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Why is Cakewalk by Bandlab free?


synkrotron

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35 minutes ago, Slippery When Wet said:

...neither Cakewalk nor SONAR was as popular as it's community thought it was...

First: It's free because it's being used as a marketing tool. There are other parts of the company that are supposed to make money.

Even in the absence of any real numbers, I'll go along with your assertion that people just weren't/aren't that into Cakewalk/SONAR/CbB. Which is weird, because it's at the very least a really good product, and for some of us it's perfect. Who knows why it didn't "strike a chord" with the masses? Maybe because it's geared more toward musicians, writers and producers who actually know what a chord is, and that's not the way the masses are going.

@Craig Andertonused to say on the old forum that he actually did have real numbers, that is, sales figures on all the DAWs, but it was proprietary information and so he couldn't divulge it to us. So we users never had an opportunity to judge SONAR's popularity using the only metric that matters in the world today: money. Craig, if you happen to read this, perhaps now that you don't work for Gibson, and now that SONAR's sales figures are receding in the rear view mirror (because it's no longer for sale), maybe you could give us a clue just how our DAW ranked in the past several years.

All that said, I've tried a number of other DAWs, and while I think I could get on pretty well with a few of them, I still like CbB the best. I would have continued to buy upgrades, but I'm more than thrilled I don't have to. It being free doesn't bother me at all. 🙃

Edited by Larry Jones
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On 2/1/2019 at 12:35 PM, synkrotron said:

Yeah, why is CbB free?

Is it just while it is in "development?"

cheers

andy

So, going back to my original post, I also asked the question, "Is it just while it is in 'development'"

Let's go back to that for a moment.

I didn't hang around when Gibson dumped SONAR. My decision, and one that surprised me really, as I am very much loyal to "brands" (tools) that I like and I really did like SONAR. Having jumped ship I lost interest and didn't open SONAR again until a couple of weeks ago. When I opened SONAR a message popped up saying something like "can't access the server to check license." Well, near enough, can't remember exactly.

So I thought, "okay, let's give CbB a try."

I've not sat at the software, comparing CbB to SONAR in great detail. I basically jumped around, re-learning stuff as I needed to. So, for all I know CbB could be identical SONAR, but I wouldn't really know for sure.

Looks similar... Seems to behave the same... I quickly got back reasonably up to speed, which was helped in part because CbB used my old SONAR preferences, which despite not using, I didn't uninstall.

I believe, from reading various posts, that BandLab took the code and run with it almost "as-is," but did they? I think there were some issues early doors but I didn't really follow developments. New versions have been rolled out... So that, in itself, indicates that CbB must be a little bit different to SONAR, even if it's just "under the hood."

This is why I was posing my questions here. Perhaps I should have made this clearer up front, but the whole topic took on a life of its own.

So, been sat at Cakewalk (I'm not going to use the by BandLab suffix any more) for a week now. I have issues, but mainly with my setup and nothing I can really put back on Cakewalk. I still need to do some loading tests, just using soft synths and effects, because if I can be happy with the amount of stuff I can load a project up with then I will then try it out on my Surface Pro laptop, which is currently running REAPER, and quite well I hasten to add.

 

Okay, that's me for a bit... On to page eleven :D

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23 minutes ago, synkrotron said:

So, going back to my original post, I also asked the question, "Is it just while it is in 'development'"

Let's go back to that for a moment.

Mke, the BandLab representative at Winter NAMM 2019, stated emphatically during more than one interview that the Core product Cakewalk by BandLab will ALWAYS be free.

Plans can change, but that is the corporate line as of now.

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Hi John,

41 minutes ago, John Sandlin said:

Mke, the BandLab representative at Winter NAMM 2019, stated emphatically during more than one interview that the Core product Cakewalk by BandLab will ALWAYS be free.

Yes, so I believe, as this has been mentioned elsewhere.

41 minutes ago, John Sandlin said:

Plans can change, but that is the corporate line as of now.

I understand that.

Regardless of all that, though, let me ask this,

If a product is free, but not fit for purpose, then it doesn't really matter whether it is free or not.

 

I raised the original post here before having really unboxed Cakewalk, so it was, I suppose, me being a bit lazy by asking, in the general forum, if all was well.

I could have kept my gob shut, but I like to talk, and I also felt it would be an opportunity to re-connect with peeps from the old forum, on which I was very active, especially in the Songs forum.

Since posting I have had a chance to play and I like what I see so far. Would I change anything? Not really. There is a keyboard shortcut request I am considering asking for and there are a few things more I would like the scroll wheel to do, depending on focus, but that is about it. I feel that I am picking up where I left off when I jumped ship.

So, is Cakewalk "fit for purpose?"

Yeah, sure.

Would I recommend it to anyone else?

I already have.

 

cheers

andy

 

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My guess is that the company also wishes to exploit user content. They make it easy for you to "share", i.e. give away, your work. That way, they have free music as opposed to platforms that have to pay for content. Then they run ads and/or sell the platform to Amazon or Apple for billions of dollars more than it's worth.

 

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On 2/5/2019 at 8:32 PM, SomeGuy said:

Yes.  BMD reduced the price of the paid version from thousands to $999, then to $299 and released a Free Version that's better than any consumer NLE and many Prosumer NLEs for free.  It's basically the industry-standard color grading platform, and they purchased Fairlight and EyeOn and integrated Fusion (VFX/Compositing) and Fairlight (Audio Post) into the NLE... then added collaboration features.

So it's very hot and it's being recommended to any and everyone because it's "Free" and people are tired of paying super high Avid prices or Adobe subscriptions, among other things.  Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The hype train is at a fever pitch.

Theoretically, something like this could have happened with Cakewalk, but I think the purchase coming after the shutdown hurt (so many people may still view it as a "dead" product)... and also the  DAW market isn't as ripe for disruption as the NLE market is/was.  DaVinci's standing as a premiere color grading platform also helped it, as people are using that aspect to sell others onto it (Since LOG and HDR are FADs now, even with Smartphone apps like Filmic Pro 😛.  SONAR never really had a selling point like that, and a lot of the really good stuff was stripped out of the package, anyways.

The DAW market is also full of "Competitive Upgrade" offers.

I would say, though, that this should have basically killed Audacity on Windows 😛  No point in using that over Cakewalk, unless you value HDD space that much (or need to import/export formats Cakewalk doesn't support).

One of the big issues with DaVinci  Resolve is that it is EXTREMELY  demanding of resources.  Especially GPU.  The forum is chock full of people with 10 year old low end laptops  complaining that it crashes all the time. Or that it won't even open.  They never bothered to look at the system  requirements and then come unglued when they get told "Windows 7 is not supported.  Can't help you, upgrade to 10 first"  or "512mb of GPU memory ? 4GB is the minimum recommend.  You need to upgrade. "

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15 minutes ago, Byron Dickens said:

One of the big issues with DaVinci  Resolve is that it is EXTREMELY  demanding of resources.  Especially GPU.  The forum is chock full of people with 10 year old low end laptops  complaining that it crashes all the time. Or that it won't even open.  They never bothered to look at the system  requirements and then come unglued when they get told "Windows 7 is not supported.  Can't help you, upgrade to 10 first"  or "512mb of GPU memory ? 4GB is the minimum recommend.  You need to upgrade. "

The DaVinci systems requirements are vage at best.  

I've got a modern Lenovo T470 with SSD, etc. and it doesn't run it properly.  I also have an older machine (but win 10 with SSD and lots of ram and an older Graphics Card, and it won't even open yet I can run multicam productions in Premiere Pro all day long.  

 

Two machines with Win10, plenty of RAM, and SSD but will not run properly.  Graphics Card requirements can be unknown unless you are using something they specifically spell out as compatible.  Davinci needs to work on system compatiblity instead of "you have to have a brand new computer with all top shelf components."  My machines run multiple HD videos playing at the same time without issue....in other NLEs.  

But I get your point, however Davinci isn't a great example.  

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7 hours ago, jonathan boose said:

My guess is that the company also wishes to exploit user content. They make it easy for you to "share", i.e. give away, your work. That way, they have free music as opposed to platforms that have to pay for content.

Note that you don't "give away" the work, you retain the rights. If a record company hears your music and wants to sign you, they have to negotiate with you, not BandLab.

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16 hours ago, Larry Jones said:

First: It's free because it's being used as a marketing tool. There are other parts of the company that are supposed to make money.

Even in the absence of any real numbers, I'll go along with your assertion that people just weren't/aren't that into Cakewalk/SONAR/CbB. Which is weird, because it's at the very least a really good product, and for some of us it's perfect. Who knows why it didn't "strike a chord" with the masses? Maybe because it's geared more toward musicians, writers and producers who actually know what a chord is, and that's not the way the masses are going.

@Craig Andertonused to say on the old forum that he actually did have real numbers, that is, sales figures on all the DAWs, but it was proprietary information and so he couldn't divulge it to us. So we users never had an opportunity to judge SONAR's popularity using the only metric that matters in the world today: money. Craig, if you happen to read this, perhaps now that you don't work for Gibson, and now that SONAR's sales figures are receding in the rear view mirror (because it's no longer for sale), maybe you could give us a clue just how our DAW ranked in the past several years.

The information was from MI Sales Trak, and so I still can't discuss specifics. What's more, MI Sales Trak only tracked retail during the time I was checking it. I can tell you that there were "bumps" when new versions were released, and Sonar Artist did pretty well, sometimes reaching the Top 10 at retail. But overall, Sonar never reached the same level of sales over time as most other programs. I think a major problem was ineffective marketing.

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Cakewalk never had that many of the cool kids in their corner either.   The next big thing never seemed to be using Cakewalk products.  They had to trot out guys like someone who won a Grammy for Best Native American Album, or the guy who won season 1 of "The Voice".

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