IMO, they should have fast tracked the BandLab integration. It is WAY better than when the software was owned by Gibson. I do think the rage of development is promising. If not, you only lost a bit of time (though, time IS money). If it works for you, then you save some money (potentially). In the < $175 price range, I still think it's the DAW everyone should try first (cause you can often get Studio One Pro for as low as $169 on CG, and even the Artist SKU compares favorably with CbB and is often on sale for as low as $69 or included with their Audio Interface or Controller Hardware). and a huge deal considering how cheap a Mac Mini is, and the fact that many people do run heterogeneous environments (Windows Laptop + Mac Desktop, or vice versa).

It's also Windows-only, which is unfortunate. If you have to do a ton of audio editing, sound design, or produce music in the Hip Hop or some electro genres then the price is really the only reason to use it over quite a few other DAWs which have feature sets and workflows better suited for producing those types of music. If you're mostly arranging loops and samples, then I still think ACID Pro is the best DAW for that.įor film scoring I would choose a number of other DAWs over Cakewalk (Cubase, DP, Logic, even Samplitude Pro X and Studio One despite it not having a video track), and I wouldn't touch it for Post Production (no AAF, Poor Video Support, and Mediocre Audio Editing - it was never really built for that kind of work, anyways). If you're just recording and mixing audio, then it's fine. It's also not great for Audio Editing (compare to Pro Tools or Samplitude Pro X).The lack of a Sampler, and the fact that almost all of those freebies are terrible compared to something like SampleOne XT or Cubase's Sampler Track is another reason why I kind of had to move to another DAW.

The price is really its only competitive advantage. There's a lot of features that Cakewalk is missing in comparison to DAWs like Studio One, and others like Cubase have everything and the kitchen sink in them.

Review cakewalk by bandlab