2023.09 Early Access now available

[better5150]

2023.09 Early Access now available

We're pleased to announce Early Access of 2023.09! This release is primarily a maintenance release and includes over 50 bug fixes for user reported issues. 

Please note:

Version 2023.09 will likely be the last update to Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB). CbB will eventually be discontinued as future development and support will transition to the upcoming Cakewalk Sonar release. If you wish to continue to use CbB, you must update to the 2023.09 version when it is released to the public. Earlier versions will cease to activate in the future.

Version 2023.09 currently does not support offline activation, so your computer must be online to activate it.

If you have encountered any of these issues, please check out this release and and confirm that your issue is resolved before we release the official public version. 

Please note that Early Access installers are update installers, which only update from a specific version. To install the 2023.09 Early Access build, you must be on the latest public release of 2022.11 or later. 

Download Cakewalk 2023.09 EA installer

If you haven't already done so, please read about the Early Access Program before participating.

Please keep responses specific to problems or comments on this release. Unrelated bugs or feature requests should be posted in other threads or the feature request channel.

 

Thanks again for your participation!
The Bakers

 

Bug fixes

Stability:

User Reported Crash enabling MIDI sync in project

Crash Right-Clicking Assignable Controls in Console View

[Regression] Crash when copy/insert arranger section

Drag and drop of audio from track with patch point crashes

ACTController crashes when comments have more than 512 characters.

Cakewalk/ACTController crashes on start up when ctrlsurface.dat is corrupt

Opening User Library View crashes

Crash bouncing step sequencer clip

Export Audio dialog:

Changing selection causes Windows sound if clip or track inspector is open

[Regression] File Export Dialog button bar resizing issues

Unexpected gain increase when exporting mono clips with Source Category Clips

[Regression]  File Export "Run Tasks" button causes dialog to close, and an additional export to run

Adding a task doesn't resize the queue panel

Inspectors:

[Regression] Arranger Inspector is blank on project load

Toggling Send On/Off in Inspector fails to dirty project

[Regression] Right inspector strip disappears when choosing HW output

Automation:

Automation track not assigned when "Ask This Every Time" is unchecked

Automation shelf tool unexpected behavior with dotted envelopes

New envelope created as linear when default curve set to Jump

Convert MIDI Controllers to Envelopes does not handle some shapes

Arranger:

Overwrite isn't always enabled when moving section

Unexpected results when copying an Arranger section selection with overwrite on to itself

Ripple All delete with absolute time Arranger track not working as expected

Unexpected results when move an Arranger section selection with shift existing clips

Excessive section paint calls in Arranger causing slow UI performance

Section does not have focus for rename via F2 after being created from selection

Selection lost after multiple section move

Multiple Arranger section selection not shown in drag image

Piano Roll:

Note selection lost on PRV note drag undo/redo

Inconsistent Aim Assist behavior in PRV

Plugins:

VSTScan not properly removing compatibility entries when rescanning a plugin that has been updated

Persist compatibility updates for VST

UI:

Always show factory About box background

Black line appears when hiding tracks in folders/folders

[Regression] Renaming of Bus/Aux Tracks/Patch points not reflected in Control Surfaces

Upload to BandLab shows file extension unexpectedly for Project Name

Cursor change fails when moved from Console bus pane

Folder name is incorrect in Console Track manager

Browser layout issues after toggling visibility while MultiDock is maximized

Inaccurate drop indicator when dragging multiple clips

Misc.:

Allow expanding of collapsed docked windows by double clicking

Help URL in crash notification displays invalid legacy subdomain

Virtual MIDI input changes unexpectedly after synth delete

Apply Trimming to MIDI clips does not trim note durations

Inconsistent AutoXFade with split clips

Ripple Edit Delete does not auto xfade

Tracks sourced from aux track L/R/S always show a stereo record meter when armed

Snap offset unexpectedly set when stretching cropped stretched clips

Import as mono tracks fails to work when importing video

Control Surface items not opening correctly with multiple surfaces enabled

Glitches in playback when changing active track during playback

Insert of user track template goes to hardware inputs instead of assigned virtual ports in track template

 Position lock inconsistently locks data

Paste Special/Slide and Move not working as expected

White Noise when exporting to MP3

External FX ports not persisted in Track Templates

[Regression] Synth Rack or Help Module docked by itself fails to collapse as expected

Edited August 31, 2023 by better5150
additional info

[Larry Shelby]

Where's the link?

[Larry Shelby]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DeFEqtQHjE5BAy-ia4w4PUiUb9ENqR8_/view?usp=sharing

[better5150]

Thank You cclarry for adding the link - 

 

[marcL]

12 minutes ago, better5150 said:

If you wish to continue to use CbB, you must update to the 2023.09 version when it is released to the public. Earlier versions will cease to activate in the future.

 

12 minutes ago, better5150 said:

Version 2023.09 currently does not support offline activation, so your computer must be online to activate it.

The word "currently" maybe important for me in conjunction with the upper statement! If there would be no offline activation, then I will be out (hope that Sonar Platinum still will work in this case and in any case I have R....),

[PavlovsCat]

Wait,  this makes me wonder if Bandlab, at some future point, will make CbB 2023.09 cease to activate in the future. I really hope they make their announcement on the new pricing soon, as if they move to a subscription model,  I'll be moving to Studio One 5 Pro and I have a lot of finished and unfinished projects in CbB that will need to be converted. I've yet to attempt to convert projects from CbB to Studio One, but it appears it will be a lot of work. 

I'd love to hear from people who've successfully converted CbB projects to Studio One and any advice they may have,  as I want to do this ASAP if Bandlab moves to subscriptions only. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Bapu]

@PavlovsCat When I moved a project from CbB to Studio One I just turned off all FX and exported all audio and MIDI tracks. Then I created a project in Studio one and dragged and dropped all those CbB tracks into Studio One. At that point I just added all VSTi to the Instruments sections in Studio One and pointed the MIDI tracks to those instruments. Of course, then I set the appropriate settings for the VSTi (patch/library etc.). Then I added all FXs to the various individual mixer channels. Then created my buses and pointed my tracks to their respective buses (alternatively select all tracks you want to go to a bus and right mouse click to the menu where you can "add a bus for selected tracks". Then I put VSTs on the buses.

Since storing VST parameters are sometimes DAW specific it can be a pain to get the settings just so. Snapshots helped. TBH I only ever converted one or two CbB projects to Studio One.

IOW it was a major PITA.

Converting CbB projects to Reaper were way more automatic and nearly exact using azslow's tool he created. It di all the busing and put the FXs in the proper place and the settings were so very close that I only noticed almost no difference between the final mix of Reaper and CbB. But alas I was more impressed with Studio One's Chord and arranger tracks and thus I went to Studio One when Gibson shut down CbB dev.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Bapu

[Bapu]

I remember begging azslow (multiple times) to create a tool to do CbB -> Studio One conversion on par with Reaper. He was not interested based on the cost of a Studio One License. IIRC he used a trial version of Reaper to build his tool.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Bapu

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, Bapu said:

@PavlovsCat 
IOW it was a major PITA.

That is what I gathered from researching it. Darn. I easily have three dozen projects I'll want to transfer if I switch to Studio One Pro. Thinking out loud, but I kinda want to propose to their top marketing exec to give the guy you mentioned a NFR license if he promises to make the conversion tool for CbB to Pro Studio One. 

[Bapu]

23 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

 I kinda want to propose to their top marketing exec to give the guy you mentioned a NFR license if he promises to make the conversion tool for CbB to Pro Studio One. 

Go for it. 

[Fleer]

What is this nfr disease thou speakst of?

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

Go for it. 

If CbB moves to a subscription, I'll give it a shot. I bought Studio One Pro 3 back when it looked like Cakewalk was closing up. But I've only used it for a few projects I started and abandoned. 

@Fleer It's the thing -- along with money--  that inspires salespeople to become faux reviewers telling the world how they're giving a completely unbiased review for that plugin/sample library you must get -- and use their affiliate link to buy.  And yes, I've facilitated some of that stuff, but as you can easily see, I have a good degree of discomfort for the disingenuous nature of influencers. But in this case, someone who writes a script/program to convert Bandlab by Cakewalk projects to Studio One's format can help the Studio One folks convert more CbB users for the price of giving the developer a free license. There's potentially amazing ROI in that. But yeah, someone's going to rip on me for talking marketing here! It's my day job.

Edited September 1, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

@better5150 Does Bandlab have plans to deactivate the newly released/final version of Cakewalk By Bandlab after a certain period of time? For example, Bandlab gives a certain window of time say 6 months or a year after the final release it will be de-activated, as the company has shifted to Sonar. Or will the final version of Cakewalk by Bandlab work for as long as the user has it on their system (of course, realizing that it will no longer have updates, so it may cease to work at some point, but Bandlab will not intentionally take action to stop it from working). 

[satya]

Final and last release ?

[marcL]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

@better5150 Does Bandlab have plans to deactivate the newly released/final version of Cakewalk By Bandlab after a certain period of time? For example, Bandlab gives a certain window of time say 6 months or a year after the final release it will be de-activated, as the company has shifted to Sonar. Or will the final version of Cakewalk by Bandlab work for as long as the user has it on their system (of course, realizing that it will no longer have updates, so it may cease to work at some point, but Bandlab will not intentionally take action to stop it from working). 

AFAIK they said once that you will be able to use this final version as long as you want. But if I consider the reality that I have seen with Cakewalk, then I know that you never can be sure what will happen in the future! Especially whether you will be able to install CbB on a new PC again when you have to exchange your computer. Also the half year re-authorization has raised my distrust ever since and it seems with good cause!

[aidan o driscoll]

Quote

If you wish to continue to use CbB, you must update to the 2023.09 version when it is released to the public. Earlier versions will cease to activate in the future.

Version 2023.09 currently does not support offline activation, so your computer must be online to activate it.

12 hours ago, MarcL said:

The word "currently" maybe important for me in conjunction with the upper statement! If there would be no offline activation, then I will be out (hope that Sonar Platinum still will work in this case and in any case I have R....),

My reading of this @MarcL is you will need to be online JUST to activate it, after activation it will work offline. Of course it may need to be online activated once a year or something similar

[marcL]

3 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

My reading of this @MarcL is you will need to be online JUST to activate it, after activation it will work offline. Of course it may need to be online activated once a year or something similar

I guess also that it is only for activation, but as you said it maybe for each 6 months. My music computers are usually offline (one is 100m away from the net) and I don't like to break this rule all the time! I already have to handle some exceptions and that's enough. There is a lot of pain with installers and permanent updates, I don't need another job doing cumbersome authorization that jeopardizes system stability by being online (Windows updates! I know you can pause, but this does not always work).

The other thing that bothers me is that the statements about Cakewalk always change! Once they said that you can use CbB all the time (including offline auth) and now it is suddenly restricted to this latest, forced version. How can we be sure that we are able to use this one in some years?

[kitekrazy1]

What ever happened to OMF? Cakewalk was a forerunner in promoting that.

[aidan o driscoll]

@MarcL A Q .. do you have a mobile phone with DATA that you can tmp share as a hotspot down near your music puter? If so you dont need a cable or whatever from your system to net. Only extra bit needed is a USB Wifi dongle if the music system doesnt have one on board already to connect to your mobile data hotspot for a few seconds to authenticate. These usb wifi sticks are cheap. There is always a way  

Edited September 1, 2023 by aidan o driscoll

[PavlovsCat]

4 hours ago, MarcL said:

I guess also that it is only for activation, but as you said it maybe for each 6 months. My music computers are usually offline (one is 100m away from the net) and I don't like to break this rule all the time! I already have to handle some exceptions and that's enough. There is a lot of pain with installers and permanent updates, I don't need another job doing cumbersome authorization that jeopardizes system stability by being online (Windows updates! I know you can pause, but this does not always work).

The other thing that bothers me is that the statements about Cakewalk always change! Once they said that you can use CbB all the time (including offline auth) and now it is suddenly restricted to this latest, forced version. How can we be sure that we are able to use this one in some years?

The fact that they're forcing users to a new version by stopping activations (CbB activations presently last for 6 months if your system is offline) on  the previous version gives me pause. There's no reason to de-activate. They're soon stopping all support for CbB.  Their use of using de-activation (or not allowing the most recent version to be activated so that users are forced to the current version) is a heavy handed strategy that leaves me with a concern that they will employ that strategy again with the final version of CbB in order to push users to their paid product. 

Just imagine this very possible scenario: Bandlab gives the activation of the final version of CbB a window, a time limit, where they eventually cut it off,  like they're now doing with the version before the final release. Let's say it's 6 months or even a year until the software no longer works as a strategy to push these users to the paid new SONAR available only by subscription you would only be able to open all of your CbB project files if you had a currently paid subscription for that month. Otherwise,  you could no longer access those projects in CbB or SONAR. 

This possibility makes me want to cease all projects in CbB until the company clearly communicates their plans regarding the activation on CbB and their pricing for SONAR.  

Edited September 1, 2023 by PavlovsCat