Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

kevinwal
I don't mean to belittle anyone's considered and well articulated opinions here, not at all, but holy crap, it's only been four months! I'm amazed and impressed that Cakewalk is getting it so right so quickly out of the gate. That tells me that they must have been an agile shop (or at least semi-agile) for some time internally. Yeah, maybe the release management side might have had a few burps, but as with playing a musical instrument, you just get better at the stuff you do really frequently, so I expect that aspect to improve over time as well. And I'll bet my next two paychecks that the drum map project loading scenario is now part of the formal regression test suite, lol.
 
Most of all, I am hugely impressed that the executive leadership approved such an audacious program to go with the transformation to a "membership model" when they could have done something a lot less aggressive and let the buckaroos roll in for a while.

 
Hi Kevin,
 
Thanks for your understanding. Your points are pretty spot on. Though we don't follow the "traditional" agile methodology, we have been agile for at least 8-10 years in the way large features are developed. i.e we split them up into milestones and each milestone was internally tested like a shipping product. So we had dev and QA cycles all through the year. From this year as you know the big change is to release features as they become available - i.e. when the final milestone for that feature is complete as opposed to waiting for ALL features to be complete.
Drum Replacer for example had several internal milestones or mini releases as you could call it - the DSP, the UI the integration/ARA, MIDI, code Refactoring, etc. 
 
We experimented with releasing smaller updates several years ago - even before X1 if memory serves me, but didn't have all the delivery and support infrastructure to do that at the time, so it wasn't very successful and met with internal resistance. The final approval to switch to this system came from no other than Henry Juszkiewicz our CEO, who is a really savvy forward thinking technical guy (you wouldn't expect that from a CEO of a guitar company!) besides being an avid SONAR user himself and a business genius. What allowed us to attempt this finally was building the whole delivery infrastructure for this model which is key to making it all work. We still have some growing pains obviously but we now have infrastructure to allow us to be orders of magnitude more responsive and release updates quickly. In one of the first releases we shipped a point update two or three days after including the development, testing and release management. As you probably know fixing bugs is easy its the test, approval and release management process (X versions of windows, localization, Y languages, etc) that is the typical bottleneck in such situations.
 
 

It's looking good from where I sit, Noel, my sincere complements to your team.

brundlefly

Bristol_Jonesey

Kylotan

brundlefly

Kylotan
WE CURRENTLY CANNOT USE THE DRUM MAPS AT ALL.

Shouting something does not make it true. If you reload the map, or reset the output of just one note number, the map will start working. It's only on initial load of a project with an existing map that they don't work. Yes, this makes switching projects frequently kind of a pain, but it's far from unusable.

So, you found a workaround, well done. This is hardly obvious and I wouldn't have found it myself. At the point where I posted, as far as I was concerned, this was true - the drum maps were not working, at all, in any project.

I'm afraid this isn't a workaround, at least it doesn't work for me.
I've tried with 3 different projects so far with zero success.
 

 
Sorry, I've been busy, and didn't have a chance to check back in. All I know is that when I saw the port/channel was blank at the bottom of the map, my first thought was to reset output ports, and I started by just doing one. When I saw port/channel was repopulated by doing that, I tested playback and found the whole map was working again. I tried one other project, and it worked there as well, so I'm not sure why it didn't work for you, but I would guess something else is going on in addition to the port assignment issue in your case.
 
I didn't realize no one had yet posted any workaround at the time or I would have been more gentle in my response. 
 

No need for any sort of apology. The first time I opened up a map which wasn't working, one of the keys had been reset from BFD2 to Rapture. Resetting the output port to BFD cause the map to work normally.
I then saved the project, closed it to do something else. When I reopened it, the port had gone back to Rapture, but setting it back to BFD this time had no effect.  I could trigger notes from within the map but not by running the transport.
That's the extent of my analysis so far, but I will carry on experimenting and see what happens

I'd rather have a broken product and more updates monthly if you ask me.

Im still waiting for loop recording to be fixed

Bristol_Jonesey
Update:
 
So this is a workaround that does work for me.

Does it still work when you reopen the project?

Morvejones
Im still waiting for loop recording to be fixed

What doesn't work about loop recording?

One persons small bug is a Goliath beetle to another. And negative is a frame of mind, unless someone said all of you go and buy the competition. As far as the monthly subscription goes, I went all out and bought it... all your monthly gripes are mine for a year lol In reality no bug has befell me and any problem I had was of my own accord ( software, drivers, etc. ). So like Mr Anderton stated in a previous post here, luck of the draw.
For that matter, my hard drive just died on my laptop and Sonar, Reaper and Samplitude along with it, til I receive the new hard drive. No concern to no one, because your pc works fine...
Well that's the OP's point. If you never use drum maps, not really your problem per se. But in my opinion, it's all our problem, because we all use this DAW. Whatever hurts you, ow goes to me too. Who knows if one day I may need a feature that is currently not working for you? With or without a rollback or workaround?
The Bakers are doing an exceptional job, and we all need a bit of patience on both sides of the table. The bottomline is the production of good music, and since our choice of software is this one; making it the industry standard, or at least as it pertains to our workflow to make/produce good music. That's the common denominator.
Six months. That's how long this product has been out for us users in it's current form. Frustrating as it can be, it will take time to be the " that's no biggie, I just need to do this.."; if you even have to do anything to the product. Even if it was formatted like it was back in the days, month to month is month to month (seems shorter when you have to wait longer for updates ). Is it time consuming to rollback or have a workaround? Perhaps. But this and any other forum is full of them... well at least workarounds.
And at least the Bakers aren't saying, " if the antenna doesn't work, use the phone in your other hand..." ( said in my best Steve Jobs impersonation ); they are meeting the bugs head on.
Finally features are just as important as bug fixes. The difference in importance is up to the user. My walkaround for not having Drum Replacer is Drum Leveler or Alloy 2. And yes, I have Sonar Pro.
My upgrade to Splat comes with the patience of realizing the stability of the software with all it's goodies, fixes and workarounds. Even if that problem of the lack thereof is someone else's.
Everyone keep up the good work and stay on each other's butts ( with facts not conjecture ) and this product stays as the one we go to. Have patience all of us... that's what makes the world go round. When it stops it gets cracks in it, that no one wants to be around. As long as this particular topic is, I'd say we all want to be here. Sonar rocks.
I've said my five cents about it. May all have a blessed day.

+1 Doc...

Thanks Noel, this seems to fix the drum map problem. For those who rely on the update indicators in the Command Center, installing this version of SONARPLT.exe will cause the indicator to go yellow on the SONAR Platinum line. Do not run the update or it will overwrite this new version of SONARPLT.exe with the old Everett release.

Two day turnaround, how's that for responsive? Nice work, Noel!

Resonant Serpent

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
The drum map issue has been addressed. It could take a few days for an official update, since it has to go through some testing and we want to also include a couple of other fixes.
However if you are blocked due to this issue for some reason, I have put a download of a test build of the 64 bit SONAR Platinum exe here. Only try this if you are familiar with the process of manually copying exe files. Otherwise wait for the official update. 
 
Please note that this is NOT an installer so you will need to manually copy the exe file to your program files folder. 
Also you should make a backup copy of your prior SONARPLT.EXE file manually before copying this one in case you want to revert to the original exe,

 
Now that is service!
 
Rawk!

Yes it is but you wont find a 7 page thread about that. But you will find all sorts of spruikers carrying on as if they really did know what was happening inside Sonar. Go make music.

A good idea, but as soon as you do it will get taken over by everyone with a gripe and those that say something positive will be called fanbois.
 
 

Come on Mudgel, you have had your fair share of gripes in the past. Here's one:
 
 
"As far as Noel goes saying that if we don't report they don't know. Perhaps that's true but that also means that there is no real beta program if they rely on us catching such major bugs in the 3rd update of their flagship software. man I only found the problem yesterday, how could I have reported it in time for a fix in X1B. excuses that's all.
 
Cakewalk ought to get a real beta testing program that can catch all these problems. Not put it onto the paying cutomers.
 
This is no hobby muck around for me and I invest a lot of time, energy and yes, money into, my work and I want to be able to rely on the software I choose."
 
Déja vu?
 
You and I have a lot in common: we've been around here for years, have both been buying and using Sonar for all that time, both obviously really want the software to succeed, but have both been very frustrated at how certain releases have turned out. So we let off a bit of steam, while hopefully also providing some data to the developers that helps them set the balance between features and reliability.
 
So let's not pick at each other for being negative or even positive; let's point out problems where we see them, acknowledge successes where they happen (the new Bitbridge has helped me a lot, for example), and acknowledge that if there are 7 pages of posts about something, then that's a lot of people who care about using this software. Which is a good thing, right?
 
 

I think everyone agrees that there are bugs, but to focus on this one that actually has a work around is a bit strange. If the forum was full of bug related experiences I could understand. I'd be one of the first not to shut up about it. Just go back to X1 when I couldn't even use the program till the Xc update.

But one thing that has been demonstrated since the Gibson take over and the Platinum release which was developed entirely under their stewardship is, that Cakewalk have become much more engaged with us and are following through on what they're saying.

Not in this thread but when the Drum map issue was first reported there was already discussion of it back then. So far Cakewalk have been quick to get onto any serious bugs that have come about during the various releases. In Allston, there was the issue with Melodyne and a fix was released straight away.

I know in my own case that what gets annoying is that there's always this speculation about motive and people express opinions as facts and talk like they have intimate inside knowledge.
That kind of talk stirs up emotions and doesn't necessarily help. Then when people who do know, join the conversation people argue with them as if they could impose their reality on them. It's crazy.
Anyway, long live Cakewalk, and so say all of us. And no Paulo, I took the stick out of my butt and gave to good friend Alex. 👿

Kylotan
Come on Mudgel, you have had your fair share of gripes in the past. Here's one:
 
 
"As far as Noel goes saying that if we don't report they don't know. Perhaps that's true but that also means that there is no real beta program if they rely on us catching such major bugs in the 3rd update of their flagship software. man I only found the problem yesterday, how could I have reported it in time for a fix in X1B. excuses that's all.
 
Cakewalk ought to get a real beta testing program that can catch all these problems. Not put it onto the paying cutomers.
 
This is no hobby muck around for me and I invest a lot of time, energy and yes, money into, my work and I want to be able to rely on the software I choose."
 
Déja vu?
 
You and I have a lot in common: we've been around here for years, have both been buying and using Sonar for all that time, both obviously really want the software to succeed, but have both been very frustrated at how certain releases have turned out. So we let off a bit of steam, while hopefully also providing some data to the developers that helps them set the balance between features and reliability.
 
So let's not pick at each other for being negative or even positive; let's point out problems where we see them, acknowledge successes where they happen (the new Bitbridge has helped me a lot, for example), and acknowledge that if there are 7 pages of posts about something, then that's a lot of people who care about using this software. Which is a good thing, right?
 
 

I'm not picking on you. I think it's great that you've been able to point out the problems you've come across. But let's face it, we don't know what's going on inside Cakewalk. I didn't back then and I don't now. But when the folks who do know talk about things, I'm more inclined to believe them today than I did back then. I'm all for pointing out problems but then that's my side of it done. It's when folks latch onto those issues and they get amplified beyond all reason.like this thread. People hang onto it and it keeps going around and around. Anyway it's all good.