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This is going downhill


carl

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I've been using Cakewalk since its start in the 1980s, when it was only a DOS MIDI sequencer. I upgraded through all the versions up to SONAR Platinum, and was always very pleased with the program. It had its quirks, but it worked well for the most part if everything is set up correctly. Good plug-ins. Good work flow. Lots of professional features.
Now, all my previous work needs to be in Bandlab's Cakewalk. What a disaster! Every time I try to open this program now it takes 30 minutes to 1 hour to sign in, re-enable this, re-enable that, download this and that, run Bandlab Assistand and so on. By the time I have it running again, I don't even feel like working anymore. Can't they authenticate your license once and leave it alone so you can just get to work?
 

Edited by carl
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46 minutes ago, carl said:

Can't they authenticate your license once and leave it alone so you can just get to work?

If your problem is re-activation, that only happens once every six months, and takes a few minutes, depending on your internet speed. The downloads you mention might be updates, which are roughly monthly and almost always improve the product. What are your specific issues?

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Nobody else has this problem.  Well the Bandlab assistant is a bit buggy,  but example I just started fresh on a new build and it took all of 10 minutes including the Add ons. It took a lot longer to install all my old Sonar stuff using CCC and that was without downloading. I have those backed up and I just copy them into the CCC download folder before running the installs. 

A week ago I did the same thing from scratch and that was a slow computer but it didn't take long to install the basic CbB and goodies. 

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On 1/24/2021 at 10:36 AM, carl said:

Every time I try to open this program now it takes 30 minutes to 1 hour to sign in, re-enable this, re-enable that, download this and that, run Bandlab Assistand and so on.

I don't know exactly what's happening here; worst case scenario is that a user waits longer than 6 months to run the program, then has to run BandLab Assistant to re-validate. Cakewalk does that every 6 months to renew the license subscription. Otherwise, it doesn't demand anything. You may get a notice that there's an update available, which, since the developers are working hard at improving the program, happens often. Installing the updates is optional. They always have plenty of fixes and other improvements, so I always update, but I'm not forced to.

The biggest hassle I've run into is that BandLab Assistant (which is developed by a group different from Cakewalk itself) fails on updating itself, so I have to go to BandLab's site and download the latest version. That's a pain, but a trivial one. Sometimes I have to enter my username and password once or twice to get BandLab Assistant re-installed, but this was also true for Cakewalk Control Center, the old download-and-validate program.

So at the most, there should be "sign in," and maybe "download," and "run BandLab Assistant," but no "re-enable this, re-enable that, download this and that....and so-on." It literally does validate your license and then "leave it alone" for 6 months at a time. If you re-validate at any point, the clock starts over. The latest version of Cakewalk doesn't even need BA to validate the license (only to install Cakewalk and update it), so all of that is history.

If anything other than what I describe is happening on your system, there's a problem that's not part of the usual experience, so if so, post more details and we can figure out what you need to do to avoid this in the future and get straight to work. Cakewalk by BandLab is so far ahead of where SONAR was 3 years ago, it's very much worth sorting it out.

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Yeah it's hard to know what is causing your issues. I just boot up the programme and it's running in around 20 seconds. There are occasional updates but that's good news and they take very little time to install. You need to tell us what your set up is etc to see if anyone can help. Don't knock the  development team though, they're doing a great job and I'm sure will help if you need it

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15 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

The good part about CCC is that you don't have to baby the installations. Other installers on the other hand...

Ya, I love the way Air products sound and they are cheap on sale. But I have come to the conclusion the installer is broken. After rebuilding 2 computers this month that was the only product that is a huge time suck. It always looses the libraries. And if you dare to change the pathways forget it. 

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1 hour ago, John Vere said:

Ya, I love the way Air products sound and they are cheap on sale. But I have come to the conclusion the installer is broken. After rebuilding 2 computers this month that was the only product that is a huge time suck. It always looses the libraries. And if you dare to change the pathways forget it. 

I always question product and download managers. 9 out of 10 require you to be there to click the buttons in the installer. That makes the product manager unnecessary and a nuisance. I wonder why only a few companies can do automatic installation but others don't. It's not some voodoo technology invented 5 minutes ago.

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14 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I always question product and download managers. 9 out of 10 require you to be there to click the buttons in the installer. That makes the product manager unnecessary and a nuisance. I wonder why only a few companies can do automatic installation but others don't. It's not some voodoo technology invented 5 minutes ago.

Yes the worst one was IK media which was said to be a free VST etc. and they were not. They were all demos and I think it was a huge download. It was very invasive. They might make good products but I was so p---d at that I got rid of the works after only trying one. 

I love the companies that just give you the .dll and a library folder to drag and drop after you unzip. Then you just enter the serial number the first time you load it. That's seems like all any VST should need to do. Also Air forces you to install iLok which is also a PITA.  

Edited by John Vere
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I swear Cakewalk would be the best DAW in the world by far if it didn't crash so often and didn't have so many bugs. It really is the smartest and intuitive workflow there is overall....when it works. It certainly hangs and crashes far more than Pro Tools and Ableton do, but it's certainly better than both those DAWs in many other respects.

Edited by Craig Reeves
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The only criticism I have about CbB and Assistant is it seems to have disabled my legitimate (not stolen or hacked) copy of X2 and it seems to have removed some older plugins I heavily relied on that came with X2. They completely vanished from my system during one of the updates and every time I try to open X2 nothing happens.

I don't miss X2 but hopefully it's something I did inadvertently to remove the VST's, but I can't imagine what. I still have direct X plugins I use. I never delete anything.

But as for download speed and startup speed I have zero problems. I too only recently got high speed internet out in the country. 30Mb Down/20 Mb Up. It's never taken me any more than a 2 or 3 minutes to update CbB.

Edited by Shane_B.
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13 minutes ago, John Vere said:

I love the companies that just give you the .dll and a library folder to drag and drop after you unzip. Then you just enter the serial number the first time you load it. That's seems like all any VST should need to do. Also Air forces you to install iLok which is also a PITA.

I love companies that require you to have iLok for a trial or demo. They're so paranoid that you have to jump through all the hoops a legitimate customer goes through.

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31 minutes ago, Craig Reeves said:

I swear Cakewalk would be the best DAW in the world by far if it didn't crash so often and didn't have so many bugs. It really is the smartest and intuitive workflow there is overall....when it works. It certainly hangs and crashes far more than Pro Tools and Ableton do, but it's certainly better than both those DAWs in many other respects.

Tha'ts the completely opposite experience from mine. Cakewalk is eminently stable here, as long as I don't use third party plugins, some of which are just badly coded. I've done tons of sessions at studios with repeatedly crashing Protools rigs, my buddy's Logic requires a good 5 to 6 reboots every time I spend a few hours there. Ableton is like Cakewalk for me: as long as I stay away from certain 3rd party plugs, it's quite stable and reliable.

 

R

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On 1/26/2021 at 3:07 PM, Rico Belled said:

Tha'ts the completely opposite experience from mine. Cakewalk is eminently stable here, as long as I don't use third party plugins, some of which are just badly coded. I've done tons of sessions at studios with repeatedly crashing Protools rigs, my buddy's Logic requires a good 5 to 6 reboots every time I spend a few hours there. Ableton is like Cakewalk for me: as long as I stay away from certain 3rd party plugs, it's quite stable and reliable.

 

R

Cakewalk crashes at least once every session. Sometimes multiple times in one session. I use Ableton on just a regular of a basis on project just as big and it hasn't crashed in weeks.

Edited by Craig Reeves
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1 hour ago, Craig Reeves said:

Cakewalk crashes at least once every session. Sometimes multiple times in one session. I use Ableton on just a regular of a basis on project just as big and it hasn't crashed in weeks.

.

Myself if my DAW did that I would either

1- Not use it. 

2- Find out why.  

The majority of users never have crashes now.  And I would always put my money on what was posted above as the #1 cause- 3rd party VST-s that are not coexisting.  If you find which ones are not working with Cakewalk and report this they will try and fix it. 

Only a week or so a go someone posted issues with a certain plug in company and I just noticed in the update release notes that they already fixed it.  

 

By the way everyone, looks like Carl was a Troll. ( I think that's what you call 1 post wonders who post dribble and go. 

Edited by John Vere
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On 1/27/2021 at 5:33 AM, Craig Reeves said:

I swear Cakewalk would be the best DAW in the world by far if it didn't crash so often and didn't have so many bugs. . . . . .

Yeah, I know what you mean, my old Ford would be the best car ever if the damn thing wasn't full of rust and would just go instead of breaking down all the time. 😁😇

Edited by Fret Flintstone
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A lot of us experience crashes. We either don't tell anyone or get bashed over the head for being stupid when we do. 😕

Either way, I've never gone a day over the last 20 years using Sonar/Cakewalk on various platforms when it doesn't crash for some unknown reason.

I've spent entire days trying to figure out why only to have it working fine again on it's own.

It needs no reason. Daily crashes. Monthly blue screens. May be 2 reason why the professional world hasn't taken it seriously.

I don't blame it totally because bad memory, USB, and other external factors play a hand.

 

Beyond crashing, it loves to hang in memory and not open because I have a standalone VSTi already open. Closing the VSTi and reopening CbB/Sonar does not work. The entire system has to be shut down and rebooted first. 😕😕

 

I still prefer it over other DAWs!

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