Post
by Sounddesigner » Wed Nov 29, 2017 8:42 pm
This is devastating news to me. Sonar is the only DAW I know. Everytime I tried other DAW's such as Reaper, Samplitude, Cubase, Ableton, etc I only tried them for a VERY short time and usually did this when I was angry at Cakewalk, but I always abandoned the idea of leaving Sonar and always came back home without much learning of those other DAW's. Sonar is all I know and it is getting harder to learn a new DAW due to my vision getting poorer and poorer. But this time I am forced to learn another DAW because Sonar will not be able to be Activated forever due to the new copy-protection Gibson implimented. I did by Traction 7 a couple years ago and know it a little bit but not enough to even finish a song in it. Learning another DAW is far too time consuming and difficult, a new plugin is usually fairly easy to learn but a new DAW can take forever. I basicly stuck with the love-hate relationship I had with Sonar and stayed loyal to Sonar since year 2002 when I first got Pro-Audio 9 and now I'm paying a price for that loyalty.
When Gibson first bought Cakewalk many people hated this acquisition and said to Gibson they would only run Cakewalk into the ground and then abandon it and gibson defended themselves as if this would not happen, and now lo-and-behold Cakewalk is now dead and Gibson is moving on. Both Gibson and Tascaam bought other DAWs in the past in early 2000's that they failed with and ran into the ground (Gigastudio and Opcode iirc) and people remembered this and stated this to them when they bought Cakewalk but still these big companies always want to buy another little one wich they don't know nothing about and eventually destroy the little company they acquired.
Gibson even screwed us as soon as they acquired Cakewalk 4 years ago by changing the copy-protection from a simple Registration-Key Activation wich lasts forever to a Machine-ID Internet-Based Activation file wich no-longer activates once you change your computer or certain components in it. People don't realize it's the Native worlds draconian copy-protection systems that cause many of our main problems e.g. bugs, instability, higher-prices, loss of license and ability to use your software, longer install times, longer launch times, limited to use on only one computer, etc. Draconian copy-protection is what I try to avoide but many consumers keep these draconian copy-protections alive by purchasing products that use them and thus many users end up complaining later once they are screwed by these copy-protections. Gibson changed Cakewalks friendly copy-protection to a draconian one and then discontinued Sonar. Sonar's friendly copy-protection in the past was one of the main reasons I used it all these years.
I feel like I've been scammed since Gibson and Cakewalk just sold me Lifetime loyalty upgrades for last year for Sonar Platinum but then turn around and discontinue Sonar this year. How can I get my free upgrades for life if Sonar is now discontinued? If Gibson knew they were having serious problems with Sonar in such a short-time ago (one year) why would they do something so bogus as to sell lifetime upgrade version?
This is not all Gibson's fault, Calkwalk use to be innovators and was the first to have many features and functionality such as the first to use plugin instruments, first to go to 64bit O/S, first to have end-to-end 64bit Audio Engine, etc but in recent years its been just more sample-libraries, more plugins, re-doing simple recording and editing features such as comping but rarely any truly great features. Cakewalk would not address the core-engine problems but will give Sonar a new GUI. Sonar is not that good at low-latency performance because of its horrible core-scaling were it overloads one core but barely uses the other computer cores at low latency. Sonar doesn't have a wide enough range of interface drivers compatibility either and has too many issues with too many interfaces on the market.
Many of the newer DAW's are cheaper and more powerfull in certaian appealing ways without all the old bloated code and other older DAWs were getting better new features and core-engine upgrades. Other DAWs had far better routing, far better low-latency performance, wider range of interface drivers compatibility, better CPU efficiency, dual buffers, Mastering and disc burning features, etc, etc. Other DAW's were just getting better new features than Sonar generally wich made them more appealing to some. Sonar rarely got truly special new features or core-engine or driver improvements just more plugins, sample libraries, simple editing features and redoing older editing features, never any blockbusters that are extremely attractive to new potential customers. After version 8.5 there was rarely any major new additions to Sonar wich use to be very innovative and cutting-edge.
From many users experiences including mines Sonar has always been very buggy and for a few years had serious instability issues and because of this many loyal users left and Sonar got a bad reputation for buggyness. This buggyness and lack of new features that are innovative or special helped to kill Cakewalk.
Noone from Cake walk would listen to all the above complaints from users and many of their forum members would blindly defend Cakewalk and troll anyone who come with legitamit complaints, and now Cakewalk is dead and the know-it-alls won't admit they were blind and wrongly attacked people who brought the warning signs.
Native software sucks, and is a scam generally!!