PavlovsCat Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 (edited) 3 hours ago, mettelus said: ...they don't last very long. I haven't seen a company yet that told their customers, "Shut up and give me your money!" survive. You would expect that line to come from a mugger, not a company representative (regardless of level). Oddly enough, I got a call yesterday about another company who buried themselves (totally gone) in roughly a year due to arrogance. Even Gene Simmons realizes you cater to your fans... they are the hands that feed you. I actually didn't spend much time looking at the Sonar forum until this thread, but I did since this thread began and found a couple of the BandLab employees are pretty abrasive and, if I'm going to be candid, arrogant. Then I saw an employee that exemplifies the qualities any customer centric brand wants to see in an employee, Ashwin. His style stands out as the antithesis of some of the others. I'm guessing the difference is that he's a lot younger, is a professional trained on social media, empathetic towards customers and others, and doesn't possess their arrogance. Edited July 9 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Steinschneider Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 I posted feedback - said I prefer perpetual license that can lapse but keep working at that update until you re-up. Cantabile and Reaper are examples. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 Give it some time. They may possibly revert. There is no shortage of DAWs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 3 hours ago, El Diablo said: Reaper seems to care. Or do they? Sure they want to make money but I don't think the spreadsheet is the top priority. Just look at their licensing and how many paid upgrades there have been since it came out. Small developers can do things the big ones can't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Steinschneider Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 Lois responded - said they are considering the model I proposed - it's the same as Cantabile or Reaper - you get a year of updates - then software keeps working but you can't update until you renew the license. I don't mind it for software I use regularly and if the annual isn't a crazy high amount. Cantabile hits me up for $99 a year but the developer Brad is continually adding features and resolving bugs and the software is awesome for live performance using just VSTs with a midi controller. I think we all agree Reaper is a great value. I think they may well go that route. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pragi Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 (edited) 1 hour ago, Doug Steinschneider said: . I think we all agree Reaper is a great value. I think they may well go that route. I am not fond of "Cockos' Reaper" and would not use it even if I was given a payment for it, but if Cakewalk would go that route I would appreciate it. A DAW called Cocko , really ? Edited July 10 by Pragi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Sasor Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 On 7/8/2024 at 9:30 PM, PavlovsCat said: I missed on why I find their response a big deal. Having led digital marketing at a couple of global brands and led social media at three global brands, if employees shutdown customers from a discussion on one if those brand's public forums like was done here, it would be a major issue for those employees (I'd talk to them and have them attend training) -- as it would be at any customer centric company. A customer focused brand needs to respect customers and allow them to voice positive and negative feedback. As long as the customers are civil, you don't censor them or demean groups of customers as complainers, as standing on a soapbox, declaring that no additional discussions are permitted on the topic, and close the thread. What commonly happens is that censored customers will develop negative feelings toward the brand and have similar conversations elsewhere where the brand doesn't have a voice. Any customer focused CMO or brand exec would be pretty horrified at what was done in this case. Now maybe you might rationalize it that the employees that censored the thread and the one who posted about customers "complaining" and on a "soapbox" don't represent management, but I find if the company culture allows them to treat customers that way -- if they think they'll get away with it -- it's a pretty clear sign of a company that shares those same feelings towards customers. That experience very quickly changed my opinion of BandLab. I would hope, in the near future, that senior management issues a statement letting customers know their voice is valued despite these communications. If I seem like my patience has been run down in some replies, that's because we've offered plenty of opportunities for people to voice opinions about subscription since Sonar was initially announced a year ago. There was a 20ish page thread where we let people speak their minds right out of the gate. There have been innumerable threads and comments since. I'm just on here doing my best to support the community, and when I'm constantly having to respond to people retreading the same things over and over, and frequently being indignant about it towards the dev team... I was not trying to make any comment about you personally in my initial reply there. My only goal here is to try and make this forum a constructive place for the people who want to learn about the application, or who need help. I get PMs from other members asking us to put a lid on a lot of the subscription threads because it makes the forum feel like a hostile place. Ashwin graciously posted a place where people direct their opinions in a way where people outside of the Cakewalk team can keep track of. Those of us involved with development will continue to try and deliver the best possible experience with the app that we can, and we do our best to support our users. 7 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTsongwriter Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 I still own and occasionally use Sonar Producer 8.5.3 because the output of the music sounds better than any DAW I've used. I'm not sure how it dithers the music and creates a final copy, but it just sounds so much more professional that I usually create with the latest DAWs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptheisen Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 We all have our perspective. I'd like to think that on a public forum, we're all entitled to share ours. Probably the main reason the subscription threads were numerous was because no "sticky" threads with clear answers to questions were created. Many of the threads were started by different people who are not regulars on the forum, each coming onto the forum at a different time, and when they could not easily find the answers to their subscription questions, started their own thread, having no idea that they were rekindling the embers of a controversial topic. From my perspective of the back and forth responses in those threads, the people who don't like subscriptions were no less respectful and no more repetitive than the people who are okay with subscriptions. Yet many of those threads were locked by someone saying that the people who don't like subscriptions were too repetitive and disrespectful. Again, from my perspective, if there was any sense of hostility, it was towards the people who don't like subscriptions. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 (edited) 6 hours ago, Jonathan Sasor said: If I seem like my patience has been run down in some replies, that's because we've offered plenty of opportunities for people to voice opinions about subscription since Sonar was initially announced a year ago. There was a 20ish page thread where we let people speak their minds right out of the gate. There have been innumerable threads and comments since. I'm just on here doing my best to support the community, and when I'm constantly having to respond to people retreading the same things over and over, and frequently being indignant about it towards the dev team... I was not trying to make any comment about you personally in my initial reply there. My only goal here is to try and make this forum a constructive place for the people who want to learn about the application, or who need help. I get PMs from other members asking us to put a lid on a lot of the subscription threads because it makes the forum feel like a hostile place. Ashwin graciously posted a place where people direct their opinions in a way where people outside of the Cakewalk team can keep track of. Those of us involved with development will continue to try and deliver the best possible experience with the app that we can, and we do our best to support our users. Thanks for responding. I understand what you're saying and had discerned it prior to your post. I do think the development team does an excellent job with the product. I have zero criticism about the job you and the development team has done with the product. In fact, thanks to all of you for great work. It's the attitude, and lack of respect, towards customers that voice views the team doesn't want to hear that I find problematic and not reflective of a brand I want to patronize. I don't find the above reply acknowledges that and seeks to correct it. It's polite, but completely misses the point. But even more, a customer centric brand wouldn't permit this situation to exist. A customer centric brand would have worked with the employees to modify their public communications. This, and not just the subscription only issue, is why I think I'm going to be leaving BandLab for another DAW. Edited July 11 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Russ Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 (edited) As someone who does not like subscriptions I can tell you that there were a lot of people who felt the need to signal their dislike of subscriptions at every turn even when it wasn't relevant, sort of like the proverbial obnoxious relative who could find a way to inject partisan politics into your third grade daughter's dance recital. You couldn't have a conversation about what direction the software was going without dozens of people repeatedly saying how much they hated subscriptions, multiple times in a thread. Someone might post "Hey can we have tagged browsing of templates" or "Hey can we have staff view" or whatever they wanted in the next Sonar and every such thread was spammed with "I hate subscriptions!" I do think it's funny though that people are talking about the Reaper model or the Bitwig model when as far as I know Cakewalk was the first to offer such a plan. I think they were also the first with a rent-to-own plan. That's a lot of innovation to be throwing away. Edited July 10 by Magic Russ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misha Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 Jonathan, my case study is simple. There were several statements offering sprinkles of hope concerning licenses over the course of past 13 months made by Bakers and those who reply from support@bandlab.com - which leads, I believe to same "form" Ashwin provided. Even as close as two days ago. Even if you have no authority to disclose certain things, just for a minute put yourself in shoes of someone who have been with Cakewalk for many years, despite all turbulences. Those, who patiently waited for 13 months for some kind of a fair deal, or any kind of purchasing options besides renting software...and got nothing. As of now I view Cakewalk by BL as legacy product that will likely disabled at one point in the next 2 or so years, perhaps longer, but nowhere close to "decades" promised in original 2018 letter. And the new Sonar is only a rentable piece of software. Pretty much a dead end for somebody who wants a long term solution and/or certainty. But worse of all, there is no clear statement (after 13 months!) by BL if those who are still waiting, should wait longer or this is the only new future for Sonar that is here to stay. I don't think it's fair to keep many people suspended in air in such manner. I will be forever grateful to Cakewalk/Sonar, but subscription is not a path I will take, even if it's offered for free. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Sasor Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 4 hours ago, PavlovsCat said: Thanks for responding. I understand what you're saying and had discerned it prior to your post. I do think the development team does an excellent job with the product. I have zero criticism about the job you and the development team has done with the product. In fact, thanks to all of you for great work. It's the attitude, and lack of respect, towards customers that voice views the team doesn't want to hear that I find problematic and not reflective of a brand I want to patronize. I don't find the above reply acknowledges that and seeks to correct it. It's polite, but completely misses the point. But even more, a customer centric brand wouldn't permit this situation to exist. A customer centric brand would have worked with the employees to modify their public communications. This, and not just the subscription only issue, is why I think I'm going to be leaving BandLab for another DAW. It's not that we're not open to criticism, but its very much as @Magic Russ put it. This is a topic in particular that people have strong opinions about, but when a thread starts about a promo opportunity, and all the responses are "i hate subs!" Its one, off topic, and two a point that's already been made- to excess. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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