Jerry Gerber Posted Thursday at 04:24 PM Share Posted Thursday at 04:24 PM This question has probably already been asked and answered but I can't find it when I search. I have no plans nor desire to move back to Sonar. Will I be notified when Cakewalk is not going to work on my computer, or will I just sit down to work one day and find it is no longer accessible? Thanks, Jerry https://www.jerrygerber.com https://www.youtube.com/@astromusicvideo 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STEVEN CASEY Posted Thursday at 04:34 PM Share Posted Thursday at 04:34 PM I came here looking for this answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bristol_Jonesey Posted Thursday at 04:40 PM Share Posted Thursday at 04:40 PM The new Free Sonar is just an updated version of CbB. What's the problem? Or do you not like new features and bug fixes? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Gerber Posted Thursday at 05:04 PM Author Share Posted Thursday at 05:04 PM (edited) 23 minutes ago, Bristol_Jonesey said: The new Free Sonar is just an updated version of CbB. What's the problem? Or do you not like new features and bug fixes? Thank you for sharing that information, but it has nothing to do with my question. I don't need new features and whatever bugs may exist in the current version of Cakewalk I'm using have no effect on my workflow. Edited Thursday at 05:05 PM by Jerry Gerber 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Oakes Posted Thursday at 05:42 PM Share Posted Thursday at 05:42 PM Yes, the question has been asked. And the answer is still the same : nobody knows. J 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RICHARD HUTCHINS Posted Thursday at 07:50 PM Share Posted Thursday at 07:50 PM Yes that worries me too. I know little about the politics of this, but my instinct is that one day soon it will go the way of all flesh and be monetised. Like WhatsApp which was always going to be free from adds...until it isn't. After all the people who own these things cant be expected to use the same old superyachts forever! Give them a break. Seriously, I expect to have to pay eventually, and fair enough its a great piece of kit. But will it be a fair price or will it be the dreaded SUBSCRIPTION con? Who knows? Not me. ( as Bowie sang on The Man who Sold the World) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Gavin Posted Friday at 01:43 PM Share Posted Friday at 01:43 PM My hardware and OS are static in my DAW. I don't require updates for either, nor for my WAVES plugins. I keep a GHOST image of my installed DAW in case of system loss. The question posted here applies to me: I start up my DAW, CWBB can no longer authenticate and shuts down. I refuse subscription based products such as Office 365, and favor owning installation media with a license key. This will always work except for rare conditions where the OS is new enough that it renders my product unlaunchable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalpwal Posted Friday at 02:03 PM Share Posted Friday at 02:03 PM 20 hours ago, Jeremy Oakes said: Yes, the question has been asked. And the answer is still the same : nobody knows. J This Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted Friday at 03:50 PM Share Posted Friday at 03:50 PM Early on, Bandlab said it would go away but they’ve extended it past most people’s expectations. Since Bandlab took over Cakewalk they’ve been good about giving a heads up to changes and I expect the same with the end of CbB. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Gerber Posted Friday at 04:24 PM Author Share Posted Friday at 04:24 PM (edited) Paying a subscription for software is like a toll or a tax. What if the software company doesn't release any new features or new bug fixes in a given month? We still pay again for that month. More likely, new features will be added that I'll never use. Having been a Cakewalk/Sonar customer for 34 years I have a pretty good idea of what capabilities of the software are necessary, which are very useful to me and which features I have no need for. Some software companies don't believe in "If it's not broken don't fix it" perspective. I avoid those companies. I guess if Cakewalk insists on a subscription-only model and stops me from using Cakewalk, I'll move back to Digital Performer. If they show some flexibility and offer both the subscription-based model and the purchase license model, I'll upgrade when I want to upgrade. I must have upgraded Sonar 10 times or more over the time I was using it. Either way, I can deal with it. https://www.jerrygerber.com https://youtube.com/@astromusicvideo Edited Friday at 04:25 PM by Jerry Gerber Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted Friday at 05:40 PM Share Posted Friday at 05:40 PM (edited) Many companies try it, but many fail. There just aren't enough new users to keep bringing in revenue. Many companies have no choice but to try and switch to rental to keep revenue coming it. For many, it’s a no win situation.I’ll bet they would sell every perpetual license possible in the first year and be down to a trickle in year two. So while some of us have rejected rental, Bandlab didn’t have much choice. And remember, this wasn’t the developers decision. Edited Friday at 05:45 PM by Terry Kelley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HIBI Posted Saturday at 03:57 PM Share Posted Saturday at 03:57 PM According to https://www.cakewalk.com/sonar#FAQ Quote Cakewalk by BandLab will no longer support activation renewal after August 1, 2025. Existing installations will continue to work until their activation period expires, but no new activations will be possible after that date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Borthwick Posted Saturday at 07:46 PM Share Posted Saturday at 07:46 PM As noted in the FAQ on our updated website, we have now officially announced free tiers for both Sonar and Next. This allows anyone who has a BandLab account to use the latest versions of both Sonar and Next at no cost. The primary purpose of CbB was to provide core application features at no cost to users. At this point however, CbB has not been in development for nearly 3 years and is built from a much older version of the codebase that uses a different toolset. As a result, we can no longer maintain it anymore to provide compatibility updates and other services for a good user experience. Sonar on the other hand, is vastly improved over CbB, with hundreds of fug fixes, many new features, optimizations, workflow improvements as well as support for the latest processors. If you wish to use Sonar without purchasing annual/monthly membership, you can use the free tier which provides the core features at no cost. (a lot more than most other DAW's provide in their free versions). If you are a frequent user of Sonar and wish to support us, we encourage you to purchase a membership. There are promos for membership which are incredibly affordable and we're constantly adding new features and improving the products. Some exciting new add-ons coming in the next month or so for members as well! 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted Saturday at 08:26 PM Share Posted Saturday at 08:26 PM (edited) So there you go. My prediction was accurate. Now all you need to decide is if the Free version is all you need or as Noel says so well “If you wish to support us”. That’s an important distinction as even though Subscription/?Memberships suck, if you really Ike the product, support it. If you dislike the membership idea on principle then now’s a good time to move on and stop complaining about it because it’s very doubtful that it will change. I myself am very happy about this Free Version as it solves my situation perfectly. Edited Saturday at 08:31 PM by John Vere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Gerber Posted Saturday at 09:52 PM Author Share Posted Saturday at 09:52 PM Thanks everyone for replying. I still do not have an answer though; the closest answer is that I can use Cakewalk after August when the activation will no longer be supported. After that I can continue using it until "the activation period expires", but how do I find out when that happens? Jerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidney Earl Goodroe Posted Saturday at 10:27 PM Share Posted Saturday at 10:27 PM My burning question is should I uninstall CbB altogether because it doesn't make much sense to use it knowing that it will eventually die on me? Also, if I delete it completely, what dire ramifications does that have on Sonar Free? Will it be viable to keep CbB on the drive? That sounds to me like we can keep using CbB after the last reactivation! Will someone please clarify this mess! Btw, I have been running Free since the release and am very impressed with it! A few minor niggles here and there but very happy that you are breathing new life into my favorite DAW!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helios.G Posted Saturday at 11:30 PM Share Posted Saturday at 11:30 PM 3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said: As noted in the FAQ on our updated website, we have now officially announced free tiers for both Sonar and Next. This allows anyone who has a BandLab account to use the latest versions of both Sonar and Next at no cost. The primary purpose of CbB was to provide core application features at no cost to users. At this point however, CbB has not been in development for nearly 3 years and is built from a much older version of the codebase that uses a different toolset. As a result, we can no longer maintain it anymore to provide compatibility updates and other services for a good user experience. Sonar on the other hand, is vastly improved over CbB, with hundreds of fug fixes, many new features, optimizations, workflow improvements as well as support for the latest processors. If you wish to use Sonar without purchasing annual/monthly membership, you can use the free tier which provides the core features at no cost. (a lot more than most other DAW's provide in their free versions). If you are a frequent user of Sonar and wish to support us, we encourage you to purchase a membership. There are promos for membership which are incredibly affordable and we're constantly adding new features and improving the products. Some exciting new add-ons coming in the next month or so for members as well! I have a serious issue with the color schemes in the UI. Beyond how it affects my eyes and eventually my head when the migraines flare up, what I don't understand is, if the product is being made "better" why are you deprecating the ability for people to easily modify color schemes. I know I can't be alone in this, cause I've seen other people chime up in the past. I for one would love to jump into sonar and not leave the platform, and it truly did seem to work "better", resource wise on my 2 systems, but I literally can't look at the UI's as is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Faughey Posted 22 hours ago Share Posted 22 hours ago 9 hours ago, John Vere said: So there you go. My prediction was accurate. Now all you need to decide is if the Free version is all you need or as Noel says so well “If you wish to support us”. That’s an important distinction as even though Subscription/?Memberships suck, if you really Ike the product, support it. If you dislike the membership idea on principle then now’s a good time to move on and stop complaining about it because it’s very doubtful that it will change. I myself am very happy about this Free Version as it solves my situation perfectly. I think it’s fantastic that they have offered this free version. Even though I am part of this beta thing, I have already bought a subscription. I am very happy to support the team…I make money from music, so for me it’s not a big deal to invest in the tools that I need. Especially when I think of how much money I spend in a year buying Starbucks hot chocolate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Borthwick Posted 15 hours ago Share Posted 15 hours ago 14 hours ago, Helios.G said: I have a serious issue with the color schemes in the UI. Beyond how it affects my eyes and eventually my head when the migraines flare up, what I don't understand is, if the product is being made "better" why are you deprecating the ability for people to easily modify color schemes. I know I can't be alone in this, cause I've seen other people chime up in the past. I for one would love to jump into sonar and not leave the platform, and it truly did seem to work "better", resource wise on my 2 systems, but I literally can't look at the UI's as is. We do plan on improving user customization for colors in the future. It wont be the same as what theme editor does since that was bitmap based. Its not as simple as you think - the entire UI backend has been replaced in Sonar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Borthwick Posted 15 hours ago Share Posted 15 hours ago 15 hours ago, Sidney Earl Goodroe said: My burning question is should I uninstall CbB altogether because it doesn't make much sense to use it knowing that it will eventually die on me? Also, if I delete it completely, what dire ramifications does that have on Sonar Free? Will it be viable to keep CbB on the drive? That sounds to me like we can keep using CbB after the last reactivation! Will someone please clarify this mess! Btw, I have been running Free since the release and am very impressed with it! A few minor niggles here and there but very happy that you are breathing new life into my favorite DAW!!!!!! Post August Cbb will cease to activate which means you will no longer be able to save projects from there which is the normal behavior when the app is not activated. It will probably continue to load projects and playback. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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