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Keith
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Had Gibson not become entangled in venture (vulture) capitalists, there would not have been the pressure on Cakewalk. Nothing Cakewalk did would have mattered, with Gibson nearly a billion dollars in corporate debt.
[Cakewalk made the DAW, SONAR. Cakewalk was owned by Gibson and unceremoniously killed off in December.]
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The problem is capitalism (not that communism is a better answer - it has even greater faults).
I run two small businesses. A small business only needs to bring in enough money to pay everybody a salary, including the owners. It can sell the same amount of widgets year after year and as long as the price of the widgets keep up with inflation, everything is fine.
Your locally owned restaurants, hardware stores, produce markets, auto garage, florist, landscapers, doctors, realtors, and so on do this all the time.
Now take a corporation. The company is owned by zillions of stockholders who do not work at the company and contribute nothing to the production of products. And they expect each share of stock to increase in value every year.
That means the corporation needs to do more than keep up with inflation, it needs to sell more and more and more and more product every quarter - or do something else to make the stockholders happy. Why? If the stock isn't constantly growing in value, the stockholders will 'jump ship' and put their money elsewhere.
So the corporation is faced with an unattainable goal, at least here on Earth. Perpetual growth.
That stock has to increase in value, so keeping a product that brings in only the same amount of money year after year is not an asset, as it is in a small business, but a liability to the corporation.
Companies reach a saturation point in their growth. How many widgets can you sell? So they do things like bring out new models to make the old ones obsolete, acquire new companies they feel have growth potential, do what they can to kill competition, and so on. But eventually that reaches a saturation point as well. Sales are going to level off, stockholders will jump ship and the debt will increase.
It happened with Parker Guitars, when USA Music bought them. It would happen to Norton Music if Gibson bought me out.
What's the solution? I have no idea.
I do know that a consumer based society with corporations that need perpetual growth is unsustainable. Most companies will grow to a point where they no longer can sell more and more and more, and will either figure out a way to deal with it (unlikely) or fade away. Gibson is still trying to figure out ways to stay alive when most people have as many guitars as they can afford and the music industry is moving away from the guitar dominance it once had.
At least that's the way I see it.
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Pretty well said Notes. Thanks!
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eddie1261
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I would love to find some sales data and see how many units of Sonar were sold last year. A lot of the diehards with any product, be it Sonar, Ableton, whatever... need to remember that once a program fades in popularity, there comes a point where YOU may be the last person alive who cares.
Comes a time to move on to something new. Like I did with wives....
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"Gibson is still trying to figure out ways to stay alive when most people have as many guitars as they can afford and the music industry is moving away from the guitar dominance it once had."
Gibson makes junk guitars. Unfinished frets, binding glue globbed everywhere, loose switches, absolutely NO quality control. Old ones are sweet- because the company cared about the product back then.
Gibson, like Cakewalk, will eventually fail as well, but it will be due to bad management, not Corporate market forces.
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Bob
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All that matters is this quote: In an effort to turn Cakewalk’s finances around quickly, one of my colleagues and I put together a drastic cost reduction plan that would have made Cakewalk profitable. He also went on to mention a saturated market. Without knowing anything about Cakewalk, when I read Gibson killed them it's obvious they were losing money. Nobody will just kill a subsidiary if it's making money. They may sell it but not simply kill it. Junk guitars, comments about capitalism and all that is irrelevant. Cake was bleeding cash. That's it. You would do the same if you tried being an Ebay store, lost your butt for a few years and gave it up. How much money are you going to give to a loser? If people want to say they died because of mismanagement well, that implies that proper management could have made money. That further implies that someone will put together a new team and make an offer to Gibson to buy it. If CW is truly a money making opportunity someone will jump on it. Hasn't happened yet but who knows? Bob
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"......................
Gibson makes junk guitars. Unfinished frets, binding glue globbed everywhere, loose switches, absolutely NO quality control. Old ones are sweet- because the company cared about the product back then.
...........................
Regards,
Bob Not only junk but very expensive junk. Also all USA guitar manufacturers are under attack by China. China's guitars are high quality at a very low price.
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FWIW - Cakewalk's upgrade policy, around $100 for lifetime upgrades, was great for the consumer but an absolutely a killer for the company. How can a company make money giving away free upgrades forever? IMHO none!
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FWIW - Cakewalk's upgrade policy, around $100 for lifetime upgrades, was great for the consumer but an absolutely a killer for the company. How can a company make money giving away free upgrades forever? IMHO none! It's a good point, and with the benefit of hindsight, maybe this was their way to try to generate some much needed capital? They already knew they were on a downward trajectory?
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FWIW - Cakewalk's upgrade policy, around $100 for lifetime upgrades, was great for the consumer but an absolutely a killer for the company. How can a company make money giving away free upgrades forever? IMHO none! On the other hand, the lifetime updates for free model has worked well for +++ Image-Line +++, otherwise known as FL STUDIO. I can't agree free updates was what done Cakewalk wrong as long as a competitor can offer the same feature and it works for them. Nope. There is something else that no one from Cakewalk or Gibson has disclosed. Don't know what it is but there is a part to the "downfall of Cakewalk" that hasn't been made public yet and may not ever be made public.
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How long has Cakewalk been around? I remember having it for my Commodore 64 in like 1984 I think. And then I lost track of it until Sonar, which I got a few years ago. All I really use it for anymore is the plugins.... LOL!
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Some of the SONAR plugins are designed only for the Pro Channel, and thus will not work outside of SONAR.
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That may be but a bunch of them show up in Real Band and I use them.
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Some of the SONAR plugins are designed only for the Pro Channel, and thus will not work outside of SONAR. And unfortunately they are the plugins that were the most handy. Whilst other plugins will perform similar tasks to set up say Reaper with a ProChannel equivalent will take time. I have spent the last week looking at Reaper and I now feel I could make it work but I will need to do some rethinking. The good side is most tracks I have in .wav format. Even most midi projects I had rendered. Other midi stuff is really only a matter of opening up the projects and saving the midi which is a fairly simple task. One very annoyed Tony #%**^%!!
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<...snip...> A lot of the diehards with any product, be it Sonar, Ableton, whatever... need to remember that once a program fades in popularity, there comes a point where YOU may be the last person alive who cares. <...> I went through that with Master Tracks Pro. Microsoft bought Passport Designs for a bit of the technology to use in Power Point. Then sold the rest of the company to GVox. GVos cared about Encore (notation) and did a buggy version of MTPro, fixed a few of the bugs, and then abandoned it, promising to release a new version year after year after year. I don't know if I was the last one who cared, but after a few years of promises, I figured it isn't going to happen and quit checking. I like it because it has good features, a groove filter, and is only a MIDI sequencer. Without the complexity of adding audio it loads fast, and has every menu dialog box available with a hover and click. No menus with sub menus that have sub-sub menus. And everything snaps to the screen instantly. In other words, I can keep my hands on my MIDI controllers (wind, keys, drums) more and on the computer less. But how are you going to upgrade a product like that every year after year after year to keep the cash flow going? That's what killed Master Tracks Pro. BTW, Eddie, I'm on Wife 2.0 and I got lucky with that one, she's a keeper. Labor in the US is less than labor overseas, and in many places overseas factories are allowed to pollute so they don't have the expense of cleaning up their waste. The two of these combined make it difficult for manufacturers to sell US instruments. I can't get a pro saxophone made in the US, and I don't even know of any non-pro saxes made here. My USA Parkers were expensive, about 3 times as much as the Chinese Parkers, and as a pro who uses the tools to make my living I appreciate the hardened stainless steel frets, better quality switches, and other things that will make the guitar more reliable under heavy use, but for the average user is it worth it? My Korean Epiphone Casino is about 90% as good as my Gibson ES-330 and at about 1/4 the cost. So I have 2 Parker solid body guitars and 2 Gibson/Epiphone hollow electrics. Do I need more? Not me. They are tools, not collectables. They are going to get played, played hard, and are already pretty beat up. I'll beat them until they are no longer dependable and reasonably repairable and only then buy a new one. This doesn't help the cash flow nor the value of any corporation's stock. I use D'Addario strings, they have the chiclets item, and they get money from me monthly. So does their Rico saxophone reed division. In retrospect, I don't think the lifetime upgrade for one flat rate was a good idea for Gibson/Cakewalk. Cakewalk has been around since the pre-Windows DOS days, and it's sad to see them go. But things that can't generate constant income are destined to die when they go corporate. Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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FWIW - Cakewalk's upgrade policy, around $100 for lifetime upgrades, was great for the consumer but an absolutely a killer for the company. How can a company make money giving away free upgrades forever? IMHO none! On the other hand, the lifetime updates for free model has worked well for +++ Image-Line +++, otherwise known as FL STUDIO. I can't agree free updates was what done Cakewalk wrong as long as a competitor can offer the same feature and it works for them. Nope. There is something else that no one from Cakewalk or Gibson has disclosed. Don't know what it is but there is a part to the "downfall of Cakewalk" that hasn't been made public yet and may not ever be made public. Good point. But imagine-line also sells a lot of plugin-ins, both effects and synths. Cakewalk did not go that route. Yes they did have a few for sale but they gave more away with the free updates. I agree that there was something else behind the scenes, maybe Gibson's big debt problem, that we may never know but I still think the free updates without selling plug-ins was a big cause. YMMV PS- also note that this is not the first sequencer/DAW Gibson ruined. Remember Vision? I was a huge fan of Vision. When Gibson killed that one was when I went to Cakewalk.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
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I bought Reaper about a decade ago and then paid for the upgrade for version 5. So all in all, I think I'm in for about $100 (that's less than $10 a year). Unless I missed something, I don't think they're going out of business anytime soon. I doubt the lifetime subscription for Sonar is what killed it, and in fact over the years I have purchased ProChannel effects that didn't come with Sonar, so there is money to be made with additional software. I think the underlying problem is Gibson, period.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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eddie1261
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BTW, Eddie, I'm on Wife 2.0 and I got lucky with that one, she's a keeper.
Like me with Pro Tools.  Actually the DAW in Real Band is about all I really need because I don't do any elaborate busing or sub grouping. All I do is get it close and send it to England where my guru takes over!
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cakewalk could come back if the code is legally portable.
I experienced this with a much lesser known DAW, that was purchased by Mackie, then killed off. The original developer got some friends and investors together, and a few years ago, bought the company back and has been successful running it.
The developer is the developer of JUCE and there's other stuff being developed using that code. For example, as far as I understand it, the Roli seaboard continuous controller apps use JUCE.
Anyways, it would seem to me that there's a possibility for Gibson to sell it off. Why they bought it in the first place is a big issue. Spread themselves too thin.
I recall shopping for jobs at Gibson about 15 years ago, and the only engineering jobs they had were software jobs.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Last Chance! The Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® Special Ends Today (May 31, 2026) at 11:59pm PDT!
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And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
With your version 2026 for Mac Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!
This Free Bonus PAK includes:
- The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK:
-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
- Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
- Playable RealTracks Set 5
- RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
- SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
- iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
- 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
- FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
- MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
- Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
- RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
- SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
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