Will we finally see a Mac version of Cakewalk?

With the current direction of Bandlanb based on reaching to new customers by giving the full DAW for free I think that a Mac version it's more possible tan ever. What do you think? I also hope to see new learning material and updated resources for the product.

AT
Cake had it.  Why didn't you get it then?  It didn't work very well and I'm sure it lost plenty of programming time for Cakewalk/Gibson ...  hey, maybe that is part of the reason they went bust.

They was not investing into it. The final words was clear - Codewavers have tried to implement missing calls, the result was somehow working. The same you can get running Sonar/CbB in Wine under Linux, except the protection, it works.
But that is not native way to run things and Sonar/CbB is using relatively "modern" MS technologies. So cross-platform running is far from perfect and cross-compiling is not feasible. If you want to see how both ways can work in practice, in case "modern" MS technologies are not involved, check REAPER. It works fine under Wine and could be cross-compiled with Cockos own Windows API wrapper (btw open source), under OS X (official) and Linux (permanent beta).
 
@OP: I guess you have never tried to port a history heavy application which use threads, tight integration with hardware and OS specific libraries from one platform to another. Technically, they will have to completely rewrite the whole program.
 
But for what? "A Mac" is just single manufacturer PC with a custom OS. It is  a wonder they have survived so far, mostly they can say "thanks" for rather bad drivers and using 1-2 questionably components in other PCs. But for how long that can continue? They was keeping iPhone as "you have it or you have something worse" for long, but that time is already over (after Samsung/LG/HTC, followed by Huawei, have managed to more or less optimize the software for the hardware). You can have full flavor PC in form of a tablet, which effectively evaporate iPad as "the only good one" in that segment.
If DELL (IBM/Lenovo) can manage to write a bit more stable drivers and can put $0.05 more expensive cooler on correct place inside notebooks... someone will ask "are you still using that outdated platform with an apple logo? why???"
 
 
 

I can understand... I had no idea of this kind of technical difficulties.

I certainly hope not!

Forgive my ignorance (I'm not a Mac user), but is running an Hackintosh still an option?
 
I thought I read something about Apple moving away from Intel, so I'm not sure if or when that will happen. But for the time being, especially now that CWbBL is free, any Hackintosh user on the planet can have it -- so a native Mac version has got to be way, way down on Bandlab's priority list.

bapu
History is starting to repeat itself.
 
Everyday.

Is it rhyming yet?  Or farcing?

I think it's a bad idea. Mac is where developed DAW's go to die.

pwalpwal
porting stuff after developing it for a different platform is always a nightmare and never gives the hoped-for results

Photoshop?
Lightroom?
Cubase?

All developed originally for one platform then for another as well. All work pretty much equally on the platforms they’re developed for.

pwalpwal


Photoshop?
Lightroom?
Cubase?

All developed originally for one platform then for another as well. All work pretty much equally on the platforms they’re developed for.

Each of these cases involved either a product made cross platform early in development or rewritten from ground up by a company with deep pockets and damn near monopoly on product. Taking an early version of cubase and porting is not nearly as hard as taking same product 30 years later and porting. Cubase didn’t even have vsts then

JonD
Forgive my ignorance (I'm not a Mac user), but is running an Hackintosh still an option?
 
I thought I read something about Apple moving away from Intel, so I'm not sure if or when that will happen. But for the time being, especially now that CWbBL is free, any Hackintosh user on the planet can have it -- so a native Mac version has got to be way, way down on Bandlab's priority list.

Hackintoshes can be a nightmare to build and keep running. Then there’s the problem of obtaining the operating system and keeping it updated. It’s easy enough to build something that will run the free, downloadable by anyone version of MacOS but that’s the FreeBSD derived Unix/GNU side without the Aero graphical interface.

Despite what some fanbois say Hackintoshes are not a production platform.

There’s also the problem that to build a Hackintosh using as closely as possible the same components as a Mac costs quite a bit more than buying a Windows PC - and you still don’t get a Retina screen. Then you have to start configuring the OS to operate on hardware it’s not entirely intended for.

All in all, putting together a Hackintosh is not a trivial task.

As for Apple moving away from Intel, time will tell, though I can’t see it happening soon. Apple may at some point shift to using the processor family used in iOS devices but although they’re fast at doing what they’re designed to do they’re not (yet) a competitor to a fast multi-core Intel cpu which was designed without worrying over such concerns as battery life or the lack of active cooling.

Cakewalk for Mac? I’d love to see it as Sonar beat Logic in some respects, particularly MIDI handling and a (too me) more logical structure and workflow. But it would mean Bandlab building a Mac version from the ground up, the codeweaver approach tried under Gibson being pretty much a pointless exercise other than providing a demonstration of how not to port a large, complicated resource-demanding application.

Then there’s the problem of CbBL for Mac recovering the money required to create it. For a company with deep enough pockets and the right business plan it would be possible, but Cakewalk never really had that kind of backing behind the company as it moved through successive owners, in particular Roland and Gibson both lacked the capital and the leverage to spend money they might not start to get back for quite some time.

I am not a Mac fan. In fact the complete opposite - I wouldn't touch anything made by Apple. I am a Linux fan though! The problem with Sonar/Cake is that, as others have said, to make it cross-platform would require a complete rewrite from the ground up. They would have to start by creating a cross-platform framework and then port everything through that. It could be done, but it would require a lot of time, devs and money. And for what? The vast majority of people use Windows. The comparatively minuscule market of Mac boys and girls will continue to use Logic. The Linux crowd won't be interested because there are very few Linux compatible plugins and audio interfaces at the moment. That may change one day though because Mac is losing its grip on its market and many die-hard Mac fans are starting to move away. Meanwhile, Linux is growing in popularity. Linux is actually the most used OS in the world. It's on almost every web server, every Android phone, TVs etc. but while it's growth in the user PC market is growing, it hasn't reached the kind of popularity yet where audio hardware manufacturers and plugin developers see it as a worthwhile market to chase after.

If you would really like to see a cross platform (Win/Mac/Linux) DAW up close, take the Tracktion Waveform for a trial spin.  https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform
 
Heck this thing will even run on a $35 Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 micro computer, running Ubuntu Linux: https://www.raspberrypi.org/
 
They developed this DAW using a framework called JUCE, by the original creator of Traction, Julian Storer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracktion 
https://juce.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JUCE
 

With support for PC, Mac and Linux, JUCE is the perfect tool for building powerful and complex applications. JUCE also supports the development of plug-ins: VST, AU and AAX. Run your desktop applications on mobile! One-click deployment to Android and iOS (requires Android Studio and XCode) Adjust the user interface of your application with the Projucer live coding engine Use the best audio performance available on iOS and Android.

abacab
If you would really like to see a cross platform (Win/Mac/Linux) DAW up close, take the Tracktion Waveform for a trial spin.  https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform
 
Heck this thing will even run on a $35 Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 micro computer, running Ubuntu Linux: https://www.raspberrypi.org/
 
They developed this DAW using a framework called JUCE, by the original creator of Traction, Julian Storer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracktion 
https://juce.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JUCE
 

With support for PC, Mac and Linux, JUCE is the perfect tool for building powerful and complex applications. JUCE also supports the development of plug-ins: VST, AU and AAX. Run your desktop applications on mobile! One-click deployment to Android and iOS (requires Android Studio and XCode) Adjust the user interface of your application with the Projucer live coding engine Use the best audio performance available on iOS and Android.

I've been looking at Juce for a while now, but haven't found the time to play with it yet. It looks like a very decent framework for making VSTs too. The pricing plan is reasonable too.

abacab
If you would really like to see a cross platform (Win/Mac/Linux) DAW up close, take the Tracktion Waveform for a trial spin.  https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform

As a "trial spin" not bad. But after all frustrations and disappointments with Waveform 8 under Linux, I do not even checked Waveform 9. Linux version is at beta stage at most.
 
There is a good reason why REAPER has Linux incarnation, but has never released it.
 
Also all Tracktion software (including VSTs!) is calling home (not configurable, developers claim that is "by design" to keep users up to date).
 

Heck this thing will even run on a $35 Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 micro computer, running Ubuntu Linux: https://www.raspberrypi.org/

After behavior on normal Linux, I wonder if it not only "run" but can also really "work" there..
 

They developed this DAW using a framework called JUCE, by the original creator of Traction, Julian Storer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracktion 
https://juce.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JUCE

With support for PC, Mac and Linux, JUCE is the perfect tool for building powerful and complex applications. JUCE also supports the development of plug-ins: VST, AU and AAX. Run your desktop applications on mobile! One-click deployment to Android and iOS (requires Android Studio and XCode) Adjust the user interface of your application with the Projucer live coding engine Use the best audio performance available on iOS and Android.

Interesting and innovative concept, many VSTs are developed with it... and as a consequence:
a) blind musicians can not use these plug-ins ("commercially not feasible to support accessibility")
b) VSTs are way too big and "heavy" then they could be, but multi-platform and look modern.
 
I was fascinated by Tracktion/Juce, but in the mean time I am not sure what I think about them...
 

Every time the discussion comes up to make Cakewalk MAC compatible I think back to when Adobe did it with the versions after 3.01. They did get it up and running but in doing so had to remove a lot features for both PC and MAC, some of them never really came back. While it would be nice to see Cakewalk take advantage of another OS, I would hope that it doesn't come at the expense of program features that would neuter it for PC users.