It was like a bad marriage.

I have only stuck around because of the amount of time and energy invested, not for the results.  

I have used cakewalk products since my first DAW build in 2003.  For the last 2-3 years I have been using CSPE8.5 and have had nothing but issues.  It always appeared that once I fixed one leak in the boat, another would occur.   
Well, the "your disk may be full; we're to lazy to parse the correct error for this so we'll just delete your entire project" error was the final straw.  I have received this a hand full of times after full formats on new hard drives that have been checked that are installed on a dedicated DAW.  There is nothing but vsts and other recording programs on my machine.  I know how to setup a daw.  

If thats not enough, cakewalk loves to erroneously corrupt its own audio engine.   This is dangerous for a mixing engineer, as it does not present itself in an obvious fashion at all.  The slightly higher noise is not present on the meters, as it is a digital artifact of seemingly narrowing bit depth.  Seriously, WTF.  It is NOT an issue with drivers of my 1010lt or saffire pro 40.  They work PERFECT in NUENDO or REAPER.  

To top it all off,  Cakewalk's own 64 bit plugins love to freeze or just give off digital noise.  It seems bit Bridge is the cause of this, as it always hangs during cakewalk's vst errors.  I swapped in the only alternative on the market to bit bridge: Jbridge.  It was far more stable and for 10$, it made sense.  But how can one guy develop something superior to Roland?  Rhetorical question, I know.  

I have got ALOT of other complaints of VSTs and VSTis that aren't "supported".  You guys do know there is a standard right?  Nearly all VSTs and VSTis should work.  ESPECIALLY cornerstones like waves and UAD.  Even Fruity Loops support this better that Roland!  That is laughable.  

This isn't an attack against you guys.  You guys have been real helpful and your good at dealing with CW's "nuances".   I have just waded through all of the "tech solutions" too much to really be bothered with this.  It's irrelevant.  There is other software on the market that performs better under any circumstance that is cheaper (reaper).  If you are too good for reaper then there is Cubase.  

I will add to that further by saying, reaper and other daws will read CW's MIDI files and place the appropriate meter and time signature accordingly yet Cakewalk will not without extra steps.  Its just little details like this that add up as well.  In general, the only think I really like about cakewalk its its track organization.  Nothing tops it IMO.  

Details about my DAW for your perusal:

audio:
1010lt
saffire pro 40 

cpu
AMD thuban 1100t

ram
8 gigs @1600

HDD
sata3 1 TB platter drive

I was responding to this because I was thinking I was also using 8.5 but then I looked and apparently I am still using 8.3.1.372.  I've been using this since it came out (~2 years ago? I forget) on two different computers built by visiondaw.com and without issues.

Well, that's not true... SONAR crashes/freezes approximately once a week.  But it never requires a system restart, I just restart SONAR and continue on...  fortunately I save a lot.  About once a year I encounter the "disk may be full" error and that is always devastating.  I've yet to find any sort of workaround that works for me and I've tried everything.  I've been lucky (so far) to always encounter this bug in the early stages of a project and not the late stages.  But it still makes me want to find every single person who works for SONAR and kick them all in the nutsack.

I guess I consider these things within the norm since I use SONAR an average of 8 hours a day, 365 days a year, and have for the past ~12 years.  And my computer is a huge no-no, running all sorts of internet **** and programs... you guys would not want to see my "processes" list.

Anyway I haven't had an issue with any VST or with bit bridge.  I know this post is not that helpful but if you like SONAR would you consider trying to go back to 8.3?  Is this even possible?

"Bad marriage" may be an apt analogy. Just the wrong combination for you. For me to say that 8.5 is rock stable for me is about as helpful as touting my own 36-year marriage as justification for you sticking it out in a bad relationship.

Just a observation for me, I have installed Sonar 7 and 8.5 on at least 10 different computers over the last 5 years. AMD= audio engine stopping. The nature of a PC is that it can be hobbled together out of almost infinite components. There's your problem.
 And what makes you think the drivers for the 1010 are so good? I have certainly read posts from people having problems with that interface, just like any device, it just might not get along with your configuration. 
Sure Sonar is a little picky, they possibly include way more crap than we will ever even use, but for a lot of us it's at least 98% stable. No soft ware is 100%.  

My control is that competing projects dont display the same issues in the same configuration.  No matter CW's reasons for failing, its moot point when competing software handles these issues with no problem.  

I think its real funny that a lot of the issues that are going to be picked apart of my setup are common, stable configurations else where.  

And yes, I have Nuendo, reaper, and cakewalk as well as others.  Do you guys pigeon hole your customers into one format?  

The only thing that has changed here, that has seemingly solved all my issues, is the omission of cakewalk from my projects.  We might not support it in the future or atleast if we do it will be on the stripped down premise that is believed to be acceptable by the culture here.  

This isnt and attack either.  This is a plea to show others who have been helpful with me in the past that going to such lengths to have a stable DAW is REDICULOUS.   You should be able to use nearly any popular vst or vsti you want.  You should be able to use multiple sound cards.  These are INDUSTRY STANDARDS.  

I have my hardware synced with each other, there is no noise, and no other issues.  AMD versus Intel, doesnt matter.  If you omit and entire side of the industry's hardware during QC, then I will omit you.  Nevermind the fact, that nowhere does Cakewalk say run on intel only.  Seriously, thats not an AMD problem, that is a CAKEWALK problem.

  But yes, if you guys want to carry on dealing with these issues which are commonly suggested as "solutions" then so be it.  If you want a more flexible setup that won't abandon you in two years, well........


The common ground here is the poor support from Cakewalk.  


But seriously, you guys have been awesome, I just dont see this in the same light I used to.