[not a deal] CbB no longer support activation after August 1

[swijaya]

https://www.cakewalk.com/sonar#FAQ

2

[bapu]

It was inevitable.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

1

[bapu]

I have a yearly subscription that I got last December for $69. When it expires this December. (I cancelled it last week) I will revert to the free tier.

I only use it when working with my collaborators to give them a tracking project with markers, tempo and time signatures, along with basic stems.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

4

[Peter DeLegge]

I have A LOT of unfinished projects in Cakewalk by Bandlab. It would have been nice if they just let the last version continue to work without phoning home. I believe Meng originally promised that Cakewalk by Bandlab would at least work for free for the next decade. I think this is a less than nice tactic to force CbB users to Sonar.

For those who naively think that Meng was/is practicing altruism, he’s using what is basically the same model that video game developers use who produce freemium games. To give you an idea of my knowledge of this area, Wired Magazine has interviewed me and about the model early on to get my insights. As an example, Fortnite is a popular freemium video game. Yes, it’s free to play. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t generate A LOT of revenue. It’s brought in more $20 billion in revenue for the developer In it’s first two years of release, it generated around $9 billion in revenue. The model seems to be working well for BandLab’s main software, and has bombed for CbB and Sonar.

BandLab serves as a free as means of bringing users into an ecosystem where the company markets related products and services to users. Even the anemic Cakewalk Forums is designed to (1) save a developer money by making it cheaper to support customers, and (2) be a means of bringing more customers into the fold.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with those strategies, but I often would see posts from people at Cakwalk Forum from people who clearly don’t have a strong grasp of business and business strategy and somehow think that investors are pumping tens of millions of dollars into BandLab so that Meng can be the billionaire trust fund boy altruist. Um no. That’s not even remotely reality. Meng — and his investors— are expecting to make a profit from all of these activities in the end. But it’s clear that they’re failing hard with Cakewalk by BandLab and Cakewalk Sonar, which mainly appeals to a very different demographic — a much older group (largely Millennials, Gen X and Boomers, but largely Boomers) than BandLab’s main software, which appeals to Gen Z and Generation Alpha.

My instincts are that they’ll bail on Cakewalk Sonar within the next two years and continue with Next. Next is the next logical step for BandLab users. Cakewalk Sonar intends to bring in the older DAW users, but it’s been a bust, and it’s not difficult to guess that it’s nowhere near being profitable. They didn’t promote it as they should have, either, and the branding is a case study in mismanagement. Sorry guys, but if you’re excited about Cakewalk Sonar, this move is a big sign with flashing red lights that Sonar free will — easily within two years — be deactivated, and the product line be shut down. No one can safely predict what other DAW makers will be doing in two years, but I would strongly recommend moving to one that is more likely to still work three years from now so that you can access your project files.

To use an analogy — if you’ve ever seen the movie, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” — “You’re going the wrong way!”

 

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

3

[patrickwichrowski]

They could provide a legitim reg key for current Cakewalk By Bandlab users. Everybody would be happy and trust would rise. Even if they offer this at some cost, people would like to have a backuped working program to fire up at any moment.

 

They just killed Cakewalk in windows 7. Thats why Reaper is becoming more and more interesting for me.  Why not do as ToneBoosters that in suport page you can download the old plugins that fully work in old systems with no restrictions.

 

All that these guys in Cakewalk management do is to irritate the previous loyal customers. It’s so unbelievable that seems to be some kind of internal sabotage.

https://linktr.ee/patrickwichrowski/

https://patrickwichrowski.bandcamp.com/

3

[Peter DeLegge]

On patrickwichrowski said

They could provide a legitim reg key for current Cakewalk By Bandlab users. Everybody would be happy and trust would rise. Even if they offer this at some cost, people would like to have a backuped working program to fire up at any moment.

 

They just killed Cakewalk in windows 7. Thats why Reaper is becoming more and more interesting for me.  Why not do as ToneBoosters that in suport page you can download the old plugins that fully work in old systems with no restrictions.

 

All that these guys in Cakewalk management do is to irritate the previous loyal customers. It’s so unbelievable that seems to be some kind of internal sabotage.

BandLab doesn’t give away its retired DAW software to use because the point was never to give away free software altruistically; it was to use it as a means to bring people into the company’s ecosystem, where they would — hopefully — buy things (loops, plugins, sample libraries, services, musical instruments, etc.) . Forcing the former Cakewalk by Bandlab users to adopt Sonar pushes them into their actively supported freemium product. I think the strategy wasn’t well thought out for the former Cakewalk users / DAW users. Bandlab has done just about everything they could do to alienate them and make them question BandLab’s commitment to Sonar. Anyone still making projects in Sonar right now should understand that the future is very uncertain for that DAW. Bandlab has burned too many bridges with the market to make a comeback. It’s clear that it’s failing.

Consider this. Bandlab was recently valued at $425 million. They have around 100 million Bandlab software users. I would bet that they have far less than 100,000 users of Cakewalk by Bandlab plus the paid subscription and free versions of Cakewalk Sonar. I would not be surprised if they had less than 50,000 — far less — Cakewalk Sonar subscribers. Even less than 20,000. It’s hard to justify continuing to develop that product if they don’t see growth, and I doubt that they’re seeing growth — in fact, I’d put money on it that they’re seeing significant decline. The bottom line is, they’re certainly not going to offer options for those using Windows 7. Bandlab has only one product that doesn’t run on Windows and Mac, Sonar, and they have stated that they have no intention to create a Mac version, and yet a significant percentage of their Bandlab customers use the Mac. That’s exactly why Next is compatible with Windows and Mac. Just this fact alone about Sonar tells you that Bandlab’s management doesn’t foresee Sonar as a tool that’s critical to their brand portfolio.  But the mismanagement of Sonar is easily a brand failure. There’s nothing tricky about discerning that. The only question is how long before they bail on it and try something different. Next is the product that makes sense for them. But I don’t know agree with the logic in branding it Cakewalk. That was — I won’t try to soften this — dumb. It should be renamed Bandlab Next.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

2

[jude77]

They just killed Cakewalk in windows 7. Thats why Reaper is becoming more and more interesting for me.  Why not do as ToneBoosters that in suport page you can download the old plugins that fully work in old systems with no restrictions.

 

All that these guys in Cakewalk management do is to irritate the previous loyal customers. It’s so unbelievable that seems to be some kind of internal sabotage.

Very much agree.  Plus, I think I’ll forward a copy of this on to Waves.

 

2

[Peter DeLegge]

This statement made this week by Ashwin, Bandlab’s social media manager, on Bandlab’s subreddit says it all — this is why continuing to use Sonar free is a very bad idea — as you won’t be able to access your project files with Sonar at some point (likely within a year or two):

“We are following the free to use, pay to upgrade model akin to BandLab Studio’s features and this will mostly likely be the way moving forward for both Sonar and Next. That being said, we can’t say for sure that these products will remain permanently free as things are subject to change in the bussiness [sic].”

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

2

[swijaya]

New expiration date.

1

[William Heins]

I used Sonar for years starting with Sonar 8!

Somewhere around Sonar Platinum the program would forget my interface every time I opened it and I would have to reload it…I was on an Echo Layla3G so not a USB interface but I think they made changes under the hood for people having trouble USB interfaces and it negatively affected mine. Moved on to CbB but saw the writing on the wall and started testing…first up was Samplitude Pro X4 Suite! Samplitude is a powerful program and blows CbB out of the water as it’s set up for more a professional use…but it was very awkward to use 😉 I bided my time and a good crossgrade sale to Cubase came up and I decided to check it out. I had use Cubase years ago and was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to use again. Everything is straightforward and well engineered. I switched 100%! Soon after a sale came up with a crossgrade to Nuendo and I jumped on it!

Now I own Cubase Pro, Nuendo, Halion, Wavelab Pro, and Dorico Pro 🙂 Looking back I enjoyed my Sonar years but I would never go back, it’s nice to use software made by a manufacturer who is all about music whether a DAW, notation, synths, etc.

It always bothered me that Cakewalk never tried to appeal to serious musicians and studios, it always felt like a very good hobbyist program.

A lot of demo stuff here- https://www.reverbnation.com/daylight

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