# Is anyone using Cakewalk by Bandlab



## Feral State (Aug 1, 2019)

When I first heard of Cakewalk going free I was really excited but since then I didn't see too much movement from the Singapore based Bandlab brand.
Anyone is using CbB to do serius work? The DAW is great but I am having problems with VST plugins (Waves and EW mainly)
What do you think about the DAW?


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## chillbot (Aug 1, 2019)

Feral State said:


> Anyone is using CbB to do serius work?



I use it for very very serius work, seriusly bro.

But I also don't push it very hard. My tracks are relatively simplistic (template is ~275 tracks) and I offload everything onto a 160GB vepro slave.

I have found 99% of VSTs work fine for me, including Waves and Play though I pretty much only use Play for Stormdrum(s). Literally 1 out of 100 might cause an issue. Output's Movement is one I've struggled with a bit.

I do have a repeatable issue where too much CC data will cause a crash, which is a drag. The workaround is just to bounce a few tracks as audio when working with a lot of CC. Or I will just have my assistant deal with all the CC work, which is much preferred.

As far as the free Bandlab software, it is exactly the same and as fully-functional as the last version of paid Sonar Platinum.


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## TinderC (Aug 1, 2019)

Treatment of VST plugins was IMO always a weakness of Cakewalk. Its easier and more intuitive in Reaper and Cubase. If youre just processing audio tracks, Cakewalk is great.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 1, 2019)

I sometimes open Platinum, but since I got Studio One 4, I really haven't touched it. It was always my 'I'm frikkin' frustrated with ProTools and Cubase and I just want to make some music' DAW. Now S1 is turning into that DAW.

It does work, but it depends on how complicated you get with your music.


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## Feral State (Aug 2, 2019)

TinderC said:


> Treatment of VST plugins was IMO always a weakness of Cakewalk. Its easier and more intuitive in Reaper and Cubase. If youre just processing audio tracks, Cakewalk is great.


Why is more intuitive in Cubase/Reaper? I found it to be exactly the same but the thing is that I am having some issues with some VST plugins not being detected in Cakewalk.


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## AllanH (Aug 2, 2019)

I moved to Cubase when Gibson/Cakewalk announced Cakewalk's demise. I've used Cakewalk since the mid 90s, and still somehow feel it's a bit simpler in many ways. My experience was that Cakewalk did very well under load with up to about 100 VSTs. I never tried it bigger and from time to time, had to bounce. I think it's more efficient than Cubase but has less midi-functionality. I'm not longer using it.


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## TinderC (Aug 2, 2019)

Feral State said:


> Why is more intuitive in Cubase/Reaper?


From what I remember, Cakewalk/SONAR had you set up a VST track, create the corresponding MIDI track, figure out the audio and MIDI routing, etc. all in one complicated operation. Once I learned Reaper, each individual step was logical and easy to remember and flexible. If you want to connect one MIDI track with multiple VST tracks or visa-versa just change the routing. I do remember thinking "It should not be this complicated and unnatural" when setting up VSTs in SONAR producer. Also, in earlier days not every VST instrument worked well, I remember bouncing/rendering/freezing was not easy.


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## chillbot (Aug 2, 2019)

TinderC said:


> From what I remember, Cakewalk/SONAR had you set up a VST track, create the corresponding MIDI track, figure out the audio and MIDI routing


Nah, they've had instrument tracks for ages. Since at least X1 which must have been 10+ years ago. It's a one-click process to insert a VST and properly routed corresponding track, and if you need more control you can split instrument (VST) tracks into separate midi/audio tracks like what you're talking about.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 2, 2019)

I actually likes the way Sonar did that. Easy to set up multiple midis into one instrument like Kontakt.


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## TinderC (Aug 2, 2019)

chillbot said:


> Nah, they've had instrument tracks for ages.


Well yeah. Having not used it for a few years I cant really debate mouse click by click but it was difficult enough to motivate me to pay $60 for Reaper (screamin' deal) and $250 for Cubase. I'm now comfortable with Reaper and just got Cubase because it was on sale and a lot of people seem to use it. I guess this forum calls that GAS. SONAR X2 is still around for me because I have so many projects in it. I grew up with it and would not try to trash it but yes working with VSTs was not easy. I had ASIO issues as well so YMMV.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 2, 2019)

For me, as my computer got better, Sonar worked better. But then it was the same for ProTools. I could use WDM with Sonar but having an audio device with its own ASIO driver helped a lot also. 

For its current price, you really can't go wrong trying it out. If you've used any DAW, it is not hard to use. It is a pretty standard workflow. And it works pretty well aka it doesn't crash more than any other DAW I've used. And definitely less than ProTools.


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## kitekrazy (Aug 2, 2019)

I wish a free DAW was available like this when I first started. I still keep it on my system.


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