From Don Williams...
As the creator of Overture, I have been a software developer for over 30 years in the music software industry. Before Overture I wrote Master Tracks Pro and Encore. During this time I have seen several music software companies fold that I was associated with, Gibson being the culprit of two of them.
I am deeply saddened at Gibson's decision and feel bad for all of the loyal users fo so many years. If you know your Cakewalk history, Overture was published by Cakewalk in 1999-2000. I give you this background, so you'll understand this long post.
NOTE: For the record Sonar's staff view was not spun off into Overture as some have claimed on this forum. Overture was around long before Sonar and even Pro Audio 9.
To start, the people at Cakewalk, Alex, Keith, Noel, etc. worked very hard to make things work, but Gibson crippled their efforts and this is how I know first-hand.
A little over a year ago, Cakewalk approached me with the idea of putting better notation in Sonar. At that time, I told them my schedule was full for the next six months putting out fires from a newly released version of Overture 5. I had spent five years rewriting old code and due to the major rewrite, there were many issues to deal with.
Last spring two of us flew to Boston to meet with Cakewalk to worked out a deal to put very, very, good notation is Sonar and add some of my upcoming products in the Cakewalk store. The notation would contain 80% of what Overture can do and was to have full integration with Sonar. We agreed to terms, everybody walked away happy, and Cakewalk presented the deal to Gibson. After a month or so, Gibson turned it down, claiming they would have too much financial liability. After the disappointment, I met with a Cakewalk person at Summer NAMM and I agreed to worked out a new deal limiting Gibson's liability. Cakewalk liked the new deal and all of us were very excited, thinking Gibson will not turn down the new terms. To our shock Gibson said no. Cakewalk knew the importance of the deal to Sonar and was left feeling helpless. I felt bad for the guys at Cakewalk and on my own decided to help Cakewalk by offering to put a free light version in Sonar at no cost to Cakewalk or Gibson and we would sell an upgrade that provided full notation for a very small price. This was a no brainer, right. Guess what! Nothing ever happened, and I even have an alpha version working.
To move on, after reading your posts and I want to say that I understand your frustrations. I know that money is a huge concern for most musicians and having to switch to a new DAW is a very big decision. After talking to a long time Cakewalk person yesterday it was suggested that I write a post and make an offer that may help.
Right now, we are having an Epic sale through December 1st of Overture 5 for $75. This low price is in no way a reflection of problems here and Sonic Scores is not in financial trouble and I have always believed in affordable prices for good software. In fact, next year will be my best year in twenty-five years. If any of you Sonar users would like to purchase Overture 5, I will make an offer to you for $50. This is not a subscription price and is the full version.
If you have not looked at Overture 5, it is a DAW like/Notation hybrid. Within the next year we plan to add audio tracks. We release a new update everyone to three months and always include new features that were requested by the users. As for your Sonar files there is not much I can do until the audio tracks are implemented but you can export your scores as a MusicXML and import them into Overture if they contain MIDI tracks.
I apologize for the long-winded post but really wanted to you to know it hurts to see such a good company killed by gross mismanagement and that it is no way a reflection of Cakewalks’ personnel.
Here is a direct link to the store: https://sonicscores.com/product/overture-5/ Use code "sonar50" at the checkout to get $50 special offer price.Thanks for listening,
Don Williams