Cakewalk by Bandlab 2021.12
We're pleased to announce the 2021.12 release! This release introduces support for nested track folders, localization updates, various enhancements and optimizations, and over 50 bug fixes.

2021.12 Highlights

Support for nested track folders

To improve track organization, Cakewalk now supports nested track folders. A nested folder is a subfolder that is contained within another parent folder. Nested subfolders allow you to organize tracks more logically. For example, you can have a "Guitar" parent folder that contains "Electric" and "Acoustic" subfolders.

Localization update

The French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Russian versions of Cakewalk have been updated.

Misc. enhancements

Upgrade to VST3 SDK 3.7.3
Upgrade to ELASTIQUE SDK 3.3.9 (contains fixes for ELASTIQUE stretching)
Upgrade to latest ARA 2.0 SDK

Behavior changes

• In order to accommodate screen readers, the TAB key is no longer bound to "Tab to transients" by default. You can re-enable this function again in Edit > Preferences > Customization - Keyboard Shortcuts; bind the TAB key to AudioSnap Go To Next Transient Marker and bind SHIFT+TAB to AudioSnap Go To Previous Transient Marker.
• The Archive button image.png is now a tri-state button in order to indicate if a track folder contains a mixture of archived and unarchived tracks.

+ over 50 bug fixes.

For more details, see the 2021.12 Feature Overview.

Download Cakewalk by Bandlab 2021.12 for free from:

https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk

Glad to see Public advertisement again for Cakewalk DAW. Hopefully Bandlab invest a lot into the DAW and make it one of the best again. I don't like the new Copy-Protection system since it expires every 7 months like subscriptions. I can't have my tools timeout on me and i hate subscriptions so don't go there. At least Bandlab has kept Cakewalk alive i only hope they strive for true greatness unlike Roland and Gibson when they owned Cakewalk.

Cakewalk the Best.

Cakewalk by Bandlab is one of the better deals. A fully functional, old style DAW for free. Well, you have to check in online every 6 months. Just consider it a click on gearspace.

If you are on windows it is perfect. Now, if Bandlab would only re release their synths Rapture/Dimension…

If they don't fix the audio engine and performance of it they will not attract more users. The problems of the audio engine are a lot and the usage of the plug-ins is very bad in most cases.

I don't have the same experience, I think it works well on my system. See here for more information about the load balancing of plugins across cores.

I totally understand that everyone doesn't like activation. Nowadays there is in-app activation that handles everything automatically if you're connected to the internet, and there is also an offline option.

I'm not very fond of phone-home activation in principle either, but it works very well for me in practice (= I don't notice it at all).

A small info blurb from the 2021.12 update:

"Please note that in order to automatically keep your activation status up to date, Cakewalk will renew your activation status whenever a new version of the application is installed and run for the first time, and when you sign in to BandLab from within Cakewalk. If you have never signed in to BandLab from within Cakewalk, you will be prompted once to sign in. "

For everything you want to know about activating Cakewalk, see below.

Activating Cakewalk by BandLab
https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.p...lk-by-bandlab/

We are considering using this for collaboration so could you tell me what you mean by the problems of the audio engine please? What specifically are the problems? Could you recommend other options? Cheers

I have already talked about at the cakewalk forum but unfortunately no results.

Sorry I’m not on the cakewalk forum. Could you give me a gist of what you said on the forum? Thanks

Cakewalk doesn't use all the power of the processors and the audio engine drops out.

Really love Cakewalk. Been using it almost exclusively for more than twenty years.
In my experience, it has the best audio engine, second only to Reaper and only by a hair. Plugin usage is amazing even more so with core balancing. I know systems are different and there's lots of variables, but that's exactly why a blanket statement like "engine needs fixing and plugin usage is bad" is just not true.

On the other hand, I will concede a mayor gripe I have is the External Plugin which enables use of external hardware. Sadly it can't be used in mono as it will always "eat up" the whole stereo pair of whatever mono output you are using on your interface, cutting in half your I/O options and numbers. This has been raised numerous times throughout the years since it was implemented (more than ten!) and the updates keep coming but never a fix to this problem.

Hence, my migration to Reaper for mixing. But if they would fix it, Cakewalk would again be a strong contendor for professional mixing.

Cakewalk best

20 year user here and I LOVE the fact that we are still seeing almost monthly updates.

I've just started using it with Audiogridder for my Acustica plugs and couldn't be happier.

Thank you Noel and Team !

I tried it and the piano roll iis triggering the wrong notes

When Noel and Cakewalk had Sonar, they tried their hardest to crash it into a mountain, removing useful features and ignoring longstanding bugs.

Once Bandlab got hold of Sonar, they've worked extra hard to undo all the damage Cakewalk did to it. It's really been impressive how much they've done. I've long since migrated to Studio One but still it's amazing in how many areas Sonar outperforms Studio One. Multicore use and plug in balancing is a big one for Sonar. I have projects on Sonar that completely choke Studio One to a halt and Sonar just cruises on.

I keep an install of Sonar still since Bandlab keeps updating it and more than once I've really considered just going back to Sonar.

Great job, Bandlab!

LOL, I was the under the impression that it's the same guys doing the development, just under different management...again.

-e.B

FYI, Noel is still head of cake development.

Well maybe Bandlab has limited what he can do because he sure as heck wasn't working in Sonar's best interest when he was at Cakewalk. The smartest thing to do would just to let him program it but not be allowed to make suggestions.

You really don't know what you're talking about. Please quit badmouthing Noel. He's probably the only reason that Cakewalk is still being developed today.

-e.B

I've been using Cakewalk since the version Pro Audio 9 in 1999/2000 and have seen it go through many iterations and enjoyed them all.

IMO, the audio engine has never sounded better and it handles all of my plugins just fine.

I have tried other DAW's including Mixbus, Cubase, and Sound Forge and just always found Cakewalk DAW's so easy to use with all the features I ever needed.

Bandlab have done a really great job IMO of taking over Cakewalk and really getting it up to standard. The features are so plenty now I don't think I even use 1/100th of what's there. And in the past year I feel like they've really taken to heart the hundreds of requests from users for improvement.

Collaborations with other Cakewalk users has always been easy as pie with any projects I've done. You compress your project in a bundle file and send it on its way and I've never had issues integrating any shared project files from friends with my own version's of Cakewalk.

Personally, I am very grateful for the work Bandlab have done and I use it every day.

I use CW by BL mostly for its ARA integration. I was skeptical of using Cakewalk but I'm so glad I tried and I benefit almost daily from my updated perspective.
All Daw's have audio dropouts, none are immune and most of the more popular DAW's on the market are even worse.
I've had projects as large as 91 mono audio track and 10 stereo tracks and have had zero issues, even after routing a dozen or more Aux tracks and patch points.

I actually can't remember the last time a Cakewalk project crashed on me other than if I forget to ensure that my interface sample rate is the same as the project I'm trying to open, and I would class that as a user error, not a CW problem.
Certain plugins don't work well in CW, but to me thats a plugin development issue, not a CW issue, and to an extent a user error as well.
With Cakewalk in particular, the advances of the the developers have earned a refreshed and up to date perspective, imo especially from it's critics. Personally I would use CW long before I would use many other DAW's, even the ones that look to have boosted a lot from the look and signal flow that CW developed long long ago.

He was and remains one of the best. It is stable, intuitive and constantly evolving.
Thanks to everyone who makes it the best.

A few months back I was having an odd issue with noises being generated by my mouse moves. Noel contacted me and we had an hour long Zoom session. His findings then were rolled into the next update to squash the bug.


How amazing is that ?

I'm using Cakewalk/Sonar for 20 years. It's so nice that they kept it alive and free!
But it needs more improvements. Nest folders are ok but for example score editor it's the same from those years.

About the audio engine and the audio drop outs. Yes, all DAWs have issues but if in the exact same project in pro tools can use 50 plugins and in CW only 26 of the exact same plugins and my proccesing power is at 50% something goes wrong or can be improved.

50 plugins? Seriously?
While I can plausibly see a circumstance where a comparison like this can happen, it's not my experience but I only produce audio in CW, rare if ever do I mix in CW and I never produce and mix in the same project, that is typically where the wheels come off in any project, in any DAW.
As a rule and regardless of how others might manage their projects, I avoid mixing midi and audio in the same project on large scale, to get a project built with a reference or guide, of course.
I create my midi and set it's tonal properties to taste, including any reamp colouring, and export it as audio. No problems
When it's time to mix, that is a separate project that contains only audio.
To me, 50 plugins is an extraordinary amount of plugins and therein may lie a few problems too, no matter what DAW I am using.
When I do hit a DAW hard, I'm aware of it and accept responsibility for how I have chosen to manage or mismanage my project.
Like I said before, I mostly use CW for ARA and midi production, and it's long been a flawless eco system for me and possibly because of how I choose to manage these projects. YMMV

Well let’s break this down. Let’s say you are working a typical rock project with drums, 1 bass, 2 guitars and vox.


Just for the tracks -

For drums I have seven tracks (kick in, kick out, snare top, snare bottom, toms, hi-hat and ambience).

Guitars - at a MINIMUM one track per guitar player (which actually is sort of unrealistic but..)

Bass - one track

Vocals - Let’s say for the point of discussion there are five tracks.


Now let’s say you have only one plugin (again very unrealistic) per track - at this point you already 14. In reality you probably have at least TWO/per track.

Now we get to the bus section.

My drum bus typically has 4 or 5 plugs and my parallel drum bus has at least two.

Guitar bus easily has 3.

Bass bus easily has 3.

Vox bus could be as many a 5 and then theres a parallel compression bus which is at least 2 more.

master bus - let’s say there are 4 or 5.

Reverb bus - at least 1

As you can see getting to 50 is REALLY easy.

Indeed, one must learn how to manage workstation resources. And depending on specific configurations, one will get different results.

I have used CW in pentium 2, Athlon64, intel i5, intel i7 and now ryzen5 5600. Performance has always been the max I could squeeze out of those systems.

I compose, produce, mix and master in CW. When mixing hybrid I now go to reaper because of the CW's External Plug malfunction, and other platforms for audio restoration. But otherwise, CW is a one stop shop.

Usually for me, a mixing session will have a parametric EQ, a compressor and a color EQ for each track. Then about five to six instrument busses with processing plus four to five FX busses. Add to that master bus processing and room/headphone correction. For an average mix of thirty to fifty tracks, you do the math as to how many plugins that is. I push my system, and sometimes it pushes back, but that's where knowing how to manage it makes a difference.

PTools is known for its poor resource management. Studio one seems to have this problem too. Reaper and CW on the other hand are known for the opposite. CW's engine has always been one of the best out there, being also a pioneer for many things.

With so many positive experiences against a few negative ones, my bet will always be on something other than just the software. As I said, I have run CW on many different system configurations, for a multitude of functions, with almost no problems ever.

Best DAW getting even Better

I mix hybrid, I don't typically mix CW, but I've not run into this external plug issue ( that I know of).
I have gotten in the habit of using Melodyne in ARA and for this CW is by far the best I've use
Can you please catch me up on this external plug issue?
I have had issues where poorly managed projects have required the .ini file to be deleted but I'm not aware the external plug malfunction. Appreciate your assistance and 100% agree with your post mate