nonametoday
 
Try looking in the reaper forums, Justin is often in there answering questions and fixing problems for the users.
Cakewalk seems to be doing more things the way that reaper has always done them. Continuous updates, great communication and several years of use from each paid update. :)

Not to split hairs here or take away from what they do, but if you go back to the history of this forum in 2003, I think you will find that myself and other Cakewalk employees have participated with about similar frequency so its not a particularly new phenomenon.

Skyline_UK
Just a final point. I find some of the posts extolling the virtue of an acceptance of poor quality surprising.  

that all depends on what you call "Poor quality".  
 
there is a way to be constructive in explaining your situation. I can respect your strive for a high quality product.
However, I find your posts to be a bit baffling to be quite honest. calling cakewalk:
"sloppy workmanship" - "Poor quality" and "poor customer service".
over one color change.
 
 
 
 
 
 

There is a mindset required for quality assurance. In my former life I had to help different functional groups formulate performance measures around QA. A bunch of different groups that were measured on their own performance more so than the overall performance of the organization. So accountants, engineers, production, maintenance, metallurgists have to be coordinated in their understanding of success. That's a tough thing to grasp because pay raises and promotions are usually based on individual performance. At times (very often) this can cause an organization to miss the mark.
 
To adapt this to a company like Cakewalk, you have to think that the people working on new features, interface designers, customer support and bug fixes all work together to move the ball down the field. Then of course there's staff departments or individuals looking after HR, finance and corporate interests. It's real complicated to figure out the interaction between these functions and getting them all aligned for company success. So difficult, that the goal of a company can be lost. 
 
For example, those in charge of new features are rewarded for getting them out on time with acceptable quality. Perhaps there's a small glitch, but it's 99% of the way there. As they continue to develop with that success rate things are looking real good. However, there's a 1% defect rate that can accumulate with time causing an increased workload for the people that have to fix the problems. The little issues slowly build up. As many have stated, it's all about priorities. Positive performance from one group can contribute to negative performance in another group is they are not working to the same goal.
 
My organization consistently had success rates of 96% to 99% and everybody thought that they were killing it. I made a suggestion that we flip the reporting around. Suddenly they had performance that was 1% - 4% unsuccessful. Things started to change. People started to wonder what was the cost of this failure and how could they eliminate it.
 
So you see, it's tough to get a product with zero defects. Nobody will die if Sonar has bugs. There will be no million dollar recalls. But all the principles are the same. It's a huge balancing act to keep the company profitable, reward positive performance, satisfy customers and assist with corporate goals.
 
Sorry for the long winded diatribe, but this stuff is ingrained in me and any discussion such as we are now having gets me going.

nonametoday

Anderton
I gotta say it's not often, if ever, that the CTO of a company pops into a user forum, reads the posts, gives a personal answer to a particular issue, and then takes action.
 
Cakewalk doesn't do things the same way other companies do. And for that, I'm very grateful.

Try looking in the reaper forums, Justin is often in there answering questions and fixing problems for the users.
Cakewalk seems to be doing more things the way that reaper has always done them. Continuous updates, great communication and several years of use from each paid update. :)

I don't disagree that there are other companies playing well on the business front but cakewalk is hardly a follower.
 
Reaper -- First public release – December 23, 2005
Cakewalk -- Greg Hendershott founded the company in 1987 as Twelve Tone Systems

The Grim
there are quite a few other companies, developers out there, effect plugin developers, synth developers, mixbus dev's etc who do the same, it is not unique to cakewalk and cakewalk forums by a long shot.

Developers, yes, but I really don't see many at the highest corporate level in a company participating in forums the same way Noel does. Justin Frankel may very well be another exception, but then again, I think most people would agree that Cockos is another company that doesn't work the same way other companies do. 

rabeach

nonametoday

Anderton
I gotta say it's not often, if ever, that the CTO of a company pops into a user forum, reads the posts, gives a personal answer to a particular issue, and then takes action.
 
Cakewalk doesn't do things the same way other companies do. And for that, I'm very grateful.

Try looking in the reaper forums, Justin is often in there answering questions and fixing problems for the users.
Cakewalk seems to be doing more things the way that reaper has always done them. Continuous updates, great communication and several years of use from each paid update. :)

I don't disagree that there are other companies playing well on the business front but cakewalk is hardly a follower.
 
Reaper -- First public release – December 23, 2005
Cakewalk -- Greg Hendershott founded the company in 1987 as Twelve Tone Systems

Haha here is a post from me from back in '98 about video support in PA 8 much before SONAR was invented :-)
Cakewalk has always interacted with customers from day one way back from even the Compuserve days!
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
 
Haha here is a post from me from back in '98 about video support in PA 8 much before SONAR was invented :-)
Cakewalk has always interacted with customers from day one way back from even the Compuserve days!
 

wow, that link is like a time capsule, i was going to say 'old school' but i would have been 34 then, and thinking about it made me feel old
 

Anderton
 
Developers, yes, but I really don't see many at the highest corporate level in a company participating in forums the same way Noel does. Justin Frankel may very well be another exception, but then again, I think most people would agree that Cockos is another company that doesn't work the same way other companies do.
 

 
my use of the word developer and dev was not in the strict sense, but also encompassing the other hierarchy, as i have found that in a lot of cases those in the higher hierarchy often still hit the keys in the voodoo that is code and software (after all this time it never ceases to amaze me the things they can do, it's like magic to me) especially in the smaller companies, but point taken. i have found with smaller companies the chance of direct contact with the top level increases greatly. 

Anderton
 
This is an imperfect world populated by imperfect human beings who do things imperfectly. I don't see that changing any time soon, although I will say I've really appreciated SONAR's optimizations that have been happening over the past year. All I can ask is that the developers do the best they can with the resources they have, which is indeed what they do. What Cakewalk can accomplish with a small team is really pretty amazing, and I suspect that the relatively recent hiring of two more engineers will make things just that much better...and help lead to things like huge announcements 

 
Craig's attitude reflects my thinking as well.   The expectation of perfection is often what leads to frustration and unhappiness.   When I was writing music 45 years ago I had in my possession a piano, metronome, pencil and paper, that was it.  If someone would have told me that in 2016 I'd be writing and producing symphonies and entire albums from my studio using computers and software I would have dismissed it as a utopian fantasy.  Sometimes its helpful to take a step back and marvel at the incredible evolution of computer technology and software over the past 30 years.  In fact, I'd say the 20th and 21st centuries will long be remembered for the great expansion of knowledge in many fields.   Don't let the bugs annoy you unless they really impede workflow, or make it impossible to do what you need to do.  In the latest version of Sonar, I discovered that when I choose to change velocity on a note(s) the little checkbox that says "percentages" no longer allows me to press P and have it checked, I have to use the mouse.  Somehow this got broken.  But I choose to be flexible and just use the mouse to check it.  It has no impact on my work.  I try to keep stress down to a minimum, it's far more deadly than bugs in music software...
 
Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com