Wow.  I guess the 'lifetime' in 'lifetime updates' isn't exactly what we were all expecting.  I'm glad I went to Fender and PRS a long time ago.  I'd feel dirty if I was still playing Gibsons.  Let's hope someone steps in to buy Cakewalk (please, God, not Behringer).  Or maybe Class Action if not.
 

Be a good idea no matter what DAW you go to to stay in touch and talk about our findings and still have a song forum to come to. Cakewalk just make sure there is a forum where we can come together and still talk with each other.

Notecrusher
 
I agree. I worked for 30 years in the corporate s/w development world and went through quite a few M&A's. Believe me, if Gibson could have gotten something for Cakewalk they would have. They are shuttering it to save $. Cakewalk is clearly a loser, costing more in salaries, facilities and other overhead than it generates in revenue. 

Agreed! Cakewalk was a group of very talented developers creating a great product that not enough people bought to cover their operating costs. Sad! The corporate world out there is very ruthless and unforgiving. They don't care about creativity. They care about money. Gibson bought Cakewalk to make money, not to make a great DAW. Once they realized that wasn't happening, they used Cakewalk as a means to save money (i.e. write off the loss). All this is sickening.
 
P.S. Just realized this was my 1,001th post. What a way to go!

This has been coming...
 
"We have a plan to create revenue via alternate ways" so we can afford to offer a "Lifetime" lic. for Sonar Platinum. It must not have been much of a plan. I saw this coming as soon as you started doing fire sales on your future upgrade revenue. I saw confirmation as soon as support disappeared. (I've got a few support tickets open from 18 mo ago).
So I can't say I'm surprised by this. I can say I'm very saddened and frustrated that a big company would acquire Cakewalk, then give the farm away and suddenly discover that the company was no longer profitable so it needed to be shut down.

I hope that Gibson will have the moral integrity to just give it to the dev team if they want it (since to them it will be a loss anyway), who might find it a profitable small business to continue once it is out from underneath the corporate bloat and expense that go along with that. That would be the right thing to do for the dev's and for the loyal users, who like me, would be happy to pay the $100 year update cost to keep Sonar pinging!
 
Perhaps it's just not a viable product. But without a upgrade revenue stream (which they literally threw away) there are very few products that can make it long in a moving and competitive market.


Gibson, give it to the devs. Let them go back to a upgrade plan or subscription plan. Don't kill it.. set it free and do your "customers" a good deed. Don't make us into suckers.

I'm just sickened by this, and all the wasted time it is about to create in my life and all the other Sonar users. wasted time, effort and money.

Thanks to the bakers for all the great work over the years and the magic you have unlocked to help people create great things with Sonar and it's sibling products.
 
Bruce Searl

This really is sickening. I just wrote a soundtrack for a short film for a charitable organization using Sonar. When Sonar no longer works, I will have to buy something else after all the money I sent to Cakewalk. I really feel like I've been screwed. So whereas I feel bad for the people who developed the product, I don't care for the greedy bastards that are pulling the plug on it. I hope Gibson's management rots in hell. I will never own another Gibson product. Besides, Strats are better.

Sylvan

Jarsve
401 signatures
 
https://www.ipetitions.co...ewalk-and-sonar-out-of

I want to sign this but can whoever made this re-write it to correct the grammar and spelling issues? I am not trying to be a punk here, but in order to be taken seriously we should put forth our best effort. I feel that if someone from Microsoft that has any kind of authority to actually do something about this reads this page with the poorly written English (grammar and spelling issues,) they will immediately get the impression that this is not very serious.


Please, let's do this right. Fix the poorly written English.
 
Thank you,
-Charles

Wow! 450 people signed it? This is embarrassing! Somebody, please, write meaningful text! Obviously who ever wrote this has very limited English vocabulary and English skills! I would say- take it off the web until it is completely rewritten, preferably by someone with at least high school education. Thank you. 

dappa1
Be a good idea no matter what DAW you go to to stay in touch and talk about our findings and still have a song forum to come to. Cakewalk just make sure there is a forum where we can come together and still talk with each other.

Real good point Dappa1....................This my 3rd CW forum. This one has helped me in so many ways. Not that the others didn't. Just here feels like, well, Home.

daveny5
This really is sickening. I just wrote a soundtrack for a short film for a charitable organization using Sonar. When Sonar no longer works, I will have to buy something else after all the money I sent to Cakewalk. I really feel like I've been screwed. So whereas I feel bad for the people who developed the product, I don't care for the greedy bastards that are pulling the plug on it. I hope Gibson's management rots in hell. I will never own another Gibson product. Besides, Strats are better.

Hey Dave,
 
Hadn't seen you post in a while. I totally agree about Gibson. Of course, I am the Stratman   :-) 

Boy was I shocked to see this after adding two new plug-ins today after I headed to Sweetwater. Like some on here, Cakewalk DOS was the most I paid for a PC software program at that time, I bought it Sam Ash in Queens, then everything else at Manny's. I had a 8ch Fostex reel to reel tape deck which I encoded ch 8, with a STMP time stripe and synchronized my midi stuff using Cakewalk DOS, I then used the 7 other channels for vocals and real instruments. I had no intention of going to Windows until the version of Cakewalk came out and allowed me to print and make music sheets. Up until then I was strictly a DOS user. I kept using my tape deck until, Cakewalk maybe then changed the name to Sonar, and I could record Audio to the computer. I'm running Sonar now with 40 channels of inputs and 32 out. I remember the problems I had with only 16 channels using Delta 1010LT cards. Thanks Cakewalk, I hope some one buys and continues producing the product.                                                   

robert_e_bone
If it were any kind of option - I would volunteer whatever time I could, as a programmer, to develop fixes for any portion of Sonar that would break for some upcoming Windows maintenance, just to be able to keep Sonar alive and working, in its current functional state.
 
I am quite sure other coders among us would also likely be willing to devote their resources for the minor tweaks that will at some point need to be made to keep Sonar working in an active Windows environment (meaning Windows being allowed to be maintained, versus us keeping a dedicated computer 'frozen in time' (disconnected from internet)  to keep Windows and Sonar working together).
 
Anyways - were such an option available, I would absolutely commit my time to performing such maintenance to Sonar as needed to let it continue working with Windows moving forward.  I have 38 years of programming experience.
 
Bob Bone

Even in case there can be  2-4 programmers in "Sonar maintenance team". Look at that seriously and realistic...
 
1. Sonar is not homogeneous one team developed program. It for sure use a dozen of components. One well known, since exposed, is iZotope. Some for sure require license fees to use (I mean to continue develop with them). There can be something with already unmaintained/expired license agreements, may be even without the source code nor the person to contact (that can be a good explanation why CW was not touching some questionably working core engine parts for years...).
 
2. There will be some direct maintenance costs: signing certificates, bug tracker, repository, etc. At the moment the community is "brave" with posts "We are ready to invest extra $$$" (looking precisely, more like $$ or down to $...). Who ever was a part of a community with an order of $100 per month maintenance (f.e. some Online Game Clan) knows how good such idea works.
 
3. How many huge projects you know which are alive, suitable for pro use and not coordinated by an organization which has at least some money flow (commercial, sponsors, etc.)? Which organization can take this role for Sonar and why?
 
4. There are several concurrents. Imagine Sonar is Open Source or free to use and well maintained. I can imagine that will damage DAW industry even more then dropping prices on DAWs by Apple...
Now think it is not Open Source nor free. But not commercial. That means continuous reduction of users while increasing maintenance (new VS and Windows version will introduce more and more incompatibilities).
 
So, if you are going to develop something for a DAW, see you on the the "dark side" (Reaper, the only other DAW which allows that, Mixcraft will not, Cubase/S1 has not answered yet but have a good reason to not allow that as well).