Reply To: Free Sonar Tier

[peter]

On SoulfulKeys said

On LinkedMusicians said

Also, @soulfulkeys, welcome to the forum! I’d love to know how you found LinkedMusicians. Were you researching Cakewalk Sonar and found this thread and registered or was it something else? It’s also valuable to learn how people found our community.

I’m the guy who started this place, but don’t worry, you never have to agree with me! My kids don’t and I adore them! As you can probably see, I enjoy analyzing and discussing this stuff the way some guys enjoy analyzing sports teams and athletes. I totally geek out on strategy and my publication was just my hobby outlet for my sharing my thoughts on marketing, branding, business strategy and business ethics that unintentionally went viral. I realize it looks less than modest to share my bio, but people here — with the exceptions of some real-life friends — don’t know that is my professional life (analyzing strategies and companies).

Thank you! I’ve been a long time Cakewalk forum lurker and discovered this sight when Larry left the deals forum there and showed up here. I’ve been using Cakewalk and Sonar for 20 years now. Started with Cakewalk Music Creator 2 when I was a poor high school student and eventually moved up to Sonar 8.5 and the X series. I’ve tried other DAWs but no switch yet.

 

The point I was trying to make about BandLab and Cakewalk is that you’re still looking at Sonar as a standalone product when you have to look at it as a feature. It’s like the air conditioning in a car, car manufacturers aren’t trying to sell you the AC separately, it’s a feature that makes the car more appealing to the buyer. Sonar is a feature BandLab uses to sell their Membership subscriptions, not the main product itself.

You also have to consider the demographic BandLab is aiming for. Their core audience is younger, often just getting into music production, and typically doesn’t have the budget for a $300 DAW, plugin bundles, and paid distribution services. The fact you can start making music on your phone for free with BandLab is a huge draw for that market.

Now, with Sonar added to the subscription, BandLab can say: for $14.95/month you get everything we’ve always offered plus a full-featured pro desktop DAW.
For their target demographic, that’s a perfect value proposition. Most of them probably have little or no experience with pro DAWs and wouldn’t realistically pay for something like Cubase, Logic, or Ableton even if they wanted to.

It’s not about Sonar dominating the DAW market again, it’s about keeping users inside BandLab’s ecosystem as they level up. It’s an ecosystem retention tool, not a standalone money-maker.

Yes, I understand your point, but you are mistaken on the strategy, and you can learn that based on BandLab management’s official public statements on the release of the two product lines, Sonar and Next. Even more, BandLab’s strategy is easily discernible when you understand the diffrent features of Sonar and Next.

When BandLab — the company — resurrected Cakewalk Sonar (first called Cakewalk By BandLab, and then it shifted back into Sonar), BandLab didn’t think its young BandLab users would move from their mobile-centric platform to Cakewalk Sonar. Their statements when they released Sonar and Next very clearly made distinctions between the two DAWs for who they were appropriate for. According to their statements, Next was designed to be the next step for BandLab users. [EDIT: I just found the AI summaries, got this wrong. Cakewalk Sonar can import BandLab files. Well, that makes a lot more sense and does change my forecast. I’ll give it two years max. Just because Meng believes that he can successfully keep creators from when they start with the basics to a more sophistacted DAW — that is, Sonar — doesn’t mean that the idea will be supported by the market; it costs too much to support Sonar if the product bombs, if it doesn’t sell well enough to justify its existence. I could see management taking another try at a DAW that is more like the next step up from Next.]

Again, Next was specifically designed and marketed as the next step a BandLab user takes to a more robust, desktop-based DAW. BandLab’s documents and communications are clearly spelled out. Its target audience is the beginning DAW user. Sonar targets “pros, advanced amateurs,” with professional-grade, Windows-only, legacy compatibility, and advanced feature set. (I’m paraphrasing BandLab’s remarks and communications). So there’s no mystery on these basic elements of BandLab’s strategy, it’s a kind of cradle to grave strategy, and what markets Next and Sonar are targeted at. I don’t know if Sonar could survive just from the idea that some users will outgrow BandLab, then outgrow Next, and end up with Sonar. Yes, it would be ideal for the company if that’s how things worked. But clearly, something isn’t going according to plan when the company decides that it needs to create a free tier. I think we can be pretty confident, that is a reaction to poor sales and the market taking very little interest in Sonar.]

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

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