Gibson Cleans Up Its Act - Making Good on a Troubled Past

The recent return of Gibson is one of those great case-studies for any marketing professional and a story that I am certain will be taught for years in marketing schools. How to “Clean Up Your Act” and restore the value of a brand that has been on a slow-burning destructive process for decades. Gibson is a legendary company, an American icon, and possibly one of the world's most valuable brands. I mean, it is hard to accept that someone could possible break a valuable business and a valuable brand like Gibson.

In the middle of all the turmoil around the rumors of the collapse of Gibson Brands, there's some sort of good news for musicians and many home and project studios. Following the hard-to-understand news, back in November 2017, that Gibson was closing Cakewalk - the first clear sign that the group was facing serious financial troubles - there is now a confirmation that not everything is lost for users of Cakewalk's products. Singapore-based BandLab Technologies confirmed the acquisition of Cakewalk Inc. remaining assets.

Sad news for the audio industry. Gibson Brands announced that it is "ceasing active development and production of Cakewalk branded products." Gibson Brands acquired the Boston-based music production software company from Roland Corporation in 2013. Since then, Cakewalk has been consistently updating all products, under the leadership and vision of Craig Anderton. Cakewalk was one of the few remaining historical music software companies solely dedicated to the Windows platform.

German company Celemony announced the availability of Melodyne 4.1, featuring even better integration with selected DAWs, new functions and greater ease of use. When Melodyne is integrated into a DAW by means of ARA, Version 4.1 now allows the simultaneous display and editing of an unlimited number of DAW tracks in a single Melodyne plug-in window – ideal for backing vocals and other multitrack applications.

Cakewalk announced its latest SONAR “Gloucester” release introduces support for Microsoft’s new Windows 10 operating system plus numerous enhancements and fixes. The company is also offering a free demo or Rapture Pro, Cakewalk’s latest virtual instrument for Mac and Windows.

Cakewalk announced free demo versions of all available Cakewalk SONAR 2015 configurations - Artist, Professional, and Platinum - allowing users to discover how good this software DAW is becoming with every single upgrade. These demo versions do not expire, and are updatable as new releases become available, only save and export are unavailable.

Most software companies have been long critized by their inconsistent and sometimes disruptive upgrade policies. Cakewalk, now a Gibson Brand, is trying to change that paradox introducing a new membership upgrade policy based on user feedback. The Cakewalk SONAR “Braintree” release is the first example of that new policy, introducing enhancements to the core program and a variety of new content for musicians of all genres.

Since Roland decided to sell Cakewalk to Gibson things have been relatively quiet on the software house front, even though its famous SONAR DAW solutions continue to be among the most popular on the Windows platform. For the 2015 NAMM Show, Cakewalk now confirmed the presentation of its latest software iterations and a new Membership model allowing for continuous upgrades.