New Sonar Platinum Update

[JoseC.]

In fairness to all involved, we all get frustrated with these products from time to time. It happens to everyone at some point.

I also do think, as we get older, we learn not to let those feelings rule us, and like the bad memories of an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife or a former boss who was a world class arsehole, just let it go.

I agree with you 100%, but I would add that when somebody states that it is "impossible" to make music with any modern DAW, it is a symptom of the problem not being with the software.

"Impossible" is hyperbole. "Intolerable" was where it ended up for me before I switched.

Well, "intolerable" is a personal matter, nothing wrong with that. I used to be able to crash Reaper every single time I threw several simultaneous channels of live midi to it, circa v. 3.x, and when it did not crash, the timing was al over the place. At the same time, Sonar X2 was rock solid. That was intolerable to me, and that's why I discarded Reaper, but I would never say that it was impossible to make music with Reaper, much less keep on saying the same thing several years and two versions later.

[JoseC.]

To be fair, Cakewalk isn't the only developer that I have this grievance with. I'm looking at you FL Studio.

660 MB every minor update, yay!

300 Mbit glass fiber here.

[telecharge]

To be fair, Cakewalk isn't the only developer that I have this grievance with. I'm looking at you FL Studio.

660 MB every minor update, yay!

300 Mbit glass fiber here.

No offense to you or your humblebrag, but that is the kind of reply I see regularly in the Sonar forum which I find off-putting.

To me, it's like saying, I don't have this problem, so yours in not valid. I most often see this kind of reply to people complaining of no support, and then being told by others that they have never needed support.

[jinotsuh]

To be fair, Cakewalk isn't the only developer that I have this grievance with. I'm looking at you FL Studio.

660 MB every minor update, yay!

300 Mbit glass fiber here.

No offense to you or your humblebrag, but that is the kind of reply I see regularly in the Sonar forum which I find off-putting.

To me, it's like saying, I don't have this problem, so yours in not valid. I most often see this kind of reply to people complaining of no support, and then being told by others that they have never needed support.

This x infinity

Although I have never needed support myself for SONAR, never really had any issues as such aside from it seeming to be a little unnecessarily heavy on resources (at some point during Platinum's life, not a great issue, but all my other DAW's seemed to perform much better)this was experienced by a number of users, as an aside performance has now improved greatly over the last 2 releases, with plugin load balancing etc, so well done there. But the way the people on the SONAR forums tend to belittle people who complain about issues is to me quite sickening at times, the way they make excuses for Cakewalk/SONAR, the way they dance around issues with novel length replies weaving in and out of relevance, by the end leaving one bewildered as to what the actual original point/topic was, the Gibson Sock Puppet is a great exponent of this strategy. The way they think nothing is ever SONAR's fault, because as we all know SONAR is the perfect DAW. The way they will come down on anyone who has the audacity not to lavish praise on SONAR, it's like watching a pack of wolves circling their lone helpless prey, and then the after party when they have brought them down is quite pathetic and sickening. The local fanboi's were, and still are, even making excuses for Cakewalk for the recent long running support issues, it's like they are blind to any issues involving Cakewalk or SONAR, either that or they are in denial. It seems that their sense of self worth is somehow tied to Cakewalk/SONAR, and anything other than praise is seen as a personal attack on them themselves, it really is quite odd, and something I have not seen elsewhere, at least no where near the level that it displays itself on the Cakewalk forums.

I left SONAR about 2 years ago, am a lifetime member but never really use it, just checking in to see how it is going from time to time. The main reasons I left SONAR, other than finding something that which to me was way better, allowed me to do what needs to be done easier and quicker and without all the frustration that SONAR brings, was it just seems old, lets face it the core of SONAR is from last century, it is full of bugs which have never been fixed despite constant loud cries from users, bugs, some of which will admittedly not be experienced by all users, the constant need for cumbersome workarounds for things that should be straight forward, the attitude towards bugs and features, the Gibson sock puppet has said on a number of occasions things like "Why complain about it and spend development time fixing bugs when there is a workaround" never mind that the work around is far from optimal, requiring far more unnecessary steps to get from A to B, it seems that a bug that has a work around, regardless of how efficient the work around is, is far less likely to get any attention. He has also stated recently with regards to feature requests, something along the lines of "why spend resources implementing 'xyz' feature request when there are 3rd party solutions available either free or low cost" I felt like replying to that one "Well if you follow that line of thinking then Cakewalk shouldn't bother with any more instruments or FX, because there are already many many 3rd party synths and instruments available as well as EQ's, Compressors etc" but I just shut my mouth, it would have just resulted in the usual novel length, weaving drivel that he always spews forth, he's an absolute tool. Anyway, there are many more reasons, but the way the forums and attitudes are also played it's part in dropping SONAR, it really is quite pathetic, the Software and Deals forums can be pretty awesome though, a good source for finding out about deals and new software (funnily enough)

[telecharge]

the Software and Deals forums can be pretty awesome though, a good source for finding out about deals and new software (funnily enough)

+1

I had a good laugh. Well done, @jinotsuh.

[pekbro]

Regarding the Load Balancing Platinum Version only limitation...

This is what I got from the CTO:

"The decision has to do with scale and price point. Load balancing is a feature not an optimization.
All versions share the same engine code so professional and artist have exactly the same optimizations to the engine.
Load balancing however was done specifically for users who are working on large scale projects and our metrics show that most of these fall into the Platinum user base. It is also a support issue since the feature isn't a one size fits all thing - at least today.
That said in the future we may offer certain features ala carte so one could stay on Professional or Artist and still purchase sets of features that are included in higher SKU's.

Noel Borthwick
CTO, Cakewalk "

So, if there is still anyone besides me who isn't interested in the platinum version.
The feature will likely become available as an addon at a later date.

-Cheers

[koolkeys]

Regarding the Load Balancing Platinum Version only limitation...

This is what I got from the CTO:

"The decision has to do with scale and price point. Load balancing is a feature not an optimization.
All versions share the same engine code so professional and artist have exactly the same optimizations to the engine.
Load balancing however was done specifically for users who are working on large scale projects and our metrics show that most of these fall into the Platinum user base. It is also a support issue since the feature isn't a one size fits all thing - at least today.
That said in the future we may offer certain features ala carte so one could stay on Professional or Artist and still purchase sets of features that are included in higher SKU's.

Noel Borthwick
CTO, Cakewalk "

So, if there is still anyone besides me who isn't interested in the platinum version.
The feature will likely become available as an addon at a later date.

-Cheers

While I personally still think the plugin load balancing should be a core engine feature, and included in all versions, I actually CAN understand the reasoning he gave. Again, I don't agree with him. But at least it is a reason that has a little sense in it.

As for the ala carte features, I'm curious how that will work. I mean, would this feature be $30? $50? $10? I've never seen anyone offer that as an option in a host, so I'm curious how high to price various features before it doesn't make sense to buy more than a couple since you would start to get into the full price range of Platinum anyways. After you purchase so many addons, can your license be switched to a Platinum license so you don't have to continue paying for more features once you have surpassed the Platinum price overall?

Very curious how it will work in this situation. It may not be such a bad idea, but could also be a logistical nightmare for support, and the forum could be an even bigger mess since there could be virtually hundreds of different configurations if enough features were ala carte.

I'm probably over-thinking it, but still.

Brent

[pekbro]

@koolkeys

Yeah I didn't find it terribly unreasonable...

The a la carte thing is similar to what both Ableton and Presonus (sorta) do already.
They would just have to designate it as a separate product, set a price for it,
then work it into their licensing system... Quite doable I would think.

"Anderton" hinted at some type of workspaces feature that would possibly encompass all that
down the road a bit. Again, I'm thinking something similar to Presonus, except that
their mastering "project page" is not available as an individual purchase.

-Cheers

[jinotsuh]

"Anderton" "The Gibson Sock Puppet" hinted at some type of workspaces feature that would possibly encompass all that
down the road a bit. Again, I'm thinking something similar to Presonus, except that
their mastering "project page" is not available as an individual purchase.

-Cheers

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/ ... es#2016.09

Scroll down one row from the top

[pekbro]

Heh...

[Jace-BeOS]

Ala cart features must be a support nightmare that is justified by the desire to cover every possible marketing/consumer level as possible (which is foolish).

Regarding the 300Mb fiber connection comment and forums... I'm envious of people who have access to actual broadband internet. The Internet infrastructure in the USA (outside certain major urban areas) is piss poor and I'm actually "lucky" to have shitty DSL from Verizon (I'm lucky if I get 2Mb download). It's not a standard availability. It's privilege until the federal government stops letting private industry exercise their monopoly power over things that should be considered public utilities.

The Cakewalk forum isn't the only product forum that has boiled its membership down to be left with only the highly-concentrated fans. The Propellerhead forum was like that too (before Propellerhead decided to stop expending resources maintaining one). There are others, too. I think it's the nature of specialist tools that work for a limited audience. Those who finally gave up aren't left around (except some of us who watch from a distance with chips on our shoulders here on KVR) and the remaining members were the lucky bunch who's systems and usage patterns never triggered enough frustration to stop being fans. So goes my hypothesis.

[telecharge]

-Cheers

You really don't like that guy, do you?

While I don't feel as strongly, I will say when it comes to his wit and wisdom, I'll take the wisdom.

[pekbro]

Ala cart features must be a support nightmare that is justified by the desire to cover every possible marketing/consumer level as possible which is foolish).

Why should this be a nightmare? Seeing how all versions share the same engine code,
all you should need is a well designed relational database really. Not so hard, at least
on their end. Any issues on the customer end should exist regardless of what add ons
they have or don't have.

-Cheers

[JoseC.]

To be fair, Cakewalk isn't the only developer that I have this grievance with. I'm looking at you FL Studio.

660 MB every minor update, yay!

300 Mbit glass fiber here.

No offense to you or your humblebrag, but that is the kind of reply I see regularly in the Sonar forum which I find off-putting.

To me, it's like saying, I don't have this problem, so yours in not valid. I most often see this kind of reply to people complaining of no support, and then being told by others that they have never needed support.

None taken. Anyway, what I meant was just that nowadays a 600Mb download is not that large. Of course, it might be if your connection is crap (been there, too).

[telecharge]

May we discuss the evolution of Cakewalk's Sonar here? Is any discussion about Sonar welcome in the Hosts & Applications (Sequencers, DAWs, Audio Editors, etc.) forum?