SilkTone
Having the ability to specify install locations is a fundamental feature and should have been in C3 V1.0. I remember reading in a thread about the Braintree update, and either Noel or another CW employee mentioned that a particular feature was thrown into that update because they had some extra time available.

A significant amount of our customers never used the custom installer paths, and complained about download/install times. Another group of new users used to change things without knowing what they were doing, screwing up their install, giving them the impression our software was buggy, and created needless support cases. 
 
To resolve this, we needed to control what users were first presented. C3 was something completely new for us and we decided 'KISS' was the best plan of attack for 1.0. It'll mature, but instead of just shoehorning features into it, we'd like to do it in a thoughtful manner. That was why Willy asked for elaboration. If we just shoe horn the kitchen sink into it, without taking the time to design it right, we'll be back at square one.
 
As Ryan mentioned above, we understand power uses like to move some things around. That's why we still offer the traditional installers.

Re: 'some extra time available' in the latest update.

Noel's primary responsibility revolves around SONAR, and when he has spare time it goes into SONAR. He's not responsible for C3 development.  

Hi Steven,
 

SilkTone
EDIT: BTW, while there might have been some small amount of sarcasm in my reply to Willy (sorry), I was replying to his statement that "There are about 30 design questions in this one". I'm not sure why there would be a lot of unanswered questions with such a straightforward feature to allow per-product install locations.

Because it adds a layer of complexity between a new user making music right away. I'd hate to burst your bubble here - but you are in the minority. The vast majority of users don't specify custom paths. Muddying up the first time/new user experience because Steven doesn't like it is a poor design choice and counter-productive to one of C3's major goals: remove obstacles to firing up a project and making music fast (herein referred to as goal 1).
 
There are very real design considerations - it's not your job to acknowledge them but feedback is substantially more helpful for us than sarcasm. Let's walk through some of them since apparently I'm to dense to get them ...
 
a) We make a global option to run all installers silently and enable it by default
 a1) power users turn it off, they're happy
 a2) for the majority of users everything continues working as intended
 
b) We add the ability to choose and install multiple updates at once
 b1) power users now have to sit there and attend to every install - what happens if they want custom paths for only one of those?
 b2) for the majority all works well
 
c) To resolve the needs of b1, when updating multiple products at once we now add a check box next to each item to decide if they want to run silently
 c1) power users are happy
 c2) the majority of users are confused by this new 'silent' install checkbox - now we're making them make decisions, this conflicts with goal 1
 
d) To resolve the needs of c2 in respect to goal 1 and ALSO b1, we now only add check box next to teach to decide to run silently only if they disable the global option
 d1) power users are happy
 d2) majority is happy
 d3) ui state management code is not happy - but who cares we can kick that one down the road and the next dev working on it can deal with it.
 
e) We make it per-product by adding a new button
 e1) Nobody is happy because adding more buttons just makes it look ugly
 e2) New users are confused - which button do I click? Why would I click this button vs the normal button? We're back to missing Goal 1.
 
f) We make a context-menu or ctrl+click option or turn the install button into one of those nifty dropdown buttons with a mini-menu to allow non-silent installs
 f1) Power users are happy, they have an easy to do a non-silent install
 f2) Still simple 'install' button for the majority
 f3) discover-ability bonus - the drop button menu requires less documentation
 f4) Crap what about the 'pick and choose what to install' feature request?
 
g) We decide to go with the nifty drop-menu button, its wins for discover-ability and not cluttering the UI.
 g1) We add a few options in here:
  g1a) Install Silently
  g1b) Add to Install Collection
  g1c) Add to Install Collection silently
 g1b) Turns out power users hate having to click on every product to mass-install/update and add to collection
 g1c) majority doesn't care
 
h) So we scrap the nifty drop-menu button. It wins for UI prettiness, but its turns out not so powerful for power-users.
 h1) CTRL+CLICK now selects multiple products in the tree, clicking any install button anywhere will install them all. It follows the global option always
 h2) Everyone is happy
 h3) ....well not support or documentation. Now we have to teach this to all the power users in 7 languages and release is delayed while we wait for localization because our new 'feature' isn't discoverable.
 
There are 8 of them, in less than five minutes and I'm not the only person with thoughts on the topic. The sooner you accept there is a bigger picture here - the more productive a conversation about features and implementation can actually be.
 

 I remember reading in a thread about the Braintree update, and either Noel or another CW employee mentioned that a particular feature was thrown into that update because they had some extra time available.

 
The SONAR schedule has little to do with C3. Sure there are some shared resources, but for the most part the SONAR development team is not working on C3. Both SONAR and C3 can be updated independently of each other.
 

You forgot the fact that Willy does not own a Tardis 

Yes I do.
 
 

Willy,

That's a great post and illustrates the complexity.

I do think the initial assumption that the vast majority of users just want to get to making music and want a one click button for easy install is an over assumption.

I don't want to be a power user, but the majority of all installers provide a custom install option.

It's not normal and confusing to users not to have a custom install button in Command Center.

I don't agree with that. He purposefully overcomplicated something that is really simple. He could have stopped at a and would have solved the most serious of the problems. The rest of it is just adding all the "nice to have" features with a contrived set of resulting problems.

 
Fair enough we can't please everyone all the time. The big picture though still is that we will probably add more than just this one checkbox to C3. Maybe they are just 'nice to have' and not for everybody but folks have been asking for them so we are going to think about how some of the 'nice to haves' fit into the bigger picture. In my example I only used two of the commonly requested features. I'm sure we can agree that more functionality introduces the potential to complicate things? 
 
FWIW none of that was contrived,  those were recollections from actual conversations we've had internally around the next C3 update. 

If we're giving feedback, I would definitely like custom install paths too. I don't usually move Sonar itself but I'm not about to dump tens of GBs of samples and content on my C: drive, I have a dedicated SSD for that stuff. I believe most serious DAW users do, at least all of my colleagues do. We may still be in the minority within the Sonar user base, I'll take your word for that.

I don't see why, after initial install, "power users" couldn't click "update all". I would expect C3 to respect previously chosen locations. Every type of command center/multi-installer/service center I use does this. With NI you do actually have to click install for each product but you can download them all in one go and you don't have to go redefining custom install locations for every update.

I also find it a bit dumb that C3 doesn't figure out previous installations, but I suppose this is tied to the same issue. This actually makes things MORE complicated for existing users though, as it is completely unclear what is already installed and what needs to be updated, leading to increased chance of messed up installations, overwritten settings and general confusion, as proven by the numerous threads on this topic.

I am personally also of the opinion that these points are essential enough that they should have been day one features.

I don't think the sarcasm and angry speak on either end is very helpful but obviously this causes a lot of frustration. I hope these issues and feature requests are taken seriously. Right now I'm kinda ok, thinking things are still in infancy. I haven't updated/reinstalled ALL my content in the hopes that a C3 update will arrive that detects my excisting stuff. If it doesn't, I basically can't use it and if Sonar will come to rely on it completely I don't know what I'll do. I'm not looking forward to learning yet another DAW but I do need normal modern installation and file management.

 
 
 


You forgot the fact that Willy does not own a Tardis and cannot manipulate the total # of hours in a day.
 
Feedback is good.


He doesn't??? Well WHO does then??

AAAAAAHHH.   Command center just installed to my C drive.   Didn't ask.     There is no room there, so it essentially ruined my system.

 
Thanks for the feedback BobF. I would like to take a moment to comment if you don't mind.
 

a) an implementation that removes previously available functionality. In this case, installation options.

 
These options are still available if you download the product from your account at http://www.cakewalk.com/my-account/products. In all fairness to you, I get that you're talking about specifically in Command Center, but just to be clear we didn't remove the options. I'll discuss more about Command Center below though.
 

b) The appearance that Cakewalk is ignoring the situation

 
Based on what? That's an assumption. I'm sorry if you've jumped to that conclusion and that's what the vibe is. It's definitely the opposite of reality for us here though.
 

c) a condescending attitude when the situation is finally addressed.
 

I don't think Willy, myself, nor Seth are being condescending by defending our work. The internet is always interesting, because from my vantage point I actually felt some of the posts in this thread condescending against the very work we do every day. No need to get hung up on that though, the point is nobody at Cakewalk is trying to being condescending to customers and we realize that customers are just trying to express things to us based on frustrations they're experiencing with our products.
 
Honestly, we simply believe in the work we're doing and are willing to speak up about it when we feel it's necessary. There is a bigger picture and a vision here. The coincidental part about it is that Seth, Willy and myself all worked in technical support for many years before moving on to our relative positions in the company. So if anything, honest feedback about how our products affect our customers is exactly what we've been advocating about for years now.

 
That fourth reason is that I'm PO'd at myself for reinvesting in Cakewalk. I bought X3 and then the Platinum upgrade making some BIG assumptions, that things might have changed at Cakewalk is not the least of those assumptions.

 
I actually think it would be beneficial for all of us to take about 50 steps back for a moment and to talk about what Cakewalk Command Center is actually even about and why we invested any resources at all in it. Seriously, bare with me for moment on this. I think you might find that you're way off the mark with our vision here.
 
For starters, I don't think it's a mystery to explain to anyone that we're always trying to attract new customers. We're trying to grow our brand. Pretending that's not the case would be a mistake. So, why is that important?
 
Let's review the SONAR X3 Producer purchase/installation/registration process as it existed exactly this time last year:
 
1) Go to www.store.cakewalk.com and choose a region to create/login an account (there are three regions - hopefully you selected the correct region for your local currency because if not you're going to have to go through the entire process again)
2) Add SONAR X3 Producer to your cart
2a) if you are an upgrade customer trying to get a discount, did you register your previous product? If so, wait 6 hours while we import this into our registration database and match up your records. Also, I hope you used the same email address otherwise someone is going to have to modify the record in our database. 6 hours later, your upgrade price should appear. If it doesn't work, call Customer Service (they'll have to override the price)
2b) If you're not upgrading, easy enough, just proceed to pay full price
3) When you finish paying, we email you thanking you for paying, but we haven't delivered the product yet.
4) Shortly later we email you telling you that serial numbers should be available soon. Usually this takes 15 minutes but honestly many times it took several hours.
5) Once your serial numbers are available, we tell you to begin downloading your installers.
6) Log back into www.store.cakewalk.com and start downloading your installers. Here are the list of things ALL the installers you need to download:

• 00_SONAR_X3_Installation_Instructions_Link.rtf
• 01_Read_This_First_SONAR_X3.exe
• 02_SONAR_X3_Producer.part1.exe
• 02_SONAR_X3_Producer.part2.exe
• 02_SONAR_X3_Producer.part3.exe
• 02_SONAR_X3_Producer.part4.exe
• 03_Loops_And_One_Shots.part1.exe
• 03_Loops_And_One_Shots.part2.exe
• 03_Loops_And_One_Shots.part3.exe
• 04_Dimension_Pro_1.5_Expansion_Packs.zip
• 04_Dimension_Pro_1_5_Setup.exe
• 05_XLN_Audio_Addictive_Drums_Download_Instructions.rtf
• MelodyneARA_SONAR_X3-Tutorials-CLibertini.zip
• Rapture 1.2.2 Stand-Alone Installer

By the way, all of these installer links will time out eventually. If you're not using a download manager, which a lot our customers do not (trust me we dealt with this conversation almost every 10 minutes on phones), then you'll have to log into your account all over again to queue up new links. Most people didn't realize this so links eventually timed out and gave errors, causing customers to contact us already at this stage.
7) Hopefully Step 6 wasn't overwhelming for you. If so, we've provided some more instructions for this process at https://www.cakewalk.com/...tallation-Instructions
8) Make sure you download ALL of the files before trying to launch the SONAR installation, otherwise the process will fail. I really hope you didn't RUN instead of SAVE from your browser (so many people did this) otherwise it's not going to work.
9) Now that everything is downloaded, start installing. Hopefully you didn't have any corrupted downloads or you're going to have to start the process again. You can perform a checksum if you know how, but most people don't. You're going to need to isolate which of the 4 SONAR installer files is corrupted (if any). If you need MD5 hash codes for each installer file you can use the link in Step 7. If you don't know how to perform a checksum I can give you instructions on the process. It's going to require downloading a third-party utility.
10) Step through every installer and follow the on-screen instructions. Pay attention to the prompts. Input your serial numbers when asked.
11) After launching SONAR for the first time, make sure you register it at www.cakewalk.com/register (this form used to ask you about 15 questions by the way, now it only asks you one).
12) Wait for your registration code. This might take 15 minutes or so. When you receive it, put it into SONAR and now it's unlocked.
13) Repeat Step 11 for Rapture
14) Repeat Step 12 for Rapture
15) When you get your Rapture registration code, make sure you first launch SONAR by choosing "Run as Administrator" or the code will not be accepted.
16) Repeat Step 11 for Dimension Pro
17) Repeat Step 12 for Dimension Pro
18) Repeat Step 15 for Dimension Pro
19) Repeat step 14 but for Dimension Pro
20) Go grab the latest update from our website. Download and install each of them. There are 4 (well actually 5 but depending on where you bought SONAR you might already be on SONAR X3a)
20a) Get SONAR X3b
20b) Get SONAR X3c
20c) Get SONAR X3d
20d) Get SONAR X3e
21) Make some music? I hope you still have energy
 
Ultimately, as you can see, this process was insanely overwhelming for new customers. It caused tons of people to turn away, and it caused tons of nightmares for our support department. This is just to buy, install, and authorize the product. SONAR has a pretty big learning curve too, but we've already lost people. People who have been with us for years are used to all of this, but not everyone has been with us for years.
 
With that being said...
 
Let's review the current process for purchasing, installing and authorizing SONAR Platinum
 
1) Make a Cakewalk account at www.cakewalk.com/my-account
2) Visit shop.cakewalk.com and buy SONAR
3) Within seconds you can begin downloading and installing SONAR through Cakewalk Command Center
 
In literally seconds, you can begin installing. You can walk away and not press a single button. All of the downloading is handled for you. If a packet was corrupted, Command Center will handle that for you. Authorization? Command Center will handle that for you. Getting the latest updates? Command Center will handle that for you.
 
I demonstrated this to my friend the other day while making margaritas. I just left my computer alone. When we were done, I sat back down at my PC and he was amazed! He's a musician, not a programmer. For him, this was a significant achievement!
 
So all of this brings to me to one of my main points, and it is that one of the main goals behind Cakewalk Command Center was to deliver a more streamlined experience to customers. While it's not perfect, we've already solved a TON of problems and headaches that have been plaguing customers for years. This is a real situation that we worked extremely hard to correct since it impacted people every day.
 
Another design goal behind Command Center was to support a membership program where we can role out updates to customers more easily then we've ever done in the past. Additionally, having a rollback function actually solves one of the biggest problems in this industry (and software in general) in my opinion, which is taking the risk of whether or not you want to update when in the middle of a big project. So we can more easily role out updates while simultaneously offering people an easy way to roll-back should they be impacted by the update in a negative way.
 
Lastly, a big part of us doing this was to support the actual logistics behind making a monthly membership even work. This required our products to be connected to our website so we can see what people own and whether or not their account is in good standing.
 
Achieving this goal required us to:

1) Completely rebuild our website from the ground up, every line of code
2) Completely redesign our store (our old store did not support subscription payments)
3) Completely rebuild our delivery system
4) Build a web API to support all of this connectedness
5) Build a desktop client to support communicating with this web API
6) Redesign our product's authorization to support all of this connectedness
7) Maintain a process to download and authorize offline for customers who desire this
8) Migrate millions and millions of records in our database from ~ 27 years of business to support this new system
 
So, as you can see, a TON of work has already been done and a lot of problems have already been resolved. That isn't to say that the reports we're getting about frustrations with C3 aren't legitimate. As Seth & Willy mentioned, we'd like to collect feedback so we can make smart decisions moving forward.
 

I'm done ****ing. I'm done adding FRs for stuff that's obvious to anybody that actually uses Sonar. You have 11 months to win me over. Good luck with that.

 
I hope we do! For whatever it is worth, all of the work I mentioned above was done in half that time by fewer people then fingers on my left hand. I should mention that none of this has impacted SONAR development. Our SONAR developers have already rolled out a major new version of SONAR with a lot of new features and are heavily in development on a lot of new stuff that people are going to enjoy.
 
 
Anyhow, I hope this helps to give some insight on some of the work that has already been done. We're deeply involved in a lot of things at the moment. Updates to SONAR, Command Center, and new products are all on their way.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
 
Cakewalk should supply the source code!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(Only kidding! )
 
Now that's informative !!!

Great post, Ryan, thanks for taking the time to explain all that.

It doesn't really solve my issues unfortunately, but like you said, taking 50 steps back seems like a good idea.

I'm gonna sit out this year and hope C3 improves.

BobF
Ryan - Your 21 step install above seems a bit exaggerated to me.

Which bits does he exaggerate? Would you have prefered him to summarise it?

Having been in similar situations myself I realise you can't win at this game. If you say little you aren't doing anything. If you summarise you are missing something. If you show the full detail you are either overwhelming or exaggerating. Believe me when that list gets into the developers hands where problems gets turned into a solution, it drills down into much more detail and the complexity increases 10 fold.

Developing simple, easy to use software is complex and time consuming.

BobF
SPlat -
 
Ryan and other Bakers have done a fine job of speaking for Cakewalk to this point.
 
The 21 step process "reads" much more difficult than my experience.  I don't know how to say that any more clearly.  Ever heard "It sounds worse than it is"?  As bad as the previous experience might have been, the end result was (mostly) that things were installed and configured according to user preference.  The same cannot be said about the new process for the same group of users.
 
Somewhere in Boston there was a conscious decision made to move forward with CCC as is - without a single warning that old options would be gone.  Instead, CCC was released with the recommendation that it be used for the best experience.  No '*' with a note anywhere.
 
I have no problem with other users NOT having a problem with CCC.  My opinion will always be that it was a huge mistake to release CCC without being able to specify options for install - NOT TELLING PEOPLE WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
 
You happy?  Great.  My discussion on this topic is not with you or other users.  Your opinion in the matter has ZERO influence over my opinion.
 
Trust is broken.  It won't be as easy to grab something new that comes out of Boston and run the installer without little yellow and red lights flashing and a neon sign that reads, "Is it worth the risk?"  :)
 
This is my last on the matter.  I'm bored with it now.

Thanks for your replies BobF. I appreciate you taking the time to discuss further.
 
The 21 step process unfortunately isn't an exaggeration. It might sound that way to you based on your level of experience, but spend a day in our call center and you'll quickly learn I might have even downplayed it a little. I actually left out a lot of hurdles that people faced as well.
 
Anyhow, no need to keep going down that path, since I get this conversation is about Cakewalk Command Center and not about the past. I just wanted to take a step back to discuss some of the goals for a moment.
 
I do want to clarify (or I guess just reiterate) one thing that I keep posting.
 
You don't have to use Cakewalk Command Center to install SONAR Platinum. You can download your installers from http://www.cakewalk.com/my-account/products. This has been an available option since day one. I'll see what we can do to hopefully make this a little bit more obvious for users.
 
I guess there are two different philosophies for how we could move forward.
 
Option 1) We keep repeating this discussion in a circle. Customers tell us what they think should have been day 1 features, we keep telling them what features were our focus, reiterate repeatedly how the old option is still available, etc. etc. We discuss the difference between new customers, power users, etc. Basically, we keep repeating this conversation.
 
Option 2) We acknowledge that there are still two ways to install the software and that maybe Cakewalk Command Center isn't the best option yet for some of our power users. However, with power user's feedback we can definitely improve things quite a bit, maybe to the point where C3 is the preferred option for every single user.
 
Personally I'd prefer to go with the second approach. I think that's ultimately what the spirit of getting some feedback is. Anyhow, FWIW, everyone's feedback is not falling on def ears. Thanks again for sharing.
 
 
 

Ryan, the problem is that there seems to be a disconnect somewhere. Let me explain by having us take a quick tour over to the ADK site where we get the following DAW customization options:

• OS/Programs Drive: [select drive]
• Audio Drive: [select drive]
• Audio/Samples Drive: [select drive]

 
And next, let's go to the StudioCat site where we get the following options:

•  OS drive: [select drive]
• Audio drive: [select drive]
• Samples drive 1: [select drive]
• Samples drive 2: [select drive]

 
Now, it is one thing to say: "If you need to specify custom locations, use the manual install method".
 
However it is something completely different to say: "I'd hate to burst your bubble here - but you are in the minority. The vast majority of users don't specify custom paths. Muddying up the first time/new user experience because Steven doesn't like it is a poor design choice and counter-productive to one of C3's major goals: remove obstacles to firing up a project and making music fast (herein referred to as goal 1)."
 
A comment like that shows a disconnect from reality, and is what frustrates users. While customers needing to specify install locations are in the minority, it is such an important part of a professional DAW that I, and I'm sure many others, are scratching our heads as to why exactly are we required to explain and justify this requirement? If a first time user can handle the complexity of using a DAW, they surely won't be intimidated by leaving an install path at its default value during installation.
 
I think we can all agree this is a good attempt at a v1.0 product (the rest of the release is stellar), and that we look forward to improvements to it. I'm just pointing out what I believe to be the root cause of frustration. Simply the fact that this should have been a day one feature, that we should not need to explain or justify why it is needed, and that CW treats it like it would be nothing but a "poor design choice" if it was offered.

Just imagine... If Willy, Seth, and Ryan had invested the time spent responding to this thread on actually fixing them, we would be that much closer =D

The incessant "status meetings" cycle just keeps people from being able to focus properly. Most of us have been there... Explaining the same thing to each person who asks because THEY find it important.

Food for thought at least... The concerns have been acknowledged by those who need to know.

SplatNot only that he's stated future intentions as clear as day.

i repectfully disagree with that statement - he has been as vague as usual, as craig states in another thread, they're "lifting the curtain slightly" but there'll be no road map... if there were a roadmap, then i would consider it "clear as day" but right now, as before, it's more of a pea-souper ;-)