How does CbB stack up against other "Pay to Play" DAWS?

[Stephen Rybacki]

Longish post but there is a question here.

First off, I don't do this for a living.  I am strictly a hobbyist who is really interested on the process of music production, and also a guitarist of the singer songwriter persuasion.  I took a few classes at Berklee College (online) and acquired both Sonar X2 and Reason 6.5 as a result.  For the mere $60 it cost me, I also bought Reaper. Since then (2013), I've tried figuring out all three (and upgraded each along the way) so that I have SONAR Platinum (which I got free as a result of participating in market research by then Cakewalk), Reason 12 and many Rack Extensions and Reaper 6.  Needless to say to quote an old Indian proverb "If you chase two rabbits, you'll lose both" - I have not become really good at any of them.

So I've decided it's time to focus on ONE DAW, and get to know if inside and out.  Reaper, to me is rather obtuse and my brain doesn't work that way.  Reason is really easy for me to use and I love the rack metaphor, but it is primarily targeted at the EDM crowd and MIDI music production.  It has some fairly good guitar sims curtesy of Kuassa  but nothing like say Overloud TH-U which is a great program.  That leaves CbB with all the trimmings of SPLAT plus Overloud TH-U and Addictive Drums.

Anyway, the TL;DR question...Is it worth it given my stated skills and goals (singer-guitarist and aspiring songwriter) to hitch my star to CbB?  I can still use Reason an12 as a plug-in so I don't consider that investment as a loss.   I love the workflow in the Skylight interface and I'm blessed with a kick-butt computer setup (Legion i7 8c16t gaming machine with a NVidia RTX3070 GPU and 32 GB of memory plus to curved 4k monitors), but I would hate to put in the effort in CbB if it is destined to be obscured (and as a result abandoned) by the PTP giants like Presonus, ProTools, etc.  Can CbB be all I'll need for the rest of my life (I'm 63)?

[Lord Tim]

Simple answer: Does it work for YOU? If so, it's the right choice.

With maybe the exception of things like an in-built sampler and other "niceties" like chord tracks or dedicated mastering (which would be great to see) there's really nothing you can't accomplish in CbB. I've used it on dozens of internationally released albums and sessions, and many on the forums here who do fairly big commercial productions that use it. I haven't yet had a single person go "oh that sounds like you did that on a PC using Cakewalk" when I've delivered their project. You can check out a couple of my projects in my signature below.

If you're working in post production or in the studio scene where you're constantly exchanging projects with other production houses, it makes sense to learn ProTools and know your way around a Mac. But if not, whatever DAW feels most comfortable to you is the right choice, and there's very few shortcomings in Cakewalk, especially for a singer/songwriter type situation.

[Andres Medina]

Go Cakewalk. Can't miss. BUT you really need to put an effort to know the program, as much as we as musicians need to put an effort to learn to sing or play guitar.

A lot of the complains about software is just lack of training and knowledge!

[azslow3]

It depends what you expect from the DAW. Each has some benefits and consequences. Cakewalk has almost everything a DAW can provide. So I will just mention "weak" sides of it. I mean if nothing from the following is in your "must have"/"must be simple" list, Cakewalk will serve you well:

• MIDI FX in Cakewalk is DX only. While all other support VST. That means pure MIDI processors (chord generators, arpeggiators, etc.) can't be MIDI track FX. Corresponding VST plug-in will be "an instrument" in Cakewalk and that requires additional routing and has some other difficulties.
• control surfaces do not support Cakewalk explicitly. Some can be used with Mackie emulation, other with DIY solutions.
• Cakewalk has real-time engine only (some other DAWs can "cheat" with playback tracks). So computer should be audio optimized to allow recording with in DAW monitoring (f.e. with amp sim) and the set of plug-ins used on other tracks can influence effective latency.
• CbB is Windows only.
• unlike X2, CbB has no license key based authorization nor can it run under Wine. Unlike Platinum it requires periodic re-authorization. So theoretically in case of EOL there can be problems using it. But such problem exists with all DAWs (except REAPER).

[SVSX]

Feature wise you can do almost everything like all the other DAW´s. Combined with your older Platinum and X2 license, you propably got some nice additional plugins like Zeta 2, Addictive Drums 2, Melodyne Essential, Linear Phase EQ and Multiband. I am working since Sonar 6 only with Cakewalk and never looked back. There was a time, where i was interessted in Presonus Studio One, but it wasn`t necessary.  Pro Channel, innovative features like ARA support, comping, arranger track and many more are the reason i keep using it as my main DAW. 

 

Your concern about how future proofed Cakewalk is, you sadly never know. Every brand could go down the toilet in the future, noone is safe. The bakers said, that in this case they whould give the users a free authorisation. Let´s just hope it never happens :).

[Will.]

21 minutes ago, SVSX said:

 where i was interessted in Presonus Studio One,

They "took" yet again ideas that was requested here - like the Flip faders was requested here | and | the Mixing Overview Window feature. 

[Paul H]

Longtime Sonar user.

When Sonar went under I tried some different DAWs... ProTools, Ableton, and Reaper.
Nowadays I find Reaper is my go-to DAW as I find it far more stable than Cakewalk.

I do sometimes come back to Cakewalk, as I have plenty of ideas recorded using it.

[Carl P James]

1 hour ago, Will. said:

They "took" yet again ideas that was requested here - like the Flip faders was requested here | and | the Mixing Overview Window feature. 

I've been doing flip faders with my mackie control, for years

 

[Stephen Rybacki]

Thanks folks for the thoughts.  I might as well stay with SONAR until it doesn't matter anymore I guess.  I've got to just settle in and do this daily and get a real workflow now.

[Lord Tim]

CbB is SPlat with years of extra bug fixes and feature updates. Just the Arranger track alone is worth upgrading to if you're a songwriter.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Lord Tim

[SVSX]

9 hours ago, Paul H said:

Nowadays I find Reaper is my go-to DAW as I find it far more stable than Cakewalk.

Not that i'm questioning your experience, but on my PC  Cakewalk is running pretty stable/smooth. Can't imagine how its running even better. But my brother is using Reaper for his Apple PC and its a good software.

 

@Will.

Did it happen in the past? Cause you are saying again?

[marcL]

10 hours ago, SVSX said:

Your concern about how future proofed Cakewalk is, you sadly never know. Every brand could go down the toilet in the future, noone is safe.

Yes, this is true with every brand. But there is a crucial difference whether you are able to use what you have or not! E.g. Reaper or some older DAWs can be authorized on new systems even if the company is gone! This feels save! ? I prefer those kind of authorization also for plugins, because you never know!

[marcL]

8 minutes ago, SVSX said:

Not that i'm questioning your experience, but on my PC  Cakewalk is running pretty stable/smooth.

Today I am also satisfied with the stability of Cakewalk. But it depends also on your hardware. Reaper is very light and thus runs smooth even on older, weaker systems. Its current installation package is 14.5 MB only (Cakewalk is about 549 MB).

[SVSX]

15 minutes ago, marled said:

Yes, this is true with every brand. But there is a crucial difference whether you are able to use what you have or not! E.g. Reaper or some older DAWs can be authorized on new systems even if the company is gone! This feels save! ? I prefer those kind of authorization also for plugins, because you never know!

Noel mentioned that in case of a server shutdown, they'll allow users to authorize it without online checking. I'm trusting them to use some kind of free key we can use forever.

[Will.]

7 hours ago, SVSX said:

Not that i'm questioning your experience, but on my PC  Cakewalk is running pretty stable/smooth. Can't imagine how its running even better. But my brother is using Reaper for his Apple PC and its a good software.

 

@Will.

Did it happen in the past? Cause you are saying again?

Check all the requests (with their dates) here and look at their release dates of StOne V5 and now V6. Some of the things are requested on their forums, but way later than the dates on this forum, and these are unique only to CbB feature requests.

One in particular: The new Automation curves they have . . . I've requested here - version 5 dropped and BOOM! They have it. It's nowhere to be found on their forum | nor their social media pages. I've looked it up. 

The curves I'm talking about are gated curves that works with snap settings. -  including the s-shaped curves to create a tremolo effect when snapping it to grid. 

 Obviously, it could be members taking these requests over their too. Nonetheless: These were requests unique only to CbB. 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Will.

[SVSX]

2 hours ago, Will. said:

Check all the requests (with their dates) here and look at their release dates of StOne V5 and now V6. Some of the things are requested on their forums, but way later than the dates on this forum, and these are unique only to CbB feature requests.

One in particular: The new Automation curves they have . . . I've requested here - version 5 dropped and BOOM! They have it. It's nowhere to be found on their forum | nor their social media pages. I've looked it up. 

The curves I'm talking about are gated curves that works with snap settings. -  including the s-shaped curves to create a tremolo effect when snapping it to grid. 

 Obviously, it could be members taking these requests over their too. Nonetheless: These were request unique only to CbB. 

Oh no, Presonus agents are spying ??

[Paul H]

11 hours ago, SVSX said:

Not that i'm questioning your experience, but on my PC  Cakewalk is running pretty stable/smooth. Can't imagine how its running even better. But my brother is using Reaper for his Apple PC and its a good software.

 

@Will.

Did it happen in the past? Cause you are saying again?

Reaper uses far less CPU and RAM than Cakewalk.
This is hardly noticeable if your project isn't that big.

Once you have lots of audio & midi tracks with lots of plugins, then I still find Reaper beats Cakewalk for stability.
Cakewalk definitely has drop-outs and crashes way before Reaper does.

[SVSX]

@Paul H,

i'm not doubting you about this, sorry if it sounded like that. I tried to point out, that even if its not that efficient as Reaper, its running generaly pretty good and stable. I'm running a 50-Track mixing project for example with over 100 FX instances wihout issues on my 14 year old i5 750 cpu (OC'd at 3.9 GHz on all 4 cores) and 16GB Ram. Many CPU draining FX with OS activated where it is necessary and still some room to breathe. Compared to Sonar X1 its running much much smoother now. So the thread poster can surely use it as his main DAW, nothing speaks against it ?.

Edited October 3, 2022 by SVSX

[mettelus]

On 10/1/2022 at 8:10 AM, Stephen Rybacki said:

First off, I don't do this for a living.  I am strictly a hobbyist who is really interested on the process of music production, and also a guitarist of the singer songwriter persuasion.

I think you answered your own question and spent the rest of your post confirming it ? If the internet exploded and you never got another update ever again, CbB as it is now will exceed your needs. As with most complex programs, focus on what you want to do and learn that; it is easy to get overwhelmed/frustrated to try to learn too much at once.

[Starship Krupa]

On 10/1/2022 at 5:10 AM, Stephen Rybacki said:

Reaper, to me is rather obtuse and my brain doesn't work that way.

There's no call for forcing yourself to warp your head around any piece of software when there are so many great alternatives. You have a powerful enough computer to run any DAW on the market.

Of the other two, Cakewalk will surely satisfy the needs of a singer/songwriter and then some. For that kind of thing, you want something with good tools for comping and mixing. I can record in anything, but give me Cakewalk when it comes to mixing time. As far as comping, Cakewalk has a full set of tools. It has a learning curve for comping, to be sure, but I don't know of a DAW that doesn't. I've never run into a comping task that I couldn't accomplish with Cakewalk's tools and workflow, but I still from time to time get into "flurry of Ctrl-Z's" trouble when using the Smart Tool and turned out it wasn't in the mode I thought it was. My more confident workflow with editing is to switch to the Edit or Draw Tool I need rather than relying on my memorization of what the Smart Tool is supposed to do in a given situation.

That's my caveat: Cakewalk is great for comping if you remember to loosen your grip on the Smart Tool.

Although I have a license for Reason Lite, I'm much less familiar with it because I couldn't get my head around it. I never even got as far as recording anything, so I don't know about their comping tools.

No software, regardless of licensing model, is immune to abandonment. Sonar was payware up until 5 years ago, Cakewalk, Inc. had been around for 30 years and was owned by a much larger company. Then, poof. You're old enough to remember when WordStar, then Word Perfect absolutely owned the word processing market. The mighty may fall. A program like Cakewalk or Chrome that's not expected to earn its parent company revenue in the form of license fees isn't necessarily less "safe" than one that must constantly keep its user base updating in order to earn a profit and justify its existence.

For that reason, I encourage people to remain at least familiar with one DAW other than their primary. At least familiar enough that if DAW A breaks for whatever reason, you can at least get tracks down with DAW B when inspiration hits rather than struggling to get it into record mode.

There's some FUD about "will Cakewalk keep working if BandLab and its validation server goes away?" I have faith in both the Cakewalk devs, and then if there are legal issues, the world of hackers, that if that ever happens, a solution will be found.