Have to agree with Sharke. Making music  is no longer just the domain of the musician. I have seen so many comments on the forum about people needing to understand music theory better or to read the guide thoroughly. A lot of new music makers don't want or need to understand this. Pulling Sounds. chords, progressions  together to make something they like is what a lot are looking for and this without regard for accepted  musical norms or requires what we would call an acceptable level of musicianship. Sonar did not seem to see this market and focused on the 'old school' music makers. The ever improving Sonar has made ideal for me but  a complex mountain of knowledge to dig through for the growing market of new music makers. It's all about change.

Basically, Cakewalk was in trouble when it sold to Roland. Why it got into trouble and sold out we will probably never know.

Slightly off-topic but my stock answer to the bellyachers in life or on forums who decry Sonar for other DAWs is "Oh, so you make BEATS?" 

THambrecht
This is currently on the website of Gibson:
 
... Millions of musicians worldwide—including Grammy® and Emmy®-winning producers, composers, sound designers, and engineers—use Cakewalk products daily to produce audio for the professional music, film, broadcast, and video game industries.

Obviously Marketing Speak.  Sales people will say anything

We don't actually know the inside detail of what did happen, and almost certainly never will, so we can't really say what we'd have done differently. Don't judge someone til you've walked a mile in their shoes and all that.

Bonjo
Slightly off-topic but my stock answer to the bellyachers in life or on forums who decry Sonar for other DAWs is "Oh, so you make BEATS?" 

That's a good one!

John T
We don't actually know the inside detail of what did happen, and almost certainly never will, so we can't really say what we'd have done differently. Don't judge someone til you've walked a mile in their shoes and all that.

Have ye been reading the other thread:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Someone-from-Cakewalk-is-doing-a-Reddit-AMA-ask-me-anything-m3696996.aspx
 
A reddit AMA ( ASK ME ANYTHING ) from  former Cakewalk Employee .. Sounds genuine via the info mentioned TBH:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cakewalk/comments/7fwb6h/former_employee_here_ama/?st=JAISAK8R&sh=2dc889b3
 

Here is a kind of semi-timeline of events from my perspective:

• Hoover took over. Stagnation galore and then it got sold to Gibson. ****ty releases like Rapture Pro, money burned and stagnation carried on. Fun fact under the Hoover regime a guy was paid to push a button that opens the door for visitors. He was paid to do this for years. Im not that high on the pyramid but from those who I talked to everyone blames him for the beginning of the end.
• Noel took over. The lifetime plan rolled out. The plan was really solid but development dropped the ball, every release was late none of the plan was committed to.
• A replacement was found in someone with product experience. Things were getting back on track new money sources were in the works. Software takes time and it was sadly to little to late. All the ****ty managers dogpiled on the guy who was actually moving things in the right direction and Gibson shut it all down.

There is no CEO of Cakewalk. The person overseeing Cakewalk also manages Gibson Pro Audio. She means well but doesn't know anything about software and placed her faith in the most ret***est of employees. Im not in touch with everyone but I heard that the guy who was in charge of sales at cakewalk got a job at Gibson. Which is hilarious because that guy was ****ing awful, could barely use SONAR and sucked at sales. He was on really good terms with the Pro Audio manager.

 
 
 
 

i would have had more discussions that are totally useless like this one

aidanodr

John T
We don't actually know the inside detail of what did happen, and almost certainly never will, so we can't really say what we'd have done differently. Don't judge someone til you've walked a mile in their shoes and all that.

Have ye been reading the other thread:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Someone-from-Cakewalk-is-doing-a-Reddit-AMA-ask-me-anything-m3696996.aspx
 
A reddit AMA ( ASK ME ANYTHING ) from  former Cakewalk Employee .. Sounds genuine via the info mentioned TBH:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cakewalk/comments/7fwb6h/former_employee_here_ama/?st=JAISAK8R&sh=2dc889b3
 

Here is a kind of semi-timeline of events from my perspective:

• Hoover took over. Stagnation galore and then it got sold to Gibson. ****ty releases like Rapture Pro, money burned and stagnation carried on. Fun fact under the Hoover regime a guy was paid to push a button that opens the door for visitors. He was paid to do this for years. Im not that high on the pyramid but from those who I talked to everyone blames him for the beginning of the end.
• Noel took over. The lifetime plan rolled out. The plan was really solid but development dropped the ball, every release was late none of the plan was committed to.
• A replacement was found in someone with product experience. Things were getting back on track new money sources were in the works. Software takes time and it was sadly to little to late. All the ****ty managers dogpiled on the guy who was actually moving things in the right direction and Gibson shut it all down.

There is no CEO of Cakewalk. The person overseeing Cakewalk also manages Gibson Pro Audio. She means well but doesn't know anything about software and placed her faith in the most ret***est of employees. Im not in touch with everyone but I heard that the guy who was in charge of sales at cakewalk got a job at Gibson. Which is hilarious because that guy was ****ing awful, could barely use SONAR and sucked at sales. He was on really good terms with the Pro Audio manager.

 
 
 
 

Speaking as someone who's been at companies right through to the bitter end of a tailspin, that all sounds believable. Going to read the whole thread now.
 
The thing is, whatever went wrong, it clearly didn't go wrong just last week. It's never like that. Mistakes will have piled on mistakes, and yes, the "get rid of the actual workers, but keep all the management" is a surprisingly common scenario, and it always ends like this.

So I'm still saying "we don't know". We'd have to have a decade deep insight, I think, going all the way back to the pre-Roland conditions, and tracking everything in detail from then onwards. Monday morning quarterbacking is always pointless.

As I said over at the reddit thread, will repeat here:


From my reading of the reddit AMA - YES it seems to be bad management all over the place FROM BOTH COMPANIES - Gibson and Cakewalk.
 
TBH it seems this guy Henry didnt really give a crap and left Cakewalk to own devices. This guy Henry didnt give a crap period it would seem, didnt get nor know what he had bought previously .. 
 
Surely regardless of Cakewalks bad management the buck still stopped with the parent company Gibson for NOT managing the Cakewalk progress under Gibson properly, even if that were watching the business and the Cake management and intervening to sort out any management issues.
 
"There is no CEO of Cakewalk. The person overseeing Cakewalk also manages Gibson Pro Audio. She means well but doesn't know anything about software and placed her faith in the most ****est of employees. "
 
I mean for FK sake. This WAS on GIBSONS watch and there decision. Why buy a company and then put someone who doesnt know anything about software as the Cakewalk overseer .. Jezus!!
 
What really P**SES me off is our Software that we loved for so long - 30 years for some of us - has been cheaply run in to the ground like this .. shear carelessness & disregard BY MANAGEMENTs.  We should be very angry about this ...