Project5 Development Ending

Dear Project5 Customer,

We regret to inform you that as of today there will be no further development on Project5. It will be officially discontinued and moving forward, support will only be offered via email. This was a difficult decision, and one which we carefully considered for a long time. Unfortunately, there was no way we could continue supporting this product at the level we felt necessary. While we were able to attract a loyal community of Project5 users, we weren’t able to garner enough commercial success to make Project5 a viable product.

To all the loyal Project5 users—we truly appreciate the support you have given us over the years. We have found that the Project5 community are among the most engaged and passionate people in our Cakewalk family. We have enjoyed the active dialog over the years—and good or bad—we have always listened to your feedback. We have learned a great deal from Project5 development and we hope to translate some of its strengths into future Cakewalk products. We hope that you will remain part of the Cakewalk family moving forward.

In that spirit, we would like to extend a special offer to all our Project5 customers. Through May 17th, registered Project5 customers can crossgrade to SONAR 8 Studio for only $99/£69/€79 or you can upgrade to SONAR 8 Producer for $249/£199/€229. In both cases, you will save $100/£80/€90 off your regular price, and this is a greater discount than the current special pricing that we are running for Cakewalk customers. With SONAR 8, you access all the included Project5 instruments and effects, and you can still continue to use Project5 inside SONAR via ReWire. With SONAR 8 and Project5 side-by-side, you will have a robust studio set-up that incorporates the best of both worlds—instant music creation tools powered by the leading digital audio workstation in the industry.

To take advantage of this upgrade offer, chose one below.

Upgrade to SONAR 8 Studio today
Upgrade to SONAR 8 Producer today

We thank you again for your support and we hope you will continue to be a part of Cakewalk family for many years to come.

Sincerely,

Cakewalk

Ah well, the best product in the Cakewalk line bites the dust, IMO.

The issue with functionality from P5 going to Sonar is that it is unlikely to have the same flow in Sonar that it does in P5, purely because they are different in the way they approach things - maybe S9 will see more streamlining in it's methodology, rather than new plugins. Personally, I think Sonar could do to be rewritten/re-thought in the way that Sonar was in comparison to Pro Audio, streamlining the workflow.

So..... when's V3 with multicore support coming out? I have a new hex-core I want to put to test.

No, seriously.... long live Velocity, nPulse and PSYN-II !!!

Thank you Cakewalk, for giving us a great product and for establishing electronic music production in my life. For what it's worth, I support this decision fully, I know it wouldn't have been an easy decision.
Thanks to all of you who continue to advance me and the rest of the community here with tips, helpful advice and camaraderie. I hope this forum continues to exist, as I consider everyone here my friend.
Project5 continues to be the integral cornerstone to my productions. I appreciated participating with the staff and the other beta testers in each of the cycles.
Big props to Cakewalk and the staff for making a great product even if it is no longer commercially viable.
Here's to much success in the future, guys!

Cheers!

-DA

ORIGINAL: Marketing [Cakewalk]

We have learned a great deal from Project5 development and we hope to translate some of its strengths into future Cakewalk products.

Also... awwwww yeeeeeah!

RIP, P5

You gave me a great start in the computer music world!

Having recently revisited P5 after not using it for a while, it really struck me what a great program it really is and how great it would be to see it updated to become the polished gem it had the potential to be. How sad to know that will never happen now.

Is there any chance the source code could be handed over to the open source community so that it could be further developed by anyone so inclined? I know it's probably not that simple, but just wondering.

It's sad to see it go but I do understand and respect Cakewalk's decision. My heartfelt condolences to all the loyal users :(

J

ORIGINAL: CareyLetendre

ORIGINAL: JoMal

Is there any chance the source code could be handed over to the open source community so that it could be further developed by anyone so inclined? I know it's probably not that simple, but just wondering.

+1

If Cakewalk truly cared about the community they would do as described above.

Carey

It'll never happen.

Very sorry to see it go.

There was just something about it's work flow that I loved that I can't replicate in Sonar.

I'll still continue to use it as a scratch pad for new ideas.

Sorry to pour water on all the sop & sentiment but I find it a bit insulting to make a non offer such as this.

I wonder how many have P5 and don't have SONAR? Is this really an offer of support. I would reckon that more Project 5 owners also have SONAR rather than not so it really makes this cross grade offer, a non-offer.

Its of no use to me and I bet the majority of us - This is what Cakewalk have said
"....we weren’t able to garner enough commercial success to make Project5 a viable product" indicating that there aren't that many users of P5 in the first place; relatively speaking of course.

As for the opening statement: "We regret to inform you that as of today there will be no further development on Project5." Precisely what development has taken place since the 2.5 update. None.....so surely you mean that today is the day of announcement not the day that development has ceased. That day was quite some time ago.

Now I've got that off my chest.

I guess P5 will be bundled along with SONAR 9, and labelled as a great song development tool. Lately Cakewalk have been misrepresenting their support of loyal customers far too much in ways that benefit them not the loyal user, What with this crossgrade non-offer and the DimPro give away with S8, and selling the forum as a product feature in SONAR - Not too much loyalty in that that I can see but a lot off marketing hype that really amounts to diddly squat.

ah well I am getting mac next anyhow (for sure now). P5 was by far the best host I ever used though.

Well said...

"I wonder how many have P5 and don't have SONAR? Is this really an offer of support. I would reckon that more Project 5 owners also have SONAR rather than not so it really makes this cross grade offer, a non-offer.

Its of no use to me and I bet the majority of us - This is what Cakewalk have said"

Well.... and there is is. So long CW. Yeah, I own SONAR (drank the "upgrade" koolaide at SONAR 6, dont use it), DimPro, Rapture, Project 5. Im done. There are far better apps out there than SONAR, and equally good softsynths. P5 was the only thing that really stood out from a creativity point.

Sad news. I "got it" from day one. Even though I didn't own it until a few years later. I think this is simply a bad marketing decision. The reason "we weren’t able to garner enough commercial success to make Project5 a viable product" is because you didn't choose to promote it. You were (and are) so hung up on Sonar that you can't see anything else. The blinders are on. Well here's a news flash: Just like there came a Web 2.0 where the old ways of website design were deprecated, so is coming a "DAW 2.0" where the old ways of DAW development and usage will be deprecated. People want leaner, meaner, easier production environments. Sonar has become a giant bloated, gold-plated yearly subscription device which still has yet to make any inroads as a truly professional (i.e. used by professionals in top-level commercial music production) product. Cowtowing to the typical geetar/bass yahoo who uses Sonar in his basement will only get you so far. How many more years will these guys pony up the $180 or so for the Sonar upgrade? And how will you attract new users to a community full of 50 year-olds?

Again, bad decision. Unless......in its place is coming that "DAW 2.0" product. That would not surprise me at all and I will be happy to see it.

In the meantime, I think putting all the company's eggs in the Sonar basket is anything but a wise move. Musicians are notoriously cheap and fickle. I hear Propellerheads is coming out with something new. Presonus is coming out with a new DAW. There will be others. The old DAW warhorses of the 1990s, just gold-plated year after year are showing their age. Time for something new.

Project5 was that and could have continued to be that given a little bit of development.

Anyway, I guess thanks for finally letting us know something officially which most of us figured out a couple of years ago.

When they said ending all support I didn't think that the page to the 2.5.1 update would go awol and project5.com disappear over night...

Poor show old boy