All in favor of not changing Cakewalk by bandlab say Aye!

HI EVERYBODY. I created this new thread for those of us who do not want any changes made to Cakewalk by Bandlab for now, and I'll explain why.
 
Please read, then give feedback. Be blunt, but be kind. 
 
I want to thank Bandlab for saving Sonar and giving it its new name, CBB (cakewalk by Bandlab) without changing its features. I currently have over a dozen unfinished unmixed unmastered projects on my drive and am worried Bandlab might accidentally or prematurely change how the DAW works before I get to finish them.
 
I want to say that after using CBB for 2 weeks now, I have successfully regained use of all my carryover plugins. I have 87. All my soft synths work now too. I'm happy. I paid $500.00 for them all before Bandlab bought the company. I don't want any of them changed, discontinued, or blocked. I don't care if they're no longer supported or developed further. As long as the'yre on my hard drive, they'll continue to work. (For those of you who can't find your plugins, check out my other posts).
 
I've been reading all the improvement suggestions. If you ask 10000 people for their opinion, you're gonna get 10000 different opinions. Major compliments to you Meng for posting the thread though. Had to be done, right? Now you know. 1000 people want to take you in 1000 different directions. My guess is you probably want to start making your new acquisition profitable and not get dragged into a product development quagmire.
 
So To help you, Meng, make a decision that benefits the majority without alienating the minority, (and start making some money to pay your employees)...
 
It seems to me the requests fall into 3 main categories.
 
50% of you are asking for a "new feature" CBB already has. No disrespect. Please don't be offended. I was one of you. You, in all probability already have the improvement you are asking for available to you within the DAW right now, or at least something reasonably close. You just haven't discovered how to use it. CBB may currently be free, but it's a SUPER DEEP DAW. You see, CBB is essentially Sonar Platinum, which was built on the legacy of X3 producer, which was built on X2, X1, Producer 8, etc. all the way back to Cakewalk Pro Audio series and even further back than that. Cakewalk's method of feature development and improvement was, is and should always to continue to be ADDING new features, not removing them. It has 30 years worth of features already in it that it will take months or even years for most of us to learn. I highly recommend watching every you tube video you can muster the patience to watch. ESPECIALLY the old ones from Cake TV. Just because they're talking about X1 or X3 doesn't mean they're no longer relevant. Quite the contrary. CBB includes everything X1 and X3 had. I've been using Cakewalk for over ten years now, and I still learn something new every single time, USUALLY BY ACCIDENT. I humbly suggest spending less time in the forums and more time hands on. Don't make the mistake I always used to make and ask Cakewalk to fix something that was never broken.
 
20% of you are asking Bandlab to emulate other DAWS you like, or may have recently switched to while Cakewalk was "dead" for four months. Cakewalk is not Studio One, Cubase, Logic, Reaper, Garageband, Bitwig, or ProTools. Cakewalk is Cakewalk. If you don't like the way it works, use something else. Nobody will fault you for it. I've tried other DAWs and they each have their own appeal, but I'm Cakewalk all the way. The more I learn its deep functions, hot keys and tricks, the more I realize what a catastrophe it will be to cater to the requests of you 20%. You can't just download CBB, use it for less than 1000 work hours and expect the rest of us to change our entire work flow to accommodate you. That's insanity. LOL
 
That leaves the rest of us. The 10 %. The wise. We know Bandlab can't possibly make everyone happy. More importantly, we know that for every change ("improvement") Bandlab makes to this perfectly good CBB, 1000 people are going to love it, 1000 people are going to hate it, 5000 will be indifferent, but all 10000 will be stuck with it. 
 
Meng. Don't change anything within the DAW itself. Keep it free. Think in terms of upgrades, not updates.
 
An idea:
Why not use Bandlab assistant like Gibson used Command Center, but instead of monthly free updates and paid DAW subscription, reverse it. Let the current version remain free and sell new features as upgrades as you develop them quarterly. Don't force it on everyone to please the minority. If they want the DAW changed, make them pay for it.
 
For example, lets start with an easy one. There are 2000 people who want to keep working with Dimension Pro and Rapture. They want to use it with sound center soft synth and have suggested improving the piano roll or matrix view or whatever but are willing to pay because they'll get more sounds and a new piano roll and matrix view. Bandlab has decided there were enough requests; they've chosen to develop it as an ADD ON upgrade. It's a simple download. In Sepember of this year they can purchase it for $99.00 through bandlab assistant or command center and the other 8000 users wont be affected.
 
Now a harder one. 1000 people asked for Surround sound or video integration improvement and want a native control surface, but like their current cakewalk software just fine. In Jan 2018 they'll be able to purchase a new hardware from Bandlab in partnership with Roland that comes with a software upgrade enabling 5.1 surround export audio and some Bluedio 12 driver headphones for $999.
 
Meng, please consider re-partnering with some hardware companies that supported Cakewalk before, like Roland, Behringer, and Nektar and reassure them you're not going to be constantly changing the architecture of the DAW so they regain confidence and invest time and capital to integrate CBB into their future product development. I have a design for a control surface I would love to share with you, but I can't redesign it for every change you make to the platform and neither can Roland, Behringer, or Nektar.
 
Study how Roland did it in the 2000s. Paid upgrades, not free monthly updates and forced subscriptions. That's how you, Meng, in my opinion, should go forward. Any future features should be sold for a reasonable cost to those who want them bad enough to pay for them... 
 
But for the near future, save yourself the headache and leave the DAW alone for at least the rest of 2018.
 
Your biggest fan,
                             Mickey Monster
 
Cakewalk by Bandlab, Sonar Platinum, Kontakt player 5, Dimension Pro, Rapture Session, Addictive Drums 2,
HP pavilion intel quad core 16 GB 3.2 Mhz touchscreen notebook, Windows 10 home edition, QWERTY keypad
Fender Squire P bass, Gibson Epiphone  SG, Behringer UCA222, V-Amp 3, Sampson G-track USB condenser mic
No interface, no control surface, no midi keyboard controllers, no monitors, no other DAW software, no regrets

Nay

Why improve Cakewalk, shouldn't we all just be using TTS-1 100% of the time? Other VST synths are so unnecessary. Why make things like Rapture Pro when TTS-1 is more than enough. #TotalUnrelentingSarcasm

The points made by the OP are good ones,  I like his thought process.  But I have a lot of confidence in Meng at this point.  It's his ball, he gets to decided and I'm pretty confident in his decisions.

mickeymonster
I want to say that after using CBB for 2 weeks now, I have successfully regained use of all my carryover plugins. I have 87. All my soft synths work now too. I'm happy. I paid $500.00 for them all before Bandlab bought the company. I don't want any of them changed, discontinued, or blocked. I don't care if they're no longer supported or developed further. As long as the'yre on my hard drive, they'll continue to work. (For those of you who can't find your plugins, check out my other posts).

 
If for some reason Cakewalk by BandLab and SONAR Platinum ceased to exist and were even wiped from your computer, in all likelihood your collection of 87 plug-ins, if they are VST's and VSTi's would work just fine with dozens of other DAW's and standalone hosts.
 
There is no reason to halt development of the particular DAW that you use just because it changed hands and the new owners changed the installer and you had to get under the hood to tell it where on your system to look for your previously-installed plug-ins.
 
I am a beta tester and a plug-in hoarder who downloads and tries and sometimes reviews just about every free plug-in that is announced on KVR. When I downloaded and installed CbB I had over 600 3rd-party plug-ins already on my system for Cakewalk to discover, and of course it didn't do that by itself, but I immediately found the Preferences button and told it what directories I have my VST's in and WHOOSH!
 
So don't worry about your plug-in collection. Even if you bought them from Cakewalk, I was using Cakewalk VST's in a non-Cakewalk DAW before Gibson threw the company over the railings. AFAIK, they are not tied to SONAR or CbB. If I am wrong about that, enlighten me.

msmcleod
That along side Scott Garrigus's excellent Sonar X3 Power should cover the vast majority of the functionality available.

Thanks very much, Mark! Glad to hear you're still enjoying the book.
New tutorials coming to this channel soon... subscribe free and click the bell icon to be notified when new videos are posted... https://www.youtube.com/S...gus?sub_confirmation=1
 
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://www.garrigus.com
* Cakewalk SONAR Video Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/u...gus?sub_confirmation=1
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Publisher of the DigiFreq music recording newsletter: http://www.digifreq.com/
* Publisher of the NewTechReview consumer tech newsletter: http://www.newtechreview.com/

Wow....50% of us are asking for features that already exist.  Very interesting made up stat there, Mickeymonster.  Most of us asking for features are very familiar with the program and are asking for features that do not yet exist, or do not exist in the way that people are asking.  There is no harm in asking for features.  Everybody asking for features understands that not all features are possible, or sensible.  But yeah, I don't see 50% of people asking for things that already exists.
 
Another thing, we all know Cakewalk isn't "another DAW" and don't expect it to ever become another DAW, but there is no harm and no foul in asking for an option that may appear in another DAW.
 
To make a solid point, I can almost certainly bet they would never change CbB to the point where it would make your previous work invalid.  Your work is safe.  So don't be asking for them not to change it.  That's just silly. 

I tend to thrive in change environment.  It challenges me to be a bit better each day.  By the way, I appreciate the collaborative spirit in which you post.
 
I am not a huge believer in fixed hardware layout, after so many years of visual software use.  I do appreciate it, as I have a full featured set in the presonus CS18, RM32 and S one 3 package I own, but even hardware companies are changing over time. I use this toolset mostly for live work.  Presonus added a different eq system which causes the CS to not have the required knobs - and I really like the change.  Thankfully, it was simple for me - I run Sone3 at the mix position - I can run any VST I want, and work it on the PC touch screen.
 
The improvement I look for is no longer hardware or interface bound.  Simply 'that which keeps me more in the creative stage of music writing and production'. Things like templates, lenses and the like.  To that end,  you would have to pry my multi touch monitor out of my cold dead hands.  If Cakewalk, or presonus or MOTU changes (motu has gone touch),  then I instantly gain the research benefit of those clever minds, that challenges my way of thinking right away.  I am OK with not taking changes for a while too. 
 
Touch screen is different - it takes a bit of getting used to tacitly.  The one other small problem is position - both ergonomically ( its a wider format than the CS) AND that position can reflect monitor energy in interesting ways.   
 
Its a different way of thinking, and it works for me - your mileage may vary. 
 
NET NET - nay.
 
Take care...
 
LL  

With all respect.... BIG NOOOOOOO

Undoubtedly there are going to be feature requests that won't make best use of the program. Undoubtedly not everyone will use all functions of the software. Undoubtedly there have been a few less than stellar changes made. I say a few because the vast majority of enhancements have been very good.
 
Change is only driven by the desire to improve. Improvement helps us all.

everyone so far has been very polite......But I will be honest
That is one of the most ridiculous posts I have ever read here. Also filled with much BS and made up numbers and percentages.
Big fat NOPE!