That is 'one' of the reasons why SONAR was always just another serf and never a King

No, there will never be anything new and exciting for Cakewalk.
 
BandLab bought the product and are paying their developers solely to tinker with the code until every bug is eliminated and to implement an endless series of minor cosmetic and convenience features that are unlikely to ever interest anyone searching for a modern, capable DAW.
 
Their reason for doing this? To promote their new web-based DAW by making a mockery of the very idea and paradigm of standalone, computer-based DAWs. Cakewalk was one of the first, and by parading around what is left of this once-proud program so that all may see how the new way of doing things has prevailed, they are demonstrating the victory of the new over the old.
 
"Oh, we kept Cakewalk alive" they can say, "but there was no interest! We couldn't even give it away for free!"
 
Well of course there wasn't when all you did was allow us to tart up its track colors as if it were some pathetic old painted lady of the night! And allow theming of the Piano Roll to resemble the darkness of the tomb itself!
 
Forget the new "features" that come in every month. Those are just a distraction from their true agenda. They bought Cakewalk and resurrected it so they could kill it again, deader than before.

Sigh at this stuff. Seriously. I'll leave you guys to it.

Lord Tim
Sigh at this stuff. Seriously. I'll leave you guys to it.

+100 to this.


Sometimes I think nothing will make some people happy.
 
Seriously, put this in perspective. If you go through the history of what Gibson did with Cakewalk, you'll see it was reduced from over 100 staff to the bare minimum before eventually closing it down. I suspect all the big features in the past were all done when there were 100's of staff to work on them, and were planned well in advance - but of course it wasn't making money.
 
Now BandLab has taken over, but with a much smaller development crew. These guys are having to:

• Work on new Cakewalk features and bugs
• Support all the issues people are having
• Finish off the new forum
• Get all the other products ready (pro channels, synths etc), remembering that apart from tips, there's no "shop" on the BandLab site, so all that has to be developed & integrated too.
• etc, etc....

 
I think its great that we're getting ANY new features at this point in time given the amount of other work that is going on in the background.
 
Anyone who has worked in a software development environment will appreciate the amount of time it takes to develop and test major new features, so to expect major features to appear month to month is frankly unrealistic. 
 
The big features you're seeing in other DAW's will have started development on those 9 to 18 months ago.
 
So please give the Cakewalk guys a break. I'm pretty sure significant features will appear, but don't expect them in the immediate future.
 

msmcleod

Lord Tim
Sigh at this stuff. Seriously. I'll leave you guys to it.

+100 to this.


Sometimes I think nothing will make some people happy.
 
Seriously, put this in perspective. If you go through the history of what Gibson did with Cakewalk, you'll see it was reduced from over 100 staff to the bare minimum before eventually closing it down.

 
same happened with roland ownership - neither of these big owners could help make cakewalk profitable, and both offered the opportunity of hardware integration (roland/edirol and tascam)
 

I suspect all the big features in the past were all done when there were 100's of staff to work on them, and were planned well in advance - but of course it wasn't making money.

i don't think there were ever hundreds of staff!! but yeah, for whatever reason, cakewalk couldn't make money, and that's quite important when running a business...

Anyone who has worked in a software development environment will appreciate the amount of time it takes to develop and test major new features, so to expect major features to appear month to month is frankly unrealistic.

indeed, that expectation came directly from cakewalk marketing, and even bandlab have announced "an aggressive feature development roadmap ahead" so.... what gives?
 
as it is, we're unlikely to find out what really happened over the last 10 years or so, but i think greg saw the writing on the wall and sold up while he still could, and since then it's been a try this/try that strategy
 
/fwiw

TerraSin
Get rid of CAL scripts in favour of something more user friendly.
Expression Maps.
 
Those are two things off the top of my head I'd love see done in Cakewalk.

I don't know how feasible it actually is, but the answer to that could be integration with Pure Data. For those who are not familiar with it, it is the free cousin of Max/MSP, designed by the same people. It is an object oriented audio, midi and video programming environment just like Max/MSP, though less pretty. A simple VST wrapper to run Pure Data patches within Cakelab would instantly add a lot of functionality, and possibly bring over a lot of new users from the Pure Data community.

JoseC.

TerraSin
Get rid of CAL scripts in favour of something more user friendly.
Expression Maps.
 
Those are two things off the top of my head I'd love see done in Cakewalk.

I don't know how feasible it actually is, but the answer to that could be integration with Pure Data. For those who are not familiar with it, it is the free cousin of Max/MSP, designed by the same people. It is an object oriented audio, midi and video programming environment just like Max/MSP, though less pretty. A simple VST wrapper to run Pure Data patches within Cakelab would instantly add a lot of functionality, and possibly bring over a lot of new users from the Pure Data community.

Sound On Sound has a very informative article about Pure Data:  https://www.soundonsound....pure-data-introduction

pwalpwal
[...]
as it is, we're unlikely to find out what really happened over the last 10 years or so, but i think greg saw the writing on the wall and sold up while he still could, and since then it's been a try this/try that strategy
/fwiw

The problem is that we are moving into a monotone homogeneous future, propelled by the consolidation of power made possible through technology. Winner takes all, and there is less and less left over for the runner ups. We get less variety, not more. 
 
In other words there was little that could be made differently to make a difference this way or that. What will be interesting to see is how BandLab and Meng will be able to do in this environment. For different reasons I have more faith in what he and BandLab will be able to achieve, than what Roland and Gibson managed. 

It would be nice to hear what Bandlab and Meng  have to say  about adding a Chord Track / Arrangement Track like Studio one 4 has or if it can even be add to cakewalk....hummmm

I only ever bought Sonar from Cakewalk.  No, I lie!  Back in 2010 I bought Dimension LE, but that is now included with CbB (as it was with Sonar X3).  I have to say I'm still curious though.  When are we going to find out the next step in this acquisition regarding products other than the DAW?
 
John B.