Perspectives and House Keeping :)

Gosh, a red letter day indeed. But, I believe the writing has been on the wall for sometime. In fact, I had a feeling...I forgot what tipped me off, but I had a feeling this was going to happen - oh it was Anderton being giving his marching orders. I suspect Momentum was the last roll of the dice for Cake and Gibson. The thing is, yes apps were a cash cow and still are for established products, but the app ship sailed sometime ago. Mobile music making - ipads, tablet computing and even phone computing - has never really become a thing either. I've researched and experimented with mobile music making technology, it's like playing with kids toys...music technology could literally not get any dumber than these mobile music making apps. So, whilst Cakewalk were correct in investigating and creating a mobile music making app...it was too late, and other larger movements have been afoot across the music industry. 
 
Think about it...a once behemoth company like Gibson has been bailing out water, yet was still sinking. This is because unlike other music tech companies - Presonus and Behringer for example - Gibson is tied to guitars as their main product line. The guitar has been going the way of the Stradivarius violin now for about twenty-years. Don't get me wrong, the guitar is still my main instrument...and I think people should learn an instrument then pick a piece of software to master, but guitar music is pretty boring now. How many times, can we see spotty youths singing about teen angst, all set to 3 chords before people tuned out? The Beatles, started as spotty boys singing about teen angst, and by the end the guitar was just a colour within a larger sonic image. Cakewalk in reality never stood a chance, tethered to Gibson. As some have already mentioned. The only reason why companies like Presonus are in business still is because they create audio production products from software through to top prosumer hardware - even if their drivers have been crap in the past :). 
 
The above paragraph demonstrates one of the larger narratives within the music industry - the death of smaller software boutique  companies - because there is no money in software anymore. In reality...there isn't much more you can add to a program like Sonar. They had a full compliment of virtual effects and instruments...the software worked well - yes there was problems for some, but these problems were mainly down to under-powered machines and older plugins with gremlins...I can assure people of this as I'm an expert on music tech, and I know through experience where at least my crashes were coming from - memory leaks from very old plugs. The last useful update to Sonar for me and indeed what got me to sign on for another year of updates was the Adaptive Limiter. I was also of the firm belief, and even though I couldn't afford it - the 30 bucks Oz I was paying monthly for Sonar was worth it if only to keep my preferred DAW and company afloat!
 
The real issue is, and is probably the reason why software and music technology companies are going out of business is music is worthless or at least the recording aspect. Look at Wave's, they must only be staying afloat because people will shell out 30 bucks for a plugin - I know I do, but even then I only need 1 or 2 more Wave's plugs to make my collection complete. I remember it was only 2014 when Wave's would only have 30 dollar plugin sales once or twice a year...the rest of the time it was 250 bucks. What does this say to people? 
 
Now for some housekeeping :). First let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater...after reading Noel's statement on the betrayal of Cakewalk :) by Gibson, I took away there was a glimmer of hope...me thinks Microsoft have already been contacted and their playing hardball or are non-committal until they get the product for the right price. Microsoft, from what I've been reading do want to compete with Crapple, and have a DAW offering for Windows. Whether this is a good thing for Sonar- lets wait and see. Window's will become a dominate player for computing and software for creatives over the next few years, because Crapple sell under-powered, overpriced paper weights...beautiful apparently under-powered and overpriced paper weights, but paper weights all the same. Creatives are waking up to this fact, and the homogenization of creativity because of Crapple's lie - it works - oh yea, if you want to dumb down creativity and only if you don't want the best quality in terms of digital film. Most people have no idea about digital film - codecs and encoders - and the importance of this knowledge when creating moving image content...just point and shoot. If only it were that simple. Sorry I digress. Audio is the same - 64bitfp anyone. Even up until yesterday...there were people on this very forum debating the merit of 64bitfp. I've been doing this caper now for 18 years, audio production, and I've been learning music since I was 10...so 32 years. On top of all my degrees. I can tell you, 64bitfp is the only digital medium standard for distribution and mixing. Housekeeping point...my advice is for those thinking about jumping ship, which I would not advise...but my advise is if the DAW you turn to doesn't have 64bitfp...then it is not worth it. For me, when and if I have to change DAWs -  I'm left with very few options. I would turn to Magix if Samplitude was 64bitfp, and at that price you'd hope...but no. I use Vegas for video and indeed I just shelled out 260 bucks for the upgarde, which was worth it. So it makes sense to check it out. Cubase has always been a dogs breakfast, horrible design and Reaper is a child's toy masquerading as a grown-up DAW. I only use it for Varispeed. This probably only leaves Studio One. It's fortunate that I've upgraded all my plugs and now rarely use Sonar propitiatory stuff. Studio One though in reality is just a spiffy looking Reaper IMO.
 
Housekeeping point - my advice is wait for all those already thinking about jumping ship, because if Cakewalk do disappear there will be special offers from all the DAW manufactures to 'join them' lol. So rather than the obscene cross-grade price or even the upgrade price from Studio One Artist...I have an old copy of this software I brought on a black Friday sale, but rather than the price it is now...there will some heavy discounting I believe. I'm basing this on Logic 5 and when Crapple took it over and made it a Crapple only product. Cakewalk offered special cross-grade deals.
 
Ok, final housekeeping...if and when Cake does go down, as people have mentioned we need final downloads of all our software products and the serial numbers/keys. All the legacy software works still and without the need of an internet connection, so I can't see it being that hard to make Platinum follow suit. Yes folks Sonar 8.5, X1, X2 and X3 all boot-up on my Windows 10 machine...I haven't tried to mix anything...but it all seems to work. So as Bifflipper has remarked, for the time being Sonar Platinum could potentially run for another 10 years, so long as the software is completely unlocked. It would be good if Cakewalk could unlock The Adaptive Limiter so it can run on any DAW too. For me, this was a revelation in regards to brickwall limiters and is a key element of my sound. I'm not sure there any replacements for this limiter out there. There are other proprietary software products that are bundled with Sonar too, we need to know the state of the agreements for the stuff Sonar didn't develop. I love Addictive Drums for example...I don't really want to have to learn another drum instrument...and I know we're going to lose access to this software unless we buy the whole product, and this is what we're really going to miss about Sonar and Cake...none of the other DAWs offer such a complete suite of excellent products for music production like Sonar. I've never even thought about buying a virtual drum instrument like Addictive Drums, because it came with Sonar. It would be good if someone from Cakewalk managed to organize some deals so we can buy the full versions of the plugs we all love and use...half price or something like that. I suspect it would be too much to find someone to uncouple some of the prochannel stuff...I use the Tape Sim all the time, again a huge part of my sound. There are lots of good and better tape sims, but the prochannel one was the one I used on drums and busses, because it had a certain sound and feel.
 
Anyway lots to ponder. Peace and Love
 
Neb