Prospective User Survey

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BetaDefector
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2011/09/17 10:34:22 (permalink)

Prospective User Survey

I just wanted to ask a few questions about Sonar and Cakewalk, to help me make a few decisions. 

1) How is the stability of the latest version of X1 Producer (c?) 
2) Do you feel that the company pays any attention to your concerns regarding problems with the software?
3) Have the updates been timely? 

Very interested in the answers.

Thanks! 
#1

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    The Maillard Reaction
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/17 10:41:36 (permalink)

    1) great

    2) yuck

    3) faster than ever


    #2
    Grumbleweed_
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/17 10:42:08 (permalink)
    BetaDefector


    I just wanted to ask a few questions about Sonar and Cakewalk, to help me make a few decisions. 

    1) How is the stability of the latest version of X1 Producer (c?) 
    2) Do you feel that the company pays any attention to your concerns regarding problems with the software?
    3) Have the updates been timely? 

    Very interested in the answers.

    Thanks! 
    1) It works for me.
    2) Errrmmm, possibly! Actually I had some PMs from Cakewalk regarding a Zeta 2 problem so yes they do.

    3) An update that makes the problems go away can never come soon enough, but it is sweet when they do go away.


    Grum.

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    #3
    John
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/17 10:53:08 (permalink)
    I agree with Grum.

    Best
    John
    #4
    LANEY
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/17 11:34:44 (permalink)
    Yes I also agree with grumbleweed!



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    #5
    Bristol_Jonesey
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 04:21:39 (permalink)
    1. Superb
    2. Yes
    3. Yes


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    Skyline_UK
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 04:36:35 (permalink)
    1.  Yes, if you mean does it run ok most of the time without falling over.
    But I don't stress X1.  I never have more than a couple of dozen tracks going in a project and I use MIDI a lot.  And I tend not to have multiple instances of plugins.  But it does crash for me when I run Melodyne Editor for more than about four minutes, however after numerous tests on two different i7 PCs with different audio interfaces I believe this is a problem with Melodyne, or some mis-match somewhere between Sonar and Melodyne.
    2.  Kind of.  I have submitted problems before and they get acknowledged ok via the Problem Reporter, but some emails I've sent to to Technical Support have been ignored which is bloody annoying.
     
    3.  As timely as Cakewalk can make them I assume.  It took an awful long time to get to X1c and that's because X1 was buggy as heck when first released (too early).  I do prefer more frequent releases of tested builds though, e.g. like Reaper, rather than having to wait months at a time for large batches of fixes.
    post edited by Skyline_UK - 2011/09/19 04:42:05

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    #7
    Guitarhacker
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 07:55:12 (permalink)
    1. solid on my system
    2. yeah...depends on the issue, but they reply (the forum is a good place to get help as well) 
    3. i haven't been affected by the bugs but I guess for those that were, yeah the update(s) was/were pretty quick
    post edited by Guitarhacker - 2011/09/19 07:56:18

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    #8
    trimph1
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 08:00:40 (permalink)
    1...Great...real solid here
    2...They have been listening
    3...very timely

    Also, they have a great demo out as well...check it out!

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    #9
    tyacko
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 08:08:34 (permalink)
    BetaDefector,

    Depending on how you plan on using Sonar X1, here are my answers:

    1.  Good.  I only have one identifiable crash and that is trying to use a third party plug-in (IK ARC 64-bit).  IK is looking into this issue.
    2.  Yes, but to be fair they are focused right now on working thru the issues people have been having with X1 (workflow changes) and less on existing bugs.
    3. Yes, as timely as they can be.  Testing of software (especially software that supports SO many audio interfaces and pc hardware) has got to make testing very challenging.

    I mainly record audio with limited soft synth work (mainly just drums and some keyboards).  I don't use looping features.  I also don't use Sonar effects as much anymore using getting a lot of UA plugs.  Sonar is not a gapless DAW, so you should be aware of that to start.

    Lastly, download the trial and make sure you don't have any major issues working with it and its workflow.  Then, download competitor trials and do the same.

    Best of luck,
    Tom

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    #10
    FastBikerBoy
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 08:10:46 (permalink)
    1. Rock solid - has been since release for me
    2. Yes - far better than any other company I have dealings with.
    3. Yes - this has improved since X1 release as well
    #11
    Beagle
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 09:35:21 (permalink)
    FastBikerBoy


    1. Rock solid - has been since release for me
    2. Yes - far better than any other company I have dealings with.
    3. Yes - this has improved since X1 release as well



    ditto for me.

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    #12
    burkek
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 13:43:22 (permalink)
    1) It's a crash-fest for me, unfortunately. I do, however, work on songs for (sometimes) years and so am loading older workfiles into newer versions of Sonar. Since it's their own file system, this shouldn't cause problems, but boy does it ever. And when it crashes, SONARPDR.EXE stays in memory for longer than ever now - preventing me from re-launching it. Turning off my midi interface, audio interface and other equipment doesn't release it. So I have to wait, or reboot. This is a common problem, btw, with a Sonar crash.

    2) Hit-and-miss. They should cull bugs from these forums, but insist that users make it easy for them by populating their bug reporting system.

    3) I'd like to say yes, but as history would recall, when major new versions of Sonar are released, many wait for months and months for a less bug-ridden version. With X1, they were better with releasing quick-fixes, but Sonar remains the most ill-behaved application on any of my systems. YMMV.

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    #13
    travismc1
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 14:13:36 (permalink)
    I just wanted to ask a few questions about Sonar and Cakewalk, to help me make a few decisions. 1) How is the stability of the latest version of X1 Producer (c?) 2) Do you feel that the company pays any attention to your concerns regarding problems with the software? 3) Have the updates been timely? Very interested in the answers. Thanks! 1) My version has been ROCK SOLID X1, X1A, b and c... I have not had any problems, but I am NOT a power user. I just record audio (guitar) and tinker... my only soft synth that i use on a regular basis has been Session Drummer 3 and that is just to give me a basic beat without using a clunky metronome. I play with Dimension every now and then but I have not had multiple synths working and watched my work crash. Highest number of tracks that I have worked with has been 24 audio and 6 busses with about 62 different vsts operating at the same time. And before you buy it ... GET THE FREE DEMO... it is worth it. 2) All of my questions come to the forums, this forum is lucky to have some friendly folks that will give you their two cents worth...and that's been pretty effective for me. I haven't had a concern so bad that it couldn't be addressed here. Would I like to see some things done better? SURE, but I don't think they are going to reassign their entire software engineering staff, to address my concerns on the basis of my 1 time $400 purchase. 3) Nothing has confounded me so badly that I have been waiting with baited breath on the next update, so I don't know if the updates are "timely."
    post edited by travismc1 - 2011/09/19 14:15:11

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    #14
    Bub
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    Re:Prospective User Survey 2011/09/19 16:15:06 (permalink)
    BetaDefector

    1) How is the stability of the latest version of X1 Producer (c?)
    Stability is kind of an open question and can't really be answered without getting in to great detail. If I use it as a simple audio recorder, it works flawlessly, but so have all the other versions of Sonar I have used over the years. The more things I try to use with it such as VST's, V-Vocal, Audio-Snap, the more flaky it becomes. But that was true of prior releases as well.
    2) Do you feel that the company pays any attention to your concerns regarding problems with the software?
    They do pay some attention yes, but not always. I base that off the fact that there are still problems with Sonar that have been there across multiple versions.
    3) Have the updates been timely?
    They have been timely, but there haven't been enough. Quick Fixes are untested and are not to be applied unless they address a specific problem you are having so I don't consider them to be updates. Normally what happens is there are some fixes released, then the current version is dropped after 12 months and bugs are no longer worked on so essentially support is dropped after 12 months. Supposedly that has changed with X1 so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

    I have to say I agree with 99% of what Burkek said. I don't see as much crashing on new projects, but definitely when opening up projects started prior to X1. I've had older projects get corrupted and they became a complete loss when I opened them in X1. So I got in to the habit of copying an older project before I open it in X1, then finally just stopped doing it altogether and installed 8.5 along side X1.

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