Is Cakewalk gaining users/popularity with Bandlab?

[abacab]

5 hours ago, Feral State Sound said:

Edit: Please don't tell me that I cannot make any requests or demands because the program is wonderful and it is free. Cakewalk is only free for now as we finally know what are the Bandlab plans for it. For me, the program it is free to download but not completely free, at least as long you are sending analytics about your personal use. 

Meng has already stated that Cakewalk will always be free.

[Craig Anderton]

6 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

I think the basic Lens is fine, honestly, and can't see much reason for the second point as its usefulness is completely dependent on ex-SONAR users caring enough to "plug-in" functionality from SONAR into other DAWs... and they'd probably want to become as proficient using the actual other DAW's functionality as possible... particularly for industry professionals.  That would certainly look nice on a feature list, though... 

Let me elaborate about a "modular" DAW structure. I would like to see it not just for Cakewalk, but as an industry standard. ReWire has shown that it's possible on a basic level. There are a lot of possibilities. For example, only CbB and Acid let you create and edit Acidized files. If there was a modular architecture, Cakewalk could sell their Loop Construction view as a module to plug into, for example, Cubase or Pro Tools if they too were modular. Also, people here often talk about how they prefer CbB's Console View compared to other programs. It would be great if you could "rewire" Cakewalk's mixing console into other programs that don't implement it as well. And a modular approach would solve the Staff View issue

Standards have really helped drive music software. Imagine where we'd be if ASIO and VST didn't exist. We'd be waiting for Microsoft to finally develop their audio drivers, and have probably nothing but plug-ins locked to specific DAWs. I know the idea of modular DAW is kind of blue sky stuff, but hey...sometimes the sky is blue.

[InstrEd]

I really am surprised that Microsoft hasn't made a useful audio driver like Core Audio yet.  But as we know Microsoft is Microsoft?

[Some Guy]

On 4/16/2019 at 7:25 AM, Feral State Sound said:

I think that only the first two points and maybe the sixth are applicable to Cakewalk this times.

Then, respectfully, you need to go around to the places where beginners and learners are hanging out.  The fact that Adobe has massive amounts of educational material for their products is a competitive advantage which has people paying a subscription for what you can get for cheap (or even free, in some cases) elsewhere.  You are severely underestimating the impact this has on how people view a product.

NLEs, DAWs, VFX Compositors, etc. are not Notepad.  They're complicated applications, and potential users really appreciate having good materials to guide them.  This directly affects their view of how easy to use your software is.

Complicated software with many educational resources are easier to use than those with fewer.  That's how people view things, because many people quickly realize that the internet is full of distractions and depending on forums and YouTube for this stuff wastes massive amounts of time.

Marketing speaks for itself.  Many people have no clue what Cakewalk was until the publicity from it being sold off or purchased by BandLab. 

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by SomeGuy

[Some Guy]

On 4/16/2019 at 1:36 PM, InstrEd said:

I really am surprised that Microsoft hasn't made a useful audio driver like Core Audio yet.  But as we know Microsoft is Microsoft?

Core Audio is a framework, not a driver.

And Microsoft has had something equivalent to Core Audio.  That's what WASAPI is.  It's existed since Windows Vista, at least, which was released in 2006 - so not very long after Core Audio became a thing for OS X (10.3, IIRC).

Windows has supported driver-less audio devices that "just work" since Vista.  The Windows Logo requirements required machines that shipped with Vista to include such a device (Audio device that doesn't require drivers to function).  The drivers and control panels are icing on the cake.  That is why when you do a fresh install on a clean machine, Windows 10 will often have Cortana speaking during setup, despite the fact that no specific drivers are installed (on most machines).

Edited May 5, 2019 by SomeGuy

[Some Guy]

On 4/16/2019 at 1:00 PM, Craig Anderton said:

Let me elaborate about a "modular" DAW structure. I would like to see it not just for Cakewalk, but as an industry standard. ReWire has shown that it's possible on a basic level. There are a lot of possibilities. For example, only CbB and Acid let you create and edit Acidized files. If there was a modular architecture, Cakewalk could sell their Loop Construction view as a module to plug into, for example, Cubase or Pro Tools if they too were modular. Also, people here often talk about how they prefer CbB's Console View compared to other programs. It would be great if you could "rewire" Cakewalk's mixing console into other programs that don't implement it as well. And a modular approach would solve the Staff View issue

Standards have really helped drive music software. Imagine where we'd be if ASIO and VST didn't exist. We'd be waiting for Microsoft to finally develop their audio drivers, and have probably nothing but plug-ins locked to specific DAWs. I know the idea of modular DAW is kind of blue sky stuff, but hey...sometimes the sky is blue.

Windows [natively] uses DirectX Plug-Ins for Audio and Video Effects, among other things.  Most media stuff is branded DirectX (Encoders and Decoders, as well).  The Sonitus FX Plugins in Cakewalk are actually DirectX Plug-Ins, which is why they show up for use in VEGAS Pro despite no effort to set them up there.  The Studio Instruments are DirectX Instruments, IIRC.

Same with VEGAS Pro Audio Effects - they [annoyingly] show up in Cakewalk for use, because they are DirectX Plug-Ins and these Windows-only creative apps tended to support the native frameworks well (the same way macOS audio apps support Audio Units... almost without fail... which are the DirectX equivalent for Audio Effects and Instruments).

WASAPI is actually a thing most people here act like they have never heard of.

We can argue how much Steinberg stood to benefit from pushing VST another day.  Then again, there are multiple applications that don't support OpenFX or VST Plug-Ins... And even more that only support VST2 and not VST3.  Personally, I prefer to use system-native APIs for this kind of stuff, though that is more work for the developers.

That being said, all of them have no issues doing it for macOS, but use lowest common denominator solutions for Windows ?

Edited May 5, 2019 by SomeGuy

[Craig Anderton]

11 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

WASAPI is actually a thing most people here act like they have never heard of.

WASAPI is a fantastic advance when working with laptops where you're stuck with onboard sound. However, you still can't get the kind of latencies with it that you can with ASIO. I think WASAPI will have a shot at replacing ASIO only when it starts hitting the sub-10 ms latency range consistently.

One huge advantage Core Audio on the Mac has over ASIO is the ability to aggregate interfaces easily. This is something that's been possible to do with the native Windows drivers for as long as I can remember, but again, aggregating meant using higher-latency drivers than ASIO. Sonar got on the WDM bandwagon early on, and it looked promising...but if you check out forum comments of that era, it seems most people opted for ASIO as being better in terms of either stability, compatibility, or latency. With WASAPI, it seems that WDM is now a "legacy" driver.

[ChernobylStudios]

On 4/14/2019 at 8:16 PM, Starship Krupa said:

I just have a thing about moonieware, and Reaper is, unfortunately, moonieware.

It's definitely not moonieware because Reaper isn't perfect. The userbase has created scripts and such to help deal with silly things like a confusing menu system. The Reaper Better Menu Set is a required addition before anybody gets started, in my opinion. Right now the entire Reaper community is pissed off because the new default Reaper 6 theme isn't professional enough in their opinions. CbB is in direct competition with Reaper because a lot of people erroneously believe that Reaper is free and therefore when people say Reaper does such-and-such better, it's something to take heed. Reaper does do a lot of things better. And faster. Being that tons of people do not pay for Reaper and use it for free - I'd say it makes a lot of sense to listen very closely what people say about Reaper.

On 4/15/2019 at 3:39 PM, SomeGuy said:

I don't typically see Cakewalk users do this.

Make a video being critical about Cakewalk and see what happens. You'll find a rabid userbase coming out of the woodwork to misrepresent you and find any reason to slag off your criticisms. To think that Cakewalkers don't drink the kool-aid here is simply naive. The only good thing I can say about this is that in the new forum, a lot of the old elitist party-poopers are not here to jump in and stoke the flames. 

[Starship Krupa]

5 hours ago, ChernobylStudios said:

It's definitely not moonieware because Reaper isn't perfect.

Nor is any other software. The term has little to do with the product itself, although by nature the product must be one that is less popular than mainstream offerings.

The term mostly referred to advocacy behaviors on the part of a user base, and was coined mostly to piss off such advocates and provide the rest of us with a way to let off steam.

Popping their heads up in online discussions about other programs to say that everyone involved should try XYZ because it's way better, never admitting to any shortcomings on the part of XYZ no matter how obvious. Basically the belief that if we all clap really loud to show how much we believe in XYZ we can create a sustainable market share for it.

Reaper's fanbase seems to have settled down, perhaps as the program itself has become useful enough to keep them occupied making music with it.

A friend of mine says that if one wants to do live sound work, Reaper's versatility in routing will make one quite happy.

I think that the company has done a great job, and seems to pay attention to what the users request, which is always smart. The most important thing is that they have shown that their licensing model can work. I suppose I'll keep giving it a try every couple of years. I've always been rooting for them to succeed.

[abacab]

Reaper has nothing to do with this topic, which has apparently drifted way off course... ?

[InstrEd]

6 minutes ago, abacab said:

Reaper has nothing to do with this topic, which has apparently drifted way off course... ?

+100

[Some Guy]

15 hours ago, ChernobylStudios said:

Make a video being critical about Cakewalk and see what happens. You'll find a rabid userbase coming out of the woodwork to misrepresent you and find any reason to slag off your criticisms. To think that Cakewalkers don't drink the kool-aid here is simply naive. The only good thing I can say about this is that in the new forum, a lot of the old elitist party-poopers are not here to jump in and stoke the flames

That may very well be the case, since I've gone back and looked a bit at the old Cakewalk forums ? 

[Some Guy]

On 5/5/2019 at 11:34 AM, Craig Anderton said:

WASAPI is a fantastic advance when working with laptops where you're stuck with onboard sound. However, you still can't get the kind of latencies with it that you can with ASIO. I think WASAPI will have a shot at replacing ASIO only when it starts hitting the sub-10 ms latency range consistently.

One huge advantage Core Audio on the Mac has over ASIO is the ability to aggregate interfaces easily. This is something that's been possible to do with the native Windows drivers for as long as I can remember, but again, aggregating meant using higher-latency drivers than ASIO. Sonar got on the WDM bandwagon early on, and it looked promising...but if you check out forum comments of that era, it seems most people opted for ASIO as being better in terms of either stability, compatibility, or latency. With WASAPI, it seems that WDM is now a "legacy" driver.

Yes, much of the older Vista Technologies are legacy, deprecated, and have been replaced since several years ago.

As far as the ASIO, etc. stuff... some of this is down to device manufacturers, as well.  Support for Windows technologies has generally been way worse than the equivalents on macOS, because Microsoft does not manage its platform as tightly as Apple.

This also extends to other things, like APIs for Text and Graphics, etc.  A lot of applications are still using legacy APIs for this stuff, even though superior replacements have been in place (in the Windows OS) for several years.  They simply don't see a point in updating and optimizing for the new stuff, because that isn't a fat new feature that will sell new licenses.

This is hilarious to see when you compare products like PaintShop Pro (uses legacy APIs, mostly) to something like Affinity Photo (uses all the new Windows and macOS APIs for things like Multi-Threading, Text and Graphics Rendering, GPU Acceleration, etc.).  The difference in both quality and performance are stark.  Having a newer/freshes code base also helps ?

There are Audio Interfaces and devices that still have random issues in different DAW software... something that Microsoft tried to eliminate with their OS and Windows Logo requirements - but that has not worked so well.

Still need that 800MB driver package for those Realtek Audio Drivers!

P.S.  Honestly have had awful experience trying to get ASIO to work on Laptops with integrated audio.  Basically need an interface, there, and hope it isn't problematic with your DAW (less risky if you use one of the more "popular" DAWs (Pro Tools, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, etc.)).

Edited May 6, 2019 by SomeGuy

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, abacab said:

Reaper has nothing to do with this topic, which has apparently drifted way off course... ?

Apologies, then, I thought that discussions of other DAW's and how they stack up as far as popularity and user base and so on fit in with the topic.

No more Reaper madness.

That's one of the odd things in the DAW world, it's never been possible to know for sure how many people are using what, it's always been anecdotal.

With CbB and the BandLab Assistant, BandLab can get pretty accurate tracking of who is sticking with the program. If they renew the license, they're likely using it. It's not like other freeware where all they know is how many times it's been downloaded.

[abacab]

44 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Apologies, then, I thought that discussions of other DAW's and how they stack up as far as popularity and user base and so on fit in with the topic.

No more Reaper madness.

No apologies needed, it's all good!

I use several DAWs, and even have Reaper installed. Although it's far from my favorite, I'm always interested in learning more about it. 

But for DAW comparisons, I usually head over to the KVR forum for those fun and games! ?

[Some Guy]

As regards to the popularity of Cakewalk, Reaper is on topic because the popularity of other DAWs is related to the topic.  Most people aren't trying to use every popular piece of software on the planet.  The one that grabs them in a certain market tends to be the one they stick with, so users that Reaper gains are often users that Cakewalk has either lost, or won't gain as a result.

The more market share competitors gain, the more pressure Cakewalk has on it in the market because the popularity gap can widen.

Not sure why those two people made those posts.  They don't make a lick of sense.

[Tezza]

I think it is just the instruments that are missing to move Cakewalk up the popularity ladder a bit. In my view they should be given priority next. When I read the Cakewalk splash page, I agree with most of what is on there, there is a lot to like but then there is this:

--------

A World of Instruments

Whether you’re a songwriter, producer, or composer, Cakewalk by BandLab has the instruments you need to build your production from the ground up.

-------

It does have instruments but I would regard them as basic, it doesn't have a Kontakt like Instrument player, Cubase has Halion, Studio One the Presence instrument etc

A DAW needs it's own instrument player/sampler. I think in Sonar that was Dimension Pro? That also really adds a lot to the marketing side as well. People know then if they get the DAW they can make good sounds. The current instruments don't look very modern and are limited. If I didn't already have Komplete Ultimate, I probably wouldn't and in fact couldn't, make Cakewalk my primary DAW.

I have 9 DAW's on my computer at the moment, just looking at them before upgrading the computer. Before I was using Studio One primarily but I am now using Cakewalk and migrating some projects over to it. I now am becoming more familiar with it and do everything in it. I like the interface much more than the other DAW's.

It's a size thing, everything in Cakewalk is easier to see, the big EQ slideout and the Prochannel stuff and the piano roll etc, I could go on but the aim of the thread is whether Cakewalk is gaining popularity with Bandlab users. I don't know about that but in terms of popularity with other DAW users I think that just adding an instrument player of some kind would be a good start.

Then everything advertised on the splash page would be correct and then you would also have even more features to market on that splash page.

I think that the idea people are not using the product because of bugs/instability is absolute rubbish, I don't find it any different to other DAW's, they all run stably on my system and they all have little quirks here or there.

I don't like the frequent updates though, this seems to be something unique to Sonar users, who expect one a month and think that is a good thing. I think it's a terrible idea. It seems sometimes these updates break things and another comes out just as quickly to correct it. Other DAW's you get 1 every 3 to 6 months or so. I prefer that. Perhaps there is a Beta testing section needed in the forum somewhere either visible to the public or only to logged in members where these updates can be tested more widely by some users before release.

 

[chuckebaby]

9 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

The one that grabs them in a certain market tends to be the one they stick with

This is very true for new users.

There was a point in time from the late 90s to 2005 or so where many old school analog users (probably like you and I) were clutching our tape machines resisting the digital realm. Others were simply curious.

Then something else happened around this same time, we were introduced to a DAW by a friend, maybe we saw someone use one and it grabbed our attention. A lot can be said for being introduced to a DAW and it being your first DAW. you begin to feel so invested, that moving to another DAW feels like walking backwards (in terms of learning new features, keyboard shortcuts). That's the case for me anyway.

Unless Cakewalk rolls out some type of Lego Lanes which totally loses my interest, I'll keep using it because of only 2 things

1- It does what I want it to.

2- I don't have to learn anything new (which lets me focus on the important stuff like the music).

 

 

[Xoo]

On ‎5‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 12:05 AM, Starship Krupa said:

No more Reaper madness.

I see what you did there :-)

[abacab]

8 hours ago, Tezza said:

I don't like the frequent updates though, this seems to be something unique to Sonar users, who expect one a month and think that is a good thing. I think it's a terrible idea. It seems sometimes these updates break things and another comes out just as quickly to correct it. Other DAW's you get 1 every 3 to 6 months or so. I prefer that.

It seems to me that Cakewalk development has stepped into the slower lane. I am showing my installed version as current at 2019-03, and it is already May. So that was only the 2nd one this year, following 2019.01.

Cakewalk by BandLab Release Notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aFOe_zJrd3x2EnaZ_Jc3iSbZPG2WANiCD4_RP83OjlA/edit