Introducing Cakewalk Next and our new brand identity

[Lord Tim]

45 minutes ago, Na4tmahr said:

To be honest, Cakewalk is not quite stable at work today. Without subsequent updates, it may become non-working. 

I've been using it all day today with zero issues at all. I'd suggest starting a thread in the main forum and describing your problem and I'm sure someone could help you figure it out.

[Keni]

2 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

No, Workspaces changes the layout and menus, etc. - what you're thinking of is Mix Recall.  

Ah, yes... Thanks for the correction. I forgot they are separate but I knew such feature existed...

[Noel Borthwick]

21 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Off the top of my head ....

1. Proper sampler / sample based workflow

2. Chord track

3. Easier hardware integration for control surfaces etc

4. Negative offset

5. Bar zero

6. Spatial Audio Ready

7. Remote Control

8. Varispeed

9. Retrospective Midi Record

10. Scale constrain

11. MPE Supprt

12. Bounce/Renderin Place

13. Loudness Metering

14. Updated Browser

15. Scratch Pads

Mark with all due respect, you have quoted a bunch of features rather than workflow deficiencies. While some of these might be on our future roadmap, over the last 5 years we have favored stability and workflow improvements as well as refining features we already have, over adding a bunch of half-baked features to compete with other DAW's. Cakewalk is already very feature rich and benefits more from this approach. Look at the improvements to export or tempo management as just a couple of examples.

I'd also point out that Cakewalk has several other features that other DAW's lack or are only just catching up to.
Every user is going to find something lacking in any given DAW at any time, so its in their best interest to find one that satisfies most of their needs, or use multiple DAW's

BTW Bounce render in place is already available in Cakewalk. I'm not sure what you mean by remote control but it's been available for decades.

Re: Sampler our new product Cakewalk Next has an integrated sampler. Its cross-platform code, so you may see that in Sonar someday soon.
 

[satchmo-x]

This ended up being a much longer post than I intended. Apologies up front, and no offense taken if you skip it.

I see a lot of comments about subscription vs. flat fee. I can't speak for the Cakewalk staff/developers, but the "monthly subscription or year of updates" model is often due to a shift in the way software is developed. I though maybe some background would at least help some folks understand the shift in the software development industry that led to a shift in pricing structures.

In the old development model (Waterfall), everyone in the company was focused on a singular release with a defined set of features. During development, all the features would be shoved in in parallel or close to, and then a big cycle (often months) would be all about testing, quality assurance (QA) and bug fixes (and coming up with excuses about missing features).

Waterfall results in a final "cut" release, with revised major number (i.e. Cakewalk Pro Audio *9*) with a set fixed price for new and upgrade licensing to that specific version, and almost always including bug fixes and patches for any minor versions (9.1, 9.2, etc).

These days, almost all software projects are developed using the Agile methodology instead of Waterfall. This approach is significantly different. Instead of a full set of defined features on the timescale of a year or more, Agile aims to push the quality engineering (QE) ahead as a baked in part of the process, with a lot of automation of regression testing. Features are broken down in to smaller bits of work, prioritized, and built in on a rolling basis.

The output of Agile processes doesn't result in a "Here's the Next Big Release". It results in evolutionary additions on a continuous release basis. That is a very poor fit with the old "Pay the full price for the major version" license model.

I've been a Cakewalk user since Cakewalk 1.02, circa Windows 3.1 days (1992? 1993?)... I still have a copy of a support email reply from Greg Hendershot himself somewhere. I bought many versions over the years (Cakewalk, Pro Audio, SONAR, Producer). I'm really comfortable with the major version pricing model. I didn't like the shift to subscription/1 year upgrades in the last years of Cakewalk by Roland/Gibson. As someone who's been a software dev and quality engineer at various times, though, I understood it, and I also understand that it helps these smaller teams build better software for us users. They can shift focus on which features are prioritized as the user requests change, while still releasing small incremental updates that work more reliably.

Since I wasn't a fan of the subscription model, I too paid for the "lifetime upgrades", and am still frankly pissed that I didn't even get a year from that. I don't blame the developers, though. That's a Gibson issue. Do I wish this upcoming license change could incorporate that purchase in somehow? I guess not really when I think about it. Bandlab purchased the IP, continued to pay many of the same developers to keep working on this, and I kept getting updates and features. Support took my feature requests and bug reports seriously. Honestly, I think Bandlab did a pretty stellar job of honoring a promise Gibson failed me on.

My biggest hope with this shift is to drop some of the stigma CbB has for being "free". It's still a great enough product that I haven't switched, and I spend a LOT of $$ on gear, so that's not the reason. That stigma, though... ugh. If this causes the industry to drop their BS and revert back to seeing Cakewalk as the legitimate DAW it is, I'm willing to pay some money  to support that. Maybe other manufacturers will have to stop giving excuses regarding "supporting freeware".

Tim

[Noel Borthwick]

You are right about biases in the industry. It's not just with software, bias permeates the entire music industry!  
I'm sure you have seen Mac bias where not having a Mac version is deemed inferior or less professional.
Hopefully us having a MacOS DAW now (Cakewalk Next) will alleviate that.
CbB being free also was an issue with some vendors who don't test with "free daws" 🙄

[Byron Dickens]

"Mac bias" is very apt. As much as you hear people moaning about CW being Windows only, you never hear people whining about Logic being Mac only.

[Keni]

25 minutes ago, Byron Dickens said:

"Mac bias" is very apt. As much as you hear people moaning about CW being Windows only, you never hear people whining about Logic being Mac only.

Very true...

 

Because though Logic is very good, if you're on windows, Cakewalk (SONAR/Sonar) is better!

 

[Lord Tim]

13 minutes ago, Keni said:

Because though Logic is very good, if you're on windows, Cakewalk (SONAR/Sonar) is better!

 

I mean, if nothing else CbB installs a little easier on Windows than Mac software does...! HAHA!

[MarianoGF]

55 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

bias permeates the entire music industry!  

The n°1 bias Is ProTools. I was tired to hear the ProTools users telling me about its "new awesome features", ignoring Sonar had them since one year before. (For instance AudioSnap, just to mention one) Ignoring even that Sonar existed. Fortunately those days aré gone, now the DAW market is a bit more even (a bit).

[sjoens]

Just 'cause we don'ts whine don'ts mean we

30 minutes ago, Keni said:

56 minutes ago, Byron Dickens said:

"Mac bias" is very apt. As much as you hear people moaning about CW being Windows only, you never hear people whining about Logic being Mac only.

Very true...

Because though Logic is very good, if you're on windows, Cakewalk (SONAR/Sonar) is better!

Mac users whine. Windows users just suffers in silence.  

I'd have Logic if it was a Windows app. But I'm not buying a Mac just to have it.

Edited June 11, 2023 by sjoens

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Mark with all due respect, you have quoted a bunch of features rather than workflow deficiencies.

Thanks Noel. Whilst I wasn't specifically citing them as workflow deficiencies when answering the OP, I would argue some of them are workflow deficiencies, some are new feature requests and  some of them fall into both categories where a new feature can address an existing workflow issue where it takes more steps to achieve the same outcome in CBB/Sonar than some other DAWs.

A prime example of this would be an integrated sampler where swapping out a kick drum sample for example takes seconds to drag & drop and updates the whole song, but currently we may have to delete and replace each sample on the track , or open up the drum replacer and work that way.  A new feature that massively enhances the workflow of sample based producers. I'll be interested to see how it works in Next and hopeful that it will make it's way to the new Sonar in due course.         

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Cakewalk is already very feature rich and benefits more from this approach. Look at the improvements to export or tempo management as just a couple of examples.

Yes there have been many excellent improvements over the past 5yrs, I would add the Arranger to the list too. Amazing really that we have been given these for free. But it also sets the bar moving forward as a paid product and the competition have not been idle either. 

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Every user is going to find something lacking in any given DAW at any time, so its in their best interest to find one that satisfies most of their needs, or use multiple DAW's

 I always tell people that the best DAW is the one you know. I've used various versions of Cakewalk since the mid 90's and I've never found a good enough reason to switch to anything else. I started out as a complete amatuer but now I make 80 - 100 music library tracks a year which yields a reasonable part time income. I do think it lends me a certain perspective that not all Cakewalk users are privy to such as working to deadlines, making deliverables and just the sheer variety of genres expected of library composers in general. It's a completely different ballgame to when I made music out of pure enjoyment and the demands on the tools become magnified as the workload increases. This is why I will argue endlessly for ( or against ) certain things that I believe will help drive the software to become a more adept tool for those of us  working at the coal face of production music. 

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

BTW Bounce render in place is already available in Cakewalk.

 Only in a cumbersome way - see this discussion  ( FWIW I wrote my own macro so it's a button on my Stream Deck - better workflow )  

 

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

I'm not sure what you mean by remote control but it's been available for decades.

This type of thing

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.presonus.dawremote&hl=en&gl=US

A proper way of controlling certain aspects of the DAW from a mobile device

Thanks for responding Noel, I realise that other Dev Teams may have more resources at their disposal, I think the team have done a great a job since the switch to Bandlab and I hope the switch back to paying for it again will help accellerate the growth of both platforms.

When not making music my other gig is IT sales of cloud based packages which includes an element of on site hardware and as part of my role I often have to report back to the Dev Teams and come up with new ideas for features and QoL improvments so I am always happy and comfotable to give feedback and suggestions as someone who also clocks up a lot of hours using CBB . 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

1 hour ago, Byron Dickens said:

"Mac bias" is very apt. As much as you hear people moaning about CW being Windows only, you never hear people whining about Logic being Mac only.

I remember when it wasn't Mac only - back in the Emagic days..iirc Magix bought the old Windows code and rebadged it as their own DAW

Edited June 11, 2023 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Keni]

25 minutes ago, sjoens said:

Just 'cause we don'ts whine don'ts mean we

Mac users whine. Windows users just suffers in silence.  

I'd have Logic if it was a Windows app. But I'm not buying a Mac just to have it.

 Yeah, we just stare out the window! 🙂

Funny... I have Macs and I had logic installed for a bit. It’s still the closest to Cake on a Mac, but Cake is still better for me.

[Michael Richards]

18 hours ago, scook said:

Why mess with text at all

is enough

I like the Next logo quite a bit. The Sonar logo needs help. It has no flare and makes me think my music will turn out rigid, not flowing. Also, look how cool the blue of Next is compared to Sonar's orange that looks like all the color was drained out of it.

[Noel Borthwick]

40 minutes ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

. I'll be interested to see how it works in Next and hopeful that it will make it's way to the new Sonar in due course.         

Thanks for your thoughtful reply and we are def interested in any workflow changes that enable more efficient production. You can check out Next today by signing up for the beta eval. 

In next there is also track bounce in place. Doing that in Sonar just requires choosing bounce to track with the same destination track but I hear your point about streamlining this.

If I add bounce tracks in place to sonar will you buy it? 😜

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, Byron Dickens said:

"Mac bias" is very apt. As much as you hear people moaning about CW being Windows only, you never hear people whining about Logic being Mac only.

The sad part is when you market an app as being "cross-platform" and there's no Linux version.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

10 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

If I add bounce tracks in place to sonar will you buy it? 😜

Yes !  Or subscibe - or rent to own etc. - whichever looks the best option  ( I sell SAAS so I have a good understanding of different licensing models ) 

[Andres Medina]

6 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

 

Thanks! Very cool. A step ahead from our CW current Arranger Mode. I like it!

[Cannimagine]

I have only used Cakewalk products exclusively for many years even before the Sonar line. I like others purchased the lifetime upgrades for Sonar then got burned. I feel like others  Cakewalk should provide something to users who paid for lifetime upgrades of the Sonar product line. If we are going to all be charged the same thing as a new user then maybe it's time to explore other options available. Sonar was never cheap and upgrading was the best deal going. When the lifetime upgrade was offered a lot of us took it.  What other DAW options are people using for a hobby home studio if Sonar treats us like new users?

[Onegin]

Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, PLEASE do NOT make this new software subscription based, or at least if you're going to go that route, offer the option of buying the software outright. I get that some people don't want to pay a larger sum up front, but for me, the last thing I need in my life is another subscription. I have been using Cakewalk for many years, and I very much enjoy it, I would love to continue with your brand and am happy to pay a reasonable fee for it, but I'll be switching to another DAW if the new software is subscription only.