An Open Letter to Cakewalk/Roland regarding Lyric/Staff View

Dear Cakewalk/Roland:
As a long time Cakewalk user I’ve watched the Cakewalk and Sonar brand grow from being a “toy” to full-fledged studio-essential  equipment.  As it has grown, I have grown with it as a songwriter and musician as I sought to utilize this product to its full potential (I’m still, however, a long way from that).  Admittedly, I was hasty and harsh in my public criticism of the X1 upgrade because upon installation, there were some processes and shortcuts that that were changed which led me to think that you had removed functions that were integral to the way I used your product.  This-- coupled with a few minor hardware incompatibilities and bulletin board moderators who offered only criticism and no useful advice -- left me extremely frustrated.  Now that I have settled in a bit and had some time to get comfortable with the new interface, I have to admit that it is better in most ways to the 8.5 interface.  Throw in the Pro Channel features, and I guess I don’t mind the 100 bucks I had to pay for the upgrade.
Where I do mind, however, is that for at least 4 paid upgrades and several more version updates, you have allowed serious problems with lyric and staff view to persist.  I do realize that lyric view and staff view may not have widespread usage for an actual studio user (who I assume is your target customer), but as songwriter, it is the reason I have stuck with Cakewalk for so long, and with each successive upgrade I have been disappointed by your neglect in addressing the lyric view problems.
 
Over the years, I have made problem reports, and, perhaps because I didn’t quite know what was causing the problem or how to describe it,  these reports have gone either ignored or unaddressed because you say you weren’t able to duplicate the problem on your end.  In my most recent problem report for X1, I sent a .CWP file and a screenshot  revealing the discrepancy between lyric view and staff view), but that one seems to have been ignored, as you are yet to even acknowledge receipt of the problem report.
 
Fortunately, after years of trying to describe the problem to you and after combing through the support pages and user forums looking for a solution, someone noted that the key to avoiding the problem with lyric and staff view is to ensure that that the track containing lyrics, chord charts, and notes remains one single clip.  (The problem occurs when you allow the multiple clips that might naturally occur after a long instrumental or when you copy and paste sections of a song.  This often results in a lyrical and notation disaster that often forces you to wipe the track and start again). 
 
Some may say that they have never encountered this problem.  Others may say “Who cares. It’s still a good program.”  Regardless, as a few others can attest on this board, it is a real and enduring problem, one that speaks perhaps not the overall usefulness of your program (I still use it almost every day), but to the overall quality of your program, the quality of your leadership, the standards of your company, and the respect you have for your customer.  If as a company, you had acknowledged that there is a long-standing problem with lyric and staff view,  offered the work-around that I have mentioned above on some official support page, and committed to a timetable to fixing it, this neglect might be excusable, but to allow such a basic element of your platform to remain unfixed and unacknowledged for so long, and to continue to charge your customers for upgrades, is just plain disrespectful, greedy, and irresponsible because you continue to build upon this platform, touting all your advances, when you haven’t addressed a basic function of the program that has been a problem for about 10 years now.
I hope as a result of this letter that you will fix the problems associated with lyric and staff view, and that you will not charge your customers another dime until this feature operates as it was supposed to 10 years ago.  (Or if you are not going to do it right, eliminate the function from future versions—that way we can spend our money elsewhere on a product that works properly).   I also hope that all others who are considering investing in the Sonar platform will refrain from doing so until this company demonstrates they are truly committed to their customer and to producing the highest quality product possible by fixing this long-standing problem.
 
Respectfully,
 
Steve H.
Sonar X1/ Win7 64-bit/Sony VAIO/Core 2 P7350 @ 2.0 GHZ/ 6GB DDR/ 500GB HD/ATI Mobility Radeon HD4650/ SCEPTRE  X270W/ Focusrite Saffire Pro 24/ Axiom 49

the Cakewalk and Sonar brand grow from being a “toy” to full-fledged studio-essential equipment.

When is a $1200 program a toy? Thats what Sonar 1 cost.

Anyone who pays year after year for updates of program they think sucks is actually mentally ill. If you genuinely think it's been terrible for ten years and you've carried on paying for it, I can not imagine what would please you. It sounds like masochism to me.

double post

@John - A toy?  Maybe.  My first version came on a 5 1/4 floppy disc.   It came FREE with a purchase of a MIDI cable that hung off my joystick port.   I think it was CW 3?  4?   I've been upgrading since, mainly because of the support for CAL...  

@osd - I know the concern about a feature set that languishes...   I'm a devoted CAL user, & I think they're just hoping it goes away...   I've used it a lot to implement MIDI-generation of fractal algorithms, quite cool.   And as near as I can tell, CW offers the only DAW with a scripting language embedded that allows me to do this. 

@bsteven - I feel your pain.  You may need to consider one of the packages dedicated to notation, if that is a primary need of yours.   Feels good to vent, doesn't it?  They just might listen.   These features, well implemented, would certainly round out the product.   They used to sell a notation product - Overture?   Maybe more of those features will be added to X1 over time.   Think positive.  But if the result doesn't come, consider voting with your $...   

jamescollins


How refreshing - yet another 'open letter' from a 'long time Cakewalk user'.

Note not posting on the forums doesn't mean not a long time user.  I'm sure there were a lot of people (like me) that just didn't feel the need to post because by and large everything was working before X1.

Shawbulen/OSD I'm with you. I've been with them that long, in fact since it was a DOS program.  I appreciate you taking my post in the manner in which it was intended.  Obviously, I don't think the program is terrible, but I do think it is terrible that the problem is allowed to continue. 

For me, its about business, and doing business the right way. When a company fails to do so, they should lose business.  Don't keep taking my money, and not give me what I paid for 10 years ago.  Cakewalk knows they are not the only game in town, this fact is the main reason the platform has grown to what it is today.  I love the program, but I feel like an abused spouse who has finally had enough!

John T


Anyone who pays year after year for updates of program they think sucks is actually mentally ill. If you genuinely think it's been terrible for ten years and you've carried on paying for it, I can not imagine what would please you. It sounds like masochism to me.

Hahaha! A bit like paying for psychiatric treatment abuse. :O) 

If ANYONE was leading the cause for better notation, it was Susan.

Search is such a wonderful function (although maybe not this forums search function) try THIS.

I am not saying  fully functional notation isn't paramount with CW,but after doing the search and pondering the results, you be the judge

John & John the Fanboyant Duo!

Soon on a forum near you!

Guaranteed to miss the point and disrupt legitimate complaint threads!

Bring all your insecure friends and help defend your purchase decision!

Why be critical when you can be a Fanboy instead?

Bring your torches and let's flame those discriminating users!

UnderTow

I will not be upgrading anymore until the staff view is fixed.

But then I've said that before years ago. I ended up upgrading once since then. Siiiigh...

I used to work in a technical maintenance dept in a TV studio building where our workshop was as far from main doors as possible, in a basement corner along with the storage area with no windows, not even an emergency exit. It felt like we were a necessary evil. Working on staff view with Sonar, I get the same sensation.

I don't know if there is still hope, but thanks to the OP for at least trying something.

Dan

I think our request for better staff view is just as valid as any other users request.

I really don't want to move from Sonar .. I'd just like better a staff view... 

madoues


I will not be upgrading anymore until the staff view is fixed.

But then I've said that before years ago. I ended up upgrading once since then. Siiiigh...

I used to work in a technical maintenance dept in a TV studio building where our workshop was as far from main doors as possible, in a basement corner along with the storage area with no windows, not even an emergency exit. It felt like we were a necessary evil. Working on staff view with Sonar, I get the same sensation.

I don't know if there is still hope, but thanks to the OP for at least trying something.

Dan

I don't think there is hope.  Cakewalk is really positioning Sonar for the semipro market.  They are not serious about notation or video and this whole Silverlight thing indicates to me that the program is being dumbed down for casual users.  Just my opinion.

Sorry Musicman, it hasn't been beaten to death, we are still talking about it.

I believe this is my forum as much as yours and if it concerns Sonar/X1 as this subject does, we can talk about it until the cows come home. I have 30 posts in over four years, and many years before that I was just lurking; since 1996 with Pro Audio as a matter of fact. Do you think that is too many posts? Many of them are in relation to the staff view because it happens to be a very important issue to me, almost the only one I'm willing to post about.

Cakewalk have never said "We will not fix the staff view"; instead they have hinted quite a while ago that it may be coming eventually but that it is a major piece of code to write. I think the OP has a good point hinting that CW are keeping us dangling on a hook; maybe they should just come out and state an official policy on this.

I have just finished scanning four pages of subject titles and only this thread concerns staff view improvements. It is your choice to read these posts or not, why not just stop reading them if it bothers you so much??

Dan

P.S. : I bet you that horse is just faking. Once the guy leaves with his whip, he will just get right up again and trot away;)

I have an architectural program that I use for my home design business and I think they are on version 13 or 14 and they STILL do not have an easy method for creating the single most popular foundation type in the country. You can do it but it's a pain and we always ask for it but the programmers live where they don't build that type of foundation so it gets ignored and ignored. And it's so maddening.

I haven't written the same letter that the OP wrote, but darn close. I get it. And IMO the analogy is not that bad. Notation is a very important part of music creation. I think it should be gotten right after years of its existence. JMHO