The news about CB was out in main section of the FLS forum on Friday 6 April. 
The the tread was quickly pushed into oblivion by totalitærian moderators, as off-topic.
 
I took the liberty to paste a cut from what one of the fanatics have to say about his CB experience ... 
 <..]
Re: New free Sonar Platinum! Is this a dream or a nightmare??
be prepared to have bandlab assistant greet you every time you boot windows.. and if you remove the autostart.. the next time you run the program it will replace the autostart again.. without asking.. it also shows double in task manager..

after downloading and installing.. it gives that cakewalk is in demo mode and that it's need to login to bandlab assistant.. though it's already logged in..
tried reinstalling.. same thing.. so not sure what is up with that on it.. have read of others having similar issue with no reply from bandlab on it.. and where others have no issue with the install.. similar issues mentioned on a plethora of different forums talking about it..

at least it gives cakewalk view in demo mode.. hadn't looked it over in a long time.. since it was staying in demo mode.. I didn't give it much play.. but what I did view of it.. makes me like fl studio even more.. deleting

frighteningly enough one of the first files installed is titled abaddon -the name of the angel over the locusts that ascend from the bottomless pit in prophecies from various ancient scriptures, including the bible.. and the filenames and reg entries in various places are riddled with dark titles and the number 666  .. pretty frightening..

after reviewing it, Ardour now looks more inviting and less complicated, open source, no nags.. and is also cross platform, fast and FREE
http://www.ardour.org/
[...> 
It's a rough world out there ... 
 
[EDIT] : This was just meant as a worst case sample review of CB in other forums.
Personally I had my Internet security system enabled during install, and just recently did a total system scan. Nothing. No false positives. No warnings. No nothing what so ever. Windows Defender is of course out of action.
I believe I'm using the same paid security solution as the Pentagon, so it should be reasonably safe in my opinion. 

It would seem the sad truth is they needed to test things out in the real world somehow before they released that assistant app. They might have turned off a lot of potential new users with the first version.  
 My first reaction after the Assistant kept popping up was, screw this, this is typical BS of Shareware freebies.  I immediately un-installed both the assistant and CbB. 
 
I started a thread to announce this too. I was quickly answered by Noel and assured they were dealing with these glitches which they did. But then, how many people out there did the same as me and are not on a forum so they will still believe the software is invasive. 
 
I am always looking for freeware for little chores like video convertions and if I run into things like that Assistant I move on. 

fresh101

pwalpwal



while i appreciate the enthusiasm, the above is just not right -

• FL has been around for 20 years and Live since 2001
• FL, Live and SO, are popular because they do what they do do very well
• SO has benefited from being the newcomer, not because of "vocal users" or a "surge of new users" but because it's a totally new app built by ex-cubase devs based on years of experience and prototyping - they know how to architect this stuff and had a long-term roadmap from the get go- imagine if the cakewalk devs had that luxury!

FLStudio aka FRUITY LOOPS was just a toy till about version 4 and was a joke in the industry by any serious user for a long time. That's why they changed the name. To help remove the cheap toy stigma. As it's base grew they continued to develop it heavily. It's grown tremendously in the past 5 or so years. It may have been around for 20 yrs but it wasn't even part of the conversation till about 8 years ago. Live and S1 are also very young when compared to Cakewalk, Protools, Cubase.
 
When I was first picking a DAW, Opcode Studio Vision(also killed by Gibson), Digital Performer, Digital Orchestrator, Logic and a few others were other viable options.
 
My point is this. When the "Which DAW should I get?" question pops up.(which I've heard plenty over the years) Not enough of us are saying Cakewalk. That's got to change. Now that price is no longer an issue this is the best time.

Fruity Loops was never "just a toy", it was also a fun creative tool. They changed their name due to a conflict over trademarks with Kellogs in the US. [EDIT]
 
As the situation now stands now with CB, I think it is to early to start promoting it ... it needs more ironing and removal of wrinkles ... people are not forgiving ... and it needs to be rock solid before pushed. I don't see that is the case yet. 
 

Fruity Loops was never "just a toy"

iRelevant
Fruity Loops was never "just a toy"

Mmmmmm....Yeah...It kinda was.
 

I told the people in my circle. Their reaction was the same as every other time I've tried to convince them that Sonar was better than what they were using.

Cactus Music
"Considering Cakewalk was, if not THE most bloated software on the planet, releasing it stripped down is a nice change. No more of those tons of plugs every update. 

Oh well, one man's "bloat" is another man's well-fed Alpaca.

fresh101

Fruity Loops was never "just a toy"

iRelevant
Fruity Loops was never "just a toy"

Mmmmmm....Yeah...It kinda was.
 

What you are showing here is ironically the MIDI only prototype circulating the Interweb in the latter part of '97.
The marketing was "lone independent developer takes on the corporations" with shareware. "The only shareware worth paying for". [EDIT]
 
The marketing image is still that of the under-dog, [EDIT]... but have become a main-stream DAW years ago.  They focus on the outsider "just a toy" status, and love it. And people like you are their marketing agents ;)
 
[EDIT]
 
PS. I appreciate your initiative, but think it still is to early to make a push for CB. 
 

you should promote cakewalk by highlighting its good points, not by trashing the competition

Good stuff.

pwalpwal
you should promote cakewalk by highlighting its good points, not by trashing the competition

Sound advise, thank you.