Brandon! Long time no see... nice to see you but drag that it's under these circumstances as it were. What a crappy turn of events. Still... hope you're well! (Sounds like it!)

Good to hear from you Ryan.  Best wishes to you and any Cake staff you talk with these holidays.

The decision was made to better align with the company’s acquisition strategy that is heavily focused on growth in the global consumer electronics audio business under the Philips brand.
So why the hell did you buy this company in the first place get loads of members who were with cakewalk since the 90's take their money with a now worthless lifetime guarantee for as soon as  the servers hosting the authorisations stop working we are all left with useless software. I raised concerns about this when Gibson took over and we were all assured that Cakewalk was safe under the Gibson brand. Gibson call Noel now and get him to write code where we don't require online authorisations going forward. We paid for this software so it's rightfully ours now. It's the least Gibson can do for the loyal customers and user of Cakewalk products. Closing it down is not an option or else sell it to the Cakewalk management for $1.

This is truly wretched. Cakewalk devs are some of the smartest, nicest, most knowledgable people in the business. There's no doubt they'll do well wherever they go from here (Great C++ devs aren't exactly a dime a dozen these days). 
 
I don't know what "acquisition strategy" Gibson is referring to, but it seems to be an oxymoron. Judging from the recent non-starter song-writing iToy release and the non-port Mac OS port of Sonar, I'm guessing Gibson's goal was to have a cross-platform DAW solution to synergize with their pro audio brands. But if this guess is correct, it represents an epic failure of due diligence on Gibson's part.
 
I wouldn't bet my life on Microsoft buying Cakewalk even at a firesale price. Microsoft's core business today is cloud services. Its only creative applications are basically exhibitions of these cloud services. There's a better chance of Paul Allen buying the company, as he's into music and was the founder of Submersible, which made drum loop library products. :D In all seriousness, this announcement most likely indicates that attempts to sell off the Cakewalk division have already failed. Gibson would not have otherwise devalued the product with an announcement such as this.
 
I join Craig in recommending Studio One. It's been a DAW where I've been spending most of my music production time, and it gets a lot of things right. There's a Black Friday 50% off sale on it going on now. 
 
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am very grateful to Cakewalk for having been there. For all I learned about arranging, producing, and mixing music on its products and at its events. For all I learned about the process of building consumer software in my two long-ago years as a beta tester. For the excitement in trying out the next great new feature, the next new instrument, the next update.
 
Thank you!

Ron Kuper
If SONAR could somehow get open sourced I'd happily contribute to the effort!

Aren't there licensing issues around the VST format that would prevent that from happening?

Brandon Ryan [Roland]
This is just devastating news. Cakewalk and SONAR have been so intertwined with my life for so long, it's hard to imagine. I met my wife on a Cakewalk business trip, eventually leading to a family with two beautiful children. I've spent countless hours in SONAR, filling proverbial buckets of creative blood sweat and tears, over the years. I'm sad for all the users (myself included) around the world that have made their musical homes in Cakewalk and SONAR over multiple decades - hell, since the last millennium. And I'm so deeply sorry for all my dear friends and former colleagues at the Bakery. The perception that the Cakewalk crew are talented, hardworking, earnest people who do this out of love as much as livelihood is exactly right. I can attest to that personally.

It is so good to see you here. Thank you for posting your thoughts about this. I have missed you. It is very bad news for all of us but its considerably worse for those with CW. I see all the very hard work they and you have put in through the years as being discarded with no regard for the huge talents the people of CW brought with them. 
 
I was wondering for awhile how much saturation the DAW market could take. There are simply too many DAWs for the limited number of potential users. This situation seems due to forces beyond CW's control and the effort has gone nowhere.  
 
As difficult as it seems I was thinking for awhile now if CW would find it harder to continue. It has been such a cutting edge program for so long. 
I am so sorry that it is this news that brings you back. I wish it were for much nicer reasons. 
 
 

Good to see Ron too. 
 

This is horrendous news. I'm sorry for all the developers who put their hearts and souls into this product.  I guess I should have known when you offered lifetime updates that the lifetime would not be long. 
 
Please sell it to someone, because it's a great product, but it will soon be outdated. I guess I should have gone with ProTools. ARGGGHHHH! I hate to be selfish about this, and I know people are losing their jobs, but I've put many thousands of dollars into this product which will soon be in the dustbin of software history. Cakewalk, I'm blaming you for the hangover I'm going to have tomorrow morning...... 
 

chuckebaby
I'd love to see Noel, Lance and a few other Cakewalk Staffers start a new company building a DAW similar to Sonar.
Call it Radar and build it better than anything else out there.

I know I'd be a willing customer for such an effort.

Although I moved onto Cubase a few years ago - my heart never really left Sonar. Such a sad day - the news of the closure has really affected me - my thoughts with everyone at Cakewalk. Thank you for helping me make music and thanks to this forum (and the newsgroup lol) for all the hints and tips over many years.