poetnprophet
 
Secondly, the reason that there is so much hip hop out there, from real artists to real wannabe's, is because rap and hip hop are about the only mainstream musical/artistic avenues that do not require special training or skills, something which bandlab's platform provides for them and almost specifically for them.  Think about this:  in my area, school funding is continually shrinking.  Schools are closing, classrooms are bigger, budgets are shrinking.  Guess which programs go away first?  Drama, music....heck, wood/metal/auto shops are all already gone for good.  If a kid who grows up in this area can't learn how to write music, play notes, learn an instrument or sing at school, what can they do to talk about how their lives affect them?  What other avenues do they have?
 

 
Well said!

Chandler
I’m hoping Our Aussie communities will solve this problem. The categories aren’t that useful right now and people are just spamming trying to get followers. Perhaps once communities are set up properly,... people will "stay in their own lanes" and this problem will end. IMO, a down vote option might help, especially if it effected you popularity rank in the categories.

Hey Chandler,
NICE CALL !!
YES..........It IS indeed a ....LANES  issue !
We all have genre' expectations.....and ....for example......MY Views of BLUES.............may not be the same as
YOUR expectations of ....BLUES Music  . 
 

xiwix
I'm going to check out the android app - over 1,000,000 downloads.  And check out the community aspect.  Just hanging out for the culture shock of Sonar and it's users with the Bandlab users is going to be worth it.
 
If Soundcloud blows through their money they got last year I could see BandLab absorbing it.  I think 1/2 of the Soundcloud money was a Singapore investment group.
 
It's all fun and games till the startup cash runs out!

Yeah, I don't get Soundcloud's business model.  It seems to me their pricing is way out of line with the actual value.  There are lots of ways to promote music cheaper or free.
 
Youtube is looking a lot less attractive these days now that they are really humping the ads on practically every video. 
 
I think there is a market opening for the kind of service Bandlab wants to offer.

I posted some tunes there. I even exported stubs from a Sonar project and create a BandLab version using the Mix Editor, with mixed (heh) results. You can check it out here. It's a cover of The Beatle's Tomorrow Never Knows.
 
The idea and simplicity of BandLab's mix editor is attractive but you'll see that I struggled to get an even mix. There are some good things about it to be sure but there's no question that for me it's much easier to achieve quality results in Sonar. The lack of basic channel strip tools and the 12 track limit hurt me, for sure, and the default mastering settings are pretty aggressive. I'm going to keep at it though because if I can make it sound good in BandLab's mixer I can make stuff sound good anywhere. 
 
Here's a mix (imperfect in it's own right) done with Sonar:
https://www.bandlab.com/kevinwal/fun-cover-tomorrow-never-knows-bb286?revId=f33dcf60-2f2f-e811-80c2-00155d76e1b6