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