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Please take my money...


Sal Sorice

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Preface - I am just a Cakewalk user/fan - not an employee/affiliate, etc. of anyone associated with BandLab, etc. - just a loyal Cakewalk user. Nuff said.

Since I've been a Cakewalk user for many years I was overjoyed when BandLabs took it over and has continued to update and improve the DAW. Thanks BandLab!

That being said, I recognize and appreciate the amount of work that goes into maintaining/improving Cakewalk. While I applaud BandLab for making Cakewalk free, I wouldn't mind paying a small 'subscription' fee (maybe a few bucks a month?) to help defray the (obvious) costs of the work that goes into Cakewalk.

Why?

Because, in my opinion, that would make it (much) more likely that Cakewalk would be able to thrive - and not be cast aside or left to wallow - if economic$ come into play.  I'm sure we all realize that - at any company - a product that is offered for 'free' is usually always the first thing to go when allocating capital.

Opinions?

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By some stuff from Caldecott Music Group's other companies.

 

2 hours ago, Sal Sorice said:

Because, in my opinion, that would make it (much) more likely that Cakewalk would be able to thrive - and not be cast aside or left to wallow - if economic$ come into play.  I'm sure we all realize that - at any company - a product that is offered for 'free' is usually always the first thing to go when allocating capital.

Outside the US, companies don't have the same fetish about every aspect having to turn at least X% profit or they kill it.

 

You've heard of Freeware, Shareware, Donationware. Consider this "Subsidyware." It is subsidized by other aspects of the business.

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Cakewalk by Bandlab (CbB) is at the very least the equal of any DAW out there. I have numerous paid for DAWs like Cubase Pro 12, Studio One Producer 5; and others where I no longer keep paying for updates. Cakewalk easily competes with them all in terms of features and reliability and continuing development to expand the feature set while ensuring stability and eking out every bit of performance that the latest Windows and modern hardware can provide. All the while it is even still usable (though not supported officially) on win 7. 
 

CbBs free status is thanks to the generosity and alternate business  model of a Singaporean business man who has vast interests in musical instruments, social media software that revolves around music. There are numerous other holdings that complement his involvement with Cakewalk. 
 

Of course I’m not privy to anything special or secret as the information I’ve relayed here was made known to the Cakewalk community at the time that Bandlab purchased all the Intellectual Property from Gibson. 
 

Cakewalk has never been more stable and supported than right now - at least in my estimation as someone who has used Cakewalk for more than 3 decades. 
 

Enjoy it. 

Edited by Michael Vogel (MUDGEL)
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That all said, I was lucky enough to grab a mug and a couple of shirts when they went up just after the Bandlab purchase and I know it's just a matter of time until I break the damn mug 🙄... it'd be great to see Cakewalk merch up online again, not even necessarily as an income generating source - that seems to be pretty well covered already - but just so as people who use CbB can have something they can own related to their DAW of choice. And to replace broken mugs.

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Been using Cakewalk products since Pro Audio 8 on a Win98 machine. I too believe CWbBL has never been better supported than it is right now. So, hats off to the BL team for believing in and continuing to improve this fantastic software package. 

I too have used other DAW packages, and keep coming back to CW for its power and for what is familiar territory to me. Oh, and in very large part, because it has a Staff View! !!!

 

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What I find amusing is the number of people on Facebook who try Cakewalk, get hung up on something that is 100% pilot error and say screw this I’m going to buy my DAW!  It will obviously be better! I don’t feel sorry for stupid people but those posts actually make me laugh and be proud I’m not stupid! 

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I long ago broke my Cakewalk mug, and all of my Cakewalk t-shirts have holes in them. So here's another vote for a merch page.

While they're at it, maybe they could figure out a way to add CA2A back into the offerings. I've still got my copy from SONAR days, so I'm asking for a friend.

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I like t-shirts that are conversation-starters.

I wore my last semi-whole CW shirt to a concert just last week and sure enough, somebody came up and told me he was a longtime CW user. But not a frequent forum visitor, so I invited him to stop by and type hi. 

My "College of Winterhold Alumni" tee also gets smiles and comments.

 

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On 8/22/2022 at 4:40 PM, Noel Borthwick said:

Thanks for your support, guys. It is great that we are able to offer Cakewalk free to our users.
As long as we are able to do so, enjoy it....

To add further to the 'debate' - it would be good if users could pay something back in an indirect sort of way. As the owner is heavily into music and all it entails (and this is just something that came to me out of the blue and is simply a suggestion) what if, for example they set up a publishing company for Cakewalk users; and at no cost to the user they publish our music and market it and also take a modest percentage of the profits from each sale. That way we would be giving something back and at the same time benefitting ourselves from that relationship.  One of the advantages of this is that  we could trust and have faith in our 'publisher'.

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