Cakewalk in Schools

[abacab]

I think that the main point of the OP is about musical education in schools. If you are going to be involved in a formal music education, that will include formal music theory and notation. Why not market Cakewalk to this community? Debating about the pros and cons of notation in this context is silly, and off-topic.

A legitimate discussion about Cakewalk's role  in music education is needed now that it's a free tool that  educators could use for teaching music. And one that students could acquire at no cost. Is Cakewalk currently at a level that meets these needs? Is updating it really needed? Is it a good use of resources to update the staff view? Those are more relevant questions. Just my 2 cents.

Edited September 21, 2020 by abacab

[twelvetone]

Agreed. That would mean it must cover the official syllabus being taught in schools.

Edited September 21, 2020 by twelvetone

[abacab]

Yes, I just think it's a good opportunity to spread the Cakewalk possibility to the schools as a goodwill gesture.

It should work out in the long run,  as the user base would increase with enhanced market share. That would be good for all current Cakewalk users, whether they realize that or not. Cakewalk is already free, why not make it more attractive to outsiders?

Bottom line: more Cakewalk users and it's popularity should equal a better chance of longevity for Cakewalk.

And obviously BandLab is using the free Cakewalk as a marketing value add to it's large music business portfolio, and not directly as a profit center.

Edited September 21, 2020 by abacab

[User 905133]

(1) I haven't looked at this in several months. I am not sure if it has been updated since then.  Some of you might be interested in reading through what's there (if you haven't done so already).

(2) In light of some of the comments above, I find irony in the new feature mentioned/discussed here (and elsewhere).  

[chris.r]

I've done many jobs in the past where printing staff was involved. In working with MIDI Cakewalk has been always great (especially with the help of CALs) but I could never print staff with it because it simply didn't deliver and I always had to reach out for the free Musescore. So I imagine how for educational purposes Cakewalk's staff view would quickly fail even with fairly basic tasks.

[Matthew Carr]

Personally I'd like to see the Staff view get some attention - it doesn't need to be a complete notation package, but just given some love so it works better. Perhaps even take Don Williams up on his offer to update the staff view based on overture.

IMO Providing usable notation within a free DAW seems like a great idea for the educational market, and could be a fantastic way to add new users into the userbase

[abacab]

5 hours ago, Matthew Carr said:

Personally I'd like to see the Staff view get some attention - it doesn't need to be a complete notation package, but just given some love so it works better. Perhaps even take Don Williams up on his offer to update the staff view based on overture.

IMO Providing usable notation within a free DAW seems like a great idea for the educational market, and could be a fantastic way to add new users into the userbase

The TL/DR is this quote from Don Williams about events that occurred a little over a year before the demise of Gibson Cakewalk:

Quote

Last spring two of us flew to Boston to meet with Cakewalk to worked out a deal to put very, very, good notation is Sonar and add some of my upcoming products in the Cakewalk store. The notation would contain 80% of what Overture can do and was to have full integration with Sonar. We agreed to terms, everybody walked away happy, and Cakewalk presented the deal to Gibson. After a month or so, Gibson turned it down, claiming they would have too much financial liability. After the disappointment, I met with a Cakewalk person at Summer NAMM and I agreed to worked out a new deal limiting Gibson's liability. Cakewalk liked the new deal and all of us were very excited, thinking Gibson will not turn down the new terms. To our shock Gibson said no. Cakewalk knew the importance of the deal to Sonar and was left feeling helpless. I felt bad for the guys at Cakewalk and on my own decided to help Cakewalk by offering to put a free light version in Sonar at no cost to Cakewalk or Gibson and we would sell an upgrade that provided full notation for a very small price. This was a no brainer, right. Guess what! Nothing ever happened, and I even have an alpha version working.

SMH at a lost opportunity... @Noel Borthwickis there any chance that BandLab might be interested in a follow-up to this offer?

Edited September 22, 2020 by abacab

[ptheisen]

A few years ago when the possible Overture/Gibson partnership was mentioned, I also hoped that it would somehow happen. At the time of Sonar's demise, Don was generous enough to offer us Overture for only $50, and I took advantage of that. Since then, things may have changed.  At present, the latest several versions of Overture have been more or less unusable by advanced users due to bugs, sometimes even in core functionality that was working acceptably before. This has left people unhappy, and to make things worse, Don has been basically unresponsive on his own forum for months, which is very unusual. I suppose it's possible the reason for this is that he is so busy negotiating some kind of deal with BandLab that he doesn't have time to respond to his Overture customers. If that is the case, maybe it will turn out to be a good thing for CbB. If that is not the case, then an Overture/CbB partnership might not be a great idea.

[abacab]

2 hours ago, ptheisen said:

  At present, the latest several versions of Overture have been more or less unusable by advanced users due to bugs, sometimes even in core functionality that was working acceptably before.

Just what are the "advanced" users experiencing as unusable? Does this affect everyone, or just a select few outspoken users? Is the product completely broken?

This type of hearsay directed at products and publishers is not productive, in that there are no credible details provided to support the assertion. While it may be true, you have not provided any facts.

[User 905133]

@ptheisen Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts.  Yesterday I looked up Overture and saw many comments like the ones you referenced.

12 hours ago, abacab said:

This type of hearsay directed at products and publishers is not productive, in that there are no credible details provided to support the assertion. While it may be true, you have not provided any facts.

I generally (almost always) take a skeptical stance--it might be true; it might not; I have no way of knowing. In this case, I had done some online research and found what seemed to be credible discussions from actual users (as oppose to both positive and negative BS so prevalent on the internet). 

As for hypothesizing what might be going on, I believe those speculations (which are clearly identified as such) are warranted given some of the earlier posts in this thread and the old forum.

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by User 905133
to add some thoughts related to abacab's comment directed at "hearsay."

[abacab]

10 hours ago, User 905133 said:

@ptheisen Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts.  Yesterday I looked up Overture and saw many comments like the ones you referenced.

I generally (almost always) take a skeptical stance--it might be true; it might not; I have no way of knowing. In this case, I had done some online research and found what seemed to be credible discussions from actual users (as oppose to both positive and negative BS so prevalent on the internet). 

As for hypothesizing what might be going on, I believe those speculations (which are clearly identified as such) are warranted given some of the earlier posts in this thread and the old forum.

 

You failed to provide any facts other than hearsay. Mob mentality rules! So burn Overture to the ground!

"Online research", as in "I saw many comments" on the internet... so it must be true! Brilliant critical thinking and absolutely dazzling logic!

[ptheisen]

@abacab I'm actually trying to be very objective. I bought Overture in late 2017 and use it when I have scoring needs, so I definitely want it to succeed. I've visited the Overture forum almost every day since then and seen almost every interchange between Don and the users,  so my opinions are not based on  hearsay or generic Internet research. The advanced users that find the last few versions unusable are some of the people that do Don's beta testing, and aside from the bugs, they still think Overture's workflow is the best of any notation program, so they also want it to succeed. I intentionally didn't put negative details in my response to try to prove that Overture is bad or anything like that because that's not my intent at all. I'd tell you to go to the Overture forum if you want to see what people are complaining about for yourself, except that posts which reflect negatively on Overture are routinely deleted from the forum, it happened again a week or two ago. The deletion of negative posts is the only sign that someone from Overture has been on the forum since July 05, despite pleas from loyal users for Don to just send a note that he is still alive. This is a fact I verified just minutes before sending this response.

[abacab]

4 minutes ago, ptheisen said:

@abacab I'm actually trying to be very objective. I bought Overture in late 2017 and use it when I have scoring needs, so I definitely want it to succeed. I've visited the Overture forum almost every day since then and seen almost every interchange between Don and the users,  so my opinions are not based on  hearsay or generic Internet research. The advanced users that find the last few versions unusable are some of the people that do Don's beta testing, and aside from the bugs, they still think Overture's workflow is the best of any notation program, so they also want it to succeed. I intentionally didn't put negative details in my response to try to prove that Overture is bad or anything like that because that's not my intent at all. I'd tell you to go to the Overture forum if you want to see what people are complaining about for yourself, except that posts which reflect negatively on Overture are routinely deleted from the forum, it happened again a week or two ago. The deletion of negative posts is the only sign that someone from Overture has been on the forum since July 05, despite pleas from loyal users for Don to just send a note that he is still alive. This is a fact I verified just minutes before sending this response.

Yes, I have Overture from Don's Sonar  crossgrade deal in 2017. And the Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra  for Kontakt, that was sponsored by Don. And I am a member of the Sonic Scores forum.

From personal observation, Don rules his forum with heavy hands, which is not exactly what I would like to see from a forum moderator. And he occasionally has gaps in attendance, but you have to understand that he is a one-man  development team, and should expect some idiosyncrasies due  to that. But I also see that he has  made posts as recently as yesterday, so he is not missing in action. I think he is trying to produce a quality product, even though he occasionally misfires with a buggy release.

But all of those growing pains aside, how much is this off-topic when discussing a basic overhaul of the existing Cakewalk Staff View. I doubt that advanced scoring users would ever be interested in a basic Cakewalk notation package, Overture or otherwise. But students and teachers, come on, let's be real here...

[User 905133]

45 minutes ago, abacab said:

11 hours ago, User 905133 said:

@ptheisen Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts.  Yesterday I looked up Overture and saw many comments like the ones you referenced.

I generally (almost always) take a skeptical stance--it might be true; it might not; I have no way of knowing. In this case, I had done some online research and found what seemed to be credible discussions from actual users (as oppose to both positive and negative BS so prevalent on the internet). 

As for hypothesizing what might be going on, I believe those speculations (which are clearly identified as such) are warranted given some of the earlier posts in this thread and the old forum.

You failed to provide any facts other than hearsay. Mob mentality rules! So burn Overture to the ground!

"Online research", as in "I saw many comments" on the internet... so it must be true! Brilliant critical thinking and absolutely dazzling logic!

I just lost any respect I had for you. 

JMO: You should have done a Google search instead of attacking me.  ANYONE can find the same research I found.  If you don't find it credible, that can be the basis for a rational discussion, not a verbal assault. Let me be blunt: You attacked me because I thanked another Cakewalk user who also used Overture for confirming what I had read based on what seems to be experience with Overture.

As a matter of fact (not opinion or insults) after I posted what you attacked me for posting, I did another search and found other accounts of first hand experiences from users in a prior Cakewalk forum.  

 

 

[abacab]

1 minute ago, User 905133 said:

I just lost any respect I had for you. 

JMO: You should have done a Google search instead of attacking me.  ANYONE can find the same research I found.  If you don't find it credible, that can be the basis for a rational discussion, not a verbal assault. Let me be blunt: You attacked me because I thanked another Cakewalk user who also used Overture for confirming what I had read based on what seems to be experience with Overture.

As a matter of fact (not opinion or insults) after I posted what you attacked me for posting, I did another search and found other accounts of first hand experiences from users in a prior Cakewalk forum. 

Slow your roll. It was not a personal "attack". I was only commenting on the content of your post, and not against you personally.

[ptheisen]

@abacabYou're right, Don was on the Problems and Bugs sub-forum yesterday. I don't normally go there. My comment about no activity other than deletions since July 05 was in regard to the General Discussion sub-forum.

Back to the topic of notation in CbB, my opinion is that it does not need advanced scoring capabilities, those who need that are better served in a non-DAW application. CbB just needs a few basic additions and fixes to any glaring bugs.

[abacab]

2 minutes ago, ptheisen said:

Back to the topic of notation in CbB, my opinion is that it does not need advanced scoring capabilities, those who need that are better served in a non-DAW application. CbB just needs a few basic additions and fixes to any glaring bugs.

Agreed! Long time coming, though!

[User 905133]

3 minutes ago, abacab said:

Slow your roll. It was not a personal "attack". I was only commenting on the content of your post, and not against you personally.

Baloney.

1 hour ago, abacab said:

Mob mentality rules! So burn Overture to the ground!

Brilliant critical thinking and absolutely dazzling logic!

These were intended as insults.  There is no other way to interpret those comments given the context of my post.  Nothing I said was an insult. Yet, you decided to insult me for what I wrote.  You tried to put words into my mouth--things I did not say. Then you attacked me for what you said I said, which I didn't say.

 

 

[ptheisen]

6 minutes ago, abacab said:

Long time coming, though!

Well, you were the one who asked Noel about the possibility of reconnecting with Don. 🙂

I was just trying to say that maybe CbB should think twice before becoming dependent on a one-man shop for it's notation under the current circumstances. Now, if BandLab buys Overture and takes over development, that could be good!

[abacab]

9 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

Baloney.

These were intended as insults.  There is no other way to interpret those comments given the context of my post.  Nothing I said was an insult. Yet, you decided to insult me for what I wrote.  You tried to put words into my mouth--things I did not say. Then you attacked me for what you said I said, which I didn't say.

Please stay on topic. No point in derailing this thread any further. Sorry that you took it personally.