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Why is Cakewalk by Bandlab free?


synkrotron

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5 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

IMHO MTPro is the best stand-alone MIDI sequencer in the biz. Great interface, great editing tools, everything available in a mouse click or two (no sub-menus or sub-sub-menus), and the 8.3 version never-ever crashed. Sadly the new version occasional does.

Oh, it looks so familiar to Cakewalk Professional 3 from early nineties! And it's even working on mcintosh, lovely :).

5 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

If Bandlab decides to abandon Cakewalk, it's possible we will be able to use it for many years - until Microsoft changes it's OS making it no longer compatible (like the 8.3 version of MTPro).

In that scenario your Cakewalk will revert to demo mode in less than 6 months.

16 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If it fizzles, and development stops, I'll be left with this great DAW software and will have to rely the people who own it to continue the free subscription or be kind enough to release a version with a perpetual key. For the value I'm getting now, it all seems quite worth the risk.

This. We (sonarians) have heard that already in the past but it never happended. I assumed "the people who own it" decided that the fact of CakeLab revival is a sufficient reason to scrap the unlock idea. I've never intended to jump the ship in the past, but I'll take risk as the keyword for the future here, YMMV ;).

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1 hour ago, synkrotron said:

And perhaps even a Linux based system...

That's my Plan "Z", as in if the Windows zombie apocalypse ever happens to us. :D

I already have Tracktion Waveform working on Windows (it's PC, Mac, & Linux cross-platform), and I believe Bitwig has a Linux version, and Reaper has a Linux beta. So not a showstopper, except for most of my 500 plugins probably wouldn't work that great in Linux. The Tracktion synths and FX would probably be good to go.

Edited by abacab
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5 hours ago, abacab said:

A lot of competition in a saturated market

I don't like this kind of saying! It has been misused to legitimate a lot of ill measures in our sick world. The fact is that today the market for DAWs is much larger, there are definitely a lot more costomers than 20 years ago!

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2 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

Frankly, I'm much more concerned that Microsoft and Apple will be what eventually scuttles our DAWs. Microsoft wants to go more in a "services," cloud-based direction, because so far the shift has been very successful for them. It's possible that software companies will accommodate this trend by making more cloud-based programs, with an eye toward collaboration and a subscription-based model. If so, then whether by accident or design, BandLab would be in a better position than most to ride this trend.

If this happens then I will leave the boat. This would be the worst scenario I can imagine! I hate cloud-based stuff, it is the evil per se!

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9 minutes ago, marled said:

I don't like this kind of saying! It has been misused to legitimate a lot of ill measures in our sick world. The fact is that today the market for DAWs is much larger, there are definitely a lot more costomers than 20 years ago!

Sorry, but I will stand by the statement "A lot of competition in a saturated market", and belief that it was not misused in this context.

I don't like it either, but the reality is that Cakewalk wouldn't have failed in the market under Gibson if the opposite were true. If it were a money making machine, don't you think there would have been eager buyers lining up, rather than shutdown plans for a 30 year old company?

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3 minutes ago, abacab said:

Sorry, but I will stand by the statement "A lot of competition in a saturated market", and belief that it was not misused in this context. 

I don't like it either, but the reality is that Cakewalk wouldn't have failed in the market under Gibson if the opposite were true. If it were a money making machine, don't you think there would have been eager buyers lining up, rather than shutdown plans for a 30 year old company? 

Sorry either, I think a lot of management failure is excused like that! There are many reasons why a company is not successful, not profitable, it is not only the market's fault. That's too simple! I am 100% sure that Sonar could have survived with other (cleverer) managers!

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17 minutes ago, marled said:

The fact is that today the market for DAWs is much larger, there are definitely a lot more costomers than 20 years ago!

And the fact is that most of them were lining up for DAWs with names like Ableton Live, Logic, FL Studio, Reason, Reaper, Studio One, Bitwig, Cubase, etc.

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On 2/1/2019 at 11:48 AM, Craig Anderton said:

It's a tractor beam

What tractor beam are you referring to?
Sorry, your description is so funny because it takes me back to a movie.

There is a scene in the movie Dumb and Dumber where Loyd was describing Freda Feltcher and a tractor beam.
It's hilarious!

I get your point though.
 

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2 hours ago, abacab said:

Sorry, but I will stand by the statement "A lot of competition in a saturated market", and belief that it was not misused in this context.

I don't like it either, but the reality is that Cakewalk wouldn't have failed in the market under Gibson if the opposite were true. If it were a money making machine, don't you think there would have been eager buyers lining up, rather than shutdown plans for a 30 year old company?

I don't see a bunch of companies looking to buy Gibson either,  and they are a household name even non-musicians know.  

While I do think both markets (DAW and Guitars) are generally over saturated, there is a decent sized market and people did buy products in these catergories, the question is who they bought from.  

Everyone in the market had a choice to buy under the Gibson umbrella or from another company.  I bought a Heritage Guitar (before Bandland bought them) because they ere better than Gibson is today (I also own vintage Gibsons).  I bought my DAW from Gibson, since Sonar was better than other DAWs.  However, both of those choices came from someone that is far more educated in these areas than your average consumer.  Each of these companies had a very difficult time reaching the average person.    If they had, the story would be different.   

While Cakewalk adoption has been strong/exceeded expectations of Bandlab....the crazy thing is people are still out there using (and buying) other DAWs when Cakewalk is offered for free.  I understand this from Mac users (who are only a fraction of the personal computer market), but the rest of Windows owners.  They are still paying hundreds for a "similar" product, that doesn't even look as nice?  I think the points to a larger problem that being the best isn't always enough to stay afloat.  

Edited by Brian Walton
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3 hours ago, InstrEd said:

CbB, Samplitude, Studio One, Reaper. I think I will have to sit down and come to terms with another DAW and learn it better. I like several DAW's but each for different reasons. Time to make a Pro and Con sheet :)

I have samplitude and mixcraft.

 They are dead  to me. Not worth my time. Not even Samp v4.

Wasted a total of $200 on those two.

Edited by Bapu
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11 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

I've got to respectfully disagree with your first statement. Capitalism is all about the corporation. It's about making profits so the non-participant stockholders can increase their share value.

Now they partially do this by focusing on the customer, because customers are necessary. But the focus is on profits and nothing else. But then, isn't that the reason to be in business?

The difference is in a small business, the company doesn't have to grow perpetually to stay in business.

But I do agree that we can live without Facebook, Twitter (I do), Google (that too), Smartphone (minimize my apps and permissions because I need the phone for business), and value the money that I'm not slaving for (I'm a professional musician - I make a living by enjoying myself).

Capitalism has it's flaws, but so far it's better than the alternatives the world has tried. By pointing out the flaws we can minimize their impact on us, and perhaps someday someone will be able to improve it.

Insights and incites by Notes

Capitalism is all about the consumer.  If you don't like a corporation's actions, stop buying their stuff.  If enough people do, they will change their model to something acceptable to the customers, or cease to exist.  They don't actually hold much power, which is why they lobby governments as hard as they do...

If you want it to be more fair... then you have to make a sacrifice.  It's people's  unwillingness to give up conveniences that leaves them ripe to be exploited.  Companies know this, but it doesn't mean they are in control  The consumers are.  They are the ones who shell out the cash.  They're just too unwilling to make the hard decisions and make the sacrifices needed...

This is why capitalism brings huge increases quality of life, but is typically followed by corporations that  exploit the unwillingness for people to take a step back when they're being exploited.  People don't like giving up small conveniences.  That's why "First World Problems" is a meme.  The benefits of capitalism are great, but it also comes with huge societal responsibilities - which we have been pretty shoddy at dealing with, BTW...

Facebook will exploit all those users, who still sit in a corner complaining as they say it's "too hard to leave" because they won't be able to "keep in touch" with the people they know...

Facebook makes these things easier, it doesn't make them possible.  It's a convenience, but it comes at a price... what gives Facebook power is not their product, but people's unwillingness to seek alternatives and/or just walk away from it.  The consumers hold the key, but they will never use it because they are convinced they have nothing to benefit from doing so.

Edited by SomeGuy
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41 minutes ago, Bapu said:

I have samplitude and mixcraft.

 They are dead  to me. Not worth my time. Not even Samp v4.

Wasted a total of $200 on those two.

I got the deal on Samplitude Pro X3 suite and I like some things about it.  I have used Spectral Layers Pro so the deal was worth it to me.  I'm just a hobbyist that use to be more involved with music in church setting. Now I just dabble in some orchestration type music for my own pleasure. Studio One with its arranger track should be what the doctor ordered. I just have to find the time to spend with it. I don't need the gapless engine like some of the EDM crowd and Cakewalk has been good to me all these years that I keep hanging around. I'm not like Scook and some of the other experts but I have used the software for a long time.

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2 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

I don't see a bunch of companies looking to buy Gibson either,  and they are a household name even non-musicians know.  

While I do think both markets (DAW and Guitars) are generally over saturated, there is a decent sized market and people did buy products in these catergories, the question is who they bought from.  

Everyone in the market had a choice to buy under the Gibson umbrella or from another company.  I bought a Heritage Guitar (before Bandland bought them) because they ere better than Gibson is today (I also own vintage Gibsons).  I bought my DAW from Gibson, since Sonar was better than other DAWs.  However, both of those choices came from someone that is far more educated in these areas than your average consumer.  Each of these companies had a very difficult time reaching the average person.    If they had, the story would be different.   

While Cakewalk adoption has been strong/exceeded expectations of Bandlab....the crazy thing is people are still out there using (and buying) other DAWs when Cakewalk is offered for free.  I understand this from Mac users (who are only a fraction of the personal computer market), but the rest of Windows owners.  They are still paying hundreds for a "similar" product, that doesn't even look as nice?  I think the points to a larger problem that being the best isn't always enough to stay afloat.  

It's because Instruments, Effects Packages, Plug-Ins, and features like AAF support are worth money too.  Free is nice, but it's a pretty barebones package.  You really need to add a lot on top  of it to approach what those other DAWs offer out of the box... and many upstarts won't need to buy anything after buying those other DAWs; at least not for a while.  The value-adds are often more than worth the increase in price.

Melodyne Essential is $99, by itself.  Most Paid DAWs bundle this.

Instruments and Effects Packages can easily run into the $200+ range if you get something as good as what MAGIX, MOTU, Steinberg, etc. bundle out of the box.

At the end of the day, the price of those DAWs is actually quite small, and "Free" for a bare bones package like CbB isn't really that attractive of a value proposition to many.  People are discriminate with their choices.  It's so easy to do research on these  things, these days, and you also are fighting the momentum other products have in the media (i.e. YouTube, Tech Press, etc.).

SONAR has existed long enough that Professionals who already own all the Plugins, Instruments, etc. that they need have already - largely - settled on a DAW...  SONAR itself, or something else.  I don't think it will get the sort of "DaVinci Resolve" effect people are hoping for because DAWs are still - largely - perpetually licensed (or have that option); and many people don't feel the need to constantly upgrade their software year-over-year; especially on Windows, which has excellent backward/forward application compatibility.  I think  if his was an NLE, it would have been more disruptive.

I also think that it could have been a bit more disruptive on macOS, because that platform actually has more room for competitors "under" the "Standards," compared to Windows.  The Windows application ecosystem is extremely cutthroat, because there are also viable options for people at the lower end of the market for low cost ($150 or less), which deliver a very nice (more complete "out of the box") package.

 

Edited by SomeGuy
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11 hours ago, marled said:

But in one thing you are completely wrong! That guy in my avatar picture, he's really a "glass half-empty" one, it's me in 1985. Looks cool, doesn't it

You are busted as a total John Lennon clone, then. ?

But yes, cool indeed. The shades and the expression are very much my "1985 face." The ladies loved it. I looked more like the guy in The Jam, though.

The '80's were my least favorite decade so far, but the silver lining was that as a 20-something, I had plenty to be disaffected about. ?

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28 minutes ago, backwoods said:

what's the davinci resolve effect? is that some hot new daw everyone is talking about?

Yes.  BMD reduced the price of the paid version from thousands to $999, then to $299 and released a Free Version that's better than any consumer NLE and many Prosumer NLEs for free.  It's basically the industry-standard color grading platform, and they purchased Fairlight and EyeOn and integrated Fusion (VFX/Compositing) and Fairlight (Audio Post) into the NLE... then added collaboration features.

So it's very hot and it's being recommended to any and everyone because it's "Free" and people are tired of paying super high Avid prices or Adobe subscriptions, among other things.  Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The hype train is at a fever pitch.

Theoretically, something like this could have happened with Cakewalk, but I think the purchase coming after the shutdown hurt (so many people may still view it as a "dead" product)... and also the  DAW market isn't as ripe for disruption as the NLE market is/was.  DaVinci's standing as a premiere color grading platform also helped it, as people are using that aspect to sell others onto it (Since LOG and HDR are FADs now, even with Smartphone apps like Filmic Pro ?.  SONAR never really had a selling point like that, and a lot of the really good stuff was stripped out of the package, anyways.

The DAW market is also full of "Competitive Upgrade" offers.

I would say, though, that this should have basically killed Audacity on Windows ?  No point in using that over Cakewalk, unless you value HDD space that much (or need to import/export formats Cakewalk doesn't support).

Edited by SomeGuy
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