Confused by reply on Sonar by Caldecott. Hope?

[Misha]

Thankfully, Bandlab, allowed smooth transition for whatever future might hold by providing Cakewalk for free for now.  I decided not to take chances and acquired & started to learn another DAW in parallel to current Cakewalk by BL.  The other DAW has certain features that are not available in Cakewalk or new Sonar, so it will be an interesting  journey and new experience.  I've decided to wait one full year from time of  Sonar release anouncement to see if anything changes until full scale migration.  

Trying to speed up decision, I followed advice from bakers and contacted Caldecott Music Group "marketing",  to see if "they" can shed any light on the future of the subject (that is usually get blocked by moderators) since half a year passed since release announcement.  I will try avoiding mentioning the subject in question directly, just quoting the reply I got. 

"Thanks for reaching out to us. We understand your concerns regarding Sonar's need for a perpetual license. As we're working in conjunction with BandLab to provide a better offering for BandLab Membership by having Sonar onboard, there are still possibilities for a potential one time license in the future as we fully developed Sonar and Next. We do understand the potential growth we can expect with Sonar moving forward with a license but we want to have it fully fleshed with it's own suite of unique features and plugins before proceeding.
 
Cheers,
Ashwin"

In posting this, I simply want to understand if ^ is genuinely  Caldecott's plan, how close they are to what users actually want?  Here is what I mean. While there are some very usable Cakewalk / Sonar plugins from legacy software, I stopped using "stock" plugins about 12 years ago, as much better alternatives at very reasonable prices  (or free) exist.  Personally, potential amount, or quality of plugins Sonar might have will have zero impact on my decision on purchasing a DAW.  I wonder what users think about this?  Will any potentially included plugins be your decision maker in purchasing standard license?

 

To moderator(s). Locking this thread will rob Caldecott group on vital slice of opinions, if what was said by Ashwin is true.

[Starship Krupa]

8 hours ago, Misha said:

Will any potentially included plugins be your decision maker in purchasing standard license?

It probably depends on the plug-ins.

One possibility that occurs to me is a return to the tiered pricing that SONAR had, where one could obtain SONAR Professional at a lower price and with fewer bundled plug-ins.

The marketplace has changed in the 7 years since the first BandLab release of Cakewalk. Even if one were to stick entirely to free loss-leaders offered by name brand commercial developers (NI, iZotope. Melda, Kilohearts, brainworx), it's possible to equip a DAW very well for no extra money at all.

[Misha]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

It probably depends on the plug-ins.

Hmmm,  I assuming you speak for yourself,  right? I have so many plugins - many of which were part of the "bundles"... that doubt good part of them will be ever used.  Taking VSTi out of equation, my "to -go" toolbox consists of about 2 dozen plugins.  I can't imagine myself purchasing a DAW for dynamic or artistic FX. Certain tools, like chord/harmony explorers maybe, but definitely not FX.  But even chord/harmony tools have very solid footing in the market... Scaler 3 is coming next month, there is a much lesser known, but extremely powerful software from Cognitone.

My confusion mainly comes from these reasons for not supplying perpetual license: "it's own suite of unique features and plugins". 

You mentioned a few plugin brands, I will add FabFilter to that list - which are state of art plugins... I just find it very questionable that Bandlab can cook something up to challenge these in a way that would tip decision on purchasing a DAW.  

But lets imagine  it's true, what kind /type of plugin(s) will move people toward spending money on a DAW? I am very curious.

 

[Starship Krupa]

47 minutes ago, Misha said:

You mentioned a few plugin brands, I will add FabFilter to that list

That was a list of top plugin brands who offer loss leaders for free. To my knowledge, Fab Filter do not, although they are highly regarded.

I think you didn't get what I was trying to say, which was that there are enough free plug-ins available that bundled plug-ins are less of a factor than they once were.

I'm a particularly hard sell on plug-ins, I have the iZotope Music Production Suite and the MeldaProduction MComplete bundle. I even pass on most freebies that come out.

That's why I mentioned tiered pricing: it worked in the past for Cakewalk customers who weren't interested in the boatload of plugins that came with SONAR Platinum.

I do believe that any DAW in today's market should come with a set of at least the bread-and-butter mixing and modulation FX. A user who is new to DAW's (and most users are going to fit that description, as switching DAW's isn't that common) shouldn't have to bring their own chorus or EQ.

All that said, it's ultimately impossible to say if the bundling of plug-ins would influence my decision without first seeing what plug-ins were bundled. For instance, a phrase sampler is one type of plug-in that I still don't have covered to my satisfaction. Sonar now has an integrated sampler, but it's not the type I use most. So if this imaginary plug-in laden Sonar included an integrated phrase sampler, that would influence a purchase decision. Compressor, EQ, chorus, reverb, not so much.

[IgoRr]

40 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

A user who is new to DAW's (and most users are going to fit that description, as switching DAW's isn't that common) shouldn't have to bring their own chorus or EQ.

I don't want to argue, but personally I look at these things differently: if we are talking about choosing a specific DAW for working with musical material (recording, editing, working with MIDI, etc.), then first of all I look at the capabilities and convenience of the program itself, how well I understand its structure, how convenient it is for me to control the functions, navigate in the workspace, endurance in cases of large projects, etc. And if all (or most) of these parameters suit me, or at least it is more convenient and understandable than some other DAW, then this will determine my choice.

Of course, I would like the selected DAW to already have a built-in set of the most advanced and powerful plugins and other tools, but even if this is not the case, all this is now available in completely industrial quantities, and the bulk - at quite affordable prices, and some part - even for free. Regarding specifically Sonar/Cakewalk - this DAW from the manufacturer already has several sets of excellent plugins built in, which can hardly envy most of even the most modern paid plugins of the level of brands iZotope, Brainworks, IK Multimedia, etc. Even without taking into account the outboard plugins from the Sonitus set, in the ProChannel section there are 5-6 excellent plugins - PC2A Leveling Amplifier, PC Concrete Limiter, Console Emulator, Tape Emulator, a good set of one-handed plugins from the Style FX set. Specifically, PC2A Leveling Amplifier very accurately emulates the famous LA-2A from Teletronics, and PC Concrete Limiter, when turned on, saturates the sound with luxurious warm "transformer" harmonics without even crossing the threshold, as well as two more saturators - Console Emulator and Tape Emulator. And if you also use add-on plugins from Sonitus, the picture becomes quite favorable even without the need to look for something additional.

But I repeat once again: when choosing a DAW, first of all, I evaluate the working environment itself, its clarity, intuitiveness, convenience and speed for productive work, and the factor of the presence of plugins is far from the most important issue, in my opinion.

[Misha]

7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I do believe that any DAW in today's market should come with a set of at least the bread-and-butter mixing and modulation FX. A user who is new to DAW's (and most users are going to fit that description, as switching DAW's isn't that common) shouldn't have to bring their own chorus or EQ.

That's a good point. But I wonder... If Cakewalk>to new Sonar kept most of the old code, what about  plugins that supposedly keeping licensing locked to current state?  Could legacy plugins be re-faced and improved slightly in the same manner as new Sonar and sold / packaged as "new"? I haven't followed closely, but I think with exception of new sampler which you can kind of consider as a built in plugin, were there any other plugins released in the 1 year of making + 6 month of public release?

I would imagine that it would be a havoc to release whole bunch of "new" stock plugins in one update, if such are in the works... I am just trying to predict timeline / progress expectation if what Ashwin said is true. It seems BL is developing Sonar aggressively, but unfortunately my math is not adding up as far as plugins go.

I do agree that most current stock plugins are very usable, especially to potential new users.

 

 

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, Misha said:

Could legacy plugins be re-faced and improved slightly in the same manner as new Sonar and sold / packaged as "new"? I haven't followed closely, but I think with exception of new sampler which you can kind of consider as a built in plugin, were there any other plugins released in the 1 year of making + 6 month of public release?

To my memory, the plug-ins that were supplied with Cakewalk by BandLab were the Sonitus fx Suite (Compressor, Delay, Eq, Gate, Modulator, Multiband Compressor, Phaser, Reverb, Surround, SurroundComp, Wahwah) Studio Instruments Suite (Drums, Strings, Electric Piano), and the Classic Creative Suite (AliasFactor, Chorus/Flanger, Classic Phaser, Compressor/Gate, HF Exciter, Modfilter, Para Q, Tempo Delay).

The Studio Instruments are VST2, all others are DXi, which functions as a pretty good DAW lock, as not many programs still support DXi. Vegas Pro and REAPER are the only ones I know of.

Cakewalk Sonar added Session Drummer, which is VST2, and XSampler, which is VST3 and DAW-locked.

When NuSonar came out, I made a new skin for Session Drummer to make it look like the Dark color scheme. Flat rather than the "brushed aluminum" look. Downloadable from the link in my sig.

From what I can tell by following the forum and reading magazine articles over the years, the plug-ins that people would most like to see get an update are the Sonitus fx Suite. While their UI's look dated (they are over 25 years old now), they still sound great and have some useful features. I'd say they could stand a facelift to change the color scheme to something more subdued and for sure in these times of varying monitor resolutions, resizable. A switch to VST3 would be nice.

One bottom line for me with using a DAW's stock (bundled) plug-ins is that I prefer not to use DAW-locked processors. I also do audio work in other programs, such as Vegas Pro, and want to be able to use the same tools in all of the programs I use that host audio plug-ins.

The other ones that I can think of that only need to have their licensing mechanisms sorted out are the Linear Phase EQ and Multiband Compressor and CA/2A Compressor. These were part of the SPlat suite and were also sold separately. They look up to date and were well regarded back when they were available. The CA/2A algorithm lives on as a ProChannel module.

One issue I can think of: if Sonar is to remain only available with a BandLab membership, if the user lets the BandLab membership lapse, the company may want to have a mechanism so that the plug-ins go into demo mode along with the DAW.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

49 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

The other ones that I can think of that only need to have their licensing mechanisms sorted out are the Linear Phase EQ and Multiband Compressor and CA/2A Compressor. These were part of the SPlat suite and were also sold separately. They look up to date and were well regarded back when they were available. The CA/2A algorithm lives on as a ProChannel module.

Yes, agreed. They should also consider tweaking the code of the VX-64 Vocal Strip and the PX-64 Percussion Strip.

These have proved to be very useful over the years but are also prone to instability

[Bass Guitar]

Thanks @Misha   for the tidbit of info from staff about the remote possibility of purchasing our favorite Daw someday!   

I as well agree that the statement leaves me pondering why they are holding off??  Hold on folks, the Bloatware is not ready so we can't release it officially yet! 

I just did a nice fresh install on an almost Dawless computer.   What does Sonar come with in it's current state?   Apparently Not much. 

It's easy to miss what is included because this is all tossed at you on first boot up-  There was a huge stack of those toast messages. I think 7? It was sort of messy because it was all these things wanting to be first downloaded and then installed. Including an update to the Daw??  I guess we are supposed to use the new download manager but there's no info regarding this stuff. It actually took a little digging to find the correct web page. There are all these legacy sites still?? This is out to lunch compared to any other Software. 

Anyway in the toast was the SI instruments THU and Melodyne demo.  

 First glaring omission is the TTS-1. So Sonar is one of the few Daw's on the planet that can't play any midi sounds. This is rare! I think only Pro Tools and Waveform are also like this. The rest of the Daw's I have all play midi files instantly. Actually come to think of it Cakewalk Next plays GM midi! What's with that?  

I recorded a simple vocal guitar project to test if the Laptop was OK and all seems good. I added bass and then I wanted a compressor and some reverb. All the included effects for the Bin are those 40 year old DX plug ins. Aren't we supposed to avoid these because they are not supported anymore??  I write that off as a big fat zero. But the Pro Channel saves the day for some meat and potatoes effects. It has some good compressors and EQ. I avoid that Breverb sucker as it crashed projects on me years ago. 

So on my list of what I consider usable stuff I have about 4 items so far!   I have rarely used the SI instruments even though they are at least a tiny bit better then the TTS=1 was. 

Having just worked in a few other Daw's all last year Sonar is a top contender for my workflow , but yes it sucks in the included plug in category. Big deal.  Personally like most of the others have stated--I don't really care. So if they think you need Bloatware to compete in the Daw market they are making a huge mistake. 

 

Edited February 25 by Bass Guitar

[pwalpwal]

funny how things turn out, sonar used to come bundled with 3rd party plugs, now bandlab membership comes bundled with sonar

i do think all the stock plugs, even the ancient dx, are good for users new to a daw (ie, bl members), and they are also a good way of "forcing creativity" by restricting yourself to using only the stock plugs for a project (whereas all the new plugs seem to be much more "let me do that for you")

i agree that missing midi playback is a thing, but maybe they're working on their own tts-1 clone, who knows 🤷‍♀️

/fwiw

[Salvatore Sorice]

As has been stated in many other threads, if you have a license for one of the older versions of Cakewalk (that included TTS-1), and install that BEFORE installing the new Sonar, TTS-1 will available.

As for the Sonitus plug-ins - they're old, DX, but actually very good. Also, the Staff has said (in a thread I started recently) that an update is in progress for the Sonitus Suite. See https://discuss.cakewalk.com/topic/83803-sonitus-plugins-will-they-remain-in-sonar-and-be-supported/#comments

[pwalpwal]

Agree re sonitus, here's a nice overview https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-effects

[Misha]

I don't know why people are so fascinated with TTS1. It's reliable... understood. But as far as sounds, it reminds me of an Atari video game.  I think the only "ok" GM sounds out of the box were from something like Tyros or Roland hardware units.  As far as I know, only Halion/Sonic is the last GM / Program change capable professional plugin that has extensive library to "substitute" sounds after it maps everything correctly. And a very inexpensive VSTsynthfont, that is surprisingly being maintained often.  Sure, it would be convenient to have soldered in MIDI player in DAW, but definitely not a deal breaker.  

I am wondering (again, if what Ashwin said is true) if bakers are open to discuss what is on horizon on plugin front. Since plugins are complimentary to any DAW, I think user input might help shape their plans in a more favorable direction.

P.S. Funny, user Bass Guitar mentioned Breverb. That is the last stock plugin that I use occasionally, as it has certain character.

[pwalpwal]

The point is that with tts you can open and play a midi file without doing anything else, I don't think anyone uses the sounds

[Starship Krupa]

Bottom line with TTS-1, Cakewalk didn't delete it from the package on a whim, they kept it as long as they could. The code belongs to Roland and can't be updated. So either keep shipping a feature that's falling apart or eliminate it. I saw a rumor that Roland asked them to stop, maybe? I suspect that the bulk of people who are interested in it have licenses for SONAR anyway.

I forgot about the Adaptive Limiter, it's in the same category as the LP EQ and MB. They just need to have their licensing mechanism worked out. Otherwise, they're attractive and useful. Linear Phase multiband compressors are not that common (Waves, Fab Filter, and MDynamicsMB are the only ones I know of).

@Bristol_Jonesey, Right, I forgot about PX-64 and VX-64. They were included from the start with CbB, with a bit of finesse required to enable them. I didn't know that people were having issues with these. They cover a lot of tasks.

There's also the TL-64 Tube Leveler and TS-64 Transient Shaper. I know the TL-64 is included with CbB and Sonar, not sure about TS-64.

Boost 11 was added to CbB, wasn't it? What about Channel Tools? Also a handy plug-in, with sample delay and M/S control.

Now that I think of it I guess Sonar does have a decent collection of bundled plug-ins. esp. once they're polished up.

I'm still lobbying for a pad/phrase sampler. XSampler works well for its job, but my task is dialog samples ("Little Fluffy Clouds" and "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" are part of my musical DNA)

[Bass Guitar]

I don't use a lot of midi junk but when I do it's like a piano or an Organ. Keyboards I would guess.  Speaking of old included instruments,  I actually still like True Pianos which requires me to run the installer for Sonar 8.5. It would be cool if they dug up that old stuff and brought it back so I don't have to waste time doing that anymore.

I think you'd be surprised at how many people seem to think the TTS-1 sounded great! My goodness. They even use it for backing tracks. yikes! I think the MS wavetable sounds the same and that's not saying much. But they seemed to have also removed that from midi output options?? It's like a plot against people who like terrible sounds. 

[Terry Kelley]

I personally believe it’s futile to discuss how Bandlab can cut features to allow them to sell a perpetual Sonar license.  

They aren’t going to do it. The answer you got was the standard “Oh we’re thinking about it. Stay tuned.” Oh sure we will.

There is no reason or value to Bandlab to offer a perpetual license. If they thought it made financial sense, they would have already done it. It doesn’t make financial sense. Stand-alone Sonar isn’t financially viable. There is no ciphering, calculation or marketing survey that will change that. They know they can’t get back many of the users they lost.

Why do you think Cakewalk got passed around so many times?  Multiple attempts were made to make money of it standalone. It didn’t work.

If a person is going to try and use the “We will get your music out there and you’ll be famous!” come-on then using Sonar makes sense. It’s a damn good product but if you just want a DAW that won’t stop working if you stop paying, there isn’t anything compelling to use it outside of Bandlab.

If you like the product and don’t mind rental fees, use it. It works very well. But wishing for a perpetual license is futile in my opinion.

Edited Wednesday at 03:26 AM by Terry Kelley

[Ashwin Rao]

Hi, Misha. I am happy to share more information regarding your concerns with future plugins and the value they might bring. We're discussing internally bringing back our old legacy plugins, such as Z3TA+2, Rapture Pro, etc., but potentially in the form of a new synth engine since we hold onto the rights to these legacy products' code. Perhaps a brand new plugin with inspiration from the old one? We also have plans to incorporate BandLab's plugins, such as AudioStretch and even AutoPitch, into the Cakewalk ecosystem as VST plugins. These are all in the works that could hopefully deliver a strong release for a perpetual license IF we decide to do so in the future, but I cannot guarantee it will be 100% as the business still makes that decision. However, rest assured that these new potential plugins, features, and revamps will all be included as a part of BandLab Membership as long as you are a subscriber. If a perpetual license does not come to fruition, we might work on a cheaper subscription pricing model just for Sonar and Next.

 

 

 

[Misha]

Ashwin,

Thank you for clarifying this for me and other users. 

I will gladly subscribe and support development IF Cakewalk by Bandlab will be permanently unlocked... At least for subscribers of Sonar, so their work is safe from potential SHTF scenario. 

[AB9]

Maybe a thread with a list of free decent plugins that are available would be helpful.

I saw this link to free plugins that are claims to be very good.  
https://www.joehagenmusic.com/post/a-comprehensive-guide-to-high-quality-free-plugins-that-you-ll-actually-use

And more:
https://blog.landr.com/free-vst-plugins/

And I am sure there are more!  I personally would rather have Sonar development people working more on stability, audio engine, the PRV which needs great improvements imho, etc.

P.S.  All in all, I am very happy with Sonar.

Edited Wednesday at 04:29 AM by AB9