CSistine

12 hours ago, Peter Hintze said:

What do you guys think how long CbB is still working / activeable?

It would be great if BandLab would do the same as Tracktion, i.e. make CbB, that is some kind of previous version, kompletely free (without re-activation requirement). This would be a really generous, token gesture! 😉

13 hours ago, Mr No Name said:

popular misconception is that the Reaper license is perpetual, it lasts for a certain amount of versions,  

but the free one that it would revert to is the exact same so you could use it,

£60 every 2 or 3 years is something people are happy to pay.

The license for usually 2 major versions is perpetual! But yes, you are right it is not for all major updates.

2nd: My license that I bought is still valid for updates after 5 years!!!

11 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

The 15 second countdown to be able to click on evaluation is similar to REAPER. However Reaper allows you use the DAW straight off but leaves the "Advertising Panel" up for an increasing amount of time well beyond 15 seconds. However you can drag it out of the way off screen. So at least ye know with Cakewalk the "Advertising Panel" disappears after 15 seconds every time. Fair trade I think for a FREE, very usable and most likely regularly updated DAW?

There are certain differences, too:

1. You can buy a perpetual license for Reaper (it is totally offline!) for only $60 if you are an individual that makes no or not a lot of money from your music!
2. The evaluation version is not sold as "free", it is meant to be for evaluation.
3. If you want a real free capable daw, then you may use Tracktion.Waveform. The second newest version is always free (can also be installed totally offline).

Sorry, forum guards that I infringed the rules here! But such comparisons above demand a response.

17 hours ago, Promidi said:

This is a direct quote from Noel Borthwick on a Facebook group.

"Activation automatically renews at the end of the actual month"

This is only half the truth! It is if you are always online!!!

I have seen a lot of people having trouble with the required browser login since the developers introduced this in CbB! It's following the motto "if it's simple make it more complex"!

2. The complains about having no ThemeEditor anymore: Democrathy in the user - company relation is not modern anymore! Nowadays developers force a lot of things to their users, if they like it or not!

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I agree that if it needs to phone home to a server every 6 months or every month or whatever interval to keep functioning, that's a subscription. In the case of free tier Sonar, the "cost" of the subscription is embedded advertisements for the BandLab membership. Fair play, CbB was always an advertisement for the BandLab brand.

Subscriptions require the user to trust the software manufacturer not to change the rules, go out of business, whatever. Fortunately, BandLab have so far continued to provide a free way for Cakewalk/Sonar users to access our projects. This has never been interrupted in the 7 years of BandLab's ownership of the Cakewalk/Sonar brand, although there was the scare of the announcement of payware Sonar replacing CbB.

1. BandLab have changed the rules for CbB IMHO, as they altered the re-authorization interval from 6 months to some weeks (2 or 4). For me this was a crucial cut, because my major systems run offline usually and the new interval a) introduced to many chores and b) ruined my confidence in the company.
2. I guess that BL will soon stop CbB with the introduction of the "free" SONAR. Again, this would be an essential shift for the people using CbB, because they would be forced to change their installations/habits/workflows. And besides the functionality is probably reduced in some areas.

For me a software is not really free if I have to re-authorize each month! Someone above said it correctly, essentially it is a free subscription and that means you can not trust in it IMO. You'll never know how long you can open and edit your projects that costed you hundreds of hours. That's too risky, especially if you have learned how open this company is actually! I have spent and lost so many hours to trust in them. No, I am healed! They can keep their pseudo-free stuff!

I jumped the boat with an uncertain feeling. But now I am glad I did. Mixing the last album I used my new DAW for all but one song. Already now after less than a year I miss some functionality of my new daw in Sonar. I never expected that happen so quickly! No instabilities and performance issues any more!

Unfortunately STACKs requires internet connection at least every 30 days!

1 hour ago, Pat Osterday said:

Ah, true!  That could be it.  Probably the case with other companies too?  I'm sure you've heard it before, but sonible supports physical iLok, so there's that.

I wrote in my first post that my pc is offline and that I know about iLok (only 1 seat)! 😉

I have plugins from a huge array of providers, but I never have machine based authorizations vanishing without hardware changes, except for 3 companies  (Sonible, Cherry Audio and Magix). It's a PITA, because those 3 not only require online activation, but their auths go up in smoke sometimes.

11 hours ago, Pat Osterday said:

Interesting.  I've never had a problem.

Okay, I expected someone telling this! I guess your computer is always online that's why!

Sonible is one of the worst companies related to authorization IMHO. Several times when I wanted to use one of their plugins authorization had gone (pc is usually offline), the only one that always worked is the one using iLok (but only 1 poor seat).

Frankly, even for free I would not install any of their plugins anymore, 'cause you could never know if it ran opening the project the next time! They are an excellent example for why mostly not the software companies are pirated, but their users!

1 hour ago, Amberwolf said:

How about we just go back to the simple serial number thing.

1000+

As I already have too many plugins, I have begun to collect almost plugins that follow the rule above!

You are so right that CR is primarily a burden for the legitimate user and I doubt that those CR companies sell more stuff because of that!

Me in any case, I hesitate to purchase plugins with CR nowadays. If it is pure online activation, then it is even a NO GO! And I agree with @Luc that if a company wants to protect their plugins, then I also prefer iLok. 

Anyway, there are some big companies that missed 100s of dollars from me, because of their authorization and installation management (Waves, Universal, IK, NI, ...), where as I decided several times to support small developers with a user-friendly authorization!

2 hours ago, Mr No Name said:

front DAW top pre-amp plugin,

£4 no brainer.

Does it have AGC ?

IMHO A.I. is mostly arrogance, because all those gimmicks cover only 80 percent of the real cases! In the other 20 percent of cases, the ones forgotten by the developers, they often create terrible results and it can even be dangerous in technical things (cars, airplanes, ...). But how could it be different, A.I. is created by fallible men and not Gods! But YMMV, you are free to go with the hype!

P.S.: I have not found any convincing A.I. product to this day.

Nowadays I am disgusted of most technical things and software that is called "Intelligent", 'cause usually it is very dumb and just advertisment of freeloaders that think we(the customers) are stupid!

23 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

So yes, it makes it much easier on us.

Okay, I correct myself: "There is no installation manager that makes installation easier for the ones like me!"

Second, for the example above (installing only the newly purchased MMatcher): With the installation manager I was urged to update all my Melda plugins, even I did not find any reason for that! And such global updates bear always the risk to break something that has worked fine. If I had simple zip files for plugin installation instead, then I could install MMatcher with the newest version, without touching the rest of my Melda installation. But as always, YMMV!

First I had hesitated (because of Melda installation horror), but then I purchased MMatcher nevertheless.

Honestly I completely underrated the trouble with the new installation manager, it is a real mess! It took me a lot of time to update to version 17.04 and install MMatcher on 2 pcs. I don't know why developers love it to make our life more and more intricate with installation obstacles! Honestly IMHO there is no installation manager that makes installation easier for us. The only advantage with them (most of the time) is that you have an overview over the products you own and the installed versions.

Also, I cannot remember a single case using an installation manager without updating itself!

It was still the same! TC8210 was $21.00 if I looked at their page in USD without login. After login and going on to payment it increased to more than $32 !!!

But the price-tax thing has never been transparent at Plugin Boutique. Though I have never had a case like this with such an excessive price increase. Also, there is no explanation of the price change, only a hint that it has changed. IMHO this isn't acceptable at all! But EU opens a lot of doors for such cheats with their internet tax rules introduced some years ago!

I wanted to purchase a deal of TC Electronic at Plugin Boutique, but when I logged in the price in the cart raised by more than 50% !!!!

Even if we have very high VAT taxes in Sweden, this exceeds the tax by far! Are they crazy or is this the usual hidden EU customs duty???

Although this is really a good deal, I think you should also consider the Oxford Drum Gate of Sonnox (currently only $29.00 at Plugin Boutique).

That one is not only a specialized, great drum gate (with Kick/Snare/Toms recognition), but includes also a drum leveler comparable to MDrumLeveler and additionally it can be used as drum replacer (MIDI). IMO it's the best plugin of Sonnox!

18 hours ago, Rational said:

Not a bad idea actually. I'd be curious if there's a list online of those companies or if you can provide your list?

1 hour ago, kitekrazy1 said:

There is really no such thing as offline anymore.

There is still a lot of music software with real offline activation.

Here is a list of the ones I know (I am sure there are much more providers):

• Acon Digital
• Auburn Sounds
• Audio Assault
• Audio Damage
• Audiority
• AudioThing
• Black Rooster
• Blue Cat Audio
• Boz Digital Labs
• CableGuys
• CFA-Sound
• Cockos (Reaper)
• Dymai Sound
• E-Phonic
• eaReckon
• FabFilter
• Fuse Audio Labs
• GForce
• GoranGrooves
• Harrison
• HoRNet
• JoeySturgis
• Klanghelm
• Klevgrand
• Kuassa
• Martinic
• MeldaProduction
• Plugin Boutique
• Robotic Bean
• SIR Audio Tools
• Togu Audio Line (TAL)
• TBProAudio
• Tokyo Dawn Labs
• Tone2
• ToneBoosters
• United Plugins
• Wavesfactory
• Xhun Audio
• zplane

And by the way all full Kontakt instruments can also be installed offline, although Kontakt itself has to be installed online.

More and more I hesitate to purchase iLok plugins. Not because I am an iLok opponent, no on the contrary I have been very happy with the iLok dongle offline activation. I could simply take the dongle to my everyday laptop, add an activation and then bring it back to my recording pc.

But in the last years I am concerned that a couple of plugin providers dropped iLok and replaced it by a proprietary authorization system, sometimes even requiring online activation! I hate that! It's not the way I purchased those plugins and I wonder whether this is really legal.

The good thing is that this caused me to concentrate my plugin hoarding to those with pure offline authorization, and honestly I own now enough of them so that I am free of the "no more activation" threat! Even my favorite DAW supports a user-friendly activation!

5 minutes ago, IgoRr said:

You have everything mixed up - Cakewalk, Sonar, Bandlab, you do not own anything that you create, maybe you just did not really understand what is what? Now there are 3 different DAW's - Sonar and Next from the Cakewalk brand, and a program (DAW) called "Cakewalk" from the Bandlab brand. The first two programs are paid, but the Cakewalk by Bandlab program is totally free, the only one condition is activation through the official website. But after activation, no one encroaches on the results of your creativity, you can check. In addition, there is a special "offline" activation method especially for those users who do not have the Internet.

In vain you are so emotional about a completely typical state of affairs, hundreds of other programs are now created and activated according to the same scheme, in this regard, Cakewalk by Bandlab is absolutely no different from them, and it has been completely free since the release of the very first version in 2017 or 2018.

To be honest, since the re-activation time has been that short, Cakewalk by Bandlab cannot be used offline in a reasonable way anymore! This was the reason I dropped it and I regret that I had invested so much time for it. It would have been better to stay with Sonar Platinum! Today I mostly use another DAW and for the old projects I have Sonar Platinum that does its job quite well. For me BandLab was a real disappointment, but YMMV.

On 3/17/2025 at 12:19 AM, Joakim said:

You can move them to ilok, that’s why I do be use I anyway need to use ilok.

Can you de register a machine on their site though? 

Thanks for your suggestion! But there are caveats in the details, first with iLok there is only one single activation available, second it is not possible to use iLok for all your plugin ownerships (I don't know why)! So that's why I don't get warm with this company at all, but YMMV!

I don't buy anything of this company again no matter how cheap it is, because I always have trouble with their activations if a machine is usually offline! There are not many companies that are that bad in that area! IMHO this is kind of a cheat, 'cos most of the time I cannot use their plugins (and thus I avoid to use them)!

If your system is always online, then it maybe different!

Several of those well-known companies like IK have landed on my blacklist the last year, because of installation and authorization issues!

This saves me a lot of many, I have rarely purchased anything this year!