One thing I did learn in a career that included running several business is that it's futile to complain about people complaining.
 
It happened over and over that we made changes that we thought would improve the business and make things better for employees, but some fraction of people would always put the worst possible interpretation on it and perceive sneaky schemes to disadvantage them. This was frustrating, but moaning about it and going into a defensive stance made us look peevish and petty as well as feeding the conspiracy theory. And "there's things you don't know and we can't tell you about" was one of the worst possible tactics for calming things down.
 
The best approach was to show appreciation of legitimate concerns, point out the facts, and wait for time to tell whether the changes made things better or worse. In time, we tended to gain the trust of sensible people, although a small percentage could always be counted on to gripe.
 
All of this is the gentlest way I know to say that the OP came across as more than a little condescending and peevish. I think some of the concerns expressed about the lifetime subscription model and the timing of announcements were legitimate and reasonable (even if they are wrong). The concerns won't be assuaged by implying that the concerned parties don't know anything about business, are ignorant, and are at fault for not being in on secret plans.
 
Quick disclaimers... I have used Cakewalk products for a very long time. I remember when Greg Hendershott used to post on the Cakewalk forum on CompuServe. It's a great company, despite a few mistakes over time, and I have confidence in it; I bought my lifetime membership in the first hour that I had the chance. Also, I consider Craig Anderton to be significant added value to my ownership of SONAR; pleasant, inventive, and knowledgeable as well as a strong communicator. Also, I am a Gibson fan, despite some mistakes they have made over the years. I don't know how many Gibsons I've owned, I have a few now (along with other brands), and I will always look to them for a high quality instrument. So I'm not a hater. On the contrary.
 

Hey Anderton, what I don't understand about the three announcements is why was there not four?
 
 

panup

John T
Tangent - what does "follow source" do? I only noticed it a couple of days ago, and can't find any documentation on it.
 

It's used to export tracks: target format is mono, stereo or follow source.

Yeah, I get that, but what, specifically does "follow source" mean? What is the "source" in this context?

I'm not sure why people are spazzing out so much. Cake have ticked me off with a few things over the past year or so (and I've said so... but there's also been a lot of good stuff too).
 
As far as I can see these actually are some pretty "huge" announcements.
 
Porting to Mac? Absolutely a huge deal. Even though I have absolutely ZERO intention of buying a Mac or working on a Mac the fact Sonar was PC only was pretty ridiculous considering how Mac reliant/obsessed the Audio/Video world is. This only makes sense and has been asked/begged for ever since I've been here. I also see it being a potential direct positive to me as now if I actually DID ever acquire a Mac or was forced to use one I can use Sonar (without screwing around with Bootcamp) AND if I ever end up working with/for a Mac user at least they'd have the option to use/check out Sonar.
 
Lifetime updates? Yup... that's a huge deal and something that DOES interest/affect me. I already own pretty much everything I need that Cakewalk offers because I've been using their flagship since X1. I get by pretty well with all those tools and a few calculated third party purchases. Dropping $150-200 a year (when I'm a broke arse upstart who needs other things to round out my "studio") doesn't make sense when most of the value from a Sonar purchase actually comes from a lot of the extra doodads. I'm at the point where I mostly just want to have internal features improved (*cough* automation *cough* time stretching *ahem*) and would definitely like to see more stability/reliabilty... particularly when attempting more advanced tasks (things always seem to break when I start getting too fancy).
 
To be perfectly honest I was about to stop even thinking about keeping up my yearly upgrade and if that money came around I'd dump it into the base version of another DAW that handles some of the tasks I need to perform better than Sonar currently does.
 
However... a ONE TIME upgrade to get core improvements in (supposed) perpetuity? Yeah, that's a decent proposition. Keeps me in the loop, using what I like/am comfortable with (for tracking/writing/comping/mixing) and hopefully some of the improvements I need will come down the pipe. I've seen quite a few core improvements since the Gibson takeover that have helped me significantly. Bit of a snails pace and some things are a little too bubblegum/frivolous for me but I see things I've wanted for a while happen and continue to happen...
 
Which brings me to the 3rd "huge" announcement... which seems more like a bunch of smaller announcements about upcoming features (but good ones, to me anyway). This actually kind of feels more like how the old version system announcements worked (X1/X2/X3/SPlat). Like how every year or so we'd get a new release with a bunch of new high ticket improvements. We've gotten add ons and little tweaks and whatnot this past year but to me SPlat has more or less stayed what it was (except for Aux Tracks but that feels like it was part of the 2015 bundle, just released mid year).
 
Overhauling Take Lanes and the Browser are both worthy core improvement ventures to me. If they go well both will help me quite a bit and I KNOW people have been itching for Take Lane/Comping improvements. Lanes were half baked before but improving steadily. I'm betting the Baker's have been watching a lot of the Lanes threads and gathering intel on what's working and what isn't. I get by fine with Lanes/Comping but have most definitely discovered a lot of quirks and whatnot. The Browser though (which I've started using with much more gusto over the past year) is something I'd love to see get made more logical. Based on the prerelease info it looks like they are now actually allowing folder architecture reside right inside the main browser (instead of the weird arse method of having to "Show" the file trees in a separate browser or having to navigate in a totally illogical manner unless you custom build your own heiarchy in Sonar... WTF is that all about? lol). It looks like they are focusing on the plugin tabs first instead of the media tab (which doesn't help me much because I have so few plugins but it's likely very useful for people like Bapsi with a millionety doodads) but if they apply it to the file system of the computer so I can bounce around, rename, move, copy, etc right inside one Browser window... well that would be great (and is how things SHOULD have been done in the first place).
 
So yeah... if I'm your typical Sonar "recurring customer" demographic (middle aged, white guy, semi pro, songwriter/guitar player who has all the doodads he "needs" and kind of knows how to use them so doesn't want to drop MORE money on things that might be "slightly" better) then a lifetime upgrade is brilliant on my end and for Cakewalk it'll keep me around so my eyeballs are still focused on whatever new goodies they conjure up which may entice me to buy them.
 
I also think that Gibson has actually been using Cakewalk/Sonar as a vehicle for promoting their other products. Gibson over the past decade or so have been a MASSIVE marketing force. You see the name all over the place and obviously they are expanding their product line. Since Sonar is of course used by musician's what better target audience for your marketing than Sonar users? They have instruments, cabling, interfaces and gobs of other music stuff all under their umbrella now and seem to be acquiring/inventing more so being tapped directly into a whole subsect of DAW users turns into a self perpetuating sales machine (and vice versa... like Gibson guitar users might look at Sonar now... and so on).
 
So even if some departments/acquisitions lose money for a while it might drive sales to another area and is likely less expensive than advertisement (and the individual companies act as leverage for other things or can be sold as opposed to direct advertising which is like throwing money into a wood chipper for such a small market). Even just having the Gibson logo somewhere on a wide range of products in the music store or online music shops is great advertising. You gotta figure they got Cake for a good price from Roland too considering Roland was having some hardships and were kind of driving the product into the ground (oh X2... how I loathed you).
 
Anyhoo...
 
tl;dr
 
There have been some moves by Cake I have not agreed with and I was losing interest. These announcements seem pretty solid, logical and have made me want to upgrade to the lifetime thingie. I don't see a problem and doubt Cake are going to pull a fast one on the lifetime upgraders nor let the PC version languish for the Mac crowd. It actually might force them to yank a bunch of the ancient/bad code that causes so many problems.
 
/cya

bapu... Black Hole is a fantastic vst... so glad for the sale... don't know what the original mention was as I've found the best way to declutter repetitive complainers is the "block" function.  Three in this thread alone and "voila!" I am still lovin' this thread!

Anderton
What you're seeing is part of a long-term strategy that no one in the forums has figured out, and that's excellent...because it means the competition probably hasn't figured it out either.

As Rob has suggested, the change for CW customers is near nil. I'd be re-upping my membership in 18 months anyway, another $100 now...whatever.
 
How many other DAW publishers are using a lifetime subscription model? Exactly zero at the moment. CW is now out in front and responding to the negative backlash to subscriptions. It signals several things to competitors: 1) we're here, and we're not going anywhere and 2) CW is healthy enough that it's going to make it more expensive for it's COMPETITORS to compete.
 
The buzz isn't who's getting the update or how much it costs. The buzz is that someone is looking in a direction OTHER than the very unpopular subscription route.
 
The big change isn't to the software, it's to the business...and I think this is a plus for CW's customers and a real problem for their competitors.
 
Throw in support for Apple (which is the only knock I ever really hear these days - it's PC only), and some competitors are in real trouble. First, people like to try new things. Secondly, SONAR is earning a reputation for being solid (have a chat with someone using PT12.5 and see how that's going for them).
 
The announcements are big because they change the shape of a the music industry. The rest of us will just keep doing what we're doing.

 
 

John T

panup

John T
Tangent - what does "follow source" do? I only noticed it a couple of days ago, and can't find any documentation on it.
 

It's used to export tracks: target format is mono, stereo or follow source.

Yeah, I get that, but what, specifically does "follow source" mean? What is the "source" in this context?

 
Source in this instance is the track type itself. For example you may have a project with a mix of mono and stereo tracks. You can force them all to become mono or stereo on export, or leave them in their original format by choosing "follow source".
 
HTH

Ah, excellent. When was this added?

My goodness!  I was perfectly happy with things until I found out about the meteor that could hit Boston and wipe out the dev team!  Where are people's priorities anyway?
   Excuse me, I need to go count my toes again.

aghschwabe
How many other DAW publishers are using a lifetime subscription model? Exactly zero at the moment. 

Image-Line. Gibson recently bought their Deckadance product. They went lifetime years ago to help counter the fact that FL was one of the most pirated music making softwarez out. Tried to make an honest woman out of an already huge, established user base and give them a micro-transaction shop-portunity for selling their add-ons.