Posted on: 2023-09-06T11:39:10.232Z
How my opinion of Bandlab went from a better alternative to Soundcloud with a built in DAW, to a twitter clone centered around unexperienced producers, Soundcloud rappers, and self-promoters.
It was November of 2021, and I was feeling like getting into music production again, probably cause I wanted to make a soundtrack for a game I might make eventually. So I started looking for free programs to make music on.
Before then I was using the online DAW called Soundtrap, it was ok, but alot of it’s features were behind a paywall, and worked off the cloud mainly, but when I heard about Cakewalk by Bandlab, and how it was fully free with unlimited tracks (most free options limit you to 8/16 tracks) I installed it and started cooking.
December that same year, I released my first ever track to Soundcloud only to learn that you were capped at 3 hours of total audio uploads, and any more was locked behind a paywall. Having remembered about Bandlab from the DAW I used, prompted me to check it out, to which I learned that it had features available for free that Soundcloud charges for. This included but was not limited to unlimited uploads and mastering. In addition, you could also sell albums, similar to Bandcamp, configure a tip jar, and upload straight from Cakewalk. Sold from most of it, I registered and uploaded the same song I already had on Soundcloud.
While I was still rather unexperienced with making music, I thought it was actually kinda good, cause it can master my songs, and there was less spambots than Soundcloud. Unfortunately, the tracks weren’t getting that many plays, while my follow count was soaring from random posts, loosely related to my music. On the topic of followers, I currently sit at around 260, but I get similar engagement to as if I had only 20.
As I eventually learned more about music and started paying for plugins, the overall quallity of Bandlab went down; There was no synthesizer to design your own patches with, while all of the presets were samples, and the “seamless” integrations with Cakewalk were not that great, since it defaults all of the midi you upload/download to the default piano instrument, forcing me to download as stems most of the time. Even then, there was a few kinks with the stems, such as overwriting one of the stems with another, or the mixdown if you also enable that option in the download.
Eventually I was tired of the lack of stock instruments and feeling like a different workflow, so I purchased and moved over to FL Studio 20 after checking out the trial version, which at the time did not support M4A files being imported, which was the default download option for stems, rather than WAV. However, downloading as WAV takes alot longer than M4A, which was a chore when it came to downloading each stem from a collab or fork. Eventually when FL 21 released, bringing M4A support, this long wait was shortened, but downloading as M4A was still rather tedious when done in bulk.
After some time, I started seeing posts in the trending tab with a purple “boosted” icon, and it didn’t take long for me to realise these people paid for that. I also began see a boost button appear under every post I made, and my profile, which was when I realised that they were trying to push people to become paid subscribers. And if you didn’t notice it then, you would definitely notice it now with them pushing their membership plan onto creators, with in-site popups and ads on the side. This paid membership has only recently added distribution to major platforms as a perk while I was writing this, and it totals at around 149.50$/yr or 14.95/m* (£119.16/yr or £11.92/m) which is shockingly huge when compared to DistroKid which only charges £17.99/yr for it’s musician plan and has much more useful features. However it does include Opportunities to sign with labels and land gigs, which DistroKid doesn’t have, but I’ll still choose DistroKid personally
*there’s now a 3 day free trial.
Oh, they’re also adding some AI features, such as a stem splitter, which I might actually use, but they also added this song generator feature. I am aware that this was made before AI got really popular, but they’re now labelling it as an AI feature to get more users to use it. As it stands, these are currently the only AI features on Bandlab, but I have a feeling that they will be adding more over time.
What was once my launch pad into music production, has become just another Twitter clone, with Soundcloud’s features and rappers, and the same old race for followers and plays. I also forgot to mention that it has an album marketplace feature, but if you want to buy my albums, I’d prefer you got them from my Bandcamp, preferably on the first Friday of the month.
I will post seldom on Bandlab, mostly just completed songs and random music related posts, but I might also fork something from time to time.
Thank you for reading.
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