RIP Cakewalk Sonar

http://www.factmag.com/2017/11/22/cakewalk-closes-sonar-development-ends/amp/

Sad really.. the product was just getting good.

Ultimately it alienated most of it's customers including me, the product was fine, but sadly the forum became a hard core fanboy club which the Devs rallied behind. I was a ex mod in these forums and the situation became intolerable, I actually got set up.

I suspect there's gonna be one or two of the same people who will say it's buggy Those people clearly have not used to product over the last few years.

Oh well. Just as well I bought Live 10.

I'd love to say I'm surprised but I am not.

 

And i was between cubase and sonar a few years back - good that I decided to go with cubase - but sad anyway that means a little less competition

Uwe

 

I wonder how long is going to take NI to say the same about Maschine after the new investors overlords figure out that is barely profitable and people have huge expectations for continuous and expensive software development.

 

I think cakewalk is older than me. Lol. I remember using it in the 1980s or something. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

 

I saw the end coming. They must have thought they were bigger than they were. When they started the "Lifetime Updates", all of the hard core fanboys jumped on it. It was only a limited time, but once they were all in, how did they plan on making money? I didn't go for the lifetime updates. My subscription was up in January anyway, but I haven't really used it at all in the last few years. I'm all in with Studio One 3 Pro, or my new favorite which is Cubase 9.5 Pro. I really like Cubase, and it's funny because I never wanted to give it a try when I first started using Sonar years ago, because of the dongle. I guess it's clear now that the Cubase/Sonar war is over, and Sonar lost. For me, Cakewalk was just disappointment after disappointment. The first major one was when they announced that they would no longer develop Project 5 Version 2, which strangely enough, looks a lot like Bitwig, but was released years before Bitwig was even an idea. It seemed like they just NEVER got the midi implementation in Sonar Platinum right. It's so cumbersome, but the fanboys love it. You can't tell them anything is wrong with it. I'm so glad there were so many other options. Oh well, Asi es la vida.

 

Give it a rest man please. We get it.

 

I own all all their synths. I don't like that Gibson did this around the holidays. I'm sure some of the staff at Cakewalk will find another company to take their talents to (NI, Presonus maybe).

 

Presonus will be offering a crossgrade price for any Sonar users who want to buy studio one.

 

Software goes to die with Gibson....

 

My apologies to you then.

 

There are some functions in Cakewalk Sonar, that are not implemented in any other software I have (e.g., comping which is a major reason I jumped on the lifetime upgrade.... ) But I think Sonar's major flaw is the lack of an easy to use, inexpensive control surface, even for its channel strip. One can kludge an interface, but it is a real PITA, way more difficult than it should be; I wasted a LOT of time trying to implement one, but eventually gave up.

What Sonar really needs is a fully implemented control surface template for Push 2, or even an APC MK 2.. Or even its own dedicated control surface that would follow Sonar project changes automatically....

The ONLY reason I would now use Cakewalk is for comping - everything else is done much more easily in other DAWs....
IMO, YMMV, FWIW, etc... The combination of NI + Push 2 is only going to get better, and I'm just waiting until one or the other implements comping in an upgrade...

 

But comping is also implemented in cubase and I'm sure also in other daws

 

Me: I really did not like the new movie we just saw.

MkoT: I wonder how long is going to take NI to say the same about Maschine after the new investors overlords figure out that is barely profitable and people have huge expectations for continuous and expensive software development.

Me:

 

It's also implemented in Studio One 3. I actually think it's better in both programs, because in Sonar, you can never truly disable it with midi. No matter what you do in Sonar, you have to take the extra step of bouncing to clips to get a consolidated midi clip in your arrangement. It's ridiculous.

 

I think the real problem had nothing to do with Cakewalk/Sonar and everything to do with Gibson's massive debt and looming insolvency. I agree with the OP that Sonar had really improved and had a lot of things nailed down well in the last year or two. I'd been judiciously upgrading when the price was right for the last twenty years (since Pro Audio 6!) so over the years I feel I got my money's worth. I'd like to keep using it, but who knows when some Windows update breaks it completely. I also agree that hardware integration was a real problem, and because of that I'd been starting to wonder if I should look elsewhere. I guess the answer to that is now obvious. I'm just very accustomed to its workflow and not looking forward to diving into something new. Studio One is looking like a better bet ATM, but I suppose I'll do my due diligence in demoing everything.

 

Well NI could buy up Sonar pretty cheap.

 

The loyal Cakewalk users are all hoping someone buys it. They've been mentioning Microsoft, Izotope, and even Waves. While I feel bad for the employees of Cakewalk, I really feel like they should just let it die. It had it's time.

 

very sad news. still don't know what i'm gonna do.

 

I'm guessing Gibson tried and failed to find a buyer already, at least within whatever time frame they had drawn. Like I said, this is all part of their desperate attempt to stay afloat after several years of disastrous mismanagement. However, I've read a couple of things from a couple of Sonar users who seem to have a pretty credible understanding of at least parts of the Sonar code base (having contributed some really useful utilities to correct the deficiencies in the ACT hardware integration), who say the code base is just antiquated in some ways. People speak of the advantage of a "mature" software product being that it only requires maintenance and some tweaking to add new features, but at some point I think it just becomes very difficult to keep it current with competing software features (hardware integration seems an obvious example). So in that respect, Sonar possibly just doesn't have much value to prospective buyers. It doesn't have a huge market share or anything either.

That's fairly speculative, based on my pretty limited understanding of software development. But I think it's a safe bet that currently, no one is interested in buying Cakewalk. Now if Gibson crashes and burns, their assets could end up in court, so who knows what will happen. Of course, that could take years to sort out, which isn't going to help Sonar's technological viability going forward.

 

What's the reason for Gibsons insolvency? I don't really know anything about them besides too-expensive guitars, always been a Fender Man myself.

P.s. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from America