Gswitz Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, SomeGuy said: The people buying Pro software have typically made their mind up, or are purchasing based on industry/market requirements. Cakewalk is not going to factor much into that. Idk if I agree with this. I think you'd be surprised. They don't always out themselves on forums. The don't always pick just one daw. I hear some creators have moved beyond their daw... Bapu shout-out. I think the role of engineer has hit the hobby community too. People take turns playing engineer for each other. But to say cakewalk doesn't have a role with pros is to ignore decades of evidence to the contrary. Just to point out the obvious, Craig Anderton. And there are so many more. Hi Bapu. Edited April 13, 2019 by Gswitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emwhy Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 I guess I would now qualify as a Reaper fanatic since the Great Panic of November of 2017. That being said we still and will always use either SONAR or Cakewalk at work. For what we do, nothing can beat its workflow. I have gotten very good with Reaper and been able to get its workflow (for my needs) close to that of Cakewalk, but never a perfect match to where there a few things that require an extra click or workaround. As to the whether or not Cakewalk is gaining ground, it reminded me of when our company merged with a larger broadcast company. Corporate did a survey of the producers in each market for everyone's software of choice. Cakewalk (then Sonar) was barely mentioned. I was surprised how many producers chose Pro Tools, especially given that Cakewalk is far more expedient when doing projects that need to be competed quickly. We're not exactly doing the type of work that would even warrant Pro Tools......simply put, it's overkill for what we need. Some of it is what your familiar with. I deal with another broadcast company that will be ending their relationship with Adobe due to the license fees for Audition. I told their people about Cakewalk and it being free yet they chose to switch to Reaper and hired me to create a workspace and theme to make it mimic Audition in single track mode. I think they would have been better off learning Cakewalk, but they wanted to stick with what they knew. Personally I have used or owned Pro Tools, Samplitude, Studio One, Ableton, Tracktion, Reason (used to teach it) and even an LE version of Cubase. Currently I use Reaper at home for all my projects, its stability is a huge factor but that's another thread. But I always come back to Cakewalk at some point for other work. Again for workflow and I love the ease of use of the Pro Channel. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 1 hour ago, SomeGuy said: Reaper fanatics are very pushy about making sure that DAW is a part of every conversation... And we've witnessed how well that worked out for the similarly "technologically superior" Commodore Amiga.?? I don't think Reaper is headed in that direction, though! 2 hours ago, SomeGuy said: GarageBand is a problem on macOS. It's a bigger deal for its market than iMovie is for the video editing market, as it is far more usable for projects beyond the trivial. It ships with a lot of instruments and tons of loops - it's 100% usable out of the box, unlike Cakewalk by BandLab. There is no reason for any lower end of beginner music maker to even consider anything else Really? No reason, not even the disparity in hardware cost for a "lower end of beginner" between a good used Windows system and a good used Mac? I'm asking because I don't know what usable used Macs go for these days. I do know that I can get Windows systems with plenty of life left in them for next to nothing. It will be a system that some gamer got tired of, or some manager in an office thinks isn't a big enough status symbol, but it will have plenty of power to run Cakewalk. Moreso with strategic upgrades like RAM and SSD. A friend of mine just picked up a retired Dell office desktop with an i5 in it that I know will run Cakewalk really well for his uses, he paid $50 for it. And he hasn't added any RAM or an SSD or a special graphics card yet. I think of Macs as fine beginner computers for when mom and dad are still paying the bills, less so when the young person themselves is paying for the computer, the rent, the food, the utilities, etc. Never had the silver spoon, so it was always homebuilt computers and Microsoft (and Digital Research!) operating systems. Now I also have a Mac, which is very nice. I agree with you that people get too feisty and tribal about their consumer preferences, but I think that is hard-coded into us as humans. For some reason, we feel better when people agree with us about how things should be done. But there's more (or less) to it than that. It used to be a vital argument whether Motorola microprocessors or Intel ones were "better," as if it somehow mattered which one was buried deep within the computer, running the OS. Now Motorola is out of the microprocessor game and the argument is forgotten. If you were to ask me what DAW software to buy anyone under the age of 30 these days, I would have to go with Ableton Live. At least the ones I see and talk to, that's kinda all they want to know about. Discussions such as this one usually ignore the most critical question, which is "for what kind of music production?" And then everyone jumps in assuming it's the kind of music they mostly do. For MIDI? Audio? Loop construction? Live performance? Hardware control? Live mixing? Until you know the answers to those questions, it's like discussing "what's the best saw?" without knowing what is to be cut with it. Yet on we go. "I'd like to see you connect 12 vintage synthesizers to GarageBand and send them all sysx commands on different channels. Now observe as SonarLab and my mighty CAL script forces them into submission!" "Reaper is too difficult to use, therefore discouraging young people from wanting to produce music!" "FL Studio is too easy to use, therefore discouraging young people from producing music that I recognize as music!" "Pro Tools is still the only DAW to bother with if you're opening a serious professional studio." "Who the HELL is opening 'serious professional studios' these days? Is Avid selling like 10 licenses per year, then? People use the programs to make music." 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 (edited) What share of the "pro" market Cakewalk has is of little to no concern to me. I think it's quite beside the point and not where the exciting stuff is happening in 2019. The model of a person or group of people working up a bunch of material and then paying to go into a building where there's a few people operating magical highly expensive machinery that records them performing their material and then the building people take the recordings and edit and mix the recordings using more highly expensive machinery at the end of which a record company (or the performing people) writes a check to the building people is an all but entirely obsolete model. Studio recording today is akin to studio photography of today. Yes, they still exist, yes, they will always exist, yes, there are things they will always be able to do that nobody else can, but their hold on the market is long gone. It's as gone as that thing where a "record company" turns recordings into pieces of plastic and sells them to young people and pays the performing people 9 cents for each dollar of plastic pieces they sell and keeps the rest to pay for the recording building people and other "expenses." And sorry, but I'm fine with waving bye-bye. Neither of them ever served me or anyone I know very well, and what has replaced them offers so many more opportunities that it's mind boggling. The role of a DAW in a traditional pro studio is emulating (and extending the capabilities of) a multitrack tape machine, mixing console, effects rack, and editing block. For both audio and MIDI forms of musical data. Composing and arranging don't need to be done in big studios any more (for the few exceptions, pedant away if you feel like it) to the extent that they ever did. The artists who do those things can do them at home, in their own spaces, with the tools that suit them. Today, the computer is part of the picture starting from the "working up a bunch of material" phase. The moment I have a song idea I start demoing fragments and using the computer to rearrange them, working on different parts, etc. Many of my workflow needs during this process wouldn't mean diddly to a "pro DAW" customer. I'll be sitting watching TV with my laptop nearby and guitar plugged in in case I get an idea for the solo in one song that's been escaping me for weeks. The idea that a good program for this newer model of working is still supposed to be trying to grub for a bigger share of the "go into a building" market and it would be a point of shame if it didn't get it seems....silly to me. Cakewalk isn't going to tear any bigshots away from their beloved Pro Tools no matter how hard it tries, and Sonar's traditional small/home studio and hobbyist market is way more exciting and closer to where the future (not even, it's where we've already arrived) is anyway. I am all for Cakewalk being a great choice for musicians, composers, live recordists, and small studio owners. If the Pros want to hang on to their Tools, they should do so with enthusiasm (PT is a fine program). Edited April 13, 2019 by Starship Krupa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurre Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 Ok. To improve my reputation i would like to get us back on topic. I have been lurking KVR forum for some time now. Covering the lifetime of CbB. In their one synth challenge and the music cafe they sometimes say what daw they used to create the song. You seldom see CbB mentioned there. It's on an constant low. In subforums where they discuss daws it's also on an constant low in mentioning CbB. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msmcleod Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 5 minutes ago, Kurre said: Ok. To improve my reputation i would like to get us back on topic. I have been lurking KVR forum for some time now. Covering the lifetime of CbB. In their one synth challenge and the music cafe they sometimes say what daw they used to create the song. You seldom see CbB mentioned there. It's on an constant low. In subforums where they discuss daws it's also on an constant low in mentioning CbB. The assumption here is of course, that a fair representation of DAW users use the KVR forum. I'm not sure that is the case. I use the forum to check deals, and see what new versions of plugins have been released, but I've never found a need to post on it. IMHO this forum is one of the best out there, and covers all my DAW needs. The other thing is, that Cakewalk has a mature user base with many coming from the Pro Audio or early SONAR days. Many will be comfortable with their existing knowledge and have no need to ask questions, and many may not have the time to help others - especially if running a studio is their main job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurre Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 Is there someone that use Gearslutz and Bedroomproducersblog or other where they have a subforum for daws? What we are looking for are newbies. If CbB would gain users it should be noticeable by newbies asking questions about CbB in those places. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Anderton Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 (edited) I think for professionals, the days of "I use X DAW" are over. Now it's "I use X, Y, Z" DAWs, and this is the world into which newbies will be introduced in the years ahead. CbB will become part of their arsenal of tools. As to current market penetration, the CbB thing happened only a little over a year ago. It's not surprising that there will be more mentions of programs that are one or even two decades old. They're established, and also, for a long time the Mac was king of the hill. That's been changing to where people are more accepting of running Windows - although like many people, I'm a bi-platform kinda guy (even though overall, I greatly prefer Windows). For example...nothing does the "parse any audio and create a Tempo track" like CbB does. Nothing does the polyphonic Harmonic Editing or Scratchpad things that Studio One does. Nothing has as stable an audio engine, or handles loop-based music, as well as Ableton Live. Nothing has a suite of plug-ins as good as Reason. And, if you collaborate with major studios, nothing is as ubiquitous as Pro Tools...which is why I use ALL these programs in my day-to-day work. I also use Cubase from time to time for its "special sauces," and DP's excellent amp sims. The reason I switched to Sonar back In 2000 was because at the time, I was bouncing back and forth between Cubase (good MIDI and hard disk recording) and Acid (only thing that could handle loops). When Sonar came along, I could do everything in one program, and I used it for commercial classical music projects, narration, video soundtracks, songwriting, loop library development, and rock/EDM projects. As long as DAWs went through a period of trying to be more like each other and adopt each other's features, then all I really needed was one program (although I used Studio One for mastering and Live for live performance). But now, DAWs have particular personalities and user bases, and are going off in more specialized directions. This is great - it's like if the only guitar that you had was a solid-body electric, but then you were introduced to a semi-hollow body, an acoustic, a Dobro, and a 12-string. All of a sudden, your options were multiplied...sure, you had to learn some different playing techniques, but they had more similarities than differences. I gave a seminar about mixing at a university last week, and showed the tempo track extraction feature in CbB and some of the mixing features, as well as the Harmonic Editing in Studio One and the Reason instruments. With CbB being free, I'd bet that a lot of the attendees went home and downloaded it so they could use some of the CbB-exclusive features I mentioned. Probably some of them looked seriously at adding Studio One to their Logic or Pro Tools-based world (or even switching), while others started thinking about rewiring Live or Reason into their DAW of choice. If that's indeed the way things are going, then CbB is in a good position because Bandlab bought an essentially fully-formed program for what I assume was a very reasonable price. It will become part of what people do, and for those who have really good chemistry with it, it will become their primary DAW. Different people have different needs, and there will always be some people for whom a particular DAW will be the right fit. I think it's also important to remember that culturally, Asian companies often take a longer-term view. Consider that many of the CbB updates have been about stability. It's smart not to put a huge push on something until you know it's going to make a good impression on first-time users. The last person I turned on to the free CbB download (who uses both Windows and Mac) hit it off immediately, and is no longer using Logic. It's all good. Edited April 13, 2019 by Craig Anderton 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 2 hours ago, Kurre said: Ok. To improve my reputation i would like to get us back on topic. I have been lurking KVR forum for some time now. Covering the lifetime of CbB. In their one synth challenge and the music cafe they sometimes say what daw they used to create the song. You seldom see CbB mentioned there. It's on an constant low. In subforums where they discuss daws it's also on an constant low in mentioning CbB. KVR Poll: Which DAW Would You Choose On A Level Playing Field? https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=520515 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 (edited) On 4/12/2019 at 10:20 PM, msmcleod said: But in the meantime, the videos on his studio build are a great watch He's definitely missing a trick if he's not getting some sponsorship money from these guys though..... Edited April 14, 2019 by paulo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Some Guy Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 (edited) On 4/13/2019 at 8:17 AM, emwhy said: I guess I would now qualify as a Reaper fanatic since the Great Panic of November of 2017. I think most people here know the types of people I'm referring to. If it's any consolation, I find that the people who are like that tend to be less of the professionals, and more of the hobbyists and enthusiasts. Pseudo "gamer guy" types... On 4/13/2019 at 8:34 AM, Starship Krupa said: And we've witnessed how well that worked out for the similarly "technologically superior" Commodore Amiga.?? I don't think Reaper is headed in that direction, though! Really? No reason, not even the disparity in hardware cost for a "lower end of beginner" between a good used Windows system and a good used Mac? I don't think the disparity in hardware cost matters, because people keep their PCs for a long time, these days. I have a Late 2013 iMac that I bought shortly after it came out. It still runs GarageBand flawlessly, and runs Logic Pro X really well. It runs Final Cut Pro X, as well... pretty well... Had I not moved back to a Windows PC, I don't think I'd have even heard about Cakewalk by BandLab; because I never would have bothered to look to see what was out there. I'd have stayed on GB and upgraded to Logic Pro X whenever I felt the need - since I can easily migrate all of my projects there, there is a GarageBand App for iOS that's better than anything BandLab has out (Plus the Logic Remote App that works with both of them), and it Syncs well over iCloud (and can publish directly to iTunes, etc.). Logic is also stupid cheap, and students can get all of Apple's Pro Apps for $199 in a bundle. Cost simply isn't a huge deal, unless you're going to be upgrading your Macs like you do your smartphone. I think the price factor is really overstated. People say the same thing about Adobe, yet their profits continue to skyrocket ? I actually have good things to say about Cakewalk. I think the UI is great, and the performance on my machine is good. But it is of little use to me without AAF support, as I'd have to continue using another DAW as well... No use complicating things further... Edited April 14, 2019 by SomeGuy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emwhy Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 I gave a seminar about mixing at a university last week, and showed the tempo track extraction feature in CbB and some of the mixing features, as well as the Harmonic Editing in Studio One and the Reason instruments. With CbB being free, I'd bet that a lot of the attendees went home and downloaded it so they could use some of the CbB-exclusive features I mentioned. Had a similar experience last year. Did a class at a local college in broadcasting and radio production using Cakewalk, Adobe Audition, and Reaper. A lot of the students were initially enthused when I told them Cakewalk was now a free DAW. But that was tempered by the fact that a lot of them use MACs. Part of the curriculum requires that they take classes in sound design. Those were all taught on Pro Tools. It surprised me how most of them even as 18 & 19 year olds did not like using the program. One big change that has happened in recent years is that a lot of the instructors now let the students use their DAW of choice for projects and work outside of class, In fact one teacher there openly encourages it. We are at a time where it's good to have all these tools at our disposal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckebaby Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 22 hours ago, Kurre said: Ok. To improve my reputation i would like to get us back on topic. We should all start our posts with this ^ Seriously though, When it all boils down... We are all just a big group of friends throwing our opinions around 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zo Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 On 4/4/2019 at 8:59 PM, Craig Anderton said: 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. Or maybe they have several daws and want cross daw plugins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 10 minutes ago, Zo said: Or maybe they have several daws and want cross daw plugins This! ^^^ I don't find this to be a very big issue with Sonar/Cakewalk, because most of the plugins except for DXi and Pro Channel will work elsewhere. But in a program like Studio One Pro, which has some excellent bundled plugins, they are all locked to the DAW. I assume that by locking a user and their workflow into the host plugins creates a "sticky" factor, making it less tempting for them to cross over to another competitor. So I prefer ala carte plugins that can travel anywhere. I wish DAW vendors would always release VST versions of their bundled plugins, even if it is an optional paid upgrade. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zo Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 18 minutes ago, abacab said: This! ^^^ I don't find this to be a very big issue with Sonar/Cakewalk, because most of the plugins except for DXi and Pro Channel will work elsewhere. But in a program like Studio One Pro, which has some excellent bundled plugins, they are all locked to the DAW. I assume that by locking a user and their workflow into the host plugins creates a "sticky" factor, making it less tempting for them to cross over to another competitor. So I prefer ala carte plugins that can travel anywhere. I wish DAW vendors would always release VST versions of their bundled plugins, even if it is an optional paid upgrade. Yep in fact there s cons and pros , a big pro is project exchange between same daw users ... a lot of pro collegue do that ...also another pro is maintenance that is always done at the same as the daw itselff , you have a warranty compatibility and trouble free experience ... talking about the quality alot are made by Overloud , a brand synonimous with musicality in my book ...i love all their stuff ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 8 minutes ago, Zo said: Yep in fact there s cons and pros , a big pro is project exchange between same daw users ... I can see that there would be benefits to sticking with the same DAW, and a finite set of bundled plugins for stability, as well as collaboration and project exchange. But for an individual working on it all, and maybe using more than one DAW, having the same set of cross DAW plugins would have benefits. So I am thinking of a situation where you may prefer one DAW for creative songwriting and sound design, and another DAW for arranging, mixing, and maybe even mastering. This would be a situation where the artist gets more inspiration from the creative songwriting workflow in one DAW environment, but prefers a different technical workflow for mixing when he puts on the engineer's hat later to polish the song. It would be nice to have the same plugins that you used to dial in your sounds make the trip across, especially if they are a key part of your inspired sounds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Anderton Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 (edited) When there's a locked plug-in I really want to use, I use the closest plug-in in the program I'm using. Before mixing, I export a premix and the file I want to process in the other DAW, render it, and bring it back into the main DAW. Sure, that's less convenient than having cross-program plug-ins, but it's better than not using plug-ins at all. Edited April 14, 2019 by Craig Anderton 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 On 4/13/2019 at 8:26 AM, Kurre said: Is there someone that use Gearslutz and Bedroomproducersblog or other where they have a subforum for daws? What we are looking for are newbies. If CbB would gain users it should be noticeable by newbies asking questions about CbB in those places. I see the same thing on Image-Line and Reason Talk forums. Threads like these are nothing new under the sun. Some DAWs just work better for different genres. I've seen all sorts of strange ideas to get more users. An odd one was to make Reason as a VST. Then there are the FL users who think one day Image Line is going to go belly up over lifetime updates. Some people just feel the need to have insecurity issues over the DAW they use. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckebaby Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 I think what it comes down to is... If Cakewalk wasn't gaining users, wasn't popular.. we all would have been evicted months ago. I think Ming, Noel and Co. have a plan laid out. IMO, its probably going as planned and we should worry less about how popular the DAW is and worry more about our own recordings/productions. I know I am 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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