Change???

[LittleStudios]

Has anyone noticed a slight change in the Cakewalk logo, font and color?  Particularly on this forum site.

Edited June 6, 2023 by LittleStudios

[Lord Tim]

HA, I thought my monitor was being weird for a minute, then I saw this:

 

[LittleStudios]

Thanks.  Good to know I'm not crazy.

[Einstein R]

I just hope they will not ask us to pay full price from previous licensees since before they went free, we were paying the upgrade fee. I am sure they still have access to the database that we were paying the upgrade fee for before Bandlab made the program free.

The way the economy is right now...I can't pay over $300 to get the features back that I have right now with the free version.

[Lord Tim]

It's a completely different company though.

Gibson was who owned the Cakewalk brand and charged the price. It was the code that was bought by Bandlab, and hired the dev team that found themselves out of a job when Gibson pulled the plug. We (including me - I paid for lifetime licenses, etc.) paid Gibson this money, not Bandlab. No company is going to go "well we bought the code and released a product but since you gave money to someone else, I guess we'll give our paid product to you as well because the name is similar" - it doesn't make any kind of financial sense.

I have no insights at all to what the plans are, but considering the good faith shown since 2017 with compatibility and letting us use locked products with CbB, etc. etc. then I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of fair deal.

[chris.r]

So much for "Cakewalk will now be always free" I guess  

Edited June 6, 2023 by chris.r

[Anders Madsen]

4 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

It's a completely different company though.

Gibson was who owned the Cakewalk brand and charged the price. It was the code that was bought by Bandlab, and hired the dev team that found themselves out of a job when Gibson pulled the plug. We (including me - I paid for lifetime licenses, etc.) paid Gibson this money, not Bandlab. No company is going to go "well we bought the code and released a product but since you gave money to someone else, I guess we'll give our paid product to you as well because the name is similar" - it doesn't make any kind of financial sense.

I have no insights at all to what the plans are, but considering the good faith shown since 2017 with compatibility and letting us use locked products with CbB, etc. etc. then I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of fair deal.

I just hope no-one buys the car shop. New owner would reposess my car..

Edited June 6, 2023 by Anders Madsen

[Lord Tim]

A car isn't software and it doesn't work like that anyway.

If you bought a car from a certain dealer and they said "you have free car maintenance services forever" and then they went broke and closed the dealership, and then another dealership started selling models of your car, it's really going to be up to them if they offer any of the previous dealership's perks.

In Bandlab's case, they bought the plans on how to build a particular bit of software and hired the engineers that made it, and really nothing else. And to their credit, they also let you use all of the third party options that were locked to the previous company's product, and still offered legacy downloads of that company's product if you already owned it, which is more than most companies would do.

The beef really is with Gibson for shuttering things for those who paid for subscriptions, not Bandlab.

As far as Cakewalk by Bandlab goes, they haven't started charging for it. By the sounds of things, it'll continue to be free but just won't be updated or offered for download for new customers, basically being superseded by Sonar. For whatever reason, they've moved to a paid model for the software now, and I guess it's up to us if we want to follow them down that path or not. Given the goodwill from both Bandlab and the team they hired (Noel and co), I'd be surprised if the plans were anything but fair.

[giovannibuchelli]

That pale orange color over a white background doesn't look right...

 

Edit: They fixed it.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by giovannibuchelli

[Terry Kelley]

I always assumed this "free" thing was temporary. Maybe that change is at hand. If I have to pay, I will judge the cost vs value and go from there. If I get a decent break, cool. If I don't - I have wandering eyes.

[Promidi]

Let's just wait and see..............  Yes, there will be "price points" (according to the FAQ) - but until there are official announcements, everything else is pure speculation.

Happy music making!

[John Vere]

Reading Jesse’s and Noel’s posts it sounds like the current version of CbB will get one more bug fix and then be left available for free forever. They never said anything about removing it. It will be the 3rd version.  

It will be the same version of Cakewalk as what we have right now for as long as you can run it on a current Windows system. I think that is a very cool offer for most of us who are just fine with what we have.
They don’t have to do that. There’s no users agreement saying they can’t just pull the plug and when your activation runs out in 6 months you would be forced to pony up. They aren’t doing that at all. 

So we will get one last bug fix and they said they are removing the activation time out with that update. So be sure and update when offered. 
This CbB version of Cakewalk will still work for a long time yet. For me that can be at least 10 more years. I still run it on W7 on a backup computer.  I have lots of 10 year old software that works just fine. 
Really the bottom line is what we now have will no longer be supported so if you have any issues don’t complain. But they are not demanding money from you for continuing to use their software.

They are simply offering a new DAW based on Cakewalk that will be supported and will open your old projects. 
So I really don’t understand people already worrying about what it will cost?  It’s still free.  It’s as solid as a rock right now and let’s see what the bug fixes are.  I look at this as an offer to upgrade if I so choose so. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by JohnnyV

[chris.r]

7 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

So we will get one last bug fix and they said they are removing the activation time out with that update. So be sure and update when offered.

Where did you hear that? I would feel much better seeing that's true, unfortunately I don't see them removing the activation time-out. All I read is they will render it (CbB) unsupported, and nothing from the new development since the start of this years is going to be added in the upcoming final update.

Edited June 7, 2023 by chris.r

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

On 6/6/2023 at 9:20 AM, LittleStudios said:

Has anyone noticed a slight change in the Cakewalk logo, font and color?  Particularly on this forum site.

I also noticed how it doesn't scale properly in the banner and it's pixelated.

[John Vere]

3 hours ago, chris.r said:

Where did you hear that? I would feel much better seeing that's true, unfortunately I don't see them removing the activation time-out. All I read is they will render it (CbB) unsupported, and nothing from the new development since the start of this years is going to be added in the upcoming final update.

It was not exactly stated but the quote most certainly reads that way to me. 
It makes perfect sense. Why pyzz off thousands of users when it would cost you nothing to do this. They said the only reason for the activation was to keep track of how many people were using the software. They no longer will need that info. It will also keep the pirates away. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by JohnnyV

[chris.r]

2 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

It was not exactly stated but the quote most certainly reads that way to me. 
It makes perfect sense. Why pyzz off thousands of users when it would cost you nothing to do this. They said the only reason for the activation was to keep track of how many people were using the software. They no longer will need that info. It will also keep the pirates away. 

It's the same thread I read from 😆

[User 905133]

7 hours ago, chris.r said:

It's the same thread I read from 😆

LOL.  I just saw this.  Please don't blame me for bringing up the issue of activation!!!!!!  😛 

Now I know why JohnnyV (the Cakewalk Tutorialist formerly using "Cactus" in his name) asked me:

7 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

@User 905133   where did you find this quote. I'm looking for clarification regarding the removal of the Activation time out?

 

  To which I replied there was no reference to activation:

6 hours ago, User 905133 said:

https://www.cakewalk.com/sonar

Scroll down to the FAQs > Will Cakewalk by BandLab be discontinued?

Quote

Yes, eventually. We will continue providing community support and maintenance for Cakewalk by BandLab until Cakewalk Sonar becomes publicly available. At some point after the release of Sonar, Cakewalk by BandLab will no longer be supported. Note that existing Cakewalk by BandLab users will be able to continue using the software after the release of Cakewalk Sonar. In the meantime, Cakewalk by BandLab continues to be available here.

It doesn't say anything about the removal of the activation time out.  So far I have only seen discussion (questions/speculation) by users.  But honestly, there's too much Chicken Little stuff going on for me to keep track of what users are saying.  But if I find a definitive statement about the activation feature, I will let you know.

I think the reason I didn't see the comments in this thread earlier is that I was really sick and tired of overwhelmed by the Chicken Littles, the blame Bandab for the sins of Gibson diatribes, and the "Well, if they are going to to it that way, I want nothing to do with it!" posts and I just tuned out a number of the threads related to the Cakewalk Next/Sonar announcement.

BTW, I was encouraged by the video X.E.L. Ohhh did for the benefit of his followers. He basically goes over what's on the website, adding some personal insights and hopes with his typical positive and encouraging demeanor.  His perspective was so refreshing to me after reading many of the negative posts in the forum.

Peace!

[chris.r]

10 hours ago, User 905133 said:

LOL.  I just saw this.  Please don't blame me for bringing up the issue of activation!!!!!!  😛 

Now I know why JohnnyV (the Cakewalk Tutorialist formerly using "Cactus" in his name) asked me(...)

pretty sure there is no intent to remove the time limit, I've been told way too many reasons why they need to keep it, of which none makes a real sense to me so I read it as they want to keep it for some reasons they won't talk about and we'll have to accept it that way, end of discussion, and I've been crossed with stuff about this for at least 5 years now, there was no mention about removing it except Noel vaguely declaring earlier that it would get unlocked as a last resort should there happen a definite end of cakewalk development, and he just repeated this today

I mean I would much appreciate a change in the approach but really not expecting it, why would they let us for example use CbB in the form it is now (will be after the last upcoming update) if there's much chance it will work for several more years, when there will be a paid software you could be kindly 'forced' to buy? sorry for pessimistic note but I live long enough to understand the intentions and incentives of companies, even the most ethical amongst them... time will tell, I'd love to be proven wrong!

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by chris.r

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

11 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

Why pyzz off thousands of users when it would cost you nothing to do this.

Because businesses are not your friends and people usually complain about stuff then end up buying the product/service anyways, so companies learned to just ignore the pissed off peple and continue doing whatever they were doing.

 

[Alan Tubbs]

10 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

Because businesses are not your friends and people usually complain about stuff then end up buying the product/service anyways, so companies learned to just ignore the pissed off peple and continue doing whatever they were doing.

 

Businesses that ***** customers don’t keep them.  They don’t have to your best buddy, just treat you decently.  
 

Rupert Neve had a story about how the first console  they sold in the US back in the 60shad some bad woodwork.  Mr. Neve sent his carpenter to NYC for a couple of weeks to get it sorted and that cost him more than the profit he made on a $100K console.  Still, once word got around of what he’d done helped facilitate the next dozen consoles in the US in as many months.The good guys do win.  I had an Indian motorcycle dealer treat me right like that, too, and guess who gets my business now.

it is amazing that if you aren’t a hole about things how much people will work with you.

I think the new cakewalk will do right for most customers.  It sounds like cakewalk by Bandlab will be available for a long while for those that dont want to pay so you won’t lose all the money you spent on it w/Bandlab. There will be Next, and who knows what exactly it is.  And there will be a new pay version of Sonar.  Take your pick, partner.