Forum members that also use Cakewalk may find this information nugget interesting.

Since Bandlab released the former Sonar Platinum software under its new name, Cakewalk, developers have identified and fixed more than 3,000 bugs.

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As one who tends to look at things from every angle, isn't it a consideration to look at that statement from the other direction? That being why it was released with over 3,000 bugs?

That chronology sent me running to Google. I used Cakewalk in the 80s as a DOS program, so to say "Bandlabs released the former Sonar Platinum software under its new name, Cakewalk" made me say "huh"? Band labs acquired Cakewalk when Gibson quit on it in 2018, so I don't know if it is right to say that BandLabs did much more than change the name on Sonar to Cakewalk By Bandlab.

I only use Sonar so I have access to the plugins anyway. I am not deep enough into DAWs these days to really get involved into the semantics of who owns what. I rarely leave Real Band anymore because it is all the DAW I need, especially when I can use the Twelve Tone/Cakewalk/Sonar/BandLabs plugins.

Man I had Cakewalk 1.0 back right after Greg Hendershott started Twelve Tone Systems. And it cost a fortune. Followed soon by Texture by Roger Powell, though to me it was not as intuitive as Cakewalk so after buying it at a show and having Roger sign the package, I barely used it. That was about 1985-86 I think.

That's amazing to consider. 40-ish years ago I was using clunky barely-usable sequencers, and now I have PC writing music for me.

I've lost touch with Cakewalk/SONAR/Bandlab because I jumped ship to Presonus Studio One. There didn't seem to be a safe path forward.

Now, while I'm very happy with my setup, I am also pleased to see that those who remained with Cakewalk by Bandlab are getting the support we did not know would come.

Eddie,

Simply put, products were released before they should have been because Gibson acquired too much debt. Gibson purchased Phillips consumer products.

Cakewalk was a division of Gibson. Gibson was bleeding money. Gibson closed the Cakewalk division in November, 2017. The screen shot below provides a non comprehensive list of Cakewalk division products at the time the division closed.

There were three professional grade Sonar DAW platforms; Platinum, Professional and Artist with Platinum the premier product. There were also two consumer grade DAW platforms; Home Studio and Music Creator. All together the software development team maintained five DAW platforms.

Then there were all the plugin products.

Bandlab released Sonar Platinum as Cakewalk by Bandlab April, 2018. There have been more than 3,000 fixes since Cakewalk was released.

What's hard to do is remove the desire to judge what was then by what the standards are now. Cakewalk 1.0 was like "Oh yeah! You mean I can record onto my computer and then keep layering tracks on top of it? YES!!!"

And look where we are now.

To a certain extent, you're correct. I had a pc AT clone with a 286 microprocessor, Creative Labs Soundblaster 16 sound card with a gameport MIDI adapter running Voyetra Sequencer Plus Gold. I had a Casio DG guitar controller and keyboard with MIDI ports. I could actually create music that sounded good enough the rest of my family would listen to it ... one time!

I've got stuff that sounds a whole lot better now but I don't enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed the older stuff. Of course back in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s anything "computer" was fascinating.

I have been with Cakewalk since the early days as well. I was so sad when Gibson ruined it. Then low and behold here comes Bandlab and brought it back to life. All my old purchased stuff worked and you could still download stuff if you needed to as Bandlab was keeping the domain alive as well. I had switched over to Cubase and still use it as well. Just depends on how I feel that day I guess!

The very definition of a bug is that it's there because the developer didn't know it was there. But.... wow!, 3000 is a lot of bugs.... more of an infestation.

That said, I have rarely encountered any issues or bugs in my use of Cakewalk products. Yep, I get the occasional crash but I attribute that to the computer, the plugs, and the OS but it could very well be the coding in Sonar.....

When in doubt.... and the system starts acting unstable...... SAVE, CLOSE, REBOOT.

I get the impression from comments developers leave on the Cakewalk forum that the developers are digging deep into the software innards to fix some issues that have "bugged" them for a long time.

They seem to be enjoying being able to add whatever enhancements are needed to keep the software current without having to reinvent the wheel every year.

I think the best part is they are not just maintaining the software but improving it and adding features basically every month. They have brought it up to current standards with lots and maybe all of the bells and whistles that other current commercial DAWs have.

Do you really think that all 3000 bugs have been in place since 1987?

Or that they were all show stoppers?

Correct, they were not showstoppers. I used SONAR for decades with good success.

I still use Cakewalk for recording and editing. Most bugs are things that the majority of users never run into.

Same here. Still have Sonar Platinum installed on my studio pc. Paid for the lifetime deal, or whatever it was, and then that other deal went down.

I moved to Studio One primarily because of all of the online tutorials. Cakewalk was sparse in that regard.

I still have productions that I hope to export and import to Studio One, but haven't so far. And now PreSonus is Fender.

Oh well. It's still an incredible time to be involved in music:)

Yeah, when I read the update fixes etc. it is usually stuff I have never used and probably won't. Sometimes I don't even know what the fix was for because I have never ever done it before.