Backstage Pass and Sonar Pricing

[AB7]

It should be kept in mind that the purchasers generally do not "own" the software.   It is generally a "license" - which is something short of full ownership.  

So you can have permission to use it under certain contractual provisions.

I subscribe to Adobe Pro and Google Drive (5 T), Microsoft 365, etc.  Not an issue.  

Under the old Cakewalk/Sonar days, there was a one-time charge and there were charges for updates.  The need to buy the updates was often there.   Reliant operating systems changed, VST arose and changed, etc.  And there were unstable times in terms of the actual "owners" of the software - not the consumers and not really the software itself.

As stated before, if the Bakers do not get paid well, this will not be sustainable, and that is a lose-lose.  If Bandlab overcharges, then they will not make it in the market.   It seems that they know that.

For those that disdain subscriptions as stated on the forum, they are certainly entitled to their opinion and I think it is good that the opinion is voiced, so Bandlab knows that there is a group of people that feel that way, even if I am not so concerned.  

Now I am seriously going to open up some Skinny Pop!

 

[Pathfinder]

We all know we DO NOT OWN the software. That's been a thing, like forever.
The development of Sonar is obviously pretty much done. Yes updates will be needed down the road.
I get it's a bit more complicated than JUST a Subscription. 
Some how these other DAW companies miraculously manage to do it-offer both I mean-Or just sell! 

 

 

[Hillmy]

If I say anything anymore people will think I'm angry and just lock the thread. So I'm just here reading other people's post and reacting to the same thing I have been saying all along. 🙃🍿

[Pathfinder]

Well, I guess I can say no more. I'm done and I'll just wait and see if I will be using New Sonar or not.
Will have to brush up on studio One and reaper. Although I am more familiar with Reaper.
Feel like I am leaving an old friend, well I am.
Wish it was different but I honestly believe they will stick with their subscription scheme and the hell with the rest of us 30+ years Cakewalk Users............

I was actually warned in another forum that I frequent years ago that this would happen. I argued for CW and said no way. They may have subscriptions but they also will sell it to us...........Guess they were right and I was wrong.    😞 

 

Edited March 23 by Pathfinder

[Starship Krupa]

47 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

I honestly believe they will stick with their subscription scheme

What subscription scheme are you referring to? To my knowledge, Cakewalk have announced neither a subscription model nor a perpetual model for Sonar licensing.

They currently have something where you get access to a pre-release version of it with a BandLab membership. But it's only a pre-release, not the actual shipping version.

Did I miss something?

[CSistine]

7 hours ago, Heath Row said:

The Cakewalk Forums

Sorry, but it's misspelled:

HOT in Swedish (=threat in English)! 😄

[Mr No Name]

4 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

We all know we DO NOT OWN the software. That's been a thing, like forever.
The development of Sonar is obviously pretty much done. Yes updates will be needed down the road.
I get it's a bit more complicated than JUST a Subscription. 
Some how these other DAW companies miraculously manage to do it-offer both I mean-Or just sell! 

 

 

you will own nothing and be happy.

[Hillmy]

3 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

What subscription scheme are you referring to? To my knowledge, Cakewalk have announced neither a subscription model nor a perpetual model for Sonar licensing.

They currently have something where you get access to a pre-release version of it with a BandLab membership. But it's only a pre-release, not the actual shipping version.

Did I miss something?

You missed a whole thread LOL! 

 

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, Hillmy said:

You missed a whole thread LOL! 

Quoting you from that topic:

Quote

This website https://www.cakewalk.com/next says:  "Cakewalk Next is still in development, but you can gain early access through Backstage Pass — an experimental program available to users with an active BandLab Membership."

Okay, so it's via an extension to the BandLab Backstage Pass membership, but it's still just an "early access," which phrase has been used for years in this forum by employees of BandLab to mean "feature complete but not yet released."

And that's what I thought.

There's still nothing definite one way or the other about how the released products are going to be priced. I agree that signs point to one option being like PreSonus' Studio One+ subscription, where the subscription grants the user access to a variety of things, one of which is use of the Studio One Pro DAW.

This Backstage Pass sounds similar and I wouldn't be surprised to see something like it continue once Sonar and Next are actually released. However, I would be very much surprised if there is not also a perpetual license option for Sonar.

People can go on and on about how the software industry is heading in the subscription direction, but the fact remains that for audio production software, there is exactly ONE single DAW that is subscription-only, which is Adobe Audition, not exactly a force in the DAW market. Even AVID still offers perpetual licenses for Pro Tools.

And AFAIK, the majority of DAW vendors have no subscription option. I'm not sure which ones do, other than PreSonus and AVID.

So yeah, trends in the software industry blah blah blah, but subscription-only is NOT a trend in the audio software industry. Adobe is the only one who do it, and I think the popularity of Audition speaks for how successful they have been with that. I don't know how well Studio One+ is doing, but it looks that as with BandLab, you get access to a whole bunch of stuff along with the DAW itself. I think that's a great way to do it: if you'd rather have people on subscription, let the subscription also give access to premium services.

The DAW that is said to be the most popular in the world right now, FL Studio, has pretty much the opposite licensing model: pay once and you really do get a "perpetual" license in that it grants you the right to use the product and all of its future versions as long as the product and the company exist. Same with MeldaProduction, a plug-in vendor I have watched grow in popularity.

One major player, Waves, tried to switch to subscription-only and they still washing off the smell of the crap that got slung at them for trying it, also they are completely back to the same old licensing model they had before: I get an email a day offering their plug-ins on sale at $19.99 each for perpetual licenses. Subscription is merely one of their options, along with bundles and singles.

I'm making the BIG distinction here between only selling licenses via subscription and having a subscription option. They are wildly different things. I'm a perpetual-only guy, but I also think that subscriptions are a great option to have for businesses and individuals who prefer to spread costs out or find it better for accounting reasons.

The thing I'm most looking forward to at Sonar's eventual release is finally shutting down the panicky speculation about pricing and licensing....the bottom line is that we don't know what the release pricing and licensing will be until it's announced.

[Heath Row]

[Starship Krupa]

Wow, I wasn't kidding about Adobe Audition's status in the DAW world as the lone subscription-only product.

Out of curiosity I did a search for "Adobe Audition" on YouTube.

You know how DAW's like Cakewalk and FL Studio and Ableton Live and Cubase and REAPER and Studio One have "channels" where a user will post an ongoing series of videos about the DAW?

Yeah....not so much with Audition.

[David Baay]

TLDR

[pwal³]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Wow, I wasn't kidding about Adobe Audition's status in the DAW world as the lone subscription-only product.

Out of curiosity I did a search for "Adobe Audition" on YouTube.

You know how DAW's like Cakewalk and FL Studio and Ableton Live and Cubase and REAPER and Studio One have "channels" where a user will post an ongoing series of videos about the DAW?

Yeah....not so much with Audition.

i bet there's some for cool edit haha

[Terry Kelley]

Hey, I still use Cool Edit 2000. Works like a champ and I have it integrated into CbB via AZSlow’s tools.  

That’s right, I live in the past!

Edited March 23 by Terry Kelley

[mettelus]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Wow, I wasn't kidding about Adobe Audition's status in the DAW world as the lone subscription-only product.

AFAIK, Audition CC still has no MIDI implementation so it has very limited usefulness as a DAW, but it does have features that make it a good wav editor (background noise removal, scripts, batch editing, and the like). I sampled a TD-9 sound module years ago and it took me 10 times longer to rename the samples than to create/run a script to isolate/save all of the samples from one massive recording. 99% of those features existed in Audition 3/4 before it went to CC, and not a lot of note has been updated since it did. Out of curiosity I checked program-specific updates on things within CC a few years ago and updates are not overly frequent. The simple fact that a couple apps have free alternatives (DaVinci Resolve for Premiere Pro, and Visual Studio Code for Dream Weaver) takes a lot of wind out of the subscription sails.

The Studio One+ is an odd one (someone posted they jumped off and just upgraded Studio One Pro, which was a prudent move). Unless you are doing notation, Notion isn't required, and it will host VSTis to boot, so sound packs are unnecessary... and Notion 6 hasn't been significantly updated in years now. Portions of the FAT Channel comes with Studio One Pro, and it costs roughly $60/year to keep current, but even then SOP 6 might be all most would need for their foreseeable future... as with most things, the 80/20 rule applies, so roughly 20% of a program's features will let you do 80% of your work. When new features begin to fall into the minutiae bucket is when to re-evaluate things.

Software is one of the few arenas where a product isn't just delivered (a lot is due to the internet, so they can rely on patches and updates). If people bought a car and the manufacturer said, "Yeah, we didn't think about headlights, but it is definitely on our upgrade radar! Just don't drive it a night." People would freak.

[John T]

29 minutes ago, mettelus said:

If people bought a car and the manufacturer said, "Yeah, we didn't think about headlights, but it is definitely on our upgrade radar! Just don't drive it a night." People would freak.

Sure, but you can't die in a DAW crash. It's not an especially meaningful comparison.

[pwal³]

4 minutes ago, John T said:

Sure, but you can't die in a DAW crash.

depends on the artist haha

[John T]

I didn't say it couldn't be a horrifying trauma.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

On 3/22/2024 at 1:17 PM, John Vere said:

You can bet that the marketing folks at Bandlab have been studying those same pages I visited and using that as part of making the upcoming decisions on pricing.  So please stop overreacting about this. WE DON'T KNOW YET!

I doubt they are. They don't even fix the bugs you are reporting, being more focused on telling you which content you can post or not in your channel about their product.

Personally, I don't see as much overreacting as happened when the commercial change was announced. That happens simply because we never get concrete answers on anything. It's either a half answer or the answer is everything which what you ask isn't. And that gets old fast. I find strange a company can come up with a whole marketing and revamp of things like forums, product pages and the like and a simple thing like communicating to potential customers  what their options are is a herculean task which takes several months and requires preparing the grounds several times for some reason.

[Jeremy Oakes]

1 hour ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I doubt they are. They don't even fix the bugs you are reporting, being more focused on telling you which content you can post or not in your channel about their product.

Personally, I don't see as much overreacting as happened when the commercial change was announced. That happens simply because we never get concrete answers on anything. It's either a half answer or the answer is everything which what you ask isn't. And that gets old fast. I find strange a company can come up with a whole marketing and revamp of things like forums, product pages and the like and a simple thing like communicating to potential customers  what their options are is a herculean task which takes several months and requires preparing the grounds several times for some reason.

Bugs ? C’mon,. Enlighten the faithful please.

J