The web-master over at Roland US has seemingly slipped up and posted a headline on their main page that declares, “2008/1/17 - Roland has reached an agreement to buy a major share of Cakewalk.” The actual link is dead, so all we have now is baseless speculation. But where would the internet be without baseless speculation?

If were to go by this one headline, Roland has not outright bought Cakewalk, nor are they the “majority shareholder” - and Cakewalk has been partnering with Roland for a few years now, so it’s not entirely out of left field. But it does suggest that there could be big changes afoot for the Cakewalk product line.

There’s a lot to suggest that it has more to do with this - a pretty cagey move on Roland’s behalf in making a play for the big corporate dollars if it does what it promises - than with any major shift in the Cakewalk development.

Honestly, I was half-expecting Microsoft to buy out Cakewalk. You know, to have their very own Emagic to play with. That it turns out the big money is coming from a company that, you know, is actually in the music gear market, that isn’t Gibson or Digidesign, may not be a Bad Thing.

But, really, even if this turns out to be a Major Paradigm Shift of the level Apple/Logic, Mackie/Tracktion, Stein/Yamaha, I’m not really sweating bullets. I’m pretty happy with the current state of Sonar, the current state of my music rig, and the after tiding up a few loose ends (Kontakt 3, BFD 2) I’m getting out of the major software upgrade market. And the next time I go to do a major system upgrade, I suspect the whole playing field will be a different and my method of working will be as well.

I just want to see one last upgrade of Project5 to sweep up the bugs there; the cynic in me does suspect we may be seeing the demise of that product. Which is sad, because I haven’t found anything that lives up to the brilliance of the Project5 Groove Matrix.

Edit: It should also be noted that the New Product Cakewalk had scheduled for unveiling at NAMM 2008 has been put on hold? Hmmm…

Edit II: Here’s the reassuring official letter from Greg Hendershot and a press-release on Harmony-Centeral.

Damn, and the baseless speculation is so much more fun.

“What can ya doooo?”

Anyway, I’m pretty over beat libraries. It’s pretty hard to work up any real enthusiasm about yet another collection of drum/beat loops. While it’s more than useful to have a heap of ‘em around to grab and mangle a “breakbeat” quickly — dropping in beats=my favorite trick — it not like I have any shortage of drum/beat loops. And even if you use a collection extensively, it you may touch but a fraction of its content.

That said, I’m actually pretty chuffed about this.

A drummer whose name I instantly recognize, who has played on some of my favorite recordings and has worked with some of my favorite artists/engineers from some of my most-formative musical years, period.

I don’t know about anybody else, but to me this seems like quite a coup.

Well done.

Sorry to be such a shill for Cake¹, but I’m genuinely looking forward to listening to this. Even if I only use it sporadically or not at all, it will be instructive and entertaining to listen to. (But my mind works like that.)

^{1Not to over-explain the joke, but when I say “shill” I’m don’t mean to imply that I got any special deal on this. I’ll probably shell out for this like everyone else, though, you know, I’m bought off pretty easily.}