chakko

That's what I mean. Not a single word of info about the pricing, or the kind of license (perpetual, subscription, or whatever), instead a lot of marketing babble, about how exciting the future is, and that new "products" are coming. And, that's how it has been the whole time, since they announced the new Sonar and Cakewalk Next. Obviously, they were too scared to speak out the obvious: That they will be Bandlab subscription only. After all, it's all about this: https://www.bandlab.com/membership

It rather appears to me as if Bandlab takes all the business decisions. The developers probably didn't know what they can say and what they couldn't. It's really strange most of the time. I'm pretty sure most people would be able to take a statement like "Sonar will be subscription only". No need to wrap people up in cotton wool. A clear statement is worth gold, while beating around the bush doesn't help anybody. If things are clear, I can consider what to do. If they aren't clear, I can't consider what to do. My personal opinion is, though, that this is a terrible decision. It will neither get Bandlab a lot of Sonar users, nor will it benefit Bandlab memberships in my eyes.

That's the thing. If the answer is no, just say so. Then nothing is unclear. No need to beat around the bush.

Guess I totally misunderstood their plans then.

Really? I could've sworn it was announced. Wasn't that whole "Early access" through Bandlab membership meant as a preview to the perpetual license?

Well, at least you can continue to use the software after a year, unlike a subscription service. Thus "perpetual" license. I would have to dig deep to find the posts stating that there will be a perpetual license, but, I wouldn't remember if, if it hadn't been stated multiple times, also by developers here.

That's bad. Especially as it has been communicated some time ago that there WILL be a perpetual license. Guess that's how plans change.

Let's hope they don't walk straight into a dead end.

Reading through a few of these "Will Sonar be available as a standalone purchase/perpetual license soon?", I always read the same reply, that it might come one day, but, that both Sonar and Cakewalk next are only available with a Bandlab subscription at the moment. I think that's the case for over a year now, and, I really don't see any indication for that to change at some point, apart from half-hearted and vague hints that there could be a perpetual license option available at some point. Which could be tomorrow, next year, in five years, or never. Frankly, my money is on never. It doesn't look to me at all as if they sill had planned to sell a perpetual license for Sonar. I wonder how many people still use CbB instead, because of this situation.

I rather see two different markets there. Just like with Cubase and Sequel.

Yes. How good that we have different DAW's, which are priced differently. Although you have to be careful with that really. Reaper, for example, is often praised for its low price. It's a very "bare bone" DAW though, which comes with no additional content at all, unlike other DAW's, and, if you're making a living with your music, the price is actually $225, which, considering you get zero content, is a rather regular price, comparable to the competition (considering that those come with a lot of content, compared to Reaper). You can also take thousands of dollars for your DAW, like SawStudio does. The only question is if people are willing to pay so much for your software. It's all a matter of what the customer is willing to pay for it. Bandlab will have to figure it out. And will have to see whether or not people are willing to pay that price. As usual.

Such an easy concept, yet so hard to grasp for most, for some reason.

There's gotta be something wrong with your system then. I have the same interface, and never had that issue.

FWIW, no complaints about that here at all. If anything, I think updates are overrated (especially the paid ones ?), unless there is something blatantly missing, or broken with the software.

1. The owner is a multi millionaire. 2. It has surely been bought to at least partly promote the Bandlab service. Also, why is "profit" always the term being used? (Always sounds like people confuse the audio software industry with the stock market...) Especially in this small industry, it's not like there's loads of multinational billions worth corporations. All the companies are mid tier to small business, and most are run by enthusiasts or musicians. If that counts for you. As long as there's still money being used in this world, companies need to make sure to bring food to the table.

If you're interested, I created a thread on the topic some time ago: I don't think anything has changed since then. tl;dr: Cakewalk has no full support for the HUI protocol. The things I mentioned in the thread simply don't work, probably the same as on the Launchkey. It doesn't look like there is interest to make them work, so, I wouldn't hold my breath for it. azslow3 in that thread mentioned that you could do it yourself, as the source code is freely available, but, I don't know anything about coding, and probably wouldn't understand it anyway. I don't want to sound sour, but, any other DAW I tried supports HUI fully. Studio One, Cubase, Reaper, Ableton, all no problem. I understand why the implementation is a problem, and that it's an ancient protocol, but, that doesn't change that some devices still use it, and can't be used to their full extent in Cakewalk. If you want a recommendation, I'd recommend to go with another controller, if you want to have the additonal functionality, no Novation ones. Arturia's controllers also work in MCU mode, so, they will probably work (better) in Cakewalk.

nvmd

If you're not on the net, you probably have very little issues with it. And, even if you are on the net, you probably have very little issues with it. I never was a fan of Automap though. TBH, I dislike most of those manufacturer's solutions. And, I don't really like most DAW included MIDI mapping systems either. If I want to map my controller keyboard's controls to VST's, I use their internal MIDI mapping systems (or set up a template for those with fixed MIDI CC's), and, for DAW control, I prefer stuff like the Maeckie HUI protocol, which works in almost any DAW. That way I can also make sure that my controller works the same universally in any DAW. Maybe I'm a bit finicky about stuff like that, but, it simply works for me.

Automap was discontinued by Novation, and, they even updated the firmware of the Impulse to make use of the Maeckie HUI protocol for that. None of the newer Novation keyboards use Automap anymore. Thankfully, TBH. I was quite a mess IMO. Crashy, buggy, and, I can do without having every plugin double in my DAW as well, because you always needed a wrapper, if you wanted to use Automap to map your VST's. Don't get me wrong about this thread: I don't need this functionality to work with Cakewalk, it was just interesting for me why it didn't work, and also interesting whether or not it's possible and worth the effort to improve/extend the HUI funcionality in Cakewalk. If it's not happening, so what. Would be cool if it was fully functional, also for other users, but, hey. Cakewalk isn't even my primary DAW. I just had an impulse (no pun intended) to find out why that stuff isn't working.

Could this be incorporated in the HUI support in Cakewalk? I'm pretty sure this is standard stuff, which is also used in other keyboards for the same controls (for example, Arturia seems to also use it for their keyboards).

Sorry, didn't know that the button press is the relevant thing. Here are screenthos from the MIDI messages when I press the buttons (to switch from Pan -> SendA -> SendB -> SendC -> SendD -> SendE, and back to Pan). A lot of stuff. Note that in the last screenshot, the message marked in blue is the last message from the former screenshot.

I'm not (yet) using it, but, there shouldn't be too many compatibility issues, considering that it's largely Windows 10 under the hood. Won't be long until companies release some plugin and DAW compatibility articles.

I'm not sure if you can do anything with it, but, here's the MIDI monitor output from Studio One for those 8 knobs in HUI mode: The bottom entries go from bottom to top, i.e. I turned the first of the knob, then the second one etc., and the most upper entry is for the last of the 8 knobs. I first turned them left, then right, and made sure that only 1 message turns up in the log (I think it logged the last movement twice though). Again, if you can anything with that. I have no idea exactly what you are looking for. Oh, and, it didn't matter what I configure the knobs to do, I switched from controlling the pan for the tracks to SendA, SendB, SendC, and SendD (controlling the level of the send fx for each track). They always sent the same messages (might also be obvious to you, but, I thought I'd mention it anyway, if it matters).

@msmcleod You probably already found it, but, is this maybe of help for you? https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=101328 I wished I could be more helpful with my keyboard, but, I really have no idea about HUI or MCU. @azslow3 suggested earlier to take a look at MIDI-Ox, but, frankly, I wouldn't even know how to get into HUI mode in that program. Without being in HUI mode, the knobs and faders just send the normal MIDI CC data.

Thanks, but, I don't think the keyboard does anything with that. Regardless of the "Disable handshake" option being on or off, when I switch the protocol to Maeckie Control Universal, the keyboards transport controls, knobs, faders and buttons stop working for the DAW control (they only work in normal MIDI CC mode then). The only thing that works really is the HUI (Beta) protocol. I don't see any option either on the keyboard to switch it to MCU mode or something (if that is necessary). Novation's site and the manual only talks about "HUI" as well.