Reviewed By Lairyboy [all]
October 26th, 2020
Version reviewed: 2020.09 on Windows
I am new to the 'production scene' but have drummed in bands in my teens and twenties in the 90's and have recorded in some small studios and one really pro studio. I downloaded Cakewalk in 2019 when I half heartedly was looking for some free music production software. I played around a little bit and after being a little bit overwhelmed I just left it there on my hard disk. I downloaded a couple of trials of other DAW software, thinking that paid versions must be better and easier to use (right?) I struggled even more with these trials and realised just how good Cakewalk was, and that my learning curve wasn't Cakewalk it was me. Anyway, free being free and lockdown being lockdown, I suddenly found myself with time and a great piece of software. I created some very passable music, although being a drummer I struggled with the music bit, but am learning more music theory as I go. Cakewalk has been particularly solid with very few (2 or 3) crashes over months of use and I have seen several updates with functionality added, allowing me to spend money on monitors, a new keyboard and more plugins than I need! Bandlab have done a fantastic job of keeping Cakewalk alive while fixing bugs and improving stability. The documentation is pretty good and there is a friendly and helpful community with great knowledge at the cakewalk forums. I highly recommend this software to beginners and people fed up with the endless paid upgrade cycle of most other daws. What have you got to lose?
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It's so great to have the new Cakewalk visible here at KVR. As an example of the team's hands-on engagement with the user base, this listing itself was created by a BandLab/Cakewalk senior engineer, an active musician himself.
For in-depth discussion and assistance, the official Cakewalk Forum is the place to go. See you there.
The one star review up there. This guy bought a software license a decade ago from a company that went out of business 5 years ago. He lost his install discs (remember when software came on physical discs?). There is now a company called BandLab that has a product with the same name as the company that he bought the license from (the product has the same name, the company is 5 years gone). Since BandLab can't help someone with no proof of purchase get a copy of this old synthesizer plug-in that he bought from a company who BandLab bought some code and trademarks from, he gave their product a one star review.
As a courtesy, BandLab has kept the old Cakewalk company's web server online so that Cakewalk Inc. customers can still have access to their software, but that requires the customer to have created an account and registered their serial numbers before Cakewalk Inc. closed its doors. In order for this guy to get what he wants, BandLab would have to be able to generate new user accounts on the old server and new serial numbers for a defunct company's discontinued product.
Let it serve as a warning: if you bought software in 2012 from the 5 years gone Cakewalk Inc. company and lost your install media and never set up an account with Cakewalk Inc. and expect the company who makes Cakewalk the program to do something about it in 2022, you will be disappointed. Probably by many things.
I have a more general question, Groove synth, Z3ta1, TTS-1, Dimension, Cakewalk Rapture, RgcAudio Pentagon, are they free ? where can I download them?
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