just trying to figure out what that would look like. I don't think they could release Cakewalk as a paid product as-is and make much money off of it (as was shown by Sonar's predecessors). So they are going to have to innovate and maybe introduce something disruptive to the market.

Yeah I can definitely see them differentiating themselves by having projects on the cloud where you can collaborate with other users. I think they will need to release a few "unified" instruments and effects for this to happen. A subscription fee could then be charged to be able to create music in this way. That would be very interesting.

K you win.

That's fair if they want to run it that way. I was just curious, you figure they have some plans for the future. Many businesses are happy when people want to know more about them and their plans... I figure Bandlab is probably one of them because they are based online.

Humble? That's what they call unsolicited off-topic opinions nowadays? Can the folks who don't have anything constructive to add please just ignore this thread and move on? I didn't create this topic to get your opinions on whether it's a valid topic.

Sorry, I should have checked with you. What criteria should I be using to determine if something "really matters"?

Maybe they'll provide some info at Summer NAMM then...

There was a lot of excitement when it was purchased by Bandlab and made free. But it's gotten very quiet now in terms of commentary by Meng. Just curious if there's any details of how Cakewalk is going to fit into Bandlab's business or generate revenue going forward, or a planned timeline?

Which is better?

Hmmm 80% off is like $20 and you get 3 free new synths. I am not familiar with any of their stuff. . . is it not worth that price?

Does it compare favorably to Addictive Drums 2? I have Addictive Drums 2 but don't really like it because I feel like building a drum track with it is a painful exercise, and the ability to customize the rhythms is not very good.

My plan is to upgrade every 2 version updates unless they drop the upgrade price. $199 each time is pretty pricey for 4 extra synths in my opinion. I upgraded from 5 to 7. . . totally worth it.

If they put the full one on sale at some point (I only own the light version) is it worth the purchase?

Man I am having a tough choice on this. I have Halion 6 already and I'm tempted to pick up Kontakt as well because of the expandability and the availbility of free libraries. But then I'm thinking that I probably have everything I really need as far as instruments in what's included with Halion 6, and can layer and tweak as necessary. WHY IS IT SO TEMPTING????

I just upgraded but I got an email saying they're having a glitch and I'll get my license email in a day or two. No biggie. I'm upgrading from V5 so I reckon it's worth it.

I am using 13 and I think it looks great actually!

I bought directly from Steinberg. I also like the idea of Steinberg getting the majority of the money versus paying a middleman, since in theory that's more money for them to spend on development (or marketing to get more users to get more money for development). Or more likely. . . more profit for Yamaha executives!

Yeah I'm not sure how much of the home market they have. Their $99 "Elements" version is pretty compelling for the budget home crowd though. I think they'll start packaging more with the Artist version to make it a little more competitive as well. But I don't think they'll be heavily discounting the Pro version anytime soon again.

I'm not so sure. I don't think they'll offer 50% off new licenses again anytime soon. It devalues the product if done often and then people are going to think that even the upgrade price is too high. I think this is an exceptional thing they're doing to steal back a bunch of market share and maybe get some extra income, and also to get a bigger pool of people paying for upgrades in the future. Also those people are more likely to buy other Steinberg products now that they already have the dongle, especially if they integrate well with Cubase. I suspect Studio One and Reason have much smaller market share, and therefore can't command the premium that the market leaders like Cubase get. Their feature sets don't really exceed what Steinberg offers, so they have to compete on price/value.

Sounds like a better way to go

Is this worth the extra money compared to a freebie like Loudmax or Limiter No 6?

I have to say it looks pretty awesome and innovative. Yeah the price is a little high but that's typical with plugins. . . they always set the plugin price high for early adopters and then drop it during sales. I most likely will pick up a copy, assuming it comes with a lot of samples as well (since I don't have my own samples).

@Squonk you gotta provide more info than that to really get useful feedback. Please describe the steps you're going through and provide as much detail as possible.