 This video is sponsored by DistroKid. Follow the VIP link in the description down below to get 7% off an already amazing price to distribute your music to the world. What on earth is the Cakewalk product center? What's happening with Cakewalk Next and Sona? And what's happening with this channel and Cakewalk? Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you're well. I'm gonna be addressing all of those questions in this video, especially the very difficult decision I've had to make about the future of this channel and Cakewalk. But before we get into that, let's just give a quick history lesson and get us up to pace on where Cakewalk currently seems to stand. As many of you know, Cakewalk started out 37 years ago in 1987 as a MIDI sequencer. As time went by, they started to add audio features and it really became one of the world's first digital audio workstations or doors. Now it's been owned by a number of entities over the years, including Roland and Gibson. And then unfortunately in 2017, Gibson announced that it would no longer be continuing development of Cakewalk products. Then we learned in 2018 that Singapore-based band lab had acquired many of Cakewalk's assets and intellectual property. They then went ahead and released a free version of Cakewalk, Cakewalk by BandLab, which I still maintain is the very best digital audio workstation you can get for free. Now in 2023, around about nine months ago or so, BandLab announced that it would also be ceasing development of Cakewalk by BandLab, the free version that is in the near future. And they also announced that they would be releasing two commercial products or paid for products, Cakewalk Next and Cakewalk Sona. Now this is where it all gets a little bit vague because when they made this announcement all those months ago, I seem to remember they indicated an expected release date of towards the end of 2023. Obviously that time has come and gone and indeed we're creeping towards the end of the first quarter of 2024. Now I know this is frustrating, many of you. You'd like to decide what your future is with Cakewalk and to make that decision, you need a timeline and you also need to know how much it's going to cost and indeed, how are you gonna pay for it? Is it gonna be subscription or an outright payment? But there are signs that something may be happening very soon. First of all, at the bottom of their webpage they do have download links for versions of Cakewalk Sona and Cakewalk Next. These are obviously pre-release versions of some kind for people to try out. And there's also the Cakewalk Product Center. This was announced at the end of last year and it looks to me like it's gonna be the place where you download anything and everything to do with Cakewalk. And indeed, I would encourage you to download that and start using it now to download the very latest version of the free Cakewalk by BandLab, which may be the final version. Currently, if you install the Cakewalk Product Center, it checks your system to see which version of Cakewalk by BandLab you have installed. If there's an update available, you can update it from here and you can optionally choose to install some of the add-ons. Now, I'm gonna predict that this is the tool that they're gonna ask you to use to download and update Cakewalk Next and Cakewalk Sona. But I would suggest that you get hold of this tool now and make sure you keep up to date with the latest versions of Cakewalk by BandLab until they stop developing. That is if you wish to continue using it at that point. Now, it doesn't clearly seem to be available on their webpage as far as I can see. If you know of a download link for this on their webpage, do let me know in the comments down below. However, they did announce it on the forums. They provided a link there and I'm gonna provide that link in the description down below. Make sure you check it there. Now, before we move on to my difficult decision about Cakewalk and this channel, I'd like to mention quickly that whether you decide to use Cakewalk by BandLab or Next or Sona to create your music and release it to the world, I highly recommend you make use of our sponsor DistroKid. They make it super cheap and easy to get your music on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, et cetera. Make sure you follow that VIP link in the description down below and you're gonna get 7% off your first year of membership. So I feel like I wanna clear up a couple of important myths about this channel and Cakewalk. The first myth is that I'm somehow affiliated to BandLab. I'm not. This channel's been around for four to five years and in that time I've never been paid by BandLab for anything and I've never entered into any business agreement with them. In fact, I think we've only exchanged maybe three emails in that time at the most and two of those were about technical issues. So no, I'm not affiliated to BandLab. The second myth I see is usually in the form of a question, especially recently when people ask me, hey Mike, have you now abandoned Cakewalk for Studio One? Now this question is based on a misunderstanding of the origins of this channel because when I started this channel in 2018, I'd already started to use Studio One as my main door. I'd stopped or started to stop using Cakewalk in around about 2017 because of the whole Gibson thing and its uncertain future. So you'll notice if you look at the first few videos on this channel that I was actually making tutorials about Studio One. A little later on, I wanted to make a video about free doors and it was only then that I discovered that Cakewalk by BandLab even existed and that it was free. So it was very easy for me to throw my weight behind this door, especially because it was free. I knew that it was a very capable product and I knew I had some knowledge in it because I'd been using it for some years. But I also knew that many people would be entering the world of home recording and using Cakewalk by BandLab because it was free and that the learning curve could be a little steep. So I wanted to help those people out. I wanted to bring them into our fold. I even made a full blown course, the Absolute Beginners Guide to Cakewalk which was specifically for people who were just getting started. If you'd still like to make use of that course, there is of course a link for it in the description down below. Now I did continue to make Studio One videos for a little while. However, I found that it was a bit confusing for the viewers of this channel. So I decided a little bit later on to make a channel specifically for Studio One. Okay, I'm gonna have to be sort of bluntly honest here. I'm afraid what's an all. Creative Source as well as being my passion is also my business, okay? It's my livelihood. And I have to make passion decisions and also business decisions. Now as a whole, it's a channel which is about home recording. It's not really door specific and many if not most of my videos are not about a specific door. Now it does exist in the world of YouTube and YouTube has algorithms which you're gonna work for or against you if you like. What YouTube is not keen on is if you make say three or four videos that are generally gonna be appealing to people and then you make one video which is only for a small group because all the other people are just gonna flip past that video and YouTube isn't keen on people doing that. So as a business, I'm a little bit at the mercy if you like of that algorithm. So I had decided for the last few months since BandLab made their announcement to sort of wait and see what was gonna happen. But I feel like it's gone on too long now so I had to make a final decision. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I have no affiliation or duty towards BandLab themselves but it's sort of weighed heavy on my heart because I did feel that I've got a duty towards you guys. The Cakewalk community has been like really, really supportive of this channel. You've been very kind to me. Many of you seem to like my teaching style and I've seen you recommend my videos and of course we've got a thriving Facebook group as well. One of the biggest groups on Facebook for Cakewalk and I'm really proud of all of that and I'm proud of the Cakewalk community. So I decided that I couldn't just abandon you all for one of the better way of saying it. And yet it wasn't gonna work for me in a business way. So my decision was that I would indeed create a new YouTube channel completely and utterly dedicated to all things Cakewalk. Whether that was Cakewalk by BandLab, Cakewalk Next or Cakewalk Sona. I'll put a link for that channel in the description down below today. There's maybe one video on there at the moment when you get there. So it's gonna be a little bit of a while before it really starts to get lots of things on there but I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna beg you. I'm gonna ask you if you would like to see me continue to make Cakewalk content in the future because you enjoy my teaching style and we've got this relationship. Could you follow that link now and go and subscribe to that channel? If I get an awful lot of subscribers there, that's gonna indicate to me that it's something that you really want. So I don't often push this whole subscriber thing but I would ask you today if you could and you're a part of the Cakewalk community who'd like to see me make more videos. Could you follow that link, subscribe and keep an eye out there because as soon as I know anything or as soon as these new products become available, I'm gonna start making tutorials for them. Thank you so much for watching this long-winded explanation from me. I'd love to hear your comments down below. I'm sorry to those people who are new. You wanted me to continue to make Cakewalk content for this Creative Source channel. I hope you understand the reasons why I don't feel that I can really do that. Thank you in advance and I will see you in the next video.