SONAR requires some adjustment if you’re used to another DAW, but it’s got a long history in production. Heck, it might be a reason to consider a Surface Book with touch support, or to migrate to a fast laptop. And this could in fact reinvigorate the Windows platform for audio at a key moment. SONAR supports touch, VST3, and other technologies missing from a lot of rival DAWs. Cakewalk was always a leader in support for 64-bit and Windows core technologies. However if you’ve purchased them previously and have them on your desktop they’ll automatically integrate with Cakewalk by BandLab. So if you’re downloading Cakewalk for the first time as a non SONAR user, you don’t, for example, get free access to Melodyne or Rapture.

What’s missing? Just third party products or plugins / loops. I got some more clarification from BandLab: Existing users who have already purchased bundles or individual third party products and plug-ins can still use those products with Cakewalk by BandLab.īut that isn’t a big gap. Fortunately, at least, that appears limited to selected add-ons, not the core DAW:Ĭakewalk by BandLab is a streamlined version of SONAR Platinum – and certain third party products and content bundles will no longer be included. And BandLab say that while this includes “the entire SONAR Platinum feature set” in a version with “full authentication and unlimited feature-access” for free, some of the bundled tools are evidently missing. So, wait, what’s the catch? Well, you do need to install the BandLab client to download the DAW this is bait for BandLab’s online services. You even get tools like the ProChannel modules for signal processing. This week, BandLab announced they’re re-releasing the DAW as “Cakewalk by BandLab.” And it is actually SONAR Platinum. That differs from a lot of ill-fated acquisitions music technology assets are often fairly meaningless without the humans who worked on them.Īn online and mobile DAW called BandLab just acquired Cakewalk’s IP And in a sign this was a serious deal, they also got some of Cakewalk’s team, including top engineers Noel Borthwick and Ben Staton. We learned back in February that Singapore-based BandLab acquired Cakewalk’s assets from Gibson. A version of SONAR Platinum will be available free, and finally, it’s just called “Cakewalk.”

One of Windows’ most powerful, most popular, most native-optimized audio tools is not only back from the dead, it’s available for free.

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