not good
[edit] that is not to say CW intentionally did this, as is somewhat being speculated here. Anderton said he'd be there, so perhaps it is the storm (my speculation)...

scottpatrickbass
JonD, if you are a moderator using a standard account I completely understand and respect your calm and mitigating comments...

Sorry, not a moderator.  I guess my calm and mitigating comments have no place here.
 
Scott, I get where you're coming from, really.   If you reread my entire first post, you'll see that I said I'm just as baffled at their unmanned booth at NAMM. 
 
But if I understood you correctly, it wasn't just for CW, there wasn't anyone for Gibson either, correct?  If that's the case, then it seems to me it's not so much a CW issue than it is a (larger) Gibson issue.  Or did I misunderstand your original post?

I've spent many years going to NAMM (not for the last few years though) and Cakewalk historically had a full on booth presence. And not just in a line of barely partitioned vendors in the "low rent" areas, a major presentation booth, video screens, demos, many staff, etc. I still wear my Sonar t-shirts picked up every year.
 
Obviously, somewhere in the food chain, a decision was made to not have a substantial presence this year. That decision could have been based on any number of factors to which we are not privy, and those factors could be anything from Cakewalk (not Gibson) assessing that NAMM wouldn't provided sufficient bang for the buck, to all the key people who would best represent the product had family emergencies.
 
There's no point in speculating. If Cakewalk wants to share why, they will. My (it's just a) view is that for a store owner (I'm not one, but know some), the last freaking place I'd want to get a demo experience of Sonar is at NAMM. Loud and relentless total sensory and information overload. Hard to concentrate. And even if I saw a demo and could ask questions, a DAW like Sonar, Cubase, etc. is so complex, the demo would barely touch the surface.
 
Demo aside, as a user and fan, I would like to connect with the bakers at NAMM and see them have a presence. But I'm sure as heck not upset with them! :)

I would like to hear from other users who were there or are there today. As noted, and this is only based on the vids I've seen of Cake at NAMM and the word of other users, they generally go balls out (Cake that is).
 
So perhaps yesterday was a bad day. Maybe something happened and the kids weren't there in full force.
 
Perhaps today they are rockin' it.
 
But yeah... this is definitely NOT the time for Cake to be getting shy. They need to be screaming from the rooftops about everything that's been done the past couple years to crush the couple years previous.
 
Gibson are marketing genie-arses so this news is quite surprising and the Bakers are insanely enthusiastic buggers themselves who I think would show up barefooted and half naked to show off their wares.
 
Sumthin' strange is up (if this is troof).
 
Maybe they heard Bapu wasn't coming yesterday so stayed in their hotel rooms.

Well, I was curious about the cakewalk presence so I watched a couple of Gibson NAMM videos On YouTube by third party sellers. In one, while the two guitars dudes talked to a Gibson guitar guy you could see the monitor with Sonar on it in the background. All by itself for the plus 10  minutes i watched all the lovely new guitars being demoed. Nary a soul by the monitor. I don't care whose responsibility it is, somebody should be doing something!
i think maybe we get the picture here at Sonar is exciting and on the move. Perhaps that is not the case really. The people slaving away on the code deserve better.

scottfa
The people slaving away on the code deserve better.

They got better. They didn't have to suffer through 4 days of answering the same questions, literally 1,000 + times. :)

Almost forgot.... I then went to the prosonus studio one site. Presentations  all day from 11:00 until 4:30, different presentation every half hour.
Again, the Sonar coders deserve better.

I notice that almost all software vendors have backed off of NAMM.
 
A few still have nice booths, but most are gone or are just very small displays shared with other vendors. For instance Celemony used to have a huge showy booth 10 years ago, not any more.
 
I figured there must be some other show besides NAMM for software vendors these days.
 
The display at the Gibson room last year (2015) had a copy of Sonar running, but it was mostly to show off the Les Paul speakers. I asked to talk to a Cakewalk rep but it just made the Gibson salesmen mad at me. I thought it meant the end of Sonar, but I was totally wrong, it seems to be very healthy with these monthly updates in spite of not being a NAMM fixture.
 

Yes, software is just very difficult to do there, and in my view, not so essential for established products. A new innovative software would benefit, and I can see how Presonus would have a presence, excellent upstart that it is, because it's still getting traction.
 
I'm curious about the Cubase presence this year, since we're talkin' about such things.

 
Very lonely Sonar at NAMM   (@ 6:15)
 
Speaking of Craig...