KVR Audio

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:28 pm

Talk about a rollercoaster.
HERE IS THE MAC prototype~ YAY!

but we learned 3 things- huh?
1) that was hard
2) we have finite resources
3) no further sonar for mac development is planned

well f**k. Im glad I bought in on the strength of a mac version appearing. Ahh well maybe the prototype will allow me to extract most of the audio of my CWB files.

so it isnt the end of the world, but whoever hatched this scheme up in Boston should be given a stern talking to and learn that customers dont like bait and switch.

telecharge · Post by **telecharge** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:36 pm

Here's the official thread...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/The-SONAR-Mac ... 93807.aspx

Personally, I want a company to come clean (as Cakewalk has done here) rather than string me along. That said, I can certainly understand why some will be disappointed.

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:50 pm

Stupid American Pig wrote: so it isnt the end of the world, but whoever hatched this scheme up in Boston should be given a stern talking to and learn that customers dont like bait and switch.

Well, in CW's defense, I don't believe that they ever promised anything more than an alpha version, and they made it clear (to me, at least) that they were testing the water and that there was no guarantee we'd ever see an official Mac version. But, they still should have known that many/most people would have a much more optimistic view than that and buy it based exactly on that expectation.

Regardless, I'm guessing that this statement on the forum means that some people may have gotten more than a stern talking to:

We have recently made some organizational changes that we hope will improve our ability to communicate in a more effective and timely manner.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:52 pm

I always doubted that SONAR would be up to the expectations, at least for the first release. Migrating a mature product like SONAR over to a new platform is a HUGE task, and usually a real PITA. MOTU did that with Digital Performer, and, although the current versions seem to behave better, it is still not quite there, and certainly not on pair with the Mac versions performance wise.

So, since Apple seems to also teka little care for the computer business nowadays (except when it's about charging premium prices for middle-class hardware), I think it's justifiable for Cakewalk to not waste resources chasing a potential market that would be hard to conquer.

medienhexer · Post by **medienhexer** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:12 pm

I think the timing was unfortunate. They did have a video announcement for the Mac version while offering the lifetime free updates deal, didn't they?

I may remember incorrectly but I thought the guys were giving the impression of being very serious about turning the Mac version into a serious product.

VariKusBrainZ · Post by **VariKusBrainZ** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:15 pm

Ouch

And officially you can't sell their products

HobbyCore · Post by **HobbyCore** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:23 pm

I nearly got suckered by this. Luckily I realized Sonar was missing a number of features that'd mean it'd be useless to me even on Mac.

kangul · Post by **kangul** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:14 pm

Quote from the official thread on Sonar forums:

First, building this SONAR Mac Prototype took more effort than we had hoped or expected. There has been a constant stream of UI/UX details, and performance tweaks to resolve -- just to deliver this initial prototype.

Of course it has, because they tried to run Sonar via API translator (Codeweavers Crossover which is based on Wine: https://www.winehq.org/). This is an unfortunate idea itself, because in such case all plugins should also be native Windows plugins and not Mac plugins, and least of Win plugins run via API translator on Linux/Mac flawlessy.
It seems that Sonar is tightly connected to Win API. It means that to give proper Mac support they should re-write product from scratch, and this is an unprofitable task for them on their level of business. They should have been started their product as cross platform, as others (Cubase, Ableton Live, Reaper) did. Now Sonar doomed to be Windows-only product.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:18 pm

kangul wrote: It seems that Sonar is tightly connected to Win API. It means that to give proper Mac support they should re-write product from scratch, and this is an unprofitable task for them on their level of business. They should have been started their product as cross platform, as others (Cubase, Ableton Live, Reaper) did. Now Sonar doomed to be Windows-only product.

That was my thought too. "Probably they'd need a complete re-write of the program, to make it crossplatform-compatible". Well, it's tough. The way i see it, they don't have too many ressources really. Took them a couple of years to finally fix Z3TA 2, to get rid of some long standing, severe bugs. I think what Cakewalk would sorely need is a investor, to pump some money and manpower into the company. Can't help it. I'd be a bit scared as an investor though. Not exactly what i'd call a "cash cow".

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:39 pm

So glad I held back from buying the lifetime update - they were just being too coy about everything. What on Earth were they thinking though trying to build it using Codeweaver's tech? That was never going to work.

Alex Westner · Post by **Alex Westner** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:42 pm

chk071 wrote:
kangul wrote: It seems that Sonar is tightly connected to Win API. It means that to give proper Mac support they should re-write product from scratch, and this is an unprofitable task for them on their level of business. They should have been started their product as cross platform, as others (Cubase, Ableton Live, Reaper) did. Now Sonar doomed to be Windows-only product.
That was my thought too. "Probably they'd need a complete re-write of the program, to make it crossplatform-compatible". Well, it's tough. The way i see it, they don't have too many ressources really. Took them a couple of years to finally fix Z3TA 2, to get rid of some long standing, severe bugs. I think what Cakewalk would sorely need is a investor, to pump some money and manpower into the company. Can't help it. I'd be a bit scared as an investor though. Not exactly what i'd call a "cash cow".

It is true we are very much locked-in to Windows, but we also don't feel we are "doomed," by any stretch. There are plenty of Windows users in the world for us to address, and we look forward to reaching them!

Yes, we are a small team, small company, but we have some new ideas to innovate and help us grow. I'm totally optimistic and see a lot of potential for us.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:50 pm

Can it be compared to Apple buying Camel Audio, discontinuing Alchemy on Windows, while later giving away Alchemy 2 free with GarageBand.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:55 pm

That's the thing, "SONAR" might be thought of as a "big name" -- but Cakewalk do not have huge numbers of people working for them. To say "well they should have written it cross-platform to start with" is ill-informed and naive, too. Reaper started as 32bit Windows only. It wasn't until REAPER v2.52 - October 12, 2008 - that beta MAC OS support was added, from a first public release in December 23 2005. Cakewalk 1.0 came out for DOS in 1987, so it's accumulated rather a lot more history than Reaper. Cubase, of course, came out for the Atari and Mac before Windows, so again, the comparison is flawed. Similarly, with Ableton Live, Max was on Mac before DOS/Windows. It took FLStudio from 1997 to 2015 to get a Mac version out...

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:06 pm

Alex Westner wrote:It is true we are very much locked-in to Windows, but we also don't feel we are "doomed," by any stretch. There are plenty of Windows users in the world for us to address, and we look forward to reaching them!
Yes, we are a small team, small company, but we have some new ideas to innovate and help us grow. I'm totally optimistic and see a lot of potential for us.

Believe it or not, it is something that has actually endeared me to Cakewalk over the years. The ability to not sell out to a closed system that continually seeks to infantilize the market.

Platinum is better than ever, and updates have been the most consistent they've ever been. Don't mess up the momentum you've got going now.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:10 pm

pljones wrote:That's the thing, "SONAR" might be thought of as a "big name"

I am not sure I do that anymore.

I am starting to think about them a bit like Wusik.

Both offer good products, but recent wheeling and dealing schemes for upgrades seems a bit desperate.

I mean, how much have Cakewalk earned on abandoning the usual cycle of updating the DAW every other year or so for Windows, and leave it at that.
Instead of meddling sub fees, then with free for live updates, and teasing an OSX version that is not gonna happen.

All publicity is maybe good publicity, but I thought more about them as a stable long time DAW maker before, rather than now.

About that cakewalk email that should be in your inboxes right now