cparmerlee

Kamikaze
The fact that it's been suggested that there will be a free cross-grade option surely means that these users will be given a perpetual license.

That sounds like a huge assumption to me, a giant leap of faith.  If Bandlab already knew the terms they would be offering, they might have made a more definite statement.  The gentleman said they will be offering a free crossgrade, but to my knowledge didn't say what that would include or how long it would be good for. 
 
IMHO, the only safe interpretation is that they will have a product that may or may not be 100% of what SPLAT was (probably lacking many of the bundled items)  and that paid-up users will get a free crossgrade for at least the first release of the product.  I'd caution against assuming any more than that.  Bandlab might do much more, but they might not.  We'll just have to wait.

 
Are you saying that you think that after crossgrading, you believe the product you have will no longer work after a period of time, say one year?

Hopefully at least that, as we had, what, about a year after plunking down $199 for the lifetime membership before Gibson dropped it? See if I ever buy another Les Paul...lol! At any rate, glad to see these guys keeping it going!

InstrEd
Have to agree. BandLab stated we would get the new DAW first release whatever it might be in 4-6 weeks.

That's not quite right. They said the first public announcement as to what it was would be in 4-6 weeks.

Looking forward to news on the developments of the new Sonar Meng! Feeling optimistic again...
 
 

Kamikaze
Are you saying that you think that after crossgrading, you believe the product you have will no longer work after a period of time, say one year?

That depends on what you mean by "work".  If you are able to freeze the OS environment (say by using a virtual machine) and you don't care if any new devices or plug-ins work in the future, then the first Bandlab release should be able to work indefinitely.  But of course, you don't need Bandlab for that.  You have exactly the same situation today with SPLAT.
 
If you are expecting perpetual support and patches for free, I'm not sure that is what the gentleman meant to imply.  And frankly I would be very suspicious of any company promising that.  They need a business model that will work for them.  To Mr. Meng's credit, clearly he sees value in the existing user base and apparently is prepared to be generous in order to keep that base active.  I think that is wise.  What he may want to do beyond that is something we could speculate on, but I don't think it is good to attack others here who might be a bit more circumspect than you are.
 
Personally, I am quite interested in this new direction.  The world doesn't need yet another DAW.  A business model only makes sense to me if the "Bandlab DAW" evolves to embrace new market segments or categories.  This is what Ableton did with live performance and it was a good move for them.  Reading between the lines, it appears to me the vision for Bandlab might be to extend the DAW to make it more of a "songwriter's platform" so to speak, rather than a general purpose DAW.  That is the focus of some of the existing Bandlab assets, and one can easily see a synergy between those assets and a "back end DAW".  But I am just speculating.  I'm not making any purchase decisions based on such guesswork.  It will all be revealed in due course.  It could be very exciting, but not exactly what you and others have in mind, if you are just looking for the continuation of the "basic DAW" in the Cakewalk tradition.

As a long-time Cakewalk user, I must confess to preferring the pre-X style DAW.  I've got X-3, but find myself often working in 8.5.  The advancements of the X series are fine, but the GUI never set well with me.  Suspect I'm not alone in this.  Looking forward to the new version. 

I don't like the grabby multidock and the way the PRV and region effects insist on opening in it's small window that I have to fiddle with and undock before using.
 
 

Studio One, Reaper, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Reason, Ardour, MuLab, Cubase, Tracktion, Digital Performer, Renoise: they all work on multiple platforms. Please, please, please make the new Sonar work on Mac (I know, probably not right out of the gate, but have a plan). That would be great 'cause I, for one, am not moving back to Windows.
 
KEv

burkek
Studio One, Reaper, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Reason, Ardour, MuLab, Cubase, Tracktion, Digital Performer, Renoise: they all work on multiple platforms. Please, please, please make the new Sonar work on Mac (I know, probably not right out of the gate, but have a plan). That would be great 'cause I, for one, am not moving back to Windows.
 
KEv

I've tried the Mac; it isn't for me. However, I'm 100% with you that they should make a Mac version. And a Linux version. Oh, and a Windows version.

And I don't want them to waste resources on a MAC version. As you have just pointed out there are plenty of choices for the MAC. Yes some are cross platform, but the elephant in the room is Apple's own Logic. How do you compete with them selling it for under $200.00.  I don't see the market.