Cakewalk now exclusively available through BandLab Membership

[Larry Shelby]

https://gearspace.com/board/new-product-alert/1430377-cakewalk-now-exclusively-available-through-bandlab-membership.html

[PavlovsCat]

11 minutes ago, cclarry said:

https://gearspace.com/board/new-product-alert/1430377-cakewalk-now-exclusively-available-through-bandlab-membership.html

$149.50 US per year subscription fee for Sonar.  Subscription only,  like Waves short-lived strategy. 

That's it for me. I'll be updating to the latest version of Studio One Pro the next  big sale.  Hopefully, someone will come up with a decent, painless way to convert the Cakewalk project files. 

Edited June 13 by PavlovsCat

[Hillmy]

Well, according to the new FAQ on cakewalk.com the free version will continue to be free and wont be removed it seems. So that is a plus! The bad news is that sub price. At that price you may as well just get Bitwig if you don't mind that much per year. You would get way more value that way. Otherwise the most affordable option and the greatest value is Reaper. No sub required and you are covered for 2 versions of the software.

Edited June 14 by Hillmy

[kitekrazy1]

That will probably change.  Too many DAWs out there.  Relying on a fanbase to come through will be a failure.

[Anxiousmofo]

Poor bakers doomed to failure by a bad successsion of owner entities. 

[Johnbee58]

Don't get too bummed out by the word "exclusively".  That could just be for now.  They could change that very easily.  I'm gonna hang tight and just watch what happens

?John B

Edited June 14 by Johnbee58

[Lamia6]

At that price just get FL Studio Producer on black friday and be set for life. Image Line seems to be in a good place,

[Esteban Villanova]

I wouldn't keep my hopes up about a non-subscription option. Maybe all they're looking to accomplish is to add value to an already successful subscription service (no idea if it is) and they don't give a rat's ***** about the overcrowded Western market (their Asian userbase is massive). Cakewalk is just one of the many assets this company has. I would guess that catering to long time loyal users means absolutely nothing for them. 

[Rational]

Not surprised by this. The end of them it seems.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, Esteban Villanova said:

I would guess that catering to long time loyal users means absolutely nothing for them.

Ah, that explains the expense and trouble they've gone to to keep the Cakewalk Inc. download and registration servers running (including an update to the client software) for the past 6 years.

That coupled with the announcement that Cakewalk by BandLab will remain free to download and use adds up to sheer disregard for the existing userbase.

How they could hope to retain a particle of goodwill is beyond understanding.

[Heath Row]

[Carlos Iglesias]

It is inexplicable how you can fall into the same mistake that happened to Gibson. But well, they will know.

[PavlovsCat]

On 6/14/2024 at 12:40 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Ah, that explains the expense and trouble they've gone to to keep the Cakewalk Inc. download and registration servers running (including an update to the client software) for the past 6 years.

That coupled with the announcement that Cakewalk by BandLab will remain free to download and use adds up to sheer disregard for the existing userbase.

How they could hope to retain a particle of goodwill is beyond understanding.

Starship Krupa is absolutely right. It's not justifiable to attack or disparage Bandlab because they're moving to the subscription model. Every software developer would love to have monthly recurring revenue from their customer base. That's not inherently unethical.  

Personally,  it's just not for me when I can move over to Studio One Pro and buy a perpetual license. Maybe Bandlab will decide to offer that option in the future too. Who knows. But making the company out to be evil is completely unjustified. They've given us an excellent product for 6 years without requiring us to pay anything and they're still allowing us to use it. To attack them as if charging a price or moving to a subscription model is immoral is irrational.  Let's take a deep breath. For those of us who don't like the subscription model for this software, simply vote with your wallet. That's all there is to it.  They run their business and if there are enough of us who resist the subscription model, the odds are good that they'll listen and make the appropriate adjustments.  If not, there are plenty of other options. 

Edited June 15 by PavlovsCat

[TheMaartian]

I have had a perpetual Studio One Pro license since v2 (10+ years ago) and have paid for the v4, v5 and v6 upgrades (v3 wasn't around long enough to upgrade to; I don't remember what happened with it). I can quit upgrading major versions (about every 2-3 years) anytime I want and use what I have forever. That's awesome.

That said, PreSonus have had a subscription version for some time. It's now called Studio One+ and includes everything, including Notion 6. What they have done is move some expansions to the subscription model and removed them from perpetual licensing. For example, I only have about half of the Fat Channel XT plugins. When I went to the PreSonus shop to buy the rest, it said Studio One+ members only. Maybe that will change some day, but I'm not holding my breath. And I sure as hell am not going to go the monthly subscription route just for those 5-7 plugins.

I just bought T-RackS 5 MAX v2 for the insanely low price of 49 € less 7 € using points. Now, I have around 900 plugins. I almost certainly have the missing Fat Channel plugins duplicated, if not exactly, at least functionally.

Edited June 14 by John Maar

[Heath Row]

27 minutes ago, John Maar said:

 For example, I only have about half of the Fat Channel XT plugins. When I went to the PreSonus shop to buy the rest, it said Studio One+ members only. Maybe that will change some day, but I'm not holding my breath. And I sure as hell am not going to go the monthly subscription route just for those 5-7 plugins.

You can buy whatever you need (mostly) from 3rd party sellers, JRR being probably the most comprehensive collection. The selling of the Studio One addons etc have been given over to the 3rd party vendors while the new PreSonus Shop site gets done.

Edited June 14 by Heath Row
extensive - comprehensive

[Esteban Villanova]

7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Ah, that explains the expense and trouble they've gone to to keep the Cakewalk Inc. download and registration servers running (including an update to the client software) for the past 6 years.

That coupled with the announcement that Cakewalk by BandLab will remain free to download and use adds up to sheer disregard for the existing userbase.

How they could hope to retain a particle of goodwill is beyond understanding.

And I think that's the full extent of their grace, I think. I'd be very surprised if they sold licenses. Hope I'm wrong because I want one.

[Doug Steinschneider]

I regularly use Reaper (when recording midi heavy project), Cakewalk (chose it for recently created studio) and Mixbus (mixdown). Since the studio isn't very midi oriented, I will probably go to Mixbus. Version 10 is running very well. It works better for mixing sound for videos which we've been doing a lot of. 

[Esteban Villanova]

Just want to mention that someone decided to do something similar to the Pro Channel in REAPER. He's still adding plugins, but there's already a nice collection of some very cool plugins.

embeDDed: jsfx collection - Cockos Incorporated Forums

[CSistine]

I am glad that I already did some learning and some work with Reaper. I have a license since about 4 years. And it is a good feeling that I have this license forever and can install on all my future computers. It's a great DAW! Additionally I have Platinum and Sonar X3 to open my existing Cakewalk projects. I have no issues with those old projects, because luckily, I avoided to use some new features in CbB, like Arranger and Articulation Map. This was a wise decision!

Regarding the BandLab decision I regret that they surely drift away from the professional market. I guess that in about half a year most professionals (maybe also many hobbyists) will have turned their back on Sonar! And I predict this will cause the decline of BandLab Sonar sooner or later! I guess on the long run only Sonar Next will survive. But we will see!

[orcmid]

Everyone will make their own decisions about DAWs and whatever their needs are for their own legacy productions (and skills).  

I think the value of the current  SONAR offer is the clarity of the FAQ.  We may not like the answers, but our questions seem to all be answered for now.  And legacy accounts remain active.

Before subscriptions and the dominance of the Web as a distribution vehicle, I recall there being regular upgrades to original Cakewalk; there would be periodic offers to loyal users, etc.  This persisted into the introduction of SONAR and until the SONAR Platinum perpetual license.   Of course, none of that made existing installs unusable.  I assumed earlier versions were obsoleted with respect to support though.  Adjusted for inflation, the BandLab subscription is perhaps not as expensive as the continual updates of original Cakewalk and SONAR.  

I agree that the requirement for an active subscription is an unsatisfying situation if Cakewalk SONAR cannot operate without it.  That's a bit of hold-up,  like being unable to open Word documents if my Microsoft 365 subscription lapses -- except in that case there are alternatives of varying degrees of dependability.