Cakewalk's Sonar also goes to subscription model - will Magic Craig comment?

[Anderton]

 

Well if you quit paying before you've paid it off in full then I guess that's what would happen.

 

Yes. It's like any product - if you don't pay the price of the product, you don't get to keep it. Cakewalk is not doing a rental program where the program dies if you don't renew after a year. But if you choose to pay monthly instead of upfront, you're committing to paying for 12 months before you own the software and have permanent activation..

 

Maybe they figure they can get more customers who can't afford the whole price upfront this way.

 

This was done specifically because customers requested a monthly option. Based on early stats, most people are paying upfront, but a lot of new users are choosing the monthly option.

 

 

 

[Anderton]

I'm not going to bother with X2 or X3 at this point. I'm not sure what the subscription version has to offer besides steady paychecks for the code writers.

 

Download the Platinum demo when it comes out. It's the first "all-post-Gibson-acquisition" release (X3 was released after the acquisition, but it was mostly in place beforehand). VocalSync alone is worth the upgrade price, which is $149 for X1 and X3 owners until the end of February. You also get Melodyne, exceptionally good comping, and the other features I've detailed above.

[nat whilk II]

 

Cakewalk has a new installer that lets you roll back to previous versions at any time. Also, you can postpone an update if you're in the middle of a project, and grab it later...even much later, if you prefer As to the learning curve, one of the reasons for doing monthly updates is you don't get hit with everything at once. The learning curve becomes much shallower when features occur over time.

 

Actually this system works very well for you. Once you become familiar with a feature in your "editing" environment, then you can update the "tracking" machine. Or not. Or roll back.

 

If you want, you can pay for the update and not update anything until the last month of your current membership. Or update one computer, and not another.

 

Just saying thanks a ton for all the helpful info -

 

nat whilk ii

 

[Anderton]

 

Just saying thanks a ton for all the helpful info -

 

nat whilk ii

 

Glad to help. Cakewalk put a lot of thought into this, it was basically a year in the making. As you can tell I'm very jazzed about the concept, I think it's a very cool way to do things.

 

As I said to some people at NAMM, the most difficult thing about my gig at Gibson is saying what I really think sounds like what I would be paid to say under different circumstances. Someone was asking me about the Les Paul Monitors, I've been using them for the past several months and they are really fantastic. I started giving my opinion and then gave up..."just listen to them, and tell me what you think."

 

[Etienne Rambert]

Subscriptions make sense for me IF it is easy to use. Last year I had good experience w/Sonar tech support via email. That means a lot. Sonar snaps to my MIDI hardware too. It maps to all my gear. It has the most complete patch map library available. That is important to me too. But it still needs an easier UI IMO.

 

I'd only use it for MIDI. I use Auria for audio. I don't want to subscribe to features I don't use.

[Anderton]

I'd only use it for MIDI. I use Auria for audio. I don't want to subscribe to features I don't use.

 

There is no a la carte option. In that way, it's like magazine subscription - you get the articles you want to read as well as ones you don't want to read.