How many users does CbB have?

[Billy86]

@Noel Borthwick is there a way to estimate how many users CbB has? The roots go back decades, and I’m wondering if we can show developers the size of the audience here they might include support for CbB  in their various product integrations. Specifically, I’m thinking about native instruments and Komplete Kontrol’s deep integration into other DAW‘s but not CbB. With such a long history, we have to be one of the larger DAW user bases, right?

[John Vere]

Adding  this Update 9 11 2023.  ( just noticed the date) : 

I was researching the question "How many users does Cakewalk have?" and found this old thread. Lots of interesting comments including from Noel back then. Thought I'd re post it as it's was worth a re visit to me. 

 

I don't think this is close to being possible. The only way they can even guess is by counting the people who are now registered in Bandlab log in. But then out of those there are unknown numbers who created an account and never used the software. Actually the same account is also for the Bandlab app so even more complicated. 

Edited September 11, 2023 by JohnnyV

[bitflipper]

What would be of more interest to NI would be how many of those users actually care about Komplete Kontrol. A small minority, I suspect.

At any rate, NI have always marched to their own drum. They are not exactly the most customer-centric company.

[bitflipper]

BTW, in this podcast, Noel says the BandLab user base is 29 million. Not all of those are Cakewalk users, but holy crap, that's a LOT of people. That's about equivalent to the entire population of Texas.

[Craig Anderton]

12 hours ago, bitflipper said:

What would be of more interest to NI would be how many of those users actually care about Komplete Kontrol. A small minority, I suspect.

I referenced the article How to Use Cakewalk with Komplete Kontrol  in the Tutorials section. There was one response, from someone who doesn't have Komplete Kontrol yet.  So I get the impression it's not exactly a "hot button topic" around here 

[Noel Borthwick]

11 hours ago, bitflipper said:

BTW, in this podcast, Noel says the BandLab user base is 29 million. Not all of those are Cakewalk users, but holy crap, that's a LOT of people. That's about equivalent to the entire population of Texas.

It's past 30M as of today ? With BandLab the user acquisition growth is exponential. Of course that's looking at the mobile user base which is obviously massively higher than desktops. 

Cakewalk has also grown by many orders of magnitude of course, but not close to that ballpark. Were adding deeper BandLab integration however so we will continue to grow as more people learn about Cakewalk.

[Billy86]

15 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

It's past 30M as of today ? With BandLab the user acquisition growth is exponential. Of course that's looking at the mobile user base which is obviously massively higher than desktops. 

Cakewalk has also grown by many orders of magnitude of course, but not close to that ballpark. Were adding deeper BandLab integration however so we will continue to grow as more people learn about Cakewalk.

What spurred my question was wondering why is a DAW like Studio One, a relatively new kid on the block, seemingly  more supported by third-party folks than CbB. Native Instruments is just one example, but there are others I’ve noticed. More users, and therefore a potentially more lucrative pool of buyers of those third-party apps? A behind-the-scenes biz deal with Presonus? Just curious...

[solarlux]

7 minutes ago, Billy86 said:

What spurred my question was wondering why is a DAW like Studio One, a relatively new kid on the block, seemingly  more supported by third-party folks than CbB. Native Instruments is just one example, but there are others I’ve noticed. More users, and therefore a potentially more lucrative pool of buyers of those third-party apps? A behind-the-scenes biz deal with Presonus? Just curious...

All is marketing, but in future CbB will be more popular and situation will be different. Studio one have bigger development team in size

Edited March 7, 2021 by solarlux

[slartabartfast]

I wonder if developers have decided (erroneously) that people who use a free DAW will not pay gigantic prices for their plugins.

[John Vere]

On 3/7/2021 at 11:06 AM, slartabartfast said:

I wonder if developers have decided (erroneously) that people who use a free DAW will not pay gigantic prices for their plugins.

 A lot of truth in this. Example we have a big chunk of people posting on the forum who don't even anti up for a basic necessity like an Audio interface. 

They might not even need a simple thing like a microphone because they are just "Makin' Beats"     Beets 

They say 30 million but  that does not actually mean " users of Cakewalk" . That would be more accurately stated as " registered users"  

As I said in my first post they can only gather that information from using the signing up for the account data.  How many of those are actually using the software? Could be a low as Half of them .

 I am "signed up"  for Harrison mix bus but I've never used it. I'm signed up for a lot of stuff I don't use. 

But I'm not trying to be negative at all, I'm am one big fan of what we have become in the last few years. Keep up the good work.  I think Cakewalk will be come #1 if you guys stay on this same pathway. I think you'll eventually kill every little bug and even win the war of being stuck with an Audio unfriendly OS.  

Edited March 10, 2021 by John Vere

[User 905133]

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Were adding deeper BandLab integration however so we will continue to grow as more people learn about Cakewalk.

Very glad to hear this!!!  I am not up to speed with using Bandlab-the-App, but I see great potential for the integration.  Hope all the Cakewalk tutorial makers are keeping tabs on the possibilities for using Cakewalk and Bandlab together!  I'm already fantasizing a personal Workspace (or other feature) that would allow me use Cakewalk and Bandlab assuming the deeper integration might translate into GUI elements and underlying functionality.  (Yeah, I know its an extremely long-shot, but if you can make it happen, it might turn into a quantum leap.)

Edited March 7, 2021 by User 905133

[paulo]

8 minutes ago, John Vere said:

As I said in my first post they can only gather that information from using the signing up for the account data.  How many of those are actually using the software? Could be a low as Half of them .

It has to be re-authorised every 6 months, so that should give them a pretty good idea of how many downloaders are actually using it. I doubt that it's anywhere near 15 million.

[InstrEd]

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Cakewalk has also grown by many orders of magnitude of course, but not close to that ballpark. Were adding deeper BandLab integration however so we will continue to grow as more people learn about Cakewalk.

I'm really interested in this. I haven't really used BandLab part yet but have been looking more at it.   Glad to see the Cakewalk user base has grown.

[Billy86]

4 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

I referenced the article How to Use Cakewalk with Komplete Kontrol  in the Tutorials section. There was one response, from someone who doesn't have Komplete Kontrol yet.  So I get the impression it's not exactly a "hot button topic" around here 

Sorry I mentioned KK as an example, but I think the larger issue of DAW support among third-party developers holds.  CbB doesn't seem to get the love a bunch of other DAWS apparently do. Just wondering why, that's all.  I've heard the talk of "well, it's not really a professional DAW." That's really the only talk I've heard out in the web's DAW ecosystem. @Craig Anderton would love to hear your take on that. 

[twelvetone]

4 hours ago, Billy86 said:

CbB doesn't seem to get the love a bunch of other DAWS apparently do. Just wondering why, that's all.  I've heard the talk of "well, it's not really a professional DAW." 

Yes, that was the case in the Sonar days, too. Yet when I look at new features announcements from other DAWs it's often stuff Sonar/CbB has had for ages, drawing a big MEH from me.

I sometimes get asked what I use, so I extoll the virtues of CbB. Mostly eyes just glaze over, understandable from someone just starting out.

And then I mention that it's FREE!!! ... and I get like "Oh. Well. OK, But I need a PROFESSIONAL DAW." And so they go for PT or Cubase.

Yeah. "Free" kinda comes over as a negative. I see their minds going "Free? Can't be much good, then."

Perhaps I should stop mentioning that.

[Craig Anderton]

6 hours ago, Billy86 said:

Sorry I mentioned KK as an example, but I think the larger issue of DAW support among third-party developers holds.  CbB doesn't seem to get the love a bunch of other DAWS apparently do. Just wondering why, that's all.  I've heard the talk of "well, it's not really a professional DAW." That's really the only talk I've heard out in the web's DAW ecosystem. @Craig Anderton would love to hear your take on that. 

Old reputations, deserved or not, die hard in this industry.  People talk about Studio One being "the new kid on the block," but it's 10 years old.  Some folks might think of Cakewalk as the company that made MIDI sequencers and then added audio. The "professional DAW" thing probably stems partly from guilt-by-association with Windows, which had a reputation (undeserved) of being inferior to the Mac. Also, Pro Tools got a head start in big studios because of the prevalence of the Mac, and Digidesign being the first company to really take digital tapeless recording seriously. But also, as a rule, cross-platform programs are prioritized for support, because that doubles your potential market. 

I suspect Cakewalk will continue to pick up users, to the point where people learning it won't even know that a program called "Sonar" existed

[Maestro]

On 3/6/2021 at 8:12 PM, John Vere said:

I don't think this is close to being possible. The only way they can even guess is by counting the people who are now registered in Bandlab log in. But then out of those there are unknown numbers who created an account and never used the software. Actually the same account is also for the Bandlab app so even more complicated. 

They can see how many people have authenticated Cakewalk to their account. But that would still overcount due to the number of people who probably tried the DAW, uninstalled, but didn't bother to delete the BandLab account afterwards.

Also, the DAW did ship with data sharing enabled by default. Maybe that has changed, but if so that could be a way for them to check this ? 

[Shane_B.]

11 hours ago, Billy86 said:

What spurred my question was wondering why is a DAW like Studio One, a relatively new kid on the block, seemingly  more supported by third-party folks than CbB. Native Instruments is just one example, but there are others I’ve noticed. More users, and therefore a potentially more lucrative pool of buyers of those third-party apps? A behind-the-scenes biz deal with Presonus? Just curious...

Celemony and Presonus developed ARA. They worked together on it. That was a huge shot in the arm for Presonus. That and Studio One has always been rock solid and Presonus makes really good hardware too that integrates with Studio One. Yes, there have been hiccups here and there but they were few and far between and fixed very quickly. That was not the case with Sonar.

CbB is far better than Sonar by a mile, but it's too little too late, at least for now. I think that will change especially if they update the GUI a little. 4K support is a must now and it looks really bad on a 4K monitor. At least on mine. Maybe it's ok on yours. The people who were representing Cakewalk at the time took the Todd Howard stance saying, "It just works.". And that wasn't true unless you really knew how to tweak a PC to run a DAW and knew what things to avoid doing in Sonar. You never had to know any of that with Studio One. It truly does, just work.

It will take some time and some forgetting that Sonar and CbB are the same before the tide turns for CbB but I believe it will happen. 

This is my opinion based on how I remember how things went down. 

[Billy86]

1 hour ago, Craig Anderton said:

Old reputations, deserved or not, die hard in this industry.  People talk about Studio One being "the new kid on the block," but it's 10 years old.  Some folks might think of Cakewalk as the company that made MIDI sequencers and then added audio. The "professional DAW" thing probably stems partly from guilt-by-association with Windows, which had a reputation (undeserved) of being inferior to the Mac. Also, Pro Tools got a head start in big studios because of the prevalence of the Mac, and Digidesign being the first company to really take digital tapeless recording seriously. But also, as a rule, cross-platform programs are prioritized for support, because that doubles your potential market. 

I suspect Cakewalk will continue to pick up users, to the point where people learning it won't even know that a program called "Sonar" existed

Great context. Thanks. I go back to Home Studio 4, so 10 years doesn’t seem like a long time! ?

[paulo]

7 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

that will change especially if they update the GUI a little

Just to prove that you can't please everyone, that's the one thing I really hope they don't do, especially if updating means more like Studio One, which eye candy browser aside is hard to look at for long. I think the thing that is sorely missing is not having the controller manufacturers kind of endorsing it with easy integration. A newbie looking at midi controllers might not even realise that CW exists. There's obviously a reason why plug and play type of integration is missing from all the controller manufacturers, but it seems to me like something that needs to be addressed.

That and the undo unfreeze bug that despite the apparent commitment to bug fixes, they still seem very reluctant to fix for some reason. (yeah, I know that isn't really making any difference to the amount if users, it's just a personal irritation that to my simple, non-programmer's mind surely can't be too difficult to fix.)