Lifetime updates had nothing to do with this event. In the business plan and how it was presented to users it was never intended not to offer every feature free forever. The intent was to offer frequent updates where all bug fixes and certain CORE features would be free but major new or premium features would still cost money. i.e. it would be similar to an in-app purchase model. This is the way all software is headed in the future. You can read more about my announcement about this in the archive of the Cakewalk Blog here. Even in retrospect I think this was one of the best things we did and users benefited enormously

This -is- a great model. I loved the idea of just applying small updates to the same program - rather than "upgrading" to a whole new version every year (which was always a PIA as you spent a couple of hours copying all your "settings" and "stuff" from the last version, and got all your configuration right)

This is a little OT but after a nice session with the Bitwig demo this afternoon something really stood out to me with regards the idea that Sonar was not doing enough to attract the attention of the current glut of young bedroom producers (surely a huge part of the growing market). And that is the flexibility of Bitwig's FX chains (or device chains as they're called). If you watch any course in the production techniques of modern genres, you're going to see a lot of layering and parallel processing. A lot of stuff is divided into frequency bands and processed separately. Examples would include things like isolating the mids of a bass track and saturating them. Or compressing just the highs of an unruly synth patch. Or splitting something out into mid/side and compressing just the sides.Splitting the signal in an fx chain like this has infinite creative possibilities, and modern producers are exploiting these possibilities in their productions. 
 
Of course none of this is impossible with Sonar. You can use aux tracks or buses. There are 3rd party plugins which offer separate left/right, mid/side or band processing. However, Bitwig (and I believe Ableton) has this functionality hard baked into their fx chains and it's a piece of cake to set up. Any "device" can have its own fx chain - devices in those fx chains can have their own fx chains and so on. So you can have these recursive chains going on. And at any point, you can split the signal for parallel processing - you just insert the appropriate signal splitting devices. For instance, there is a Multiband FX device - you adjust the crossover frequency, and the lows and highs each have their own fx chain. Same goes for mid/side and L/R. 
 
If you frequent places like EDM production forums, you quickly see that the kids are now heavily invested in this style of production. DAW's like Bitwig and Ableton make it easy, and this ease is very apparent in the tutorial videos made with these programs. In more traditional DAW setups like Sonar and ProTools, it takes a lot more effort (and 3rd party investment). The ease and convenience of being able to do this kind of processing in one single track without having to set up auxes and sends has been very enlightening for me. I always felt like this was a direction the ProChannel should have taken. 

VanessaJ
Well, the vultures are circling. Just now found this. Cubase crossgrade for Sonar owners:

https://www.steinberg.net...sonar-owners-4579.html
 
And also this:
 
https://www.steinberg.net...e_for_sonar_users.html
 
Folks, this is the FULL version of Cubase's latest DAW (as of Jan 2018), Cubase 9.5, for $339.00 (that's 220.00 off the regular price). You got about 1 week left to jump on this.

Worst cross grade price of the season I tell ya.

Noel, Thanks for dropping in and doing what you can dispel many false speculations. Even as a programmer who should be "in the know" I'm prone to them from time to time about software I've not developed. Imagine what a non-programmer can speculate on.
 
And really how many marketing "experts" are on this forum? By my count everyone here fancies themselves at least an intermediate marketing guru.

And for the record, I've yet to uninstall SONAR and have no immediate plans to do so.
 

you'll be like the last guy on the  Xbox Halo server bapu- https://www.kotaku.com.au...y-halo-2-on-xbox-live/

backwoods
you'll be like the last guy on the  Xbox Halo server bapu- https://www.kotaku.com.au...y-halo-2-on-xbox-live/

I feel like that right now. My apartment building got sold to a big real estate company which is now trying to clear everyone out so that they can gut the place and turn it into pricey condos. Most people here have been rent stabilized (I only pay $900/month and it's Manhattan), and they managed to get them out with the most ridiculously low cash deals (like $10,000). I'm staying put, they'd have to offer me half a million at least. As such, I'm one of I think 3 people left in the building and it's eerily quiet. I'm the only one left on my floor. Having no neighbors has been great for audio production. 

Thanks Noel Borthwick for your informations 
I won sonar since 4 was released,  then I've had Sonar4, - 8 - 8.5 - X1 - X2 - prochannel(whit all suite)- X3 - Platinum.
I have no intention of giving up Sonar for at least another year (I think it will continue to work considering that my DAW has an MB intel DP55SB  and an I5 750), sincerely hope that Cakewalk will be acquired by someone crazy enough to believe that they have the best product a studio can have for their customers.
I really hope that a person so crazy to believe it, I hope for me and for all those who do not want to leave Sonar ... now a companion of almost 1000 songs.
I'll be wait ...
 
elix from englandbross
 
#cakewalkdontdie 

Noel,
 
I'm amazed how much you guys have done with the size of your team! Didn't realize your team was as small as it was.  I work at a company that has about 100 developers.  We have had outages that have taken down our whole external customer website this past week and have many ongoing issues that the developers are having issues resolving.  We have 20+ people working on these issues right now.  
 
I don't think most people on this forum realize how small the actual music industry is.  Most of the companies only have a handful of employees.  Pirated software cuts into their profits tremendously.  Many sample libraries sell no more than 1,000 copies.  The competition is fierce and most of the market is flooded with too many products.  
 
I have used Cakewalk since the 1st version for Windows.  In all these years I've only run across a handful of bugs.  I've had maybe one crash per year on average.  I wish more software was this stable!  My projects usually have 100+ tracks with a large amount of plugins.  I get an occasional bug from time to time but most aren't show stoppers.  More than half were traced back to corrupted files when I had memory issues on my computer.
 
I'm playing the waiting game to see what happens with the future of Sonar.
 
Jim

haydn12
I don't think most people on this forum realize how small the actual music industry is. 

There is a music industry...?