Mike Trujillo [Cakewalk
]

Eratu,
I completely agree, without negative comments we would have no idea what the user community is experiencing that can be fixed or made better. It's when passion turns to anger and hostility towards other folks and their opinions that things turn south. Then it's just destructive and serves no purpose to the greater good.

yorolpal


That hat looks good on you.

eratu


I don't need something to be perfect -- nothing is -- but I do need something that will save me time or money (or both) by helping me more effectively do my creative work with the tools I need for the projects I'm involved with... which may be very different than the market Cakewalk is currently targeting.

mike_mccue


Seriously, that's the best constructive criticism Cakewalk could absorb... take the existing customer seriously and stop trying to force feed us half thought out development with the expectation that we will all be waiting around for next year to get better. 

eratu


X1 is on the streets and many of us have seen and used it by now. There has been a lot of action here in the forums, and I thought I'd throw my two bits into the fray. For me, enough time has passed to allow this release to sufficiently sink in so I don't have to get all emotionally fired up about it -- either way, for good or bad.

As for my quick Cake background: I'm a long-time Cakewalk user going way back to the early days of Cakewalk. Yes, I use a lot of other apps, as well. But I've technically been a Cakewalk customer for a long time. I noticed today that my first registered product in my Cake account is from around 1994, but I was a Cake customer before that. Anyway, time has flown by (yikes!). So I don't always/only use Cakewalk products (even though I periodically update them over the years as major hallmarks come out) -- choosing to use a variety of products on Macs and PCs based on project and client needs. Currently, I also use (and stay generally updated with) Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools and Live.

So here are my thoughts so far... take them for what they are -- just opinions. I will try to be as balanced and dispassionate as possible.

1) Purchase and download process: Smooth as butter. Download speeds: excellent. Cannot complain. However, I didn't buy it on the day of release. :) Well done to the guy who set this part of the process up... my transaction went well.

2) Installation process: Smooth as butter overall on Win 7 x64 using the x64 version. However, I did NOT install extra content (I no longer use Dim Pro for example) and I made sure to NOT install the NI GR files (I already own GR 4). I do wish the install process would be more intelligent, though -- i.e: I'd like the NI installer to not even run AT ALL. But that's a minor issue. I cannot speak to the Dim Pro issues people are having. I had enough problems with Dim Pro with 8.5 so I just phased it out, sadly. It's a great product, just too frustrating to me in the past.

3) Interface improvements: Overall concept: Excellent! I think this is a much-needed directional shift for Sonar, I'm with it, I dig it. Bravo, well done IN PRINCIPLE! I think this sets up Sonar for the long haul with a solid interface paradigm. Is it perfect? No. But it is one giant step in the right direction in my book. However, there are a variety of rough spots that I think have been well pointed-out in the forum. One could argue that some of the rough spots are so obvious that they shouldn't have passed through to final release. Teething pains and graphics glitches are very unwelcome, and I don't want to give any excuses to Cake. But I'm sure the programmers are not thrilled with some of the bugs that got through.

There is no programmer on earth that would want a lot of bugs on display out there, even in a .0 release. I do wish that Cake had let this one bake a little longer, though. However, I'm sure the roughest of the rough edges will be addressed soon.

I'm not as concerned about those issues for now as I am about some of the design choices their interface designer(s) made. As has been noted, while there have been many great NEW features added, there are a few features that have been removed with this interface (why?! hope to see those added back soon as this matures), and even if we look at the efficiency of the size of the buttons, spacing, console view issues (especially the narrow view which has been rightfully criticized), I'm somewhat frustrated at the decisions the designers made in several areas. There is LESS info being presented in MORE space in several cases. So this kind of dampens the excitement for me of the positive impact of the new design, and this is generally not nearly as effective as it could have been.... for me. YMMV.

Is the general concept good? Absolutely, yes -- I greatly appreciate the new windowing, collapsing, docking elements... this is really strong. Skylight as a general concept is really very good in my opinion. And it is certainly the right direction moving forward to expand Sonar in the next few years. But it's all too *big*. And I'm using two 1080p monitors (1920x1080 X 2) right now. I want to see more tracks on the screen at the same time, with more pertinent information, and I want to customize that info. I feel like I can get more info, more efficiently in Cubase or Pro Tools right now, simply based on the larger perceived/relative size of the Sonar X1 interface.... for whatever that's worth. I hope they can come up with a "compact" mode and follow some of the great suggestions that are floating around in this forum. One mockup I saw in the forum made by a forum member was a very good example of obvious improvements that could be made.

Also, I'm concerned about the new interface's effectiveness on laptops with lower resolutions. I haven't tried it yet on a laptop, but I'm taking a wild guess this is just not as effective as it could be for compact screens. I definitely like to install Sonar on my laptop, so I'll know soon, but all that great interface work they did may take a hit on smaller screens. Heck, I prided myself on showing a friend how Sonar could run on a humble little 11" laptop for basic tasks. I don't think X1 will "scale" well on that same small screen. For those who like larger fonts, etc...it would have been good to allow more customization options from the get-go. I guess we'll see what happens in the months to come with updates...

Having said that, I do think the Interface is well on the right path -- it's clear it's a fundamental shift that will help workflow for me in several areas. It's not "just a new skin" like some people want to complain, but rather a significant architectural change and maybe even a paradigm shift to how Sonar will move forward and evolve in the future. And in that sense, I think it's very good. Flawed in execution/design, but very good in concept.

4) ProChannel: I like it. It sounds good. Is that all that matters? Maybe. I'm happy for the people that need/want/love it. However, I don't plan on using it at all. Why? I have a large library of plugins that do what I need, and I don't need another one like this... especially another one that is locked to a host. For the same reason, I don't use the built-in plugins of Cubase, since they are locked down. I have always disliked that aspect of Cubase. But I'm not complaining that Cakewalk spent time on ProChannel. It's just not my cup of tea. I'm actually RELIEVED they didn't spend time on a larger group of plugins like they sometimes do... if they had to limit it to these, I'm okay with that.

The only thing that actually bugs me about ProChannel is the move away from the open plugin approach we've seen from them in the past. One of the distinguishing bonus factors of Sonar is that you can use many of their excellent plugins in other hosts. This appears to reverse that trend. I'm not sure what this might mean -- if anything -- for a possible shift in Cakewalk's plugin philosophy. Personally, I really liked the Cakewalk concept of providing unlocked plugins that would work in other hosts... it increased the perceived value of Sonar in my mind.  Anyway, not a big deal to me, as I basically don't bother with included plugins any more. For those that do care about those, ProChannel is a solid addition to your toolset, with the caveat that it's not portable...

5) Automation Improvements/Filter: Excellent. That is definitely a workflow improvement. Thank you Cake for listening on that note. Not to get too greedy, but I still would prefer lanes. :) Lanes have several advantages over this approach, so why not offer both? However, for now, this is noteworthy improvement to manage automation data.

6) Media Browser: Good step in the right direction. Again, this could be an implementation thing, and I haven't fully explored what it can and can't do yet, but I feel like it still has some rough edges along with drag and drop. Jury still out on this one for me. I'm waiting for a patch or two before I decide how I feel on this. In theory, good step, should help workflow.

7) FX Chain: Yes! Thank you! A valuable improvement.

8) Smart Tools: Not as exciting as I thought they'd be. In theory, a workflow improvement, but I have to get used to it and learn its subtleties. Overall, I'm happy they spent time on it.

9) New Control Bar: Good. This may go back to #3 again, but I wish there was even more control/options/sizes. For example, (and maybe I just don't know how to do this yet), I'd like to put a space in between modules on the floating version, so when I float across two monitors it looks/breaks better... anyway, that's minor. Also, again, I feel that it's too big. The buttons are too big... 10-20% smaller would have been better for me... but at least it is customizable and hidable, so for 1.0, it's good.

10) Instrument Track subtle improvement: Is it possible I missed  this before? This seems better now. It seems like a subtle improvement to the simple instrument track. Makes it more natural, appears to allow you to access all info as if it were already split into two tracks. Good, thank you for that. Frankly, this is the type of incremental improvement I was hoping for with X1. Or, if I somehow missed this in 8.5, ignore me on this. :)

11) Video Support: No changes. This is disappointing for me. As someone who works with video/film, this is an issue that can affect how much I can actually use Sonar in my workflow. Sonar X1 still does not support 23.976 framerate, for example. This is a show-stopper for some people, and it has quite honestly impacted how much I use Sonar in my pipeline. I am hoping this is resolved soon. I don't pretend to know the complexities of why they STILL do not support 23.976 and other important video features, but I'm sure if it were a trivial change, it would already be included. Here's to hoping that Cakewalk spends effort on this very, very soon. Maybe X1.1? X1.5? For the record, Cubase 5.5 and Pro Tools 9 support 23.976 and have other very useful video-related features, and Sonar clearly needs to make up ground in that area, hopefully sooner rather than later.

12) No ripple editing! Naturally, I have to mention this. I need this so badly in Sonar, it's not funny. Ripple editing is particularly useful for projects that are not locked to a timeline or tempo, such as free-form dialog, music editing and sound design... but this is also very useful for editing all sorts of "traditionally structured" projects. My hope is that Cakewalk will implement a solid ripple editing feature soon. Reaper currently takes the crown for fastest/easiest/simplest ripple editing, but variations/subsets of it (often called by different names or part of other editing features) exist in Cubase, Pro Tools, etc.

It's little holes like this that I wish someone would sit down with the Cake developers and discuss.... Sonar feels like it is very strongly oriented around a certain concept of music production.... and that's fine... it's a job that Sonar does very well... but there are other relevant aspects of audio production and post production that would greatly benefit Sonar users. I'm not trying to say Sonar needs to become a post-production app, but tapping into MORE people who work with a lot of dialog, film and sound design could benefit all of us. I'm sure many sound designers use Sonar, and I'm sure Cake talked to some of them, for example... but there are various editing concepts not deep enough, or available yet in Sonar that I'd love to see. Ripple editing is just one example that I believe would positively impact a larger group of Cakewalk customers if they just gave that concept a chance. For some projects, I can literally edit them with ripple editing 2-3-4 times as fast as I can in Sonar. That's more than lunch money, folks. Here's to hoping such features show up in Sonar soon.


Now, having written all that, I have to say I'm excited for the future of Sonar. this is a solid move forward... and if one can get over the initial rough edges (and yes, there are appear to be many of them), and assuming Cakewalk will resolve these issues soon, this release bodes well for Sonar's future, in my opinion.

Even though I have a lot of optimism for Sonar, and want to congratulate the Cakewalk team, there are FOUR things I wish for X1 so far...

A) The new interface seems to need one more pass for refinement. I'm not talking just about bugs, fonts, minor glitches and giving us back some of the functionality that disappeared, which I know from reading the forum they are working on. Rough edges aside, it's just visually too big for me, with less info per square inch of screen than even Sonar 8.5. I love the collapsableness of it, yes... but what do I gain from that if the the buttons, channels, etc., etc., even the spacing is not nearly as effective as it could be?

B) Better video support already, please. This is an urgent request, respectfully. The current bar has been raised elsewhere by several apps... this is important for a lot of people, even some people that don't yet know it. :)

C) Tools to help with editing projects that don't deal with tempos, measures or traditional music production structures and techniques. Flexible ripple editing being first and foremost on that list.

D) ... I wish that Cakewalk would take more time between releases and not be afraid to postpone a release to make sure more of the rough edges are polished, with more time for their ambitious goals. Yes, I know this was a HUGE release... this was a longer cycle instead of the normal cycle. But frankly, I would have been thrilled if they took an additional 4-6 months and released Sonar X1 with A, B, and C above, and other goodies I'm assuming they have on the drawing boards, and then charged us $149 or even $179 for an upgrade fee. $99 is a great price for an upgrade fee, no doubt about it... but I'm willing to wait much more time, and pay more money to get the breadth of refinement that this milestone could have.

Overall, for me so far: Sonar X1 is an ambitious, big step in the right direction that bodes well for the future of Sonar and lays a solid foundation for years to come -- for which, Cakewalk should deservedly get a round of kudos -- but with enough rough edges and a few omissions out of the gate to frustrate, and some puzzling design decisions that don't take full advantage of the core, solid concept.

Frustrated? Yes, in some areas. Positive? Yes, in many areas. Will this immediately go into my production pipeline? See A, B, C and D above. I don't need something to be perfect -- nothing is -- but I do need something that will save me time or money (or both) by helping me more effectively do my creative work with the tools I need for the projects I'm involved with... which may be very different than the market Cakewalk is currently targeting.

Sonar X1 has the potential to do that in spades after the rough spots are polished up (which will be theoretically very soon, making my comments on this aspect irrelevant), and if they can get some key features I need in there, well, I'll be a very happy customer. Your own needs may be very different than mine, so this could be perfect right now for you. I think with a patch or two, this could be a dream come true for many, many people. For me, very honestly and sincerely, I'm looking down the road several months to see what happens. I really need B and/or C very badly in all my music apps, which may not matter at all to the rest of Cake's customers. Yes, I already bought the upgrade, partly out of support for Cakewalk as a company that I want to succeed and for hard-working Bostonians I like. ;) But I definitely need X1's potential to be fulfilled in a few more ways, which is what I'm hoping for in the coming year.

Let's see what happens with the first few updates... My preliminary impressions will undoubtedly change, so I'm keeping an  open mind and positive attitude. The heart and soul are there... I'm looking at least 6 months down the road, and X1 could really, really shine for the types of uses I need.

That concludes my two bits so far. :) Again, opinion only.

eratu
Mike, I really wish I knew the decision sequence that made Cakewalk release Sonar X1 when they did. Therein might be something to evaluate (or re-evaluate?). Obviously, they're a business and they have business pressures, have to pay the bills, etc... and we don't know their own sales/market research data... but I can't imagine extending their development and testing cycle (with a commensurate increase in upgrade fees), could be a bad thing.