Lee D

3 hours ago, razor7music said:

I agree with the comment that Meng was probably more involved with communicating to this forum and the FB group in the beginning, and now that things seem to be on track and maturing nicely, he's probably stepping back a little because his regular presence isn't really necessary. That's how I've seen other businesses "introduce" new products anyway.

As far as the offering of Cakewalk for free, I'm going to agree that it's really looking a gift horse in the mouth to ask why, when someone gives you a free gift. Think about this: How easy would it be/have been for Bandlab to charge a small monthly fee? Would you pay it? I would. But they don't. Think about that. As a business decision, ever heard of a "loss leader"? That's what businesses do every day to get customers. They reduce the price of a product to get your interest in hopes of you becoming a customer and buying something more. I'm not saying that's what Bandlab is doing. What I'm saying is that people don't think twice when a company offers a special, coupon, etc. Then why wonder about CW being free? Last I checked, Meng was part of a billionaire family. I'm not worried.

Peace!

 

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

4 minutes ago, Craig Anderton said:

 

BandLab is more than Cakewalk...it's music stores, guitars, instrument cases, interfaces, and media. In today's business environment, there are aspects of doing business that are more important than cash. How people here would have heard of BandLab if they hadn't bought Cakewalk? The acquisition cost of that number of users was probably more than what the program cost...and I bet a certain percentage of those people are at least going to buy Harmony or Heritage guitars.

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.

8 hours ago, Larry Jones said:

I think they're (Bandlab) headed for more and smoother integration between CbB and their online "social music" project. It would be great if they could make it so we could collaborate with others more or less in real time using a set of online tools designed to work seamlessly with CbB. But that's just my guess, and given the current state of technology, who knows how long it would take?

FYI, forum users have been grousing at each other and The Man since forever, regarding the direction we are all headed. Toes are sometimes stepped on.  Feathers are ruffled. But it's not real  -- it's just an online forum. No real harm, right? Don't be so touchy.

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.

21 minutes ago, abacab said:

LOL! This is a public forum, and you will get opinions that you don't agree with.  No forum etiquette was broken here, except for you deciding to be rude!

K you win. 

2 hours ago, Starise said:

I kinda wonder sometimes, maybe in the way some like to follow baseball team stats. We all have opinions in everything. I see nothing wrong in either case. Truth be told there are probably a few more who might like to know more than they do about CbB. I guess mine is a passing interest.  I don't have a lot invested in the program as a mainstay. I really want to see these guys continue to do well as they have been. Many people have worked hard over the years to make this program what it is. Many more continue to share their knowledge with us, people like scook and Noel try to help and clarify when they have the opportunity.

In the beginning I believe we were sort of kept in the loop more because things were changing and Meng wanted to keep everyone up to date.  While it would be nice to know what's going on behind closed doors I don't expect this is something  that will be a regular occurrence.

It would probably matter more if my income hinged on decisions made at those levels. I'm always interested to hear what they care to share with us.

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.

16 minutes ago, abacab said:

As a user of Cakewalk's products for over 20+ years,  my  humble opinion is that BandLab's business is not any of our business. They are developing and supporting a free DAW that is being given to us, for free. I am just grateful for the gift, with no questions or attitude!

But if your business depends on knowing where the product plans stand in the long term, I would suggest that PAYING for one of the commercial DAWs that cater to music professionals would probably give you more peace of mind, rather than worrying about what might happen.

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.  

11 hours ago, Chuck E Baby said:

I can understand ones curiosity, but does it really matter ? What are we planning for ?

I hope this doesn't sound a slight or me being ignorant, I just don't see how it matters ? Bandlab has delivered on its promise (for over a year now) to make Cakewalk free. That's good enough for me.

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?  

1 hour ago, kitekrazy said:

 This is a great plugin.  The Melda one is a lot more involved.

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?

2 hours ago, Tiger The Frog said:

I think so.  You get some high quality drumsets and the ability to use samples in beatmaking.  But the thing I like the best is the Percussion Agent.  It works in a much cooler way than everything else in GA.    There is a comparison chart HERE. 

Steinberg does provide fully functional trial version that you can get HERE.   I think you need a dongle, though. 

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.

2 hours ago, Grem said:

Has anyone went with the new '13' update?  They have a new 'Look' and am wondering how everyone is liking it?

It seems they have decided to use /Sliders, Buttons, and knobs all together in the new 'Look'. With that bright color scheme that everyone seems to be moving to. And only some of the alternate skins work with it. They are saying that the skins that don't work ain't high on the priority list of things that will get fixed. To me this means "You will take it and like it!"

From the Melda 13 Release Notes page:

There's a new style (Neon), which is enforced as default style and everything is designed to work well with this style "out of the box". This includes everything from basic components to various graphs and analyzers. Previous style settings are ignored now. If you feel the need to get your style settings back, it is not recommended, but you can hack the engine by going to the user settings folder (where the presets are) and copy StyleSettingsV11.cfg to StyleSettingsV13.cfg in proper folders. Note that other styles may not work that well compared to Neon. While we are going to slowly improve other styles as well, it has a low priority. Neon is the new "look" of Melda plugins.

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

4 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

 Doe anyone think paying the extra $15 to Steinberg is worth the instant gratification?    It's sort of tempting just to buy another license for the other machine.  I'm sure 3rd party vendors are getting pissed because of refunds because people don't wait. 

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!

45 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

 It's 70% on crossgrades.    So maybe they'll offer this deal in 20 years.    Cubase may have a larger share of the pro market but I doubt it when it comes to budget home studios/EDM crowd.  I think this is what they are after.

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.

1 hour ago, kitekrazy said:

  How many times has that been said about any developer?  It will happen again once they did it.   I think they may have lost some arrogance now there are far more DAWs out there.    Last year was the lowest I ever paid for a S1 Pro and Reason upgrade.    It will be interesting to see how other DAW developers respond to this not named Magix.

 

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.

44 minutes ago, Tiger The Frog said:

It is really good and absolutely worth the money, but if you wait a few months (or maybe weeks) IK will sell you all 38 T-RackS modules for $199.   I had some jampoints, so I got T-RackS MAX last May for $150. 

T-RackS 6 will be out soon, so a patient person will be able to get around 43 modules for $199.  

Just saying. ☺️

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.