BandLab Technologies reveals new brand vision for Cakewalk

[Keni]

1 hour ago, Brian Walton said:

Without all the money "we" spent on Sonar to get it to the mature product it was, bandlab wouldn't have a product to aquire.  And the short lived lifetime update purchases I have to imagine added value to to business beyond the minor development work during that period.  

I appreciate the dev work the bandlab team has done over the last 5 years but the product is by and large more similar than it is dissimilar.  

Hoping the pricing model is a non issue when they announce it.  Time will tell.

Yes. We were part of it’s development. But the company died due to Gibson's actions. The new owners don’t owe us anything. They gave us things freely and now that they’re finally trying to make it viable again you feel we deserve something?

So far they’ve been extremely giving so I’m guessing that though they technically and legally owe us nothing they are creating a pricing system that will be reasonable.

 

My house was foreclosed after 16 years of payments. Do you believe the new owners owe me anything? I built the house and developed it all those years... I would love it if they decided to give me a portion of what they rent it for?

[Paul P]

The system is falling apart...

[Keni]

Too many simultaneous posts!

[Paul P]

2 hours ago, bitflipper said:

That orange actually looks pretty good here, on a dark-themed browser, on an actual monitor. I don't know how you guys can do anything on a friggin' phone. I tried that a couple times while killing time in a doctor's waiting room. That lasted about 2 minutes before I looked around and found a two-year-old copy of Time magazine. Since then I take a book with me.

I'm on a big dell monitor and light theme and the logo is thin and a sickly orange.  Not attractive at all.

[Anxiousmofo]

34 minutes ago, Keni said:

My house was foreclosed after 16 years of payments. 

Bad example. Your house would be foreclosed because you were in arrears, not because you paid extra. 

[marcL]

The price I would pay depends heavily on the authorization. I would be willing to pay a lot if it was a real offline authorization for what you get (without any updates). But I don't expect that happen having quite some experience with the "Bakers".

For a "new" Sonar (with some minor goodies and a modified look that I'm not about) that still needs the company's servers to be authorized on a new system I'm in doubt whether I should not leave the boat? I have been worrying enough time about my loved Sonar/CbB in the past years! Else it would require a real deal breaker feature to make me willing to really invest again (but frankly I don't know what it could be). That said, it maybe different if the price is minor.

[Nick Blanc]

12 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

I agree that this forum has always attracted people who think everything should be free and will take any chance they can to rationalize borderline piracy. In this case though, the wounds of "lifetime subscription" never healed.  Logically that was the misstep of a totally different company, but still stings. My concern is one of pure pragmatism. I am a longtime Cakewalk user who paid for many editions.  Sonar was often innovative and were early to have features like channel strips, ARA intergration and analog emulation.  DAWs have since caught up in those areas and have always handled issues like sampling better.  A paid version of Cakewalk would have to outshine a lot of competition both paid and free.  Pro Tools is still pro tools. Logic has Mac crowd locked. Ableton and FL Studio have tight grip on EDM and hip-hop crowd, along with not exactly full DAWs like Maschine and MPC.  Reaper is also a powerful option for powerful low cost ( and some count as free) option. Not to mention the slight resurgence of hardware trackers and workstations. 

I do give Bandlab a bit of a chance because they have a large base of cakewalk and bandlab users. Unfortunately that base, particularly the bandlab base are used to free. The ones that are willing to pay likely already own other paid DAWs.

I'm surprised that something like Renoise hasn't gained much tracktion (ha!), being a modern tracker with VST support. For only $75. I'm sure all of us 80s-90s kids can still read hexidecimal.

[X-53mph]

I know that the old Cakewalk Sonar was Gibson, and that Bandlab don't owe old users anything....but it would still be nice if the new pricing policy took into account loyal customers.

I (like many others) paid for the older products, I even bought the Platinum lifetime upgrade, and it would be nice if Bandlab gave a discount to users such as myself.

That said, we have all been extremely spoilt over the last years, receiving a free daw with free updates. If the new daw is worth it, why not pay for it. ?‍♂️

[GroverKen]

I’ve been a user (and version upgrader) of Cakewalk since the Windows 3.0 version and would ask one thing - please don’t lose the backwards compatibility. Last week I resurrected a project from February 1999 when I saved everything as .bun files. Lo and behold, the latest version unpacked everything successfully and I could continue from where I had left off all those years ago. My workflow might have changed and there are now many more “toys” to play with but it worked. Impressive!

[paulo]

7 hours ago, InstrEd said:

My take is that Dave has been Beta tester and so I'm really interested to see what the Baker's have done. I trust Dave on his view of the product. 

It's probably easier to like a free copy though.... ?

[paulo]

12 hours ago, Bapu said:

So it's SOnew? ? 

Old is the new new.

[azslow3]

Calling something "Cakewalk Sonar" wakes memories... Especially when it comes to "new"/"innovative"/"multi-platform". 8.5->X1,  X3->Platinum,  Platinum->Lifetime, "Sonar on Apple", "subscription", DAW-locked plug-ins, etc. With core engine stay the same (obviously it was genius, it has survived two decades...) and "side effects" from mentioned changes.

Some previous plans and explanations (partially already mentioned in this thread) concerning CbB already smelled for me. Now there are new "plans", without any real explanations nor details.

I guess people who have worked with Cakewalk several decades will continue, no matter what. People for which CbB was just a "free DAW" will switch to another free DAW. And people which have found another "home" will not return back.

I mean I don't see a good reason why someone plays "Cakewalk Sonar" card in BandLab game. That term has flavor of "aged, buggy and abandoned" together with added recently "free"... 

 

[Brian Walton]

8 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

 Staff view sucks, bundled instruments suck.  Not sure it's worth it if the staff view is the same.  Bundled instruments suck in most DAWs anyway. Be like Reaper, just the DAW please.

I don't care about the staff view, just like the vast majority of users.  But I do agree that the preview screen of what is included for instruments and effects suggests things we already have (at least the previous paid users) and frankly wouldn't expect them to package anything I really need and I think they realize that stuff isn't worth paying for otherwise we would be in a the DAW is free but you can buy instruments and effects ala carte which is what was hinted at years ago when they didn't port some of the effects for free users like adaptive limiter, etc.

[Keni]

6 hours ago, Anxiousmofo said:

Bad example. Your house would be foreclosed because you were in arrears, not because you paid extra. 

Bad comparison. The reason is unimportant. I didn’t hear you making claims about why Gibson caused all this.

The point is that the original company is gone along with any obligations THEY had to you.

 This is a new company who’s so far I’ve only given you things for free  yet you complain when they ask for some recompense 

[bluzdog]

FYI: At the bottom of the new website there is a link to the Sonar Legacy website. Under support you can login in to your old account and access your legacy products.

[Tommy Byrnes]

I have no intention of leaving Cakewalk/Sonar/Bandlab. I have way too many years invested. Everything I do in it is muscle memory. Customized key bindings, customized plugin layouts (the plugin manager is one of my favorite features. My layouts are pretty extensive), Screensets, templates, etc. The idea of having to redo all of this in another DAW is unpleasant. I briefly moved to Studio One when Gibson Sonar folded but I found myself spending too much time trying to get it set up so I could use it efficiently. Way too much down time involved for my clients and me. I occasionally mess about with MixBus (latest version) but it doesn't speak to me the way CbB/Sonar does.

And, I love this software. I have been more than happy with it over the last 16 years of using it every day professionally. I feel like Noel and the rest of the Bakers are a main reason to stay with the software. Not many companies I've dealt with have their main folks often on the forums answering questions and helping out.

Plus, they're in Boston, so I'll always be wicked loyal to my fellow Bay-Staters ?

I use the software professionally and won't mind paying for the next iteration. I don't think it makes sense for me to spend money on another DAW and not spend money on Sonar.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, Keni said:

This is a new company who’s so far I’ve only given you things for free  yet you complain when they ask for some recompense

You had to offer your data to Bandlab when you created an account to have access to CbB. Who knows what happened with that, but Bandlab profited off that for sure. Probably more than what they will eventually charge you for a Sonar or Sonar Next license.

Unless you're talking about FLOSS software, all free and open source software have some kind of price tag attached to it, even if you're not explicitly paying for it.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Bruno de Souza Lino

[User 905133]

1 minute ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

You had to offer your data to Bandlab when you created an account to have access to CbB. Who knows what happened with that, but Bandlab profited off that for sure. Probably more than what they will eventually charge you for a Sonar or Sonar Next license. [emphasis added]

I have not received any junk mail from signing up with Bandlab when I first signed up for CbB.  What evidence do you have that Bandlab profited off of the information?

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

2 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

I have not received any junk mail from signing up with Bandlab when I first signed up for CbB.  What evidence do you have that Bandlab profited off of the information?

The simple fact you had to create an account in an unrelated service to have access to it points to that. And the licenses you have to renew every 6 months. Why would a company offering a free product care about keeping track of how many users are downloading it or who are those users otherwise? A company doesn't necessarily have to annoy you with targeted ads to profit off your data. Also, who guarantees they won't now that they have to convince you to buy their shiny brand new product?

[chris.r]

21 minutes ago, Tommy Byrnes said:

I occasionally mess about with MixBus (latest version) but it doesn't speak to me the way CbB/Sonar does.

Are there any new features worth special mention in the latest Mixbus? I stopped following the changes somewhere between version 4 to 6  but Mixbus does offer good sale on upgrades so I could always think of going back assuming it's growing nicely as a DAW and getting that polish a Cakewalk user would be looking for.