Sonar no longer "Coming Soon"

[Magic Russ]

22 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Ah, so they could follow Audition's lead as currently the only subscription-only DAW?

If I were launching a DAW and trying to decide whether to go subscription-only, I'd definitely take into consideration that Audition's licensing policy has contributed a great deal to its current position in the DAW market.

Was audition ever in  a great position in the DAW market pre-subscriptions?

[paulo]

12 hours ago, Grem said:

There is no more Sonar by Gibson. 

There is on my pc and given the current impression that the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing here plus the apparent walking back of certain assurances that were made by bandlab, it looks more and more like being the future for me.

Gibson actually saves the day!

Who'da thunk it?

?

[Brian Walton]

On 6/3/2024 at 2:50 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Ah, so they could follow Audition's lead as currently the only subscription-only DAW?

If I were launching a DAW and trying to decide whether to go subscription-only, I'd definitely take into consideration that Audition's licensing policy has contributed a great deal to its current position in the DAW market.

Don't know a single person that uses Audition that isn't paying for the Adobe subscription related to other products.

i.e. it is the Premiere Pro crowd that uses Audition as a by product instead of subscribing to Audition to only have a DAW.

[antler]

1 hour ago, Magic Russ said:

Was audition ever in  a great position in the DAW market pre-subscriptions?

I believe Audition was always subscription; it's non-subscription predecessor was CoolEdit Pro

[FrankP]

I could imagine a form of payment where the main version has to be bought for not too much, and that means a product that can be used indefinitely, with 5-8 years of support until the next major version is released.

[Cecelius2]

I just wish Bandlab would make it clear and official.  Is there going to be a perpetual license (non-subscription) purchase available or not?

If the subscription version is now out of beta and up and running, why not make it clear that there will be or will not be a perpetual license option.

I still load Cakewalk CnB first, and really want to purchase a non-subscription version of the new Sonar.  But the wait is getting ridiculously Long and drawn out.  This is painful and sad to watch and wait.

[Xoo]

7 hours ago, Hillmy said:

Enjoy your sub guys. No need for me to even tell you "I told you so" ?

?

[Starship Krupa]

23 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I definitely was thinking about Image Line when I was writing that (but I actually wasn't aware that Melda offers the same lifetime deal). I did write that it's not a sustainable model to continue doing lifetime software deals for the vast majority of software companies. Where it can work -- and has worked in Image Line's case -- is when the flagship software naturally has a good deal of related software that goes with it.

(incoming jibber jabber alert)

I hear ya on the related software part. I think that's why so many people initially advocated for BandLab to continue to keep selling the Cakewalk, Inc. standalone plug-ins. Then the free license for the DAW would have been easier to understand.

The weirdest thing about the MeldaProduction model is that they sell (and I own) a license that includes "Every plugin MeldaProduction has released (and will)."

So unless they ever release something that's not a plug-in, they've lost me as a paying customer. Their biggest fans, their most loyal users, their deepest-pocketed customers will naturally wind up with that MComplete license. The only way I could give them money if I wanted to would be to buy duplicate licenses.

I'm of no use to them whatsoever except for word of mouth advertising (which, TBF, I'm pretty good for). Maybe that's the idea: create an army of MMoonies to pester other people into trying them out. ? Reverend Moon himself had his followers hand out flowers as a way to get people's attention....wait, this is getting scary....

Anyway, as a Cakewalk user and given the product's history, I hold no expectation that a software company will survive forever. When I spend money, I have to know that I'd still be satisfied if product development froze forever the next day.

I have to take it on faith that there will be a way to keep them authorized, but that goes for most bits of software these days.

The business of selling things isn't as simple as making an item and then selling it for what it cost to make it plus enough profit for everyone to get paid. Ever since the "give away the razor at cost, make your fortune selling blades and shaving cream" concept got traction, entire industries like television being supported by nothing but advertising, stock price being the product instead of the actual product....it's complicated, things are intertwined.

Has the brand recognition that the BandLab has gotten from the Cakewalk IP purchase paid for the acquisition and subsequent developer salaries for the past 6 years? No idea. I used to think that Cakewalk was like BandLab's free tote bag. Maybe it was/is and they now want to use tote bag sales to look better to stock analysts. Was that always the plan, rebuild the product's reputation and then start selling it again? Who knows except for BandLab?

"Loss leader" has been a marketing concept at least as old as Gillette's razor blade gambit. Warner Bros. Records had a line of loss-leader compilation albums as far back as the 1970's. Sell one product at cost to sell other others for profit.

MeldaProduction was an early adopter of loss-leader marketing for plug-ins. They made 20 plug-ins that people could use for free, and they were top-quality ones, not minimalist or feature crippled (although you can pay to add some higher level features).

Free plug-ins still had a stigma (which Melda had a hand in eliminating). Now it's commonplace for top tier manufacturers like iZotope, Native Instruments, A|A|S, IK Multimedia, Kilohearts and Waves to give away fully-functional plug-ins as a means to advertise the paid products.

And it works, even on cheapskates like me. I've spent hundreds of dollars on Melda, iZotope, A|A|S and IK products as a result of trying their loss leaders and being impressed.

MeldaProduction's plug-ins have gone from something that you'd have been embarrassed to let a paying client see, to not-so-secret weapons that, other plug-in manufacturers have endorsed. Gee, if you can make head or tails of that plug-in, you must know what you're doing.

That's why I don't hold the view that when people bought those lifetime upgrades SONAR licenses they got nothing in return. If they hadn't done that, the Cakewalk IP might not have seemed as attractive to BandLab. Noel and Jon and Ben and Morten and Jesse and the rest might have been on the job market sooner and less likely to be available to provide continuity, etc. If it helped prop up the value of the IP, maybe that kept it out of the hands of Corel or MAGIX.?

For sure, the lifetime  SONAR licensees didn't get what they thought they were paying for, but they didn't get nothing. Even for the ones who immediately switched to another DAW....who is it who pays for this forum to exist? How much money have people saved on audio software purchases as a result of this forum? They even allow us to post and discuss deals for competing DAW's. WTF?

The established userbase is a big part of what BandLab wanted when they rescued the DAW. I'm glad that so many people have stuck around the forum despite moving on to other DAW software.

It's all too complicated to figure out from my perspective, just armchair quarterbacking. Sonar will be great, we're lucky to have alternatives at whatever price point or licensing model we want, I envy us.

Whatever jibber jabber gets spewed, whatever we thought BandLab promised, Cakewalk by BandLab is still available and free to use. We don't know for how long, but we never do.?‍♂️

[kitekrazy1]

22 hours ago, Rational said:

Seriously though, I learned a few years before that 'lifetime' deal was posted that companies sometimes do this intentionally as a money grab when they're about to go out of business.

 I've never encountered that.

I'm waiting for Image-Line to go out of business after the license I've had for over 15 years.

[kitekrazy1]

4 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Don't know a single person that uses Audition that isn't paying for the Adobe subscription related to other products.

i.e. it is the Premiere Pro crowd that uses Audition as a by product instead of subscribing to Audition to only have a DAW.

I don't know a single person who uses Audtion

[kitekrazy1]

5 hours ago, paulo said:

There is on my pc and given the current impression that the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing here plus the apparent walking back of certain assurances that were made by bandlab, it looks more and more like being the future for me.

Gibson actually saves the day!

Who'da thunk it?

?

There's a lot of software that's no longer developed and it just works.

I've come across those who still use Acid Pro when it was Sony.  I guess 64 bit just doesn't impress them. 

[Rational]

59 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

 I've never encountered that.

I'm waiting for Image-Line to go out of business after the license I've had for over 15 years.

Image-Line is awesome. Their business model has always been 'lifetime' license though. Not a change to their model late in the game that creates red flags. Their model also includes 'in-app purchases' so to speak to ensure future cash flow from new items. A much smarter strategy. Bit different than what I was describing when a company suddenly changes its model to 'everything for one bundle price forever hereafter'. E.g. a firesale.

If it looks like a going out of business sale it just may be. Buyer beware is the point.

Glad to hear you've never encountered it yet. Hopefully you never will.

[Magic Russ]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

(incoming jibber jabber alert)Free plug-ins still had a stigma (which Melda had a hand in eliminating). Now it's commonplace for top tier manufacturers like iZotope, Native Instruments, A|A|S, IK Multimedia, Kilohearts and Waves to give away fully-functional plug-ins as a means to advertise the paid products.

Also the move to 64 bit (and the resulting loss of synthedit based plugins) got rid of all the "hey, I can make plugins too" crowd.

 

[Magic Russ]

2 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

There's a lot of software that's no longer developed and it just works.

I've come across those who still use Acid Pro when it was Sony.  I guess 64 bit just doesn't impress them. 

I have the 64 bit MAGIX Acid.  I can understand people not wanting to upgrade.

[kitekrazy1]

1 hour ago, Rational said:

Image-Line is awesome. Their business model has always been 'lifetime' license though. Not a change to their model late in the game that creates red flags. Their model also includes 'in-app purchases' so to speak to ensure future cash flow from new items. A much smarter strategy. Bit different than what I was describing when a company suddenly changes its model to 'everything for one bundle price forever hereafter'. E.g. a firesale.

If it looks like a going out of business sale it just may be. Buyer beware is the point.

Glad to hear you've never encountered it yet. Hopefully you never will.

They have a small staff.  It's their revenue that is huge.  I don't think they even employ over 30 people. They also have their own shop selling presets.

 They got out of the 3rd party plugin business for now.  They also didn't follow the enshitification model even after buying UVI.  They let those companies do their own thing.

 I do buy stuff from their shop which is Flexx presets. I don't do their loop cloud until they start selling midis.

[Olaf]

unfortunately, cakewalk is a great concept, very poorly implemented.

i won't go through the list of problems, they're countless, and i've talked about only a very few of them here - right now, for instance, i can't export a project, plain and simple, it crashes on every attempt - cakewalk.exe, defaulting module, i've tried reinstalling various vcredists, cakewalk itself, to no avail, i don't know what to do; i always find audio clips in different places than where i thought i'd placed them - because the timeline bar indicator popup is not accurate - i've figured out why there's always tons of useless and unintentional clip slices in the time line, which are a nightmare when trying to trimm or comp clips - cause the smart tool visual indicator does not match the action region it's placed in, and it shows trim when it slices, without you knowing; anyway, that's just the latest. editing is a nightmare, so is working with envelopes. can't work on a gain envelope when the clip is not enabled, can't enable without switching modes, then you need to switch back, at which point it places envelopes on all the rest of the clips, you've just deleted them from. stuff just doesn't make any sense. exporting a clip that is not active exports silence ?- so you need to activate it - freezing is, in fact, rendering, so on.

i took a peak at sonar's new interface, vectoring aside, the look is not something to look for. basically the gui was one of the best things about cw, if the devs' idea of improvement is not to solve the major problems, but to give up the things that were good, that tops it for me. i'm getting the feeling i had when i gave up reason. i've updated to the latest edition, for various reasons - got a good deal on it - but i won't probably ever use it again. i'm one inch away from deciding that about cakewalk/sonar. i'm spending half my time doing damage control, in it, anyway - for instance, now, acustica black displays a... black window in some projects - works fine in others, have no idea why - and the worst thing is most of the damage you need to control you don't even know where it comes from. and i'm at a point where i don't even want to solve anything anymore.

too bad. i was so excited about it in the beginning. so many good things about it. if only they worked. or were implemented intuitively. for instance, even now, after over 4 years, i can't get used to the midi editing right click thing for selections, the selections are not accurate as per the bar region, the copy-paste is always guesswork, pretty much instead of relaxing, i feel i need to be on my toes every time i work in it.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

unfortunately, cakewalk is a great concept, very poorly implemented.

i won't go through the list of problems, they're countless

Why on earth are you still bothering with a program that obviously isn't working for you? If I were experiencing only a few of the issues you describe, I wouldn't spend another day beating my head against a wall. The world has too many DAW's in it to waste time with one that harshes your mellow to that degree.

Even if the answer is budget, there are plenty of options for under $100. Waveform (Free), LUNA, REAPER, Mixcraft (wait for a sale), Studio One Artist....try 'em all.

Edited June 5 by Starship Krupa

[Heath Row]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

(incoming jibber jabber alert)
?

Good God, you have out done yourself ?

[Heath Row]

2 hours ago, Olaf said:

unfortunately, cakewalk is a great concept, very poorly implemented.

i won't go through the list of problems, they're countless, and i've talked about only a very few of them here - right now, for instance, i can't export a project, plain and simple, it crashes on every attempt - cakewalk.exe, defaulting module, i've tried reinstalling various vcredists, cakewalk itself, to no avail, i don't know what to do; i always find audio clips in different places than where i thought i'd placed them - because the timeline bar indicator popup is not accurate - i've figured out why there's always tons of useless and unintentional clip slices in the time line, which are a nightmare when trying to trimm or comp clips - cause the smart tool visual indicator does not match the action region it's placed in, and it shows trim when it slices, without you knowing; anyway, that's just the latest. editing is a nightmare, so is working with envelopes. can't work on a gain envelope when the clip is not enabled, can't enable without switching modes, then you need to switch back, at which point it places envelopes on all the rest of the clips, you've just deleted them from. stuff just doesn't make any sense. exporting a clip that is not active exports silence ?- so you need to activate it - freezing is, in fact, rendering, so on.

i took a peak at sonar's new interface, vectoring aside, the look is not something to look for. basically the gui was one of the best things about cw, if the devs' idea of improvement is not to solve the major problems, but to give up the things that were good, that tops it for me. i'm getting the feeling i had when i gave up reason. i've updated to the latest edition, for various reasons - got a good deal on it - but i won't probably ever use it again. i'm one inch away from deciding that about cakewalk/sonar. i'm spending half my time doing damage control, in it, anyway - for instance, now, acustica black displays a... black window in some projects - works fine in others, have no idea why - and the worst thing is most of the damage you need to control you don't even know where it comes from. and i'm at a point where i don't even want to solve anything anymore.

too bad. i was so excited about it in the beginning. so many good things about it. if only they worked. or were implemented intuitively. for instance, even now, after over 4 years, i can't get used to the midi editing right click thing for selections, the selections are not accurate as per the bar region, the copy-paste is always guesswork, pretty much instead of relaxing, i feel i need to be on my toes every time i work in it.

Preach it brother ?

[CSistine]

7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

(incoming jibber jabber alert)

I hear ya on the related software part. I think that's why so many people initially advocated for BandLab to continue to keep selling the Cakewalk, Inc. standalone plug-ins. Then the free license for the DAW would have been easier to understand.

The weirdest thing about the MeldaProduction model is that they sell (and I own) a license that includes "Every plugin MeldaProduction has released (and will)."

So unless they ever release something that's not a plug-in, they've lost me as a paying customer. Their biggest fans, their most loyal users, their deepest-pocketed customers will naturally wind up with that MComplete license. The only way I could give them money if I wanted to would be to buy duplicate licenses.

I'm of no use to them whatsoever except for word of mouth advertising (which, TBF, I'm pretty good for). Maybe that's the idea: create an army of MMoonies to pester other people into trying them out. ? Reverend Moon himself had his followers hand out flowers as a way to get people's attention....wait, this is getting scary....

Anyway, as a Cakewalk user and given the product's history, I hold no expectation that a software company will survive forever. When I spend money, I have to know that I'd still be satisfied if product development froze forever the next day.

I have to take it on faith that there will be a way to keep them authorized, but that goes for most bits of software these days.

The business of selling things isn't as simple as making an item and then selling it for what it cost to make it plus enough profit for everyone to get paid. Ever since the "give away the razor at cost, make your fortune selling blades and shaving cream" concept got traction, entire industries like television being supported by nothing but advertising, stock price being the product instead of the actual product....it's complicated, things are intertwined.

Has the brand recognition that the BandLab has gotten from the Cakewalk IP purchase paid for the acquisition and subsequent developer salaries for the past 6 years? No idea. I used to think that Cakewalk was like BandLab's free tote bag. Maybe it was/is and they now want to use tote bag sales to look better to stock analysts. Was that always the plan, rebuild the product's reputation and then start selling it again? Who knows except for BandLab?

"Loss leader" has been a marketing concept at least as old as Gillette's razor blade gambit. Warner Bros. Records had a line of loss-leader compilation albums as far back as the 1970's. Sell one product at cost to sell other others for profit.

MeldaProduction was an early adopter of loss-leader marketing for plug-ins. They made 20 plug-ins that people could use for free, and they were top-quality ones, not minimalist or feature crippled (although you can pay to add some higher level features).

Free plug-ins still had a stigma (which Melda had a hand in eliminating). Now it's commonplace for top tier manufacturers like iZotope, Native Instruments, A|A|S, IK Multimedia, Kilohearts and Waves to give away fully-functional plug-ins as a means to advertise the paid products.

And it works, even on cheapskates like me. I've spent hundreds of dollars on Melda, iZotope, A|A|S and IK products as a result of trying their loss leaders and being impressed.

MeldaProduction's plug-ins have gone from something that you'd have been embarrassed to let a paying client see, to not-so-secret weapons that, other plug-in manufacturers have endorsed. Gee, if you can make head or tails of that plug-in, you must know what you're doing.

That's why I don't hold the view that when people bought those lifetime upgrades SONAR licenses they got nothing in return. If they hadn't done that, the Cakewalk IP might not have seemed as attractive to BandLab. Noel and Jon and Ben and Morten and Jesse and the rest might have been on the job market sooner and less likely to be available to provide continuity, etc. If it helped prop up the value of the IP, maybe that kept it out of the hands of Corel or MAGIX.?

For sure, the lifetime  SONAR licensees didn't get what they thought they were paying for, but they didn't get nothing. Even for the ones who immediately switched to another DAW....who is it who pays for this forum to exist? How much money have people saved on audio software purchases as a result of this forum? They even allow us to post and discuss deals for competing DAW's. WTF?

The established userbase is a big part of what BandLab wanted when they rescued the DAW. I'm glad that so many people have stuck around the forum despite moving on to other DAW software.

It's all too complicated to figure out from my perspective, just armchair quarterbacking. Sonar will be great, we're lucky to have alternatives at whatever price point or licensing model we want, I envy us.

Whatever jibber jabber gets spewed, whatever we thought BandLab promised, Cakewalk by BandLab is still available and free to use. We don't know for how long, but we never do.?‍♂️

Is this thread about Melda? ?