Cakewalk Reviews 8

I’ve been recording music since I was 11 years old, and I can honestly say I’ve never wrestled with a DAW as frustratingly clunky as Cakewalk. Calling it unintuitive would be generous—it feels like every basic function is buried under layers of outdated design decisions and menus that seem actively hostile to workflow.

The most baffling part? Something as fundamental as hearing your own audio output turns into a full-blown scavenger hunt. In any modern DAW, routing audio should be second nature—plug in, arm a track, hit play, and you’re good. In Cakewalk, it’s like the software assumes you already know its obscure internal logic, offering little clarity and even less guidance. Instead of creating, you’re stuck troubleshooting.

There’s a constant sense that the interface is working against you rather than with you. Simple tasks take too many clicks, settings don’t behave the way you’d expect, and the whole experience feels like it’s stuck in a different era. It’s not just a learning curve—it’s a barrier.

For beginners, it’s overwhelming. For experienced users, it’s infuriating. When a DAW gets in the way of making music—especially at the most basic level—it’s failing its one job. Cakewalk doesn’t just slow you down, it kills momentum entirely.

Music production should feel fluid, creative, and immediate. This feels like fighting with a machine that refuses to meet you halfway.

Was using an old Cakewalk, which was great. Installed the new version "Sonar" as at Oct 2025, and while the count down at the launch of product is not exciting, the rest for me is great. I do not discount the negative feedback here, as I have seen issues, but for me it's great. The fact it's FREE to use and can do much of what I need, wow! I have 3 of my 5 Albums on streaming platforms that I processed through Cakewalk/Sonar.

RETURNED TO ANALOG

After watching a few instructional videos on Cakewalk by Bandlab going back to analog seems to be a much more reliable way for me to record my music. Also, Bandlab has that periodic reactivation procedure making me feel as though they're really trying to get me to help them spy on me so they can commit espionage during a reactivation process. I had look into Cakewalk by Bandlab because my hard disk crashed then concluded they're not what I was thinking they should be. Wasn't really that impressed with Bandlab either because of their reactivation requirements.

You tricked your customers into paying for a lifetime subscription promising all future updates for life. This was nothing but lie. Soon after you canceled updates, sold off to band labs. Now the software runs terrible on windows 11 but if I pay for a monthly subscription you’ll make it work again.

You are the last company I would ever give a dime to again. I hope a class action lawsuit is brought against you for this failure to uphold a contract. sorry I ever purchased all the upgrades from you since back in 2002-2004.

the software was amazing but as always, company greed ruined it. I was forced to reinstall it after my windows crashed and now I've lost 90% of my projects due to them removing features such as TTS and then this subscription bs is just nonsense. I'll be switching to open source software and you all should do the same!

Bandlab has moved to a subscription-only model, so if you ever decide not to renew your subscription you will never be able to access any of the songs / projects you made with Bandlab software (currently Sonar and Next).

Longtime customers on their forum who politely asked if there is a possibility BandLab may offer perpetual licenses in the future -- as most DAW developers that offer subscriptions also offer a perpetual license option (Apple being a notable exception). Not only did the company refuse to answer, a completely obnoxious BandLab employee named Jonathan berated every customer who asked the question and let everyone know that he's sick and tired of people asking, lashing out again at customers for asking a question in a separate forum after he shut down the first thread. A short time later, BandLab created a new forum policy to censor its customers from asking more questions it didn't want to answer including -- going as far as banning any mention of any BandLab competitor DAW on their forum and instituting a policy that anyone who mentions a competitor can be banned. I asked about the policy, if it included merely comparing features from a competitor's DAW and suggested that BandLab would do well to allow that and my account was quickly suspended, as was another long time Cakewalk Forum member. It blew my mind -- and I'm someone who's led digital, including social media at a major brands. It's pretty much unheard of for a brand to engage in those kinds of practices in the age of social media. Really surprising, in the worst kind of way.

My opinion is that BandLab's software is decent, certainly not the best in its category. When you can buy a superior DAW like Studio Pro One with a perpetual license or on a subscription and the software will still work even if you end/cancel your subscription, BandLab's practice of subscription-only and if you end your subscription you can no longer access your project files / songs becomes a dealbreaker. In short, BandLab holds your projects hostage until you pay their fee. Add to that, BandLab's forum -- Cakewalk Forum -- used to be a very customer-friendly, open place until recently when they switched to their version of a subscription-only model and now they have no tolerance for questions, no tolerance for civil criticism or suggestions, and have moved to a customer-hostile censorship oriented style on their forum that really stands out as the worst practices I've ever seen for even a small brand.

Comparing BandLab's DAW to a competitor or asking a basic question about product licensing are forbidden. I can't support a company that treats their customers that engages in such customer-hostile practices. BandLab has strayed far from the very friendly and generous company it once was to now behaving more like a North Korean police state. It's disappointing, and I don't look forward to converting my files from BandLab's DAW to -- in my case -- Studio Pro One. But I was recently contacted my another Cakewalk Forum member that a developer is hard at work on a tool that converts Cakewalk by Bandlab and Sonar files over to the Studio Pro One format. It's still in beta, but I am hoping it works well.

At first, it appeared the company, (which bought Cakewalk's software) owned by a billionaire trust fund kid, might really care about customers. That was quickly proven to be far from reality. I suppose that's not a giant shock. Consequently, I'd strongly recommend to anyone considering BandLab / Cakewalk / Sonar / Next, doesn't merely walk away from BandLab, but runs. There are much better options from companies that treat their customers with respect.

I decided to review Cakewalk's Sonar Platinum after years of continued use. The product does exactly what it should. At times you might see the occasional oddity but that cant always be narrowed down to the software itself. There is simply too many things going on when using digital audio software. The reason I give it a 5 is because of its value as a whole. It is extremely flexible, well thought out and simply does what it should. The product is updated on a monthly basis. This is a great way fix small oddity's within days. Especially the way the product release updates in phases. Typically 2 phases a month (Early release/Finished release). This makes "Living with a certain bug for a year until the next update comes out" a thing of the past. If I have any personal gripe, its tech support. The community forums are amazing. You can literally ask a question and have 4 reply's within minutes. but that's no substitute for tech support. No one likes waiting for a reply from tech support. Cakewalk Sonar Platinum seems to be the best DAW in its price range for me. I have been using it for a long time now and not because im too lazy to learn something else, because I do use other DAW's. I use Cakewalk Sonar Platinum because it does what it should and it does what it should very easily.