Feral State Sound Posted March 31, 2019 Share Posted March 31, 2019 (edited) When I started to use SONAR PLATINUM I thought it as a program that was losing users year after year. It was not used by the majority of the music professionals and It wasn't supported by major hardware manufacturers (Komplete keyboards for example). Now, every time I go on Youtube I see a new Cakewalk video. For me, this is a symptom of an slowly and steadily growing user base. What do you think about this? I don't care about popularity as I tend to use what I like the most but I have to confess that I would like to see more hardware manufacturers interested on Cakewalk as a viable music creation platform for developing custom products (hey Roland V-Studio ) Edited March 31, 2019 by Feral State Sound 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razor7music Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 (edited) Hey Feral-- I'd be interested in how you came to this conclusion: "...It was not used by the majority of the music professionals..." If you mean it didn't have the same market penetration as say, Pro-Tools, then that could be said about the majority of software DAWs out there. I'm not trying to be contrary--so I'll clarify, because sometimes things can get misunderstood in posts. I have found quite a lot of music professionals use(d) Sonar. I would meet and hear from music professionals at conventions, watch online music industry seminars, and speak to people in the biz, and although there was a spattering of many different DAWs out there, I would hear of Sonar just as much as any of the others. Now, I did hear of a few music pros that left Sonar after Gibson bailed, but I have no idea whether they came back after Bandlab bought them. For some, they just didn't want to deal with the uncertainty. To be honest, I was about to switch just before Bandlab made the announcement. It would be interesting to know if Cakewalk is picking up more market share now that Bandlab bought it, but whether Bandlab is willing to share that information outside their organization is a completely different question. I would think that making the software free had to have some positive effects on market penetration. Whether those additional downloads are music pros--I don't think anyone but Bandlab knows, and then they might not even have ways of telling whether someone with their software is a 12 year old who wants to be a DJ someday, or a successful music pro. Finally, if you look at who is posting in this forum and the FB group, you've got the diehard lifelong regulars, and the noobs that just got the software because it's free, and just about everyone in between. Being one of those diehards, I just hope Cakewalk stays around for a very long time to come, and does become a market standard! Edited April 1, 2019 by razor7music 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millzy Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 I find it interesting there's no link to, or mention of, Cakewalk on the Bandlab site (unless I've missed something obvious.) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Jones Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 25 minutes ago, Millzy said: I find it interesting there's no link to, or mention of, Cakewalk on the Bandlab site (unless I've missed something obvious.) Haven't spent much time on the Bandlab site so I didn't know this. The Bandlab experience and the Cakewalk experience are radically different, yet it seems obvious that they would want somehow to link the two. If I could upload multitrack projects to Bandlab and work on them there, and have others collaborate with me there, that would be something! But if you think 10msec of latency is annoying, try overdubbing on the internet. The creation tools offered at Bandlab are so rudimentary that the user base has to be incompatible with CbB, and those who do everything at the Bandlab site are mostly just going to be doing very basic stuff. Maybe they expect some users to share projects on Bandlab only after creating them in CbB or Cubase or ...? So far I'm not seeing the synergy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChernobylStudios Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 On 3/31/2019 at 1:21 PM, Feral State Sound said: When I started to use SONAR PLATINUM I thought it as a program that was losing users year after year. It was not used by the majority of the music professionals and It wasn't supported by major hardware manufacturers (Komplete keyboards for example). Now, every time I go on Youtube I see a new Cakewalk video. For me, this is a symptom of an slowly and steadily growing user base. What do you think about this? I don't care about popularity as I tend to use what I like the most but I have to confess that I would like to see more hardware manufacturers interested on Cakewalk as a viable music creation platform for developing custom products (hey Roland V-Studio ) Cakewalk was losing out on the market for a few reasons but the main reasons were probably it being windows only and the long outstanding bugs. DAWS like Reaper and Studio One have been able to come up on the scene in the last 10 years and blow Cakewalk out of the water because they can side-step the legacy code, see what has worked for Cakewalk, Pro Tools, etc., and use that as a starting point. (Studio One has a nearly identical modular interface, for example.) The rise in popularity of Cakewalk is a result of it being free, which is fine. You can still get a lot done with Cakewalk and because you don't have to spend money on the DAW itself; you can buy some essential plugins such as the Waves Gold bundle, or the Slate Everything Bundle, and get to work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millzy Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 1 hour ago, Larry Jones said: The Bandlab experience and the Cakewalk experience are radically different, yet it seems obvious that they would want somehow to link the two. If I could upload multitrack projects to Bandlab and work on them there, and have others collaborate with me there, that would be something! Absolutely - that is actually how I thought this would play out with Bandlab acquiring Cakewalk. 1 hour ago, Larry Jones said: The creation tools offered at Bandlab are so rudimentary that the user base has to be incompatible with CbB, and those who do everything at the Bandlab site are mostly just going to be doing very basic stuff. Maybe they expect some users to share projects on Bandlab only after creating them in CbB or Cubase or ...? So far I'm not seeing the synergy. Same here Larry, I'm not seeing it either. You would think there's a massive opportunity to leverage the Bandlab user base, even for the promotion of Cakewalk somehow. Even if the collabarative nuts and bolts are still to be worked through, you would think there's a massive marketing opportunity here in the mean time. I'm not seeing that either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msmcleod Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 1 hour ago, ChernobylStudios said: Cakewalk was losing out on the market for a few reasons but the main reasons were probably it being windows only and the long outstanding bugs. DAWS like Reaper and Studio One have been able to come up on the scene in the last 10 years and blow Cakewalk out of the water because they can side-step the legacy code, see what has worked for Cakewalk, Pro Tools, etc., and use that as a starting point. (Studio One has a nearly identical modular interface, for example.) The rise in popularity of Cakewalk is a result of it being free, which is fine. You can still get a lot done with Cakewalk and because you don't have to spend money on the DAW itself; you can buy some essential plugins such as the Waves Gold bundle, or the Slate Everything Bundle, and get to work. Whilst I love the Waves plugins (I've got a fair few!) It's only recently that I've realised that I totally underappreciated just how much came with SONAR Platinum. The ProChannel alone gives you SSL Style EQ (E & G), Neve, SSL & Trident console emulation, SSL Bus Compression, a 1176 clone and tube & tape emulation. On top of that you get Pultec style EQ, Fairchild compression & Neve style EQ and much more, courtesy of the BlueTubes collection from Nomad Factory. Then there's Rapture, Dimension Pro, Z3TA, AD2 and all the other stuff bundled. It would make sense for BandLab to sell a "Platinum Pack" with some or all of these things included. It really was a fantastic set of plugins. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurre Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Maybe they are stuck on ideas? Then here's mine. Forget about dumbing down the daw to fit the web. Make CbB able to sync to another CbB over the internet. A collaboration would be 3 or 4 CbB's synced together. Each participant open a project and make that sync with the others. In CbB you have to allow more than one project open at the same time. In my CbB i would be seeing my own project and 2 or 3 other projects which i could copy from to my own project which would be resynced and updated to the others. Obviously the sync process have to check that everyone use the same setup. Plugins, and other tools, that isn't the same for evereyone would have to be blocked. Just an idea. Can't help myself, they pop up and have a life of their own.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toddskins Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Kurre said: Maybe they are stuck on ideas? Then here's mine. Forget about dumbing down the daw to fit the web. Make CbB able to sync to another CbB over the internet. A collaboration would be 3 or 4 CbB's synced together. Each participant open a project and make that sync with the others. In CbB you have to allow more than one project open at the same time. In my CbB i would be seeing my own project and 2 or 3 other projects which i could copy from to my own project which would be resynced and updated to the others. Obviously the sync process have to check that everyone use the same setup. Plugins, and other tools, that isn't the same for evereyone would have to be blocked. Just an idea. Can't help myself, they pop up and have a life of their own.? Your idea is like coming to BandLab in reverse, which I see your idea, but I also think it poses some logistical problems that would have to be worked out. One guess might be that individual PCs require some type of additional software to be able to do a peer-to-peer thing, especially since you envision 4 people working on the project at the same time. Also, why would 4 people open up 4 different projects at the same time? I think BandLab's current method is best, but it needs to upgrade the plain vanilla DAW to the upscale CbB. And then of course, the whole BandLab site is not run nor managed properly. Mislabeling of genre's by the people uploading, and permission issues, etc. I wrote a more thorough list in a different forum here. Don't ask me where. Edited April 2, 2019 by Toddskins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwig Bouwer Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 I have noticed more and more guys mentioning Cakewalk in the Facebook forums that I follow.. it's slight but definitely more present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Borthwick Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 7 hours ago, Larry Jones said: Haven't spent much time on the Bandlab site so I didn't know this. The Bandlab experience and the Cakewalk experience are radically different, yet it seems obvious that they would want somehow to link the two. If I could upload multitrack projects to Bandlab and work on them there, and have others collaborate with me there, that would be something! But if you think 10msec of latency is annoying, try overdubbing on the internet. The creation tools offered at Bandlab are so rudimentary that the user base has to be incompatible with CbB, and those who do everything at the Bandlab site are mostly just going to be doing very basic stuff. Maybe they expect some users to share projects on Bandlab only after creating them in CbB or Cubase or ...? So far I'm not seeing the synergy. Did you miss the export to BandLab feature? Its been there for several months now https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Dialogs2.158.html In January we also added the ability to open BandLab projects. This is a feature still in preview. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChernobylStudios Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 6 hours ago, msmcleod said: Whilst I love the Waves plugins (I've got a fair few!) It's only recently that I've realised that I totally underappreciated just how much came with SONAR Platinum. The ProChannel alone gives you SSL Style EQ (E & G), Neve, SSL & Trident console emulation, SSL Bus Compression, a 1176 clone and tube & tape emulation. On top of that you get Pultec style EQ, Fairchild compression & Neve style EQ and much more, courtesy of the BlueTubes collection from Nomad Factory. Then there's Rapture, Dimension Pro, Z3TA, AD2 and all the other stuff bundled. It would make sense for BandLab to sell a "Platinum Pack" with some or all of these things included. It really was a fantastic set of plugins. As I mentioned, Cakewalk was losing the market because it was windows only and the bugs. I do not recall people saying that SONAR didn't have enough features or that they did not innovate. I mean, the X1 Skylight Interface was directly lifted and implemented into Studio One for example. I do have to say that to this day I reach for the Sonitus Delay plugin over just about every other delay I've tried. I haven't tried the soundtoys stuff but until that happens I'm quite happy with Sonitus Delay. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurre Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 3 hours ago, Toddskins said: Your idea is like coming to BandLab in reverse. - I don't get that? PCs require some type of software to be able to do a peer-to-peer thing. - Yep. It would be implemented in the daw itself. Also, why would 4 people open up 4 different projects at the same time? As you yourself notice there is people who love music but don't know the do's and don'ts. If you get one of those in on the collaboration you'll get fed up with having to continously delete bad suggestions to get back to the last functional version. So you have your own project and can copy tracks, clips and whatnot from each other. All this would be live action with an inbuilt chat client. Fun and more social than the web action. As a newbie you start with the web stuff. Then move on to CbB. Bandlab songs produced and forkable could be the start for CbB LIVE collaboration. All this isn't easy to accomplish but, i think, is technical doable. AND Cakewalk by Bandlab would be the worlds first to accomplish this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starise Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) I believe that Bandlab is much better known to users where it was was mainly originated in those Asian countries. It seems a convergence is happening albeit slowly. If you began on Bandlab, how would you see Cakewalk? Obviously a free DAW is a draw, but I suspect many of these people have no point of reference. From the Cakewalk perspective most were content with a stand alone product that doesn't reach out to anything else, so in that respect I think we need convincing that we need something we weren't really looking for. I'm interested in recording technology, so I was interested in Bandlab as a way to put ideas online. There are talented people all over the world. Creativity does not flourish in a box, so I was looking at it like I could meet a few other decent musicians and have some creative pow wows. It isn't really a warm and cozy kind of experience for me. Not like say, email exchanges, getting to know your collab partners. There are some trade offs. The name of the game is good music. Sometimes we can get too involved in unimportant stuff, so maybe Bandlab is the ultimate way to foster creativity. I have been a slow adopter admittedly. In my case it's because I'm pouring a lot of myself into learning a new and difficult instrument at an advanced age. It's quite a challenge and has taken time away from my recording hobby and projects. I think in the end I'll be a better all round' musician. I didn't take naturally to Bandlab but I haven't given up on it. I'm still in the game and I appreciate all Noel and team has done to make BL so accessible to Cakewalk users as a part of the interface. I think I'm a more committed individual to my work and I don't like the guy who drifts in to "try" something out and leaves. I'm not saying they aren't on BL. But so far this has been my experience, that people want to experiment and try things out but it stops there. My time is probably too valuable for that long term. I tend to get in these moods too. I'll be in BL mood again and put something out there eventually or add something to something else. Edited April 2, 2019 by Starise 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feral State Sound Posted April 2, 2019 Author Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) 7 hours ago, ChernobylStudios said: As I mentioned, Cakewalk was losing the market because it was windows only and the bugs. I do not recall people saying that SONAR didn't have enough features or that they did not innovate. I mean, the X1 Skylight Interface was directly lifted and implemented into Studio One for example. I do have to say that to this day I reach for the Sonitus Delay plugin over just about every other delay I've tried. I haven't tried the soundtoys stuff but until that happens I'm quite happy with Sonitus Delay. I am not sure if it was because being Windows only since Vegas Pro is hugely popular despite not being cross-platform (The same applies to Logic Pro and Final Cut). In my opinion, The Bandlab move is extremely clever, because they just converted a losing ground DAW into a no brainer DAW for Windows users (cost-functionality wise). Here you can see the number of times that people have shown some interest on Cakewalk during the last two years: the first remarkable point is coincident with the Cakewalk closure, the second is coincident with the Bandlab resurrection and the program going free and the third is maybe mainly because of the Bandlab NAMM presence. https://trends.google.es/trends/explore?date=2017-01-01 2019-04-02&q=Cakewalk It is not crazy to think on a new big press announcement from Bandlab during this year, specially since they already own the Music-Tech magazine. In my opinion, Cakewalk future looks promising and probably more than ever. Edited April 2, 2019 by Feral State Sound 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Anderton Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 2:26 AM, msmcleod said: Whilst I love the Waves plugins (I've got a fair few!) It's only recently that I've realised that I totally underappreciated just how much came with SONAR Platinum. The ProChannel alone gives you SSL Style EQ (E & G), Neve, SSL & Trident console emulation, SSL Bus Compression, a 1176 clone and tube & tape emulation. On top of that you get Pultec style EQ, Fairchild compression & Neve style EQ and much more, courtesy of the BlueTubes collection from Nomad Factory. Then there's Rapture, Dimension Pro, Z3TA, AD2 and all the other stuff bundled. It would make sense for BandLab to sell a "Platinum Pack" with some or all of these things included. It really was a fantastic set of plugins. I agree completely, I think many people underappreciated the Cakewalk plug-ins because they were "free." Which they weren't, of course - they were part of the cost of Sonar. I always thought Cakewalk would start offering add-ons, including the older plug-ins, but it must not be a trivial undertaking or it would have happened by now. Nor is Cakewalk alone in this. People assume that a third-party plug-in just has to be better than what comes with a program, yet many DAW-specific plug-ins are excellent...Digital Performer's amp sims and Live's beat-synched processors come to mind. As to the original question, I was in LA last weekend and turned a VR designer on to Cakewalk one morning. She connected immediately with the program and when I left in the afternoon, was still playing with it . I really think there are two issues in getting more adoption: 1. Making people aware that it even exists. 2. Making it easier to get started. Currently, the irony is you need to know a lot about the program in order to take advantage of the features that simplify it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Anderton Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 9:18 AM, ChernobylStudios said: I mean, the X1 Skylight Interface was directly lifted and implemented into Studio One for example. IIRC, Studio One was released in September 2009, and SONAR X1 was introduced in December 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChernobylStudios Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 59 minutes ago, Craig Anderton said: IIRC, Studio One was released in September 2009, and SONAR X1 was introduced in December 2010. Oh! I stand corrected then. I thought the more robust docking/hiding features of Studio One showed up later on. My mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChernobylStudios Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 6 hours ago, pwalpwal said: haha have you used studio one? skylight (still bitmap based) is an approximation to the so gui (scalable vector-based ) at best... skylight is also just a "layer" draw on top of the original ui using 3rd party controls, when x1 was released the intial load happened so slowly you could see it doing the overlay... I have a Studio One 3.5 license, so yes I have. It's always nice to find out who the Gammas here are. I didn't say the interface was perfect or that it worked well , but that it was a vast organizational improvement over window-on-top-of-window as it had been. Everybody knows X1 was a bug filled mess and it was the beginning of the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 39 minutes ago, ChernobylStudios said: Everybody knows X1 was a bug filled mess and it was the beginning of the end. and yet you are still here ? ? I have been recommending CbB for folks to try. I say what do you have to lose, its free! Great now that the PDF manual is available Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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