Is Cakewalk the best free DAW on the market

[Maestro]

2 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

I think this discussion -- "which has turned into some sort of heated debate" between @Maestro @Teegarden and @Craig Reeves is interesting, but I feel one crucial information has been left out.

First of all, there's been some really interesting pointers given and counter attacks too. I feel this is unfair though, Meaning - We can't really make comparisons or compare Cakewalk with the DAW's mention in previous replies nor we actually say and to quote what Maestro said: I bet more professionals use Logic Pro X than they do Cakewalk. 

Of course, this will is true. So is it for FL Studio; Cubase; Pro Tools and Ableton -- why though? Well, your standard system in any professional studio's are Mac. That's why every professional studio uses Pro tools, Logic and FL Studio as their standard DAW. Cakewalk is yet to migrate over into that world. Gibson had a beta version running with Sonar, but hack knows what happen to it after they've shut down. So it's unfair to say or claim such discussion. If Cakewalk had to migrate over to Mac 30 years ago - I bet this debate would've gone differently. So, I think there's a bit of a disadvantage in the discussion on this.

Yeah, I will go as far to say -  for me, personally it's the best free "Windows DAW" out on the market right now. 

 

 

 

Clarification is definitely needed:

1. The person I responded to stated that Cakewalk was the most used DAW "on the Windows platform."  This is the specific statement I disagreed with.  macOS has nothing to do with that, and Logic Pro X is irrelevant considering Apple discontinued the Windows version of Logic upon acquiring eMagic.  This is called "moving the goal post."
2. FL Studio didn't get native macOS support until 2018.    98.6% of its success came as a Windows-only DAW, and a pretty sizable chunk of that was due to how easily pirated that DAW was.
3. Digital Performer was macOS only until version  2012.  Being macOS only didn't stop it from being heavily "niched off."  DP is older than Cubase, and yet was overtaken  on macOS by Cubase, when Cubase started off as a Windows-only DAW and was ported a decade or more after DP's initial versions.
4. Cubase started off as a Windows-only DAW. -^^^
5. Pro Tools' Dominance has much to do with the fact that it was a frontrunner in developing the Digital/PC Recording market, aided largely with the hardware that integrated with it.    It  was Windows-only, it still would have become the recording standard because nothing else was nearly as good at Pro Tools at delivering the solution DigiDesign were selling.  DAWs like Performer, Cubase, and SONAR started off as MIDI Sequencers.

I think you are severely overrating just how valuable "being on macOS" actually is.  You're also overestimating its market penetration in the creative market.  

Even if you look at a lot of the famous producers and composers on YouTube... many of them run Windows.

The Creative = Mac is largely vestigial on the eve of  2020.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Maestro

[Will.]

30 minutes ago, Maestro said:

I think you are severely overrating just how valuable "being on macOS" actually is.  You're also overestimating its market penetration in the creative market.  

I guess when you read "too much" in what someone was trying to say - this tend to happen. Yet, you're still making comparisons between DAW's that migrated between Mac and Windows and a "Windows only" DAW. 

[chris.r]

Part of fault is on Windows as an OS, as they have been ignoring developing a stable audio engine for so many years, even today if I want have to use WASABI mode, I get different latency output in preferences every time I launch Cakewalk.

[Maestro]

5 hours ago, chris.r said:

Part of fault is on Windows as an OS, as they have been ignoring developing a stable audio engine for so many years, even today if I want have to use WASABI mode, I get different latency output in preferences every time I launch Cakewalk.

 

WASAPI has existed since Windows Vista, and works well.  Vista was released in 2006, over 14 years ago.

The issue is that DAW developers have been slow to adopt support for it, with even some Windows-only DAWs lacking support for WASAPI.

It's not as good as Core Audio, but it's not othe sh*t show that a lot of people make it out to be.

Professionals will always have an Interface with ASIO drivers, anyways.  This is not as huge an issue as many people make it out to be.

[Maestro]

10 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

I guess when you read "too much" in what someone was trying to say - this tend to happen. Yet, you're still making comparisons between DAW's that migrated between Mac and Windows and a "Windows only" DAW. 

You're making no sense.

The person said "on the Windows platform."  Nowhere in that original statement was it stipulated that SONAR could only be compared to "Windows-only DAWs." - particularly as this list grows smaller and smaller, year over year, it makes literally no sense.  macOS is not what kept SONAR back, and you display a complete lack of understanding of how the digital music recording industry has evolved in her cited examples.

 I've given examples of DAWs with deep feature sets, which are relatively renown, and which never got to where Cubase, Live, or FL Studio have despite being exclusive to macOS until relatively recently (given how long they have existed).  I've also given an example of a DAW (you cited) that didn't make the move to macOS until 2018, yet has seen far more success than SONAR (as a commercial [sold for $$$]  product) - even before then.  

Cakewalk was getting shuttered when FL Studio was just moving to macOS. 

But you seem to have chosen to ignore this and repeat nonsense.

Ableton, Cubase, Studio One, REAPER, FL Studio, et al. are DAWs  "on the Windows platform."

They don't get  excluded from a conversation simply because their developers had the foresight to invest in a port and follow through with those plans at opportune times.

If macOS is as big a deal as you say it is... seems like the investment would have been worth it, no?

Stagnation and Product Direction hurt SONAR.  Not the lack of a macOS port.  There are more than enough Windows users (musicians, producers, etc.) to make an industry leading DAW and not be ono macOS.  If your product is it hat good, it will even pull users off of that platform.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Maestro

[Mckayla Parker]

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[abacab]

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Spam?

[RBH]

It's the best DAW on the market - but only if you use and learn it - kind of like most things in life.  It's comprehensive and allows you to learn multiple methods to get your results. It's very flexible work flow wise and covers a lot of ground if you want to do deep edits.

[rfssongs]

I tried a few others but they never felt comfortable to me. It always felt like trying to walk through a 2 foot mud pile. But then again I've been using cakewalk for 30 years.

[Noel Borthwick]

Some perspective from my viewpoint.

Best by definition is going to be subjective, because even though Cakewalk is an incredibly deep and powerful DAW with its 30+ year lineage, there are other simpler DAW’s that may be more appropriate to some workflows  because of their genre bias or other reasons. Live is a great example - if your primary interest is beatmaking you would be hard pressed to find something better for that workflow.
If you leave behind very personal preferences or workflows, to the original question I would say that IMO Cakewalk has by far the deepest feature set of any free DAW out there. Its mature and has decades of experience baked into it which few other DAW’s including many paid ones have. Of course we have our share of quirks and bugs (that arguably others have too) but it has been our highest priority to solve the more serious issues since the last 3 years.

To the last point I want to say that since day one our approach has never been “this is a free DAW now, so lets do the minimum to support it”.  To the contrary, we have used this generous opportunity to obsessively make this as good as we can for our users. The effort that has gone in the last 3 years has been more than ever in the history of Cakewalk, to focus on improving stability as well as building truly usable and useful features. None of us have a free lunch mindset here - we do this because we care for the product and users and want to excel.

As far as users cutting us slack because its free, while some more casual users might, we have thousands of professionals who make a living with this software, where the fact that its free makes no difference - the need to efficiently get their work done. We often work one on one with many users to ensure that our tools are robust and meet their needs as far as possible. The next release has a huge new feature directly based on feedback from many users working in exacting production environments with deadlines. 

All this to say that its as much of a pro product as anything out there and its being constantly improved with fixes and new features even more than some paid choices. Don’t let the free price tag fool you.

[DeeringAmps]

6 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Best by definition is going to be subjective

Don't be so modest.

The correct answer is YES!

Just take a well deserved bow as the audience stands to applaud...

t

?

[Jacques Boileau]

52 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Some perspective from my viewpoint.

Best by definition is going to be subjective, because even though Cakewalk is an incredibly deep and powerful DAW with its 30+ year lineage, there are other simpler DAW’s that may be more appropriate to some workflows  because of their genre bias or other reasons. Live is a great example - if your primary interest is beatmaking you would be hard pressed to find something better for that workflow.
If you leave behind very personal preferences or workflows, to the original question I would say that IMO Cakewalk has by far the deepest feature set of any free DAW out there. Its mature and has decades of experience baked into it which few other DAW’s including many paid ones have. Of course we have our share of quirks and bugs (that arguably others have too) but it has been our highest priority to solve the more serious issues since the last 3 years.

To the last point I want to say that since day one our approach has never been “this is a free DAW now, so lets do the minimum to support it”.  To the contrary, we have used this generous opportunity to obsessively make this as good as we can for our users. The effort that has gone in the last 3 years has been more than ever in the history of Cakewalk, to focus on improving stability as well as building truly usable and useful features. None of us have a free lunch mindset here - we do this because we care for the product and users and want to excel.

As far as users cutting us slack because its free, while some more casual users might, we have thousands of professionals who make a living with this software, where the fact that its free makes no difference - the need to efficiently get their work done. We often work one on one with many users to ensure that our tools are robust and meet their needs as far as possible. The next release has a huge new feature directly based on feedback from many users working in exacting production environments with deadlines. 

All this to say that its as much of a pro product as anything out there and its being constantly improved with fixes and new features even more than some paid choices. Don’t let the free price tag fool you.

This dedication is certainly a big part of what makes it the best for me. Notwithstanding the fact that it is excellent to work with. I'm a fan!

[Craig Anderton]

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

The effort that has gone in the last 3 years has been more than ever in the history of Cakewalk, to focus on improving stability as well as building truly usable and useful features.

As far as users cutting us slack because its free, while some more casual users might, we have thousands of professionals who make a living with this software, where the fact that its free makes no difference - the need to efficiently get their work done.

I can certainly vouch for the first sentence. Noel & Co. have really moved Cakewalk up another notch (or two) since BandLab took over. 

As to the second sentence, if you're a professional, you don't cut slack and you don't judge based on price. You judge something on whether it does the job you're paid to do. Whether it costs $0 or $2,000 doesn't matter, because the cost will (at least hopefully!) be a fraction of the income it allows you to earn.

At my various workshops (even if I'm doing my demos with a different program), I always recommend that Windows users download Cakewalk, no matter what program they use. I wouldn't be able to make that recommendation if it wasn't free. There are functions you can do in Cakewalk (like create Acidized files or extract tempo) that are at least difficult (if not impossible) to do in other programs. 

IMHO the "best" DAW is the one where you feel comfortable and inspired working with it.

 

[Michael Richards]

I have never had a person ask me which DAW I used to create my little monstrosities. I write little rock songs with vocals and instrumentals where I have the space to apply my decades old composition and arranging education. I can say Cakewalk has never hindered the quality of my writing. I wish there were a 2021 version of Dimension Pro. Maybe BandLab could buy Spitfire and offer us a few free orchestral libraries. I’ve learned to make due with what I own. 
 

I would say I use midi 50% of the time. Recording my guitars is very time consuming. Nothing about this process is seamless. Laying down piano parts are a breeze. My playing could be better, but it is not Cakewalk’s fault. I wish the music staff was better, but I may the only one who feels this way.

This forum is incredible. I can, and have, spend hours reading through the threads learning new techniques. I just want to write, record, see if people like it, and start again.  If I were to read tomorrow that every successful rock/pop song was recorded with Cakewalk I would say, “That’s interesting.” I can’t think of what else it would do. I started with this program with floppy disks, tried a few others and thought if Hans Zimmerman, Adele or Taylor Swift asked me to move to another program I would. But in reality that’s not going to happen and this comparison game can be a waste of time.