New DAW Choices for Cakewalk Users
Cakewalk users will now have to choose a new DAW. It was a very sad and impactful day when all of the Cakewalk users, who may have just purchased the SONAR Platinum with Lifetime Updates just in the summer of 2016, to learn that Gibson would kill the brand and product line from Cakewalk in 2017. I guess in Internet years, 1 year is a lifetime.
At any rate, I have received at least 200 texts and phone calls as to what I would recommend. There are so many options to choose from but it truly is about the workflow. If someone is used to the workflow of Cakewalk, it may not be a great move to go to Ableton Live or even Bitwig. The traditional ways of writing music on a DAW that’s been around for just over 30 years, has been to somewhat emulate tape recordings with unlimited (or very large number of) tracks. Below are some of the equivalent software where you can do just that, and the workflow is not too different, and the learning curve should not be too steep.
- Apple Logic Pro (Mac Only)
- Avid ProTools (Mac and PC)
- Steinberg Cubase (Mac and PC)
- MOTU Digital Performer (Mac and PC)
- Presonus Studio One Professional (Mac and PC)
If you do want to look at a new workflow of writing music, then Ableton Live and Bitwig are good choices, and both offer a more linear way of composing as well with the current versions, as opposed to purely a loop based composition DAW.
There are many more options out there, but I wanted to focus on the platforms we are used to seeing as projects that our clients bring into our studios. Currently, both MOTU and Presonus, are doing a cross grade from Cakewalk for their respective DAWs, if those are of interest to you. I feel the above mentioned 5 DAWs should be around for some time, as all of them sell both hardware and software to a degree (Apple has other lines of business, and Steinberg has some hardware offering too.)
Good luck to those who were solely using Cakewalk to finding the next DAW for their music creation process, and choose wisely. Goodbye to a great DAW that has been around for so many years to allow creativity to flow.
