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More Info About Cakewalk Next?


urock

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(Please move this if there is a better location for this topic.)

Ever since the New Sonar/Next announcement thread in News was locked, we've had no new info on Next that I can find.  The Cakewalk team was sharing snippets about Next in that thread.  Would love to hear more about Next - more screenshots, etc. And yes, I've signed up for the Beta but haven't heard anything yet.

Is there going to new sub-forum (or whatever it is called) for Next? 

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8 hours ago, urock said:

Ever since the New Sonar/Next announcement thread in News was locked, we've had no new info on Next that I can find.  The Cakewalk team was sharing snippets about Next in that thread.  Would love to hear more about Next - more screenshots, etc. And yes, I've signed up for the Beta but haven't heard anything yet.

They have been responding, not sharing snippets and they do have administrative rights to post in that locked thread.

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On 6/29/2023 at 1:36 AM, JohnnyV said:

Example here is another tidbit from Noel 

 

Like SONAR and Cakewalk by Bandlab, NEXT will not be available as an app on iPad and Android.  Bandlab however is an IOS and Android app now.

to repeat; SONAR and Cakewalk by Bandlab (the current free Windows only DAW) will be available as Windows applications. NEXT will be Windows and Mac compatible . There is no IOS or Android NEXT app but there is  an IOS and Android app for Bandlab. Check it in your relevant app store - Google play or Apple app store.

Edited by Michael Vogel
Incorrect info previously stated has been corrected.
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Just to be clear about that, what Noel was saying was Next is still only Windows and MacOS - there's isn't a mobile app version, but you can use the Bandlab app (which is a separate thing) to do your sketches on the run with iOS, Android, etc. and Next will be able to open the projects with the same effects as the app and web has once you get back to a PC/Mac.

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Looking at the specs on the site as compared to the playing I did around with the Bandlab app, it really seems like it's a Bandlab app on steroids and shares much more DNA with CbB in regards to tracks and editing, but yeah - at the core of it, that's basically it, but it's a native Win/Mac program rather than any kind of web thing.

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On 6/30/2023 at 10:01 AM, Lord Tim said:

shares much more DNA with CbB in regards to tracks and editing,

That's what I was thinking as well.   It seems like given the 5 year building of Next that was mentioned in the locked thread that perhaps the approach was:  given our framework/experience as longtime SONAR/Cnb developers, if we started from scratch to build a cross platform DAW knowing what we have learned over the years, catering to the current market, and fitting within the Bandlab ecosystem, what would want to include?  Hence some of new stuff from CbB (like the arranger) and new stuff from competitors (like the lyric track).  In that environment, I expect we will see lots of SONAR/CbB approaches "ported" to Next, similar to how Studio One started out a bit Cubase-esque because where its developers came from.  

Edited by urock
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I'm getting that it's not supposed to be a replacement for CbB like Sonar will be though, and it's aimed at a slightly different demographic. I wouldn't expect it to have the entire feature set of a huge flagship DAW like CbB was at such an early stage, or even if that's the plan for it going forward. There's definitely some stuff that was brought in from CbB for sure, so it's had a great headstart for a new app 

Then again, the idea of the vector based UI that's scalable to different resolutions has made its way over to Sonar too so it sounds like it's been useful for both products going forward :)

We're really going to have to wait and see what it's all like when it's out, but I'm definitely keen to give it a try!

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On 6/30/2023 at 11:13 AM, pwalpwal said:

i guess next is the desktop version of the mobile/web bandlab app?

Not at all. Next was designed as a next generation DAW from the ground up. It has some visual theming similarities to unify it to the BandLab ecosystem and it has deep integration with BandLab effects and content. However it is a desktop DAW first.

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On 6/30/2023 at 4:26 AM, Lord Tim said:

Just to be clear about that, what Noel was saying was Next is still only Windows and MacOS - there's isn't a mobile app version, but you can use the Bandlab app (which is a separate thing) to do your sketches on the run with iOS, Android, etc. and Next will be able to open the projects with the same effects as the app and web has once you get back to a PC/Mac.

Yes Next is a desktop application only. It will not run on mobile devices. It will open projects created from the BandLab mobile apps and also be able to export to the users BandLab library to share with the BL ecosystem.

Edited by Noel Borthwick
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15 hours ago, urock said:

That's what I was thinking as well.   It seems like given the 5 year building of Next that was mentioned in the locked thread that perhaps the approach was:  given our framework/experience as longtime SONAR/Cnb developers, if we started from scratch to build a cross platform DAW knowing what we have learned over the years, catering to the current market, and fitting within the Bandlab ecosystem, what would want to include?  Hence some of new stuff from CbB (like the arranger) and new stuff from competitors (like the lyric track).  In that environment, I expect we will see lots of SONAR/CbB approaches "ported" to Next, similar to how Studio One started out a bit Cubase-esque because where its developers came from.  

In a sense yes. We started from scratch to build a cross platform DAW but with a different focus from SONAR, which is heavily production centric.
One way to describe it is that Next’s current focus is more “creation centric” and its designed to be simple and fluid to get your ideas flowing. But yes, the focus for the last few years has been to build shareable features that are cross platform where possible. As you can see Arranger was one such feature.
We have a lot of experience building DAW’s so we took design hints from many of the strong architectural features from SONAR such as multi core scalability, background plugin scanning project backwards compatibility, and many more. We also learned to avoid some the pitfalls from SONAR :)

Edited by Noel Borthwick
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13 hours ago, Noel said:

We also learned to avoid some the pitfalls from SONAR :)

I'd love to hear what you would consider a pitfall! The only one I can really think of related to architecture is not being able to route a single MIDI track to more than one device.

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My guess would be I think the biggest one would be just the legacy of the CWPA/SONAR/CbB/Sonar line - it was very tied to the Windows infrastructure, so it meant porting to Mac or anything else was a massive pain. Lots of decisions made ages ago that was necessary to make such a complex program (at the time) work well on old hardware eventually made the code non-portable. Next sounds like it was written fresh with the idea that a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff can be built on a lot easier, so any future development isn't a case of "oh yeah, remember in 1997 where the audio routing was set to go THIS way, now we have to either entirely rewrite this stuff or come up with ways to work around it" - it's just done right for a modern environment straight-off.

That's not to say that CbB hasn't had some big upgrades from the old products to get it up to modern flagship capabilities, but you only need to look at the upcoming vector UI that Sonar is going to get, and how that's been months in the making... if it already had a vector UI (like Next has) then this is one area that didn't need a rewrite, the correct decision was made from the beginning. I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff too.

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Find a 1984 Chevy Van like I have. Get in and see if  you know how to start it.  You won’t find any technology. The clock is analog.  You pull or flick switches.  

That’s what Cakewalk is like. It doesn’t use the carburetor any more but they had to add throttle body fuel injection.  Now it will have Proper fuel injection and a wireless key fob. Led lights, ABS brakes, traction control, cruise control with sensors, Air bags and on and on. 
 

There’s only so much you can do to a 1984 Chevy Van to modernize it.  

Edited by JohnnyV
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On 7/2/2023 at 9:37 PM, Stanool said:

I'd love to hear what you would consider a pitfall! The only one I can really think of related to architecture is not being able to route a single MIDI track to more than one device.

I was speaking more generally from a software architecture perspective rather than referring to specific features. 
Sonar is a very rich  product but due to it's legacy, maintaining  certain areas can be challenging.

Next takes a more modern lightweight design approach, thereby making it easier for us to expand on in the future.

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