Gibson Kills Cakewalk

[Gravity Jim]

Well, that's how Henry rolls.

1. Buy a company for way too much money because they've got some little piece of tech you want
2. Ignore everything that the company was founded on
3. Shift all R&D to ideas for Gibson Guitars that users will hate
4. Rush off and make another bad acquisition, while ignoring the last one
5. Close down the last acquisition, because you didn't know how to make money with it, anyway.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Gibson-Announcement

[stubbsonic]

Z3ta is a pretty cool synth. It's one of a kind in a few ways-- best-in-class mod matrix, tuning maps, polyphonic-scale-constrained pitch-bending!!! (e.g., bend your diatonic triads to the next scale notes up or down), weirdly versatile wave-shaping, etc. But it was an unfinished beast. If they had invested in developing it, it would have more than a cult following.

I don't think I ever used their DAW/Sequencer.

Sometimes these big financial maneuvers are like flushing some opportunities down the toilet.

[mikehalloran]

Again?

[FMiguelez]

But, but, but... Me no comprende.... Wasn't Sonar the evolved result of Cakewalk? Like Performer and Digital Performer?
Or did they branch out independently?

Cakewalk was my first sequencer. I still use it occasionaly to convert from .wrk to .MID for ancient projects I re-do better.

[Gravity Jim]

AFAIK, Sonar is one of the Cakewalk-branded products that will cease to be developed or produced.

[mikehalloran]

Every now and then I still fire up Opcode Overture when someone wants DMCS files converted to MIDI. Opcode Systems was bought by Gibson in 1998 and it bit the dust in 1999.

Gibson owns 54% of TEAC/TASCAM last time I checked.

[FMiguelez]

Oh, I see. Thanks Jim.

SO, would it be accurate to say it was the last PC-only DAW left?

I wonder what the pro DAW market looks like now... So we have:
DP
PT
Logic
Cubase
Nuendo
Studio One (FL)
The Unmentionable One
Garage Band (although I wouldn't consider this one a pro DAW)

They all seem to have their own specialized niche.
That's pretty much it today, right?

[James Steele]

Just saw some local musician friends of mine bemoaning this development. Now's the time to remind those people that MOTU has a 30 day free demo of DP for Windows.

Not the first time Gibson did something like this. Can't help think about how they managed to ruin Opcode and Studio Vision Pro.

[mhschmieder]

Beat me to it (I saw this elsewhere earlier today). News like this travels fast!

My bandmates in various bands mostly used Cakewalk DAW's over the years. At one point, Sonar and DP were arguably the two most "traditional workflow" friendly DAW's aside with ProTools (which at the time couldn't do MIDI).

Z3ta+ is cool and Rapture Pro is pretty good as well (except for periodic installation/update/authorization issues), so I hope those will continue in some form. But most of the Sonar users I know have moved on, so probably it wasn't being maintained too well the past few years (just a guess).

Given Cakewalk's proximity to MOTU, hopefully many of their better people can find jobs there. And maybe MOTU can buy the VI's and plug-in effects, if Gibson is willing to parcel stuff off.

It's been pointed out that the DRM in Z3ta+ and Rapture Pro will probably render them unusable in short order. That's a bummer as I have especially grown to like Z3ta+ synth bass patches as ones that are warm and cut through a mix without being overly-dominant like a Minimoog can often be.

[James Steele]

My bandmates in various bands mostly used Cakewalk DAW's over the years. At one point, Sonar and DP were arguably the two most "traditional workflow" friendly DAW's aside with ProTools (which at the time couldn't do MIDI).

I've used Cakewalk back when there was a guy named Gregg Henderschott doing everything and the company was called Twelve Tone Systems. My IBM PC days on DOS. Cakewalk 1.0. Had a pseudo GUI using ASCII characters to simulate a piano scroll view. LOL Sigh... getting old. LOL

[mhschmieder]

Donate it to a museum.

[Babz]

Oh, I see. Thanks Jim.

SO, would it be accurate to say it was the last PC-only DAW left?

I wonder what the pro DAW market looks like now... So we have:
DP
PT
Logic
Cubase
Nuendo
Studio One (FL)
The Unmentionable One
Garage Band (although I wouldn't consider this one a pro DAW)

They all seem to have their own specialized niche.
That's pretty much it today, right?

Also Ableton Live.

And Bitwig.

[FMiguelez]

Also Ableton Live.

Of course!

And Bitwig.

I had never heard about that one before.

Oh, I also forgot to mention Reason.

[mhschmieder]

Also the former Tracktion, now re-branded (and radically re-done) as Waveform. But it's limited in scope, so not really a pro audio DAW.

Propellorhead Reason, and Fruity Loops (FL Studio) are used by many, I guess in a similar way to Ableton Live (mostly looping, and primarily MIDI vs. audio).

[bayswater]

They couldn't make a go of Sonar? Idiots? Hedge fund?

On the plus side, there's an opportunity for MOTU to expand the Windows base.