PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Cakewalk by Bandlab goes bye bye in August. Sonar?

Sadly, as some of you might know already, Cakewalk by Bandlab will be disabled in August... from your computer, as their "authorization" is tethered.

They did release a "free" non-subscription version of their "new" Sonar. Which has some features of the previously (free) Cakewalk by Bandlab gone.
No perpetual license options for full featured Sonar. Potentially they can pull the rug under at any time (just as they about to do), because new "free" version is also tethered.
Personally, I have very mixed, mostly negative feelings about their politics. In my view, they should have at least given advanced 6-12 month notice before shutting it down. Or, if they are confident about their products, unlock Cakewalk by BL and let people make the choice.

P.S. According to a 2024 survey of over 5,000 DAW users, Cakewalk is used by 1.30% of music producers—down from 1.66% in 2023. (chatgpt). Interesting how these numbers will change in a few months.

Previous post on this topic here.

Sigh. I was a Cakewalk power user back in the day. But that was a lot of days ago...

As was I. I went from Pro Audio 7, 8, and 9, (IIRC) to Sonar 1, 2, and 3. When they went under I tried a number of other DAWs and found with Studio One Pro. I have been very happy with it.

There is a trend on the Internet that I dislike. Offer something for free, and when people get their work invested in it, start charging for it. That's a bit like bait and switch, isn't it?

Well, there is still a free version available.

I've been using the Cakewalk product line from the start. A friend I know was using it back in the DOS midi sequencer days. When I first saw that, it was so cool but at the time I wasn't into computers and midi was a mystery.

I started with Cakewalk Pro 8 Deluxe. Due to some issues with sharing a work computer and needing to update the OS, that version stopped working on the new OS. I got back in some time later with Music Creator 4 (MC4) followed by MC5, and MC6, then cross-grading to Sonar, and then to Cakewalk by BandLab..... and now back to Sonar.

I bought those with the exception of MC5 & MC6 which I received gratis from Cakewalk. MC5 was from a contest win and MC6 was as a beta tester. Of course the BL stuff has been free as well.

Howdy Herb....
I started out with Voyetra with the magenta colored squares of midi content.

Likewise....I started with C'walk 3.0 and back in '94/'95 and obviously it was just MIDI only.
I purchased the Roland JV-30 keyboard at the same time and got busy.
I looked back on that era very fondly because as a (wannabe) song writer/rhythm guitarist it was a great leap forward in recording tool options.
I stayed with C'walk and only missed about 2-3 version upgrades.
I've been with X3 Producer ever since and had no issues.
But, I was totally turned off by the new subscription process and I knew X3 was all I needed.

A great day to all.

For what its worth, this old dog started with Cakewalk back in one of the MIDI only versions, and I’ve stayed with it all through the years, even when it looked like it was dead and buried. If you never have much use for MIDI, I guess any old DAW will do, but I’ve done so much with MIDI it’s the first thing I look at in a DAW. When it looked like Cakewalk was gone forever, I looked around briefly and some DAWS had no midi implementation at all and most of the rest were poor compared to Sonar. To be honest, I didn’t really think that Cakewalk was going to remain free for ever when BandLab revived it. I also saw long ago that things were forming up for most if not all software companies to move to a subscription model. I’m gladly paying the BandLab membership fee and using Sonar ostensively for free as a perk of my membership (yeah, it’s still a subscription). If you look at the yearly membership, and think back to how much we used to pay every year for the next upgrade, we are actually getting off cheaper now. And that’s not even accounting for inflation. I got a discount this year and paid abut $100 for the membership ($125?). By comparison, BIAB isn’t subscription and with yearly 2025 upgrade, extras, and taxes I paid $357 and change. I know that everyone detests subscriptions, but you are usually paying less a year than when we had to purchase a lifetime license, plus you are getting continuous updates instead of having to wait until the end of the year for a rushed out and buggy program. I know there are other strong opinions out there, but that’s mine.

That's good to know. Where can I download it?

Thanks.

Download is on the left here.

Downloaded and installed earlier today. Seems to have same essential functionality, and a very similar look and feel. Had a little trouble installing in that the "normal" install froze during file unpacking. Happened three times. (Yes, I'm stubborn.) Then tried the "custom" install and it installed right away, even though I selected no custom install features. Huh. Oh well, mission accomplished, moving on...

Many of us used Cakewalk, Sonar, and X3 for years. Many of us wanted nothing to do with it after it went belly up.
BandLab was a bad idea from the start. Free? I wish you good luck with that. A come-on to get you started, then not free, then see you later.

Free is generally worth about what it costs.

Want an excellent DAW for cheap?

REAPER also offers a 60-day free trial period for users to explore the software before purchasing. After the trial period, the software continues to function, but a nag screen will appear to remind users to purchase a license.
A REAPER license currently costs $60 for a discounted license or $225 for a commercial license.

I use Studio One Pro because I like it and it does most everything I need. I also have Reaper and Pro Tools.

I have Sonar installed on an older machine, and I believe it is still functional. I may have a BIAB floppy dish somewhere, but why would I use either?

Let's hope stupid political issues don't cause P G Music to have serious problems.

Billy

I don't mind paying for a useful software app, but I tend to avoid subscriptions.

Give me something worth upgrading and I will, but don't charge me by the year whether I like the new features or not.

I know it's hard for software companies to stay in business if there is no reason to upgrade, thus, the subscription model. When the model is subscription, the software company need not do anything substantial, they have your money whether it's worth it or not.

As a working (underpaid) musician, I have to watch my finances. Work comes in excesses and also goes through dry spells. By owning, not renting most of my software and hardware, when the COVID lockdown came, I survived over a year without work without having to dig into my savings. The same thing happened when two hurricanes came in a year and closed most of the places I gig in for a year, while reconstruction happened.

That's just my rant.

When you purchase a style e-disk or fake e-disk from me (Norton Music), it's yours. I'll make new ones, hoping you will find them useful, and if you do, and buy one, it's yours, too.

I think that's a better way to do business.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Same here ... with subscriptions it's far too easy to find oneself paying out more than one thinks.

I do use quite a bit of free software, but I'll happily pay for decent software and for the free stuff I'll very often make a donation(s). The same with Wikipedia.

I would opine that the same is true with yearly updates, but your mileage may vary. I’m thinking that if instead of selling that infamous Lifetime Sonar that was foisted on us, which turned out to be the rather short remaining life of Cakewalk, they would have been better off right then an there to create a somewhat fixed and guaranteed income each year with a subscription and may have avoided going bankrupt. They still had a loyal following at the time and by offering a choice between a subscription and an outright purchase that didn’t include upgrades without purchasing them they might have survived as an independent software company without a white knight. I believe that as time progresses it’s going to be difficult to find good software that’s not subscription.

If you look at the direction of hardware, the desktop computer is going away, and the software and storage is increasingly in the cloud. Personally, I prefer purchasing a license to software that I own and keeping it on my own computer and storing my data there as well but I suspect that as time marches on, soon those options are going to be taken away from us. For the same reason that your computer no longer has a 5.25 or 3.5 floppy drive, or a CD drive, or a DVD drive, you are going to be pushed increasingly into the cloud. We’ve always had a problem with computers: They create and consume more data than we can economically store. I mentioned in another post, that I can no longer afford the type of GPU that is capable of running the current AI video technology efficiently, and have had to resort to renting GPU time from the cloud to get projects finished. I think we are going to wake up one day soon with extremely small computers that rely on processing, software, and storage that resides in the cloud and very little local processing and storage. If you want the greatest and best performing software, and your in any kind of business that competes with other people who are also seeking the greatest and best performing software, then you do what you need to do to survive. The folks who are the last to get pulled in kicking and screaming are getting left in the dust by those who understood what is coming. I include myself in that group because I deluded myself into thinking that an investment in bleeding edge technology a few years ago would fix me up for years. I was left in the dust before I even realized what was happening.

What I missed in predicting the future of computing was AI. It’s going to affect everything we do in computing and it’s already making a profound impact on music and video software. In 5 years time, it’s going to be impossible, I think, to afford the GPU power to keep up with the state of the art AI without a subscription. Don’t think that AI won’t be necessary for your favorite software. Look at the degree that AI has given us control in creating voices in programs like Synthesizer V and Vocoflex. Dreamtonics has barely utilized the GPU power available since the processing is local. What happens when a competitor releases a product that runs on one of those super GPUs. That kind of GPU umph isn’t affordable for you or I to own any longer.

Anyway, sorry. I’m just babbling. What’s an old guy going to do, Let me go out and get those kids off my lawn. :-)

Participating in this forum requires access to technology. To walk over to the acoustic piano and play something does not.

Technology is a choice we make.

If all the technology that was invented in the last 80 years was to go away in the morning suddenly, the only thing I think I would truly miss would be air conditioning...lol

The latest thing I got for free was a GPS from a friend of mine. I spent $ 1,650 to install the wiring to operate it. It turned out that it would not work with my current unit. I then had to buy a new one for $ 2,890. That is $4,540 that I likely would not have spent if I hadn't gotten something for "free."

There are free things that, on rare occasions, do come along. A school teacher in another city, where I happened to be, was at the checkout at the grocery store. She was stressing out over the cost of supplies for a party for her 41 students, including food, drinks, and other essentials which most of it she was paying for out of here own pocket. I asked the cashier how much the total bill was, and I paid it. I don't know the teacher or the students, and they don't know me.
It just was the right thing to do.

The evolution of "Cakewalk". A guy named Greg started the company and then sold it to Roland, who sold it to Gibson. In November 2017, Gibson ceased active development. A few months later, BandLab, a company from Singapore, acquired all the Intellectual Property Rights to Cakewalk.

The product continued to be developed by both Roland and Gibson while they owned it. By the time Gibson decided to stop development, "Cakewalk, Sonar, X1" had become a full-function DAW that many people liked. There was intense competition among the major DAWs, and it's unclear how the outcome would have been if Gibson had been able to continue. I assume BandLab thought they could capitalize on Gibson's misfortune.

Corporate America has only one requirement. That is to make money for their shareholders. If the end user of their product or service was treated fairly or not is irrelevant.

Here's how they made money:
Freemium Model: Offering a free tier with robust features attracted a large user base. This model maximizes accessibility and encourages engagement, acting as a foundation for their other monetization strategies.
Subscriptions: BandLab offers premium subscriptions (like BandLab Membership) for users who want to unlock advanced features and services. These include enhanced audio processing tools, exclusive content, artist services, and additional storage.
In-App Purchases: Users can purchase various digital assets within the app, such as professional loops, samples, and virtual instruments, to enhance their music projects.
Advertising: BandLab strategically places advertising on its platform to generate revenue without disrupting the user experience.
Artist Services: BandLab offers services like music distribution, allowing artists to release their music on major platforms and keep 100% of their earnings (often requiring a Membership). These services also include features for promoting music and growing fanbases.
Hardware and Software Sales (from the parent company): As part of the Caldecott Music Group, BandLab benefits from the sales of music hardware and software from its other brands

Here's an overview of their current economic condition:
Strong Funding & Valuation:
BandLab Technologies successfully raised $25 million in Series B1 funding, which boosted their post-money valuation to $425 million.
This builds upon their previous $65 million Series B funding round.
They have raised a total of $143 million in funding across three rounds.
Growing Revenue:
While BandLab offers a free core platform, the company generates revenue through various channels, including subscriptions, in-app purchases, advertising, and artist services.
As of June 2025, their annual revenue has reached $75 million, with $8.66 million reported for December 31, 2023.
Expanding User Base:
BandLab boasts a massive global user base, exceeding 100 million registered users by late 2024.
The platform saw a 30% increase in user activity in 2024, demonstrating strong user engagement.
Strategic Investments & Acquisitions:
BandLab has strategically expanded its offerings by acquiring companies like ReverbNation, Airbit, and Cakewalk, broadening its service offerings and strengthening its market position.
Focus on Innovation:
The company actively integrates new technologies, including AI, into its platform to enhance user experience and remain competitive.
They invest in strategic partnerships and alliances to drive growth and expand their reach.
While some sources suggest the BandLab platform itself doesn't directly generate profit, its diverse revenue streams, coupled with strategic investments and a growing user base, indicate a positive economic trajectory and a strong position in the music technology landscape.

So, this is not some poor mom and pop company that is running out of money and has to quit making Cakewalk. Welcome to 2025.

Billy

Yes, Welcome to 2025.
Well said, Billy.

And perpetual growth in a system where that isn't possible.

Perhaps everything doesn't need to be corporate.

Private businesses need to make money, too. Enough money to pay the employees, and have enough left over for the owner. Increases that match the rate of inflation are important. Anything more is good, but not mandatory.

A corporation generally has 49% of the owners that are not participating in the corporation. They expect a return on their investment that continually increases. If the increase matches the rate of inflation, there is no sense holding the stock. If the increase is less than the rate of a savings account, why hold the stock?

So a corporation is locked into a more, more, more syndrome, if it doesn't do that, it goes under. A corporation needs perpetual growth, which is not possible in a closed system like planet Earth. Karl Marx knew this, but history proved that his attempt at a solution was not the answer.

If you take out a loan to finance your business, it's possible to pay the loan off. If you use stockholders, the loan never gets paid off, and the interest payments grow constantly.

An item like a DAW starts out, and every year there are improvements, which makes the profit the 49% who don't work at the company happy. But then the product matures, and there isn't much, or anything left to make the existing owners of the product worthy of their money. What to do?

With mechanical things, you can shorten the life cycle with parts that will last so long, but not too long before they need to be replaced. With fashion, they make what you own in your closet so "last year" requiring you to buy new clothes before the old ones wear out. There are plenty of other ways that result in planned obsolescence.

Well, you can't do that with software, so if you can't offer something new that the customer thinks is worth his/her hard-earned money, the trend is to rent the product instead of sell it. We call that a subscription service.

When the company turns to subscription, there is no need to improve the product, you just need to fork over more money for what you thought you already owned.

If not, the corporation goes belly-up. Perhaps the guy who invented Cakewalk, could have kept it, instead of selling it to a corporation that needs perpetual growth.

So what is the solution for that? I don't know. Sell it to a small company who can exist on the reduced sales of new customers? Have the corporation invent something new, unrelated and innovative enough to keep the perpetual growth of the stockholders interests happy while keeping the mature product for help but not the main focus?

I know that once it gets to the rental stage, instead of the ownership stage, I lose interest in it. I have no moral obligation to keep a corporation alive that isn't delivering something worthy of the money to me.

Some people buy their car some people lease, some people buy their house, some people rent. I'm the buy type for things that are important to me. I bought my guitars, saxophones, and other musical instruments, along with my house and car.

On the other hand, companies like PG Music have done a good job keeping the product alive by offering new, innovative features to the software. I remember the days of 3 instruments, no user styles, no intros or endings, a quantized, limited drum grid, and only 24 built-in styles.

This is all thinking out loud, so I reserve the right to change my mind as I think about it more, and get more information.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

How much of the software on your computer is owned by You?

None. Not one line of code unless you wrote it. Even then, if you were working for someone else at the time, you still don’t.

All you ever have is a use license subject to the terms and conditions of the actual owner. When ownership changes, the Ts & Cs may, also, and you have no say over this other than to accept or discontinue the use of the app. There are times when laws or treaties may impose restrictions on this but the End User has no say in it. For example, California law requires OS support for three years after release.


Yep. One can look up Dodge Bros. v Chrysler and Dodge v United States to read the many cases that established this as US law.

The free Cakewalk by Bandlab, or CbB, will cease to export or save once the last software activation terminates sometime during August.

While CbB is being effectively neutered Bandlab is replacing one free DAW that has not been supported in over a year with two free DAWs. Each new, free DAW has different features and are marketed to different users. But again both are free to anyone with a free Bandlab account.

Sonar has the 30+ year cakewalk and Sonar development legacy. It is a mature, up-to-date, full featured DAW. It's strengths are working with midi, mixing and mastering. Development has centered on updating the GUI interface, re-writing legacy software modules to improve efficiency, increase fault tolerance, fix bugs and have the program make better use of available mulicore microprocessors. Essentially Sonar began with the last released code from Cakewalk by Bandlab.

Next is an entirely new DAW product. It's marketed to producers and musicans that typically build a project track-by-track. At 49 MB in size it is not as feature rich or complex as Sonar. Building a track from loops aeems easy to me.

Sonar is backwards compatible with all CbB, Sonar and Cakewalk song projects.

Cakewalk developers created a utility that converts between legacy and Next file formats.

Yeah CbB wil stop saving or exporting soon. But I've started playing with the replacements and I'm happy with both DAWs offer.

Billy,
"Here's how they made money:"
You forgot one key element. When they rolled out "free" Cakewalk By Bandlab, you HAD to agree to "share" feedback. What it means... For years they had direct access, mining usage data supposedly from millions of people. You, user = product. I believe this is also true for their new free Sonar.

Mike,
"How much of the software on your computer is owned by You?
None."

True, however there is certain hard historical statistics. I had only two instances in 25+ years were software was remotely "disabled". That only happened because they relied on specific two way server communication / exchanging data.
Cakewalk is the third...and this has zero to do with network backend. And while 95% of software I have, I don't "own", I am still able to use it аs long as my operating system & hardware can handle it. I have some software that was purchased over 2 decades ago that I still use weekly, while the companies who wrote them vanished long ago.

If they had unlocked/ untethered dated "free" Cakewalk by Bandlab, I would have 0 issues with company. Forcing the change in a matter it was done... I have no desire to play their games. When they roll out standard license model, the one you activate once to a machine and be done, I will gladly re-join the party.

P.S. What completely puzzles me and many other Cakewalk users is that a single license purchase would be equal to several years of subscription. Why waste that opportunity and drive away the segment of people who are willing to pay for the license? Judging by AI generated (linked poll). Cakewalk usage is about 1.3% among producers, on a declining path. It could of easily been in 8-10% if they have changed their marketing posture. Ball is in their court.


Thankfully PGM doesn't play these games and has a very acceptable and affordable license structure for the core program.