Ooops

This is terrible news!  I'm sorry for the Cakewalk employees as well.  
I sure hope there's some way back in the game for Cakewalk and their staff.  This program is not the best at everything, but it sure is the best 'all around' program.  

HelRazor
Sounds like a great time to look deeper into Ableton.  Or FL Studio.

Probably Ableton for the live stuff, and possibly Studio One for the mixing and mastering...

I believe the only way that cakewalk can survive forever is: It must be Purchased by MICROSOFT.

sharke
I'm hoping that Cakewalk staff will at this point be floating ideas to build a new DAW from scratch. Isn't that how Studio One and Bitwig got started - developers on the teams of other DAW's going off on their own? I'm sure Noel & co. must have felt frustrated and restricted at times by Sonar's ancient legacy - building off of old code, hemmed in by the fact that you can make changes to a DAW but not drastic changes. Maybe this is a chance for them to build the DAW they always wanted Sonar to be but couldn't quite get there on top of legacy code.

I like the way you think!  Just compare this to the acquisition of Tracktion by Mackie.  The devs re-acquired Tracktion and brought the product back from the ashes!!!  http://mackie.com/blog/tracktion-has-new-home
 
https://www.tracktion.com/
 
Keep the faith!!! 

clintmartin

reza
I believe the only way that cakewalk can survive forever is: It must be Purchased by MICROSOFT.

Let it die then.

I agree.  Micro$haft purchased Skype a few years ago and systematically ever since began to undermine support for other platforms to the point where the original skype servers and dedicated skype phones and similar hardware no longer function at all.
 
Personally though, I still have an original Cakewalk Home Studio 9.01 which I purchased for $150 CDN way back in 1998 and to this very day works swimmingly under WINE Windows Emulator in Linux.
 
While it may lack the Audio and VSTi features of today's software, it DOES NOT phone home to mother for permission and still lays down some mean MIDI tracks.
 
But I agree.  I'd rather see Cakewalk die and be reborn as something  different and better in the future than let the Windows Idiots get their greasy paws on it.
 
At least for now as long as it runs under WINE I can still manage to read and export my WRK files and for the time being that's all that I need. :D :D :D
 
So Gibson!  Here's mud in yer eye for killing everyone's music for the sake of making a lousy buck :P
 
Gary ;)
 

dubdisciple

HelRazor
Sounds like a great time to look deeper into Ableton.  Or FL Studio.

Imho those choices would be lower among the tiers if sonar replacements. Fine products but workflow for both is so different than sonar that it woukd be awkward. Even most people who use ( unless they are strictly hip-hop) these programs tend to use morw traditional DAWs too. FL and Ableton arw superior for beat making but clunky to the new user, particularly the acoustic musician, for mixing.

I agree.  Ableton, FL Studio, and such may make fine secondary DAWs, but for mixing and mastering on Windows I would probably prefer Studio One or Cubase.

sharke
Gibson is trash, there's no other way of putting it. I do not wish Gibson all the best, I'd like to see them go under at this point. Harsh? Maybe. But they are not a good company and haven't been for years. This is worth a read. 
 
http://gawker.com/gibson-...lar-company-1713072808

Yes but honestly this is not a big surprise. In the last 6 months, there were no plans for any big update and only minor updates every month. I just guess it has been too hard taking market share from the other daws - one needs *a lot* of licenses sold every year to sustain a decent development team.
 
I don't think it really matters who took over Cakewalk after Roland sold it, the company would have needed to inject a lot of cash over a long time to bring some new competitive features to gain market share over the other DAWs. 
 
However, I think the Cakewalk team did an amazing job with the monthly updates, probably working with a relatively small dev team too.
 
They tried the subscription model but I guess it failed somehow. Then Gibson is a hardware company, they might not have enough software history to understand that it is a totally different business.
 
What I do hope is that someone will take over the IP, rebrand it and refresh it otherwise Sonar will become a sad pile of code. Microsoft has been focused on creators, they probably could grab Sonar for a good price right now and make it a good asset in their store. Anyway, someone taking over the code would be a nice outcome.
 
Anyway sad day, trying to figure out between Studio One and Cubase right now...
 
And good luck to all the Cakewalk employees. Quick guess is that they shouldn't have any issues finding other opportunities. This was an amazing product.

Soundwise
Can't believe this has happened. Not gonna buy any other DAW as long as Sonar keeps on working.

Sonar is not going to quit tomorrow, but it's probably time to export your projects to file formats that can be imported to other DAWs...

This is indeed sad news. I'm almost current with my install. I started to download the latest updates and the servers must be overloaded. Ha.
 
Cake is and has been a good investment for me. I certainly hope that is it picked up and improved.

I'm not sure I like the idea of Microsoft owning it. If that happens I suspect it will become a truly subscription based product and that would suck.
I wish all the employees that have just lost their jobs the very best and thanks for your hard work.
 

Final thoughts...
 
Sad news indeed, best wishes to the Cakewalk team! Been a happy Cakewalk customer for almost 20 years!
 
I think I saw the writing on the wall with Craig's departure.  :-(
 
I really hope the Cakewalk devs can pull this thing outta the ditch!!! 
 
 

First off I would like to say that how much this sucks. The folks at Cakewalk have done a fantastic job at providing amazing software, that allows musicians all over the world to create their music. I have been a Cakewalk supporter since I first bought Cakewalk pro audio 9, and I have used previous version and it has always been a great program. I purchased Sonar Platinum with lifetime updates over a year ago, I was a little hesitant to be honest at first because it was a large sum of money and I had to sacrifice some in order to obtain this program. I have been very happy with Sonar it is in my opinion the best DAW out there. I am extremely disappointed in Gibson by this action. To me I feel like they just took our money and is running away with it. I say this because in the world of DAW's Sonar is among the top in use. Why take away something that people are buying and are using. To be honest why Gibson is the owner of Cakewalk is beyond me, and if I am being completely transparent, I have never been owned any of the Gibson products since their inception, because I have always leaned towards Fender since I plat guitar. This action certainly is not winning me over. If this is how Gibson treats it's customers I certainly won't be buying any of their products in the future. What's that old saying "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."
 
I am no lawyer, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if at some point Gibson faces some legal issues over their lifetime update policy from customers that paid for this service only for it to be taken away.
 
I can only hope that Gibson makes it right with customers and doesn't just kicked them to the curb.