Whistlekiller
The irony of the 'expense' thing for me is that years ago, before Cakewalk and other DAWs became available, it would have cost me a mortgage and some to be able to compose and record the number of songs I have to date using a recording studio with the same multitrack capability as Cakewalk has given me. As a result of the DAW revolution the revenue stream to existing studios must have dropped considerably. This doesn't mean to say that the people who invested in DAWs are any less talented than those who spent thousands per week in a studio. We are now in a situation where some are calling for a monetary bar to be instated to prevent people from having a similar opportunity in the modern scenario. I find this sad and elitist and rather insulting to the less well off. A great many of our current talented musicians didn't have a pot to piss in starting up and may well have used a cheap loop based program like ACID Music to get going with their demos and offerings. Thank god they had that ability and if the reborn Cakewalk allows a bit of self expression for the masses then that's brilliant as far as I'm concerned.

I'm the OP on this, so I guess you're addressing me with your charges of "elitist" and "...some are calling for a monetary bar..." Since it appears you didn't read my post, you might want to take a look at it. Let me be clear: Everybody starts somewhere, and I think it's great many of them will now have the power of a professional DAW to do their work.
 
My point was that I prefer the SONAR Songs forum to the chaos of the Bandlab website, where (it seems to me) 99% of the posters are either doing stuff I have no interest in, or producing tracks so poorly that I can't even tell if there's a talented genius on the line, or a cat has been walking on somebody's keyboard. I also like the SONAR forum because those who read my posts and listen to my music are using the same software as me and can help me figure out better ways to do stuff. The Bandlab users have been using smartphone apps, so technologically we have nothing in common. Maybe that will change now that they can get Cakewalk for free, but if I recall how long it took me to get proficient with the program, I'm not holding my breath.

Cactus Music
When ever I bring up this topic I get flamed. I guess I object to the direction music software is headed in that they are making it so people who do not take the time to develop any musical or engineering skills are pandered too. 
Most of the new features are geared towards using loops. 
The rest of us are left in the dust. There will always be real musicians and real engineers out there but in the computer world we are fading fast.
I agree that a lot of us old timers that have used Sonar to replace our 4 track machines to produce original musical creations won't fit in with the Bandlab model. That world is overwhelmed with "beat" makers who have zero musical abilities... it horrid to anyone with taste in good music,, but I guess that's where the cash cow lives now. 
Possibly we could still congregate on say, Bapu or panups new forums they created? 
 
Edit,, looks like Meng and I were typing same time.. So looks like once again he is listening and we will still have our beloved Song Forum. 

Agree 100%..............................

One approach I took when exploring Bandlab was to find a few songs I did like and began searching all the folks collaborating on these tracks. It's all exponential from there. I was able to fairly quickly come up with a list of folks to follow that I may invite to work on my tracks in the future.
There's a lot of people to sort through and this seemed like an efficient method to find like minded people.

I respect any art that people create regardless of where they are at skill level wise. Not everyone can afford some of the tools required. We all have to start somewhere.

I'm ever so sorry Larry, I hadn't read your post so my opinion wasn't aimed at you directly. I would have said so or quoted you if that was the case.

Whistlekiller
I'm ever so sorry Larry, I hadn't read your post so my opinion wasn't aimed at you directly. I would have said so or quoted you if that was the case.

Thanks for coming back. I don't want to be seen as a self-involved, arrogant, wannabe big shot

For the sake of this post I will refer to the music 99.9% of the world will agree as being "bad Music" we'll leave it at that . 
 
I think the history of music would explain why some of us feel the way we do.
Go back 100 years. If there was not a real musician in the room there was no music. 
And that musician most likely had to read music as that was the only way a  popular song generally could be found, sheet music. So there was not much Bad music, just good music sometimes played poorly. 
 
Later someone figured out how to capture music on a wax cylinder. And onward ho through the next decades of Tape machines right up until the 90's. Not much "Bad" music found it way on to recordings because there was always someone deciding what got recorded. So still we had a good ratio of Good Music available. It will be looked upon as the Golden Years. 
 
This was the filter we are now lacking. The ratio of good music to bad music has been growing expediently as the cost of being able to record it came down. 
Some Bad Music was being recorded because someone had the money to spend in a studio. But that bad music was put on Tapes and then CD's which no one had to listen too. Good music was still the mainstay of our Car Stereos and the Radio airwaves. But the ratio was growing and a trip to the Thrift shops CD and Tape bins will reward you will hundreds of copies of albums that nobody wanted to keep.  
 
Now making music can be done for almost free, and it can be published  to the whole world to listen too. 
We can thank software for this as well as the free hosting websites. But yes, it's a double edge sword because a lot of great music can be made by those with the skill to do so at a hobby level but-- but it gets overshadowed by the now overwhelming ratio of BAD music. 
 
Bandlab is an example, but I found the same true of Soundcloud etc even years ago. 
 
So I get it , everybody has the right to make music, good or bad. But as Larry is pointing out,,, how do we find the good stuff now? It swamped in the muck. 
 
So I propose a solution to this. 
We simply have a forum called " Good Song Forum" - Please post here if you actually play an instrument or sang. 
 
The other forum would simply be called "Bad Song Forum" Please post here if you use loops and don't know what A minor is. . .. 
I hope this doesn't offend people using loops... :? 

Cactus Music
So I propose a solution to this. 
We simply have a forum called " Good Song Forum" - Please post here if you actually play an instrument or sang. 
 
The other forum would simply be called "Bad Song Forum" Please post here if you use loops and don't know what A minor is. . .. 
I hope this doesn't offend people using loops... :? 

This is certainly going to offend a lot of folks. I'm glad you said it, and not me.

It's all in good fun. I won't feel bad if it offends someone, It's a good day to rattle the cage :) 

Larry Jones

Cactus Music
So I propose a solution to this. 
We simply have a forum called " Good Song Forum" - Please post here if you actually play an instrument or sang. 
 
The other forum would simply be called "Bad Song Forum" Please post here if you use loops and don't know what A minor is. . .. 
I hope this doesn't offend people using loops... :? 

This is certainly going to offend a lot of folks. I'm glad you said it, and not me.

I agree.
A brilliant solution.

Cactus Music
So I propose a solution to this. 
We simply have a forum called " Good Song Forum" - Please post here if you actually play an instrument or sang. 
 
The other forum would simply be called "Bad Song Forum" Please post here if you use loops and don't know what A minor is. . .. 

I dunno. What if I don't make the cut?