Privacy and the ability to use the DAW program offline were concerns raised in the Cakewalk forum when the sale was first announced. Those concerns appear to have been fully addressed by BandLab through changes made to the BandLab Assistant.

BandLab has both online and offline components. Online participation is completely voluntary and is not necessary except to check, download and install updates.

An email address and password is needed to open a BandLab account. A BandLab account is required to download the BandLab Assistant program. The BandLab Assistant program acts as an account and file manager so it needs to be installed to download and install the Cakewalk by BandLab program file.

Once the Cakewalk by BandLab program file is installed it's yours. You may choose to uninstall the BandLab Assistant program and Cakewalk by BandLab will still run without any limitations. However, should you want to check for updates you would need to install the BandLab Assistant program once more. You may also choose to exit and close the BandLab Assistant program by clicking on the "X" icon in the top, right corner of the program header. A different choice is to leave BandLab Assistant installed but set it to run only when you want it to.

The BandLab Assistant program has a round, cogwheel settings icon in the top left corner of the header. Click to open the settings button.

The settings window also has a "Sign Out" button that will sign you out of your BandLab account. If you press this button, the next time you start the BandLab Assistant program it will prompt you for the email address and password you provided when you set up your BandLab account.

The "Launch on startup" switch is set to the on position the BandLab Assistant program automatically runs whenever you turn on your computer. Place the switch in the off position to disable automatic startup.

The middle of the settings window has a large "Quit" button that closes down and exits the BandLab Assistant program. Of course the BandLab Assistant settings window also has the exit "X" icon in the top, right header location.

I hope this addressed your concerns.

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Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB) - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
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