The "help" on this forum is nearly 24/7 in that it's always up and most likely someone somewhere in the world is awake and on the forum. (No guarantees though).

How many times a person uses support or not, is irrelevant. A company that is charging money for a product should be adequately staffed to provide technical support to their customer base. That being said, we are fortunate to have such a great forum (which Cakewalk provides- to their credit). Also, the new August release seems to be working wonders when it comes to performance (for me anyway), so it is obvious that Cakewalk is working really hard on that end. I hope they get everything resolved soon. They are a good company with really good people.

yellowcake64
 
I'm definitely something of a novice compared to you guys.
 

Whether that is true or not should make absolutely no difference whatsoever because the whole flaw in that theory is primarily based on "human nature " .. 
 
It may be true that a number of people here may have a powerful online presence ...or they may be considered to be very helpful and a valuable resource in many areas of SONAR and Music production ...I will give them that ...
 
If I was to make a comparison of myself to any number of them , my inherent human nature would set up a little game where it would use "my own faulty perceptions "  to stack the deck in the other persons  favor ....
I would be better off comparing myself to the poorest people in Africa and then to the richest people in the World
 
Using that as my scale of comparison ...it may show that I'm not doing as bad as I thought  ....maybe I would find that I'm even doing pretty good ..
 
Speaking Musically ..
Would not a better comparison be to compare oneself to the person they were when they first started in Music to the person they have already become musically , with an eye and an ear on becoming the best person and musician they hope to be in the future ?     
 

yellowcake64
 
To be honest I'm rediscovering home recording after a bit of a break. Moved house recently, divorce blah, blah

 
Actually that sounds like a very good position to be in ....Out with the old . In with the new ....
Recording and Music can be a very good outlet when one is going through something like that ....
 
It may not sound like much , but I get to play and record in front of a captive audience every night .....my dog lol 
 

yellowcake64

I'm the sort of bloke who will probably need quite a lot of support. Even the registration process seems a bit problematic. Just nervous that I won't get the help I'll inevitably need.

 
If you happen to need a lot of help and support in areas that are not your expertise . Your in the right place ..
You can get the fastest help and answers asking a question here on the forum ...
 
Last month some of the Windows updates brought me into the championship rounds of the fight ..
SONAR kept crashing for some unknown reason .Since computers are not my thing , I asked for help and a few of the forum members helped guide me to fix my problems .
FWIW the problem had nothing to do with SONAR at all .It was a Windows failed update issue ...

The registration process has gotten much simpler since X3. I happen to like it much better than the old way ...
The Cakewalk Command Center does a real good job at keeping SONAR up to date and having all my products registered ....just so you know ...I fought it tooth and nail and swore I would never use it when I was on X3 ...
I've come to depend on The CCC and I'm very happy it's there ...
 

yellowcake64

I probably will upgrade.

I hope you do upgrade ..the only reason why I'm in your thread in the first place is to tell you what my impressions are between X3 VS SPlat ....
Having them both on the same machine and being able to see and hear for myself has brought my opinion to
there's absolutely no comparison between the 2 ...
Just in performance alone SPlat runs rings around X3 in Win 10  .
Some of the newer features in SPlat may or not matter to you , yet they are there and included ....
If you read the list of whats included in SPlat since SPlat came into being it's pretty amazing ....
 

yellowcake64
 
If I move away it's another learning curve (not that I'm far up the Sonar slope).

If I'm reading this correctly , I'm getting the impression you like to use other brand DAW's from time to time ..
If that's the case . Yeah I hear you ..lol
I have many of the main DAW's engineers would consider to be SONAR's current main competition in both PC and Mac ...
Having said that , there is no doubt in my mind that many of the people that develop and produce Cakewalks  SONAR also have many of the main DAW's folks / engineers would consider to be SONAR's current main competition in both PC and Mac ...
They would have too just to be able to have developed a competitive product in the DAW market place 
I happen to think that is a good thing ...from that angle I will leave it at that ...for now ..
 
As far as learning curve goes ...I hate to say this ...it is a tough one to admit and swallow ...
 
If I don't know how to use a compressor , eq , or any plug for that matter in SONAR
It also means I do not know how to use a compressor , eq , or any plug for that matter in Logic , Cubase , Abelton Live , Samplitude Pro X2 , Mixbus 3 or any of the other 7 or 8 DAW's I have not mentioned 
The other side of the coins is... all knowledge that has been learned correctly is transferable
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 

Some thoughtful, insightful replies folks. I thank you all for your time and contributions :-)

I think I will go ahead (I fancy trying out TH3 and AD2 anyway) but could someone explain exactly what the Command Center is please? Am I right in assuming it wasn't used on older versions of Sonar? I really don't recall seeing it before? Would this be downloaded before Platinum? What would be the sequence?

And before I forget, I've seen many threads recommending installing Platinum alongside previous versions ie. X3 in my case. Is this really the preferred method rather than a clean install?

Thanks again

Dave

The Command Center is an optional new tool for installing, activating and maintaining newer Cakewalk products. If you choose to use it, install it first. It is the recommended way to install Platinum for computers connected to the internet. 
 
If you choose to remove X3 do it before installing Platinum. After installing Platinum, you may want to run an advanced install of X3 to reinstall the plug-ins which are not included with Platinum.
 
To save some time, do not uninstall DPro. It has not changed. If you choose to leave X3 installed, skip downloading Rapture. It has not changed either.

In my opinion you're over-thinking, and worrying about something that will probably never be an issue. And never minimize the value of this users forum. This is the best forum I'm aware of for any brand of DAW, and has some of the nicest people who are always ready to help. I've never seen an issue that the answer couldn't be found here. I suppose there can be some really tough issues with all machines, but by starting with SONAR and these forums you are way ahead of the game from the start. If you have a problem and can't find the answer here, you probably have a compatibility issue or hardware problem.
 
Jump in. The water's fine.

Command Center great, Forum great, Support very minimal use and problems solved.  Command Center was not in previous, previous versions.  It is optional, yet I would recommend it if your an online user.  Yes,
Command Center First and Platinum will load from the Command Center. 
I have never clean installed as I have upgraded and have had no problems with programs being recognized.  Some older programs Dimension Pro, Rapture may have to be specially loaded especially if your upgrading those programs.

My first version of Sonar was 6 I think.

In all the years I've used it I've only ever had two conversations with support, both entirely by email. And both to do with bugs I'd reported that the de-buggers were initially having trouble recreating. And a bug you can't make happen is unfixable because you don't know what's happening so don't know what to fix.

Sonar's great strengths in support terms are this forum and the extensive documentation of the entire program, even though that seems to need bringing up to date. I've said it before, but compared to some DAWs that have far greater market penetration, Sonar's documentation is a model of how it should be done. Unfortunately adequate - or even any - documentation of software has become increasingly rare over the last decade or so, as if the coders and marketers think the user should somehow just know how to use their application, no matter how complex. While others don't seem to realise that being a good programmer doesn't necessarily make you a good help/manual author.

A more thorough knowledgebase on Cake's website would be a good idea, as would some basic guides to recording and digital audio suitable for beginners, or even links to reliable third party sources of information. If nothing else it might help cut through the heaps of misinformation and errors that searching the internet for basic information is likely to turn up along with the good stuff. But something like that needs people to write it and time for them to write it.