I'm as upset about the "face(s)" of Cakewalk leaving as the next guy - or gal. But that hardly means Cakewalk and SONAR are dead in the water like Osama, and they are more alive than GM. I think people are jumping to conclusions.
Roland paid good money for Cakewalk. It was, and is, one of the premiere DAWs. What else is on that list? ProTools, Cubase and Cakewalk. DP and Logic are fighting over the slice of the mac pie w/ ProTools. For the PC, there is only Reaper for a full fledged recording environment, and it has made inroads because it is cheap and fairly no-frills. The same kind of people as Fruity Loops. There is Live and Reason, which are niche players. So, Cakewalk by Roland ain't going anywhere.
So Roland pays good money and the economy tanks. Less money for everything, including music software. Then Cake releases X1, which is a new interface for their software. I liked it, but it was confusing. Cleaner, but nothing was where it was in earlier versions of SONAR, which slowed work on it until I learned it. That and a lot of shortcuts. Then there were whole new methodolgies involved. Appologies to FBB, but I never got screensets. I knew in theory what I could do, but I never embraced them and am still only slowly learning to incorporate them. Usually when I'm working, I want to get a project finished, not practise learning how to use a completely new feature since the old methods still work.
X1 comes out to good press releases, although it is noted X1 has more than its fair share of bugs. But more importantly, it drives away some long time customers w/ its newfangled methods. And new customers, reading the big piles of stinking complaints on the forums and not doing due diligence checking other software forums and not having a lot of cash to spend, don't jump on the X1 bandwagon like Cake hoped w/ their redesign. X2 is well received, but a lot of Cake people leave, and some not on their own. There have been PR and tech support people leaving, in case you didn't know. A lot of the old crew. Welcome to corporate reality. It sucks. But as far as I can tell, most of the coders remain.
But you don't toss out brand name recoginition. Roland is most likely reconfiguring Cakewalk, either down (or "right" in corporate speak) -sizing or/or bringing in new people they think will help (us users and their bottom line). They aren't throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater.
I've met Seth at some of the promo events here in Texas. I never met Brandon but had emails w/ him. And emailed w/ some of the tech people who've left. they were all good people I'd share a sonic foxhole w/. Also the Cake channel "how to" videos w/ Seth and Brandon were as good as the Groove videos, which are pricey. (Hint hint, Roland).
But there is no reason to think SONAR won't be upgraded or that the sky if falling. I expect X2B will fix a few bugs, add a few features which introduce new bugs and (hopefully!) roland will leverage some of their brand into the Prochannel and synths. Same as it ever was.
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