Noel is a jewel that is the one behind all the innovation and improvements in Sonar. CTO Chief Technical Officer.  What Sonar is is his doing.  

Noel is simply the best.
Master of his craft... and a damn fine musician.
That is a rare skill-set.
 
One thing I've always liked about the Cakewalk staff (even long ago) is that they interact with their users. 
It doesn't get any better than the CTO helping you trouble-shoot.  

More confirmation that I chose well when I got Pro Audio 9 for my first PC. I'm happy to be here!
 
Chief Technology (Technological?) Officer seems likely..... well put, too!
 

Well deserved praise and I hope the Cake guys know how appreciated their support is. In fact, it makes it hard, because you almost expect that it may happen elsewhere, but it just doesn't. I'm not talking DAWS here, but similar. The only time you will get a company person to assist elsewhere, is the small guys. Although I'm going to mention an exception in IK, because I had a pretty amazing experience with them recently, similar to what Noel has done here.
 
But, this is the reason I would never consider changing DAWS. Here, problems can be resolved, and they care enough to want that too. Thanks for that. Your a rare breed Cake.

The interesting thing is this has been a ongoing part of CW going back to the days of the newsgroup with Greg Hendershott. It never stopped because it was in the DNA of Cakewalk. Today we see the real benefits of this. A very smart thing to do and stick with.
 
Other companies may at first be very hands on but over time and growth tend to bureaucratize and avoid direct customer interaction. Cakewalk has never made it a feature or even talked about it. They just do it.
 
I for one am very pleased to see Noel and the other CW persons here trying to be of help and service. It speaks volumes about the values CW has.  
 
As a matter of fact from my point of view I like it just as it is. Not required but as Noel or another CW person sees a need they jump in. I really like the informal way of doing the "keeping in touch with the user base".  It works on so many levels.
 
So from me here is a huge pat on the back to all CW people that on occasion participate here.
This thread was a really great idea. 

Marshall
Great story - in a much smaller way, I have been incorrectly gnashing my teeth at Sonar because of an apparent issue with TH3. Thanks for sharing, keeps my woes in perspective. 

I too experienced a TH2/TH3 issue the day before having to leave for LA to do an amp sim workshop at AES. Noel & Co. sorted out the problem - I was able to do the workshop, and I wrote up the solution for this "Friday's Tip of the Week."

rspagnuolo
Let me chime in, too.
 
What a great story.
Just one more nail in the coffin of the naysayers/doomsayers... although I guess there will never be enough nails. LOL!
This is an awesome forum.
 
BTW, what is a CTO (Noel's position in the company)?

I believe it's Chief Technology Officer. I don't think "Chief Software Genius Dude Who Comes Up with Super-Cool Stuff" would fit on business cards 

Very nice story to share. Noel has definitely gone above and beyond in many ways over the years. I am rather disappointed about who the culprit ultimately was though... going on 7 months without a fix for issues that have been affecting a lot of folks.

Just to add to Noel's blushes, he went above and beyond with me a while back, working with me on what seemed an intractable issue. We exchanged a lot of emails as he sent me test builds for me to try.  His patience and courtesy were unlimited.
As we say here in the UK, Noel is a top bloke.
 
John

Happily, there are a number of companies in the music-tech space who go above and beyond the call of duty like this, but CW is absolutely one of them and it's not just Noel. I've had various bakers chime in here about a problem, send me tentative fixes via PM to get things sorted, that kind of thing - often without me even having to go through actual support channels, which I have hardly ever needed to do.
 
One of the realities of this business is that for the size of the market there are a lot of people and companies competing to provide the products and services we need, so the pressure is on to make a high level of personal service part of the package, as well as (of course) technical innovation. The smallish scale of the market makes this possible, but also necessary; it's a happy thing for us users, even if the profit ceiling is likely rather low for the companies competing for our disposable income...
 
However, as has been remarked before, this is not really the business to be in if maximum profit for minimum effort is your main concern; one often has the impression that a product like Sonar, or any number of others in the market, is as much a labour of love as a product competing in a marketplace... and since we musicians are in a similar predicament, we tend to recognise this and reward it with our loyalty. It's not surprising, to me at least, that CW's attitude, baked (as John points out) into the DNA of the company early on, has resulted in the remarkable community of loyal users this forum represents. 
 
Plus, more than a few of us are eccentric quirky weirdos, which keeps things interesting!