Reply To: Free Sonar Tier

[Peter DeLegge]

Another clear sign of underperforming sales of a product, while Cakewalk subscriptions have constantly been on sale, a Cakewalk Premium subscription has just had the sale price slashed in half to $49 US per year, after having been on sale for $99 for a long time (the list price is $149. A sign that a $450 million valued software company doesn’t have giant hopes for Sonar Premium? The lack of advertising for the product. Even at their own own forum — which is surprisingly low volume for a software company of their size (of course, there’s lots of activity on the BandLab site, their primary business) — most of the posts about the promotion is not positive. One can rationalize that BandLab is more focused on existing BandLab users, but it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

While BandLab doesn’t release OS stats, consider that the BandLab platform is targeted at Gen Z and Generation Alpha. 93% of Gen Z uses the iPhone. While I don’t have the stats on Windows vs. Mac for Gen Z and Generation Alpha, you can bet that  — depending on household income level — there is a high amount of Mac use. The fact that Sonar is Windows only and that BandLab doesn’t have any plans to make a Mac version makes it very clear that the whole concept of Sonar being an important part of the BandLab ecosystem does not hold water. If it were an important part of the BandLab ecosystem, it would certainly not be Windows-only. Instead, it’s easy to see that Sonar is BandLab’s attempt to bring older pro and advanced amateur DAW users into the BandLab fold. But it’s clear from the erratic strategies and from the desperate discount pricing that Sonar is floundering.

$49 US for a year of Cakewalk Sonar Pro is very cheap. If I believed that the product was going to be around for many more years, I might bite on it, because I already have decades invested in learning Sonar and hundreds of projects. For a free DAW — even with the high likelihood that the product will be gone in the next 1 – 2 years — I’m still going to recommend Sonar Free on the LinkedMusicians best DAWs list. I think it easily earns a place there. But if people can afford it, I would strongly recommend spending more on a DAW that is likely to be around for 3 years. Your projects will add up, and having a bunch of projects for a DAW that is no longer supported is not desirable.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

4