How to help Cakewalk stop giving us more plugins? Or should we keep buying?

I have more plug-in effects and soft-synths than I'll ever need. So if you asked me what I would like Cakewalk to focus on in their next fourteen incarnations of Sonar, my answer would be: Not more plugins!

Yet I keep buying stuff from Cakewalk that I don't need. When I upgraded to Expanded I bought the bundle including the PC4K Expander/Gate and Z3TA+ 2. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing to complain about with any of those two, nor have I actually used them for anything yet.

So why did I buy them when I obviously didn't need them? Part of the answer is that I can't help myself. Another part of the answer is that I like to support Cakewalk. They are in a tough business and like everyone else they need to make money in order to keep existing. By spending a few extra bucks in the Cakewalk store now and then I like to think that I'm making an investment that in a small way contributes to a better future version of Sonar. Take the ProChannel as an example. If Cakewalk can generate some extra income by selling PC-modules, then I see that as a good thing. The more income Cakewalk can generate, the more resources they have to spend on bug-fixing, work-flow enhancement and all those things that actually matter. Right?

OR

Am I being too naive here. The above line of reasoning presupposes that the money I spend buying stuff I don't need actually goes into making Sonar better. If those resources simply goes into making more plup-ins, then I'm wasting my money, and possibly making everything worse.

In the discussion preceding the release of Expanded some people expressed an unwillingness to “pay for bug-fixes”. In principle I can understand the sentiment. We shouldn't pay extra for the software to do what it's supposed to do, and all that. But in reality, if we're not willing to pay for bug-fixing, but we are willing to pay for plug-ins, guess what we'll get more of. And it's not Cakewalks fault. They have no choice but to follow the economic incentives if they want to stay in business.

As customers we have a great deal of power and influence by choosing how to spend our money. What can we do to make it more economically lucrative for Cakewalk to work on un-sexy problems like bug-fixing and stuff like that, rather than pretty-looking, easily marketable plug-ins? Should I continue buying plugins from Cakewalk because it is a nice way of supporting Cakewalk financially, or should I stop buying plugins from Cakewalk because it will only encourage them to make more? We're all using Sonar because we think it's an awesome piece of software, don't we? What can we do to help Cakewalk make it even more awesome?

Thoughts?

I'm fine with them providing plugins, but think they should license them from others who do that as their main business.  This would let them focus their own energies and resources on getting a stable, functional product.  Maybe they would even have enough time left to re-improve (un-improve?) the UI back to where it showed you what you needed to see.  :)  

 
I'm wondering what there is left to add apart from plug-ins?
 
Obviously not enough to justify charging us the 180ish dollars we've been used to shelling out annually for the last couple of upgrades.
 
It will certainly be interesting to see which direction they go in.

chaunceyc


I'm fine with them providing plugins, but think they should license them from others who do that as their main business.  
 
I think that is tne idea with the Pro Channel exclusive plug-ins. 

SteveStrummerUK


 
I'm wondering what there is left to add apart from plug-ins?
 
Obviously not enough to justify charging us the 180ish dollars we've been used to shelling out annually for the last couple of upgrades.
 
It will certainly be interesting to see which direction they go in.

That's right on the money. Yes there's lots that needs refining but as for adding, there's not many places to go really is there.

Everytime I get fed up with a certain element of computer based recording I just think back to my first foray into recording when I had a semi-permament loan of our drummer's 6 track cassette recorder and suddenly nothing seems quiet as bad.

Whatever gives Cake the business to prosper and continue providing tools for music production.

I hope there will be a product like Studio-versions still without the bling-bling of Producer.

All the plugins tools I prefer to pick and choose from Cake or 3rd party. But for many it's essential that it comes with most of what you need to make nice productions.

A good scenario might be that Cake provide a palette of products(own and 3rd party) with discounts so you can choose exactly what might make you upgrade(apart from functional stuff in daw). Now they inhibit my wish to upgrade because I already have some products they bundle - why pay for the same thing many times.

Something like:

- Pick any two of these six products with discount when you upgrade.

My guess is that the PC will continue to get modules.  If CAke brings out a new synth then we will get Rapture included.

I'm not sure what else they can add to the form, except refine what they have.  With X they have changed the form and have bug fixes to get completely stable.  What could they add?  Gapless engine, esp. so you can use SONAR "live" is something they can work on - esp. with a beatscape/matrix module.  What else do people want to see as far as functions?

@ 

Lanceindastudio


Gapless audio engine and obvious bug fixes is all there is left - Everything else we need to make STUPIDLY awesome music is well beyond grasp.

this is a true story.

I am always surprised when people cannot imagine anything new to add to the program. Unless I am misunderstanding your post? (apologies if so)

What about better routing, more customization options put back into the program, improved browser and multidock, more drag and drop options, etc. etc. If I sat and thought about it there are so many features and work enhancements that are still yet to come. The competition is a good place to look for useful new feature ideas, and I am sure there are things none of us has even thought of yet that would be very valuable and increase enjoyment when working with Sonar.

bapu


All of The CHB members would like to have Cake add the Bapu Filter Pro.

Oh wait..... they already have the mute button.

Never mind.

What?

History repeats itself, it has to, no one listens!

Child

i was referring to plugins, not functionality. I always welcome improved functionality! 


Lance

cornieleous

Lanceindastudio


Gapless audio engine and obvious bug fixes is all there is left - Everything else we need to make STUPIDLY awesome music is well beyond grasp.

this is a true story.

I am always surprised when people cannot imagine anything new to add to the program. Unless I am misunderstanding your post? (apologies if so)

What about better routing, more customization options put back into the program, improved browser and multidock, more drag and drop options, etc. etc. If I sat and thought about it there are so many features and work enhancements that are still yet to come. The competition is a good place to look for useful new feature ideas, and I am sure there are things none of us has even thought of yet that would be very valuable and increase enjoyment when working with Sonar.

cornieleous

Lanceindastudio


Gapless audio engine and obvious bug fixes is all there is left - Everything else we need to make STUPIDLY awesome music is well beyond grasp.

this is a true story.

I am always surprised when people cannot imagine anything new to add to the program. Unless I am misunderstanding your post? (apologies if so)

What about better routing, more customization options put back into the program, improved browser and multidock, more drag and drop options, etc. etc. If I sat and thought about it there are so many features and work enhancements that are still yet to come. The competition is a good place to look for useful new feature ideas, and I am sure there are things none of us has even thought of yet that would be very valuable and increase enjoyment when working with Sonar.

I agree w/ this 1000%.  There are definitely new things Cake can add.  Just a few off the top of my head.
 
- Gapless Audio - I think this alone is gonig to be a huge undertaking b/c, frankly, if it wasn't I think it would have been done already.
 
- Rewire (64bit) - Self-explanatory.  Plus the Rewire implementation as a whole could use some refining.
 
- VST3 - Even though Cake has deemed this "unneccessary", a lot of developers have embraced it and I think for that reason alone, it would be unwise to just blow it off.  And a recent thread here has clearly shown that there are those who want to see it added.
 
- ARA - IMO, Cake should seriously look into it as I just think Melodyne is far superior to V-Vocal in functionality as well as interface.  And I think they would have to waste far too much time and resources to even get V-Vocal in the ballpark and still it probably wouldn't be quite as good.
 
- VST Expression - Not sure about this one as it may be exclusive to Steinberg, but if not it would be nice to have.
 
- Some cool time/tempo features like Tempo tracks (Cubase), speed fades (Logic), and the feature that allows you to change the tempo of the entire project and the audio follows (the name escapes me right now but I think Reaper, Logic, and Record/Reason have it.  Reaper seeming to have the best implementation according to most).
 
 
That's just off the top of my head w/o even really thinking so I think it's a bit short-sighted to say that plugins are all that can really be added.  And that's not even mentioning the things that are already there that need to be fixed or improved upon.  And I definitely think they need to revisit the UI for some refining. 
 
Plugins, imo, should really be last on the priority list at this point.  As much as I like Pro Channel, FX chains, Softube, etc., none of it really adds anything that wasn't already able to be accomplished in Sonar prior to X1.  The one thing I'm a bit afraid of, however, is that Cake may not have the resources to really implement some of these things which is why they focus more on things like plugins.  I hope I'm wrong about that though.