5 years ago....

[Starship Krupa]

I don't have the exact date, it seems that it took a few days for the press release to propagate. Wikipedia points to an article dated November 21, 2017, so I'll go with that.

It's the anniversary of that upsetting announcement saying that there would be no Cakewalk Inc. no more, after 30 years in business.

I don't have much to say except that while I was not a SONAR user at the time I was shocked, and sad on behalf of the faithful SONAR users. I had been using Mixcraft for a few years and I would have been BUMMED if Acoustica had suddenly announced that they were ending it all.

Things eventually worked out about as well as they possibly could have, but it was 3 months until the Bandlab announcement, I would imagine those were very, very long months for some people.  I know that when the Bandlab announcement came, some SONAR faithful felt like the day laborers who started early in The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.

I'm glad that some people managed to hang on, and I'm glad that some of the good folk who no longer primarily use Cakewalk (or no longer use it at all) have stuck around on the forum.

[Byron Dickens]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

  I know that when the Bandlab announcement came, some SONAR faithful felt like the day laborers who started early in The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.

Oh, my God! You ain't kidding.

[Bapu]

I never thought Cakewalk (the company) or any of it's orevious owners owed me anything. I got what I paid for and in the end Saul Goodman. 

[craigb]

Wow... 5 years!  It feels like only 60 months ago... ?

 

 

?

(I still remember helping Greg debug an issue back in 1987 using my super-expensive Turtle Beach General MIDI sound card!  Yikes!)

[Bapu]

 

[Wibbles]

I've still not managed to finish a track in those five years.

[husker]

I was pissed.  I had litterally bought the "Sonar For Life" just a month or two prior to the demise....

[InstrEd]

Yikes!  That means I'm 5 years older but not wiser

[InstrEd]

19 hours ago, craigb said:

Wow... 5 years!  It feels like only 60 months ago... ?

 

 

?

(I still remember helping Greg debug an issue back in 1987 using my super-expensive Turtle Beach General MIDI sound card!  Yikes!)

You don't have to show us your math skills  ?

[SteveStrummerUK]

3 hours ago, Wibbles said:

I've still not managed to finish a track in those five years.

That is a long track.

[Bapu]

4 hours ago, Wibbles said:

I've still not managed to finish a track in those five years.

 

35 minutes ago, SteveStrummerUK said:

That is a long track.

1 trillion terabyte HD?

[craigb]

4 hours ago, Wibbles said:

I've still not managed to finish a track in those five years.

Same loop? ?

[Bapu]

10 minutes ago, craigb said:

Same loop? ?

2 bars. Sooooooo monotonis.

 

 

[kitekrazy]

6 hours ago, husker said:

I was pissed.  I had litterally bought the "Sonar For Life" just a month or two prior to the demise....

I had the same thing happen when I upgraded to Gigastudio 4.

[kitekrazy]

On 11/22/2022 at 12:24 AM, Starship Krupa said:

I don't have the exact date, it seems that it took a few days for the press release to propagate. Wikipedia points to an article dated November 21, 2017, so I'll go with that.

It's the anniversary of that upsetting announcement saying that there would be no Cakewalk Inc. no more, after 30 years in business.

I don't have much to say except that while I was not a SONAR user at the time I was shocked, and sad on behalf of the faithful SONAR users. I had been using Mixcraft for a few years and I would have been BUMMED if Acoustica had suddenly announced that they were ending it all.

Things eventually worked out about as well as they possibly could have, but it was 3 months until the Bandlab announcement, I would imagine those were very, very long months for some people.  I know that when the Bandlab announcement came, some SONAR faithful felt like the day laborers who started early in The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.

I'm glad that some people managed to hang on, and I'm glad that some of the good folk who no longer primarily use Cakewalk (or no longer use it at all) have stuck around on the forum.

I bought Mixcraft, Tracktion, and the Magix DAW.  I still keep Mixcrapt installed.  I was using FL Studio and Live most of the time.

Developers didn't rejoice because a competitor was gone. They thought who is next.

I still have leftovers from Sonar in Bandlab. 

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, husker said:

I was pissed.  I had literally bought the "Sonar For Life" just a month or two prior to the demise....

Thanks to Bandlab, at least you finally did get what you paid for.

And it doesn't get said enough: thanks to you and everyone else who ever paid a license fee for SONAR (which included me, 20 years ago). It funded the development that's the foundation of my favorite DAW. SONAR's market share and popularity undoubtedly helped make the Cakewalk IP and brand more attractive to Bandlab.

Fun fact: Bandlab has now owned the brand longer than Gibson OR Roland owned Cakewalk, Inc. I'll leave it up to the olde tymers to decide which of these owners most helped the program thrive.

I may be in the minority, but I really, really prefer the SONAR X/Skylight interface to what came before. I miss it when I use other DAW's like Ableton Live!, Mixcraft, and Studio One. Take Lanes now work very well thanks to some changes made in the past 5 years, and Take Lanes are in line with industry standards.

From what I've gathered in almost 5 years of forum participation, Roland Cakewalk came up with SONAR X, with the Skylight interface and Take Lanes, Gibson Cakewalk went a long way in tidying up the initial mess, and Bandlab have further polished and enhanced it a great deal. True?

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, kitekrazy said:

Developers didn't rejoice because a competitor was gone. They thought who is next.

Yes. The software industry, and especially within certain genres of software like DAW's, is a community. It came of age as employees began to be expected to move from company to company to further their careers rather than stay with one employer their entire career. I'm sure that most of the former Cakewalk Inc. now work for other software companies, perhaps audio ones.

Unless one company feels that another is biting their IP, and/or they've sent nastygrams about it, then things tend to be cordial.

As you say, the other DAW makers probably took at as a scary bellwether.

[Bapu]

31 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

within certain genres of software like DAW's, is a community. 

 things tend to be cordial.

I remember the last NAMM show I attended. While I was waiting to talk with Noel, I was watching him demo the latest "stuff" in CbB to an employee of Avid.

 

[kitekrazy]

22 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Yes. The software industry, and especially within certain genres of software like DAW's, is a community. It came of age as employees began to be expected to move from company to company to further their careers rather than stay with one employer their entire career. I'm sure that most of the former Cakewalk Inc. now work for other software companies, perhaps audio ones.

Unless one company feels that another is biting their IP, and/or they've sent nastygrams about it, then things tend to be cordial.

As you say, the other DAW makers probably took at as a scary bellwether.

Some of them fail to downsize due to less overhead.  All deliveries are digital these days so no need to print and ship.  Image Line has a small staff and they don't have to really advertise so they don't go to these software get togethers.     

[Wibbles]

19 hours ago, craigb said:

Same loop? ?

 

19 hours ago, Bapu said:

2 bars. Sooooooo monotonis.

I got as far as eight bars and stuck at that.