to me it sounds like you want to pay for when its good for you.
and I can understand that, but is that really fair to both you and cakewalk, or only fair to just you ?
your saying you want all the updates you got when sonar was not subscription ?
the software used to cost 100.00 yearly for all the new upgrades.
so you want all those new upgrades but only want to pay when its something you like ?
I don't know, maybe im wrong but this is how it sounds.
 
I like the way it is now. I like getting the new updates monthly.
Every few months we get the holy shizzle this is great update. so in my opinion, its basically the same as it was before only now we are seeing the smaller and larger updates as soon as the bakers done cooking them.
which again only my opinion, but that is genuinely amazing, not to mention useful and productive.
good luck

lfm
 
Every little step in a slope of volume fader needs a different ratio - that is how I found it works, looking into the math.

 
With VCAs, the only parameter the control voltage changes is the gain or more commonly, the attenuation of the amplifier circuit. This is true for both transconductance amplifiers like the CA3080 or dual-quadrant multipliers. If you know of an exception to this, let me know. I never encountered anything different in all my years of doing analog circuit design.
 
This control voltage usually obeys a linear relationship between input and output, but a logging element (sometimes included on chip) can change the input/output relationship to log or antilog. It really is that simple and those are the only rules I know of that apply to the relationship among the input, output, and control voltage inputs of VCA devices.
 

If you can do this in Sonar - why not make a CakeTV episode about it - and all the fuzz go away.

 
Because no one has yet defined what "do this" is. So far it has mostly been defined as "do VCA automation." What we need to know is what VCA automation accomplishes that is unique. Often there's more than one way to accomplish a specific goal. For example someone might insist that the only way to make a guitar's level louder is by using heavier-gauge strings and plucking them harder. Someone else might point out you can simply turn up the gain of a subsequent stage  
 
The statement in bold makes no sense in and of itself. A ratio involves two entities. What are the two entities? How do their slopes change? Are the two slopes different? Is the slope log, antilog, linear, or controlled via something else like the virtual equivalent of a logging element? But most importantly, what exactly needs to be accomplished? 
 
I would like to either solve the problem or decide it can't be solved, but I truly don't know what the problem is. Hopefully someone can explain it in a practical, applications-oriented context I can understand.

lfm
Hi
Just wanted to share a bit that maybe is of use for Cakewalk - when am I ready to pay again?
 
Short version - when there is something I really want or need - then I am ready to pay up.
For me it's not enough with knowing about all these updates and things that don't matter to me.
 
Not sure if this is human nature over all - but it's how I work.
 
For various reasons I jumped to Cubase in june last year - since buying Cubase Pro was about the same money as good notation.
And I have headroom with many things that I might need, like VCA faders etc. And I can place busses withing track folders etc.
 
Now as my Sonar membership expired in feb, I have looked to see what major stuff was saved up for one year anniversary and probably the largest crowd of users are to open their wallets again.
 
To my disappointment - nothing was saved up - not a single surprise feature?
 
The major things introduced on sonar 2015 was upsampling synths, and patchpoints - and patchpoints was one thing that might have made me go up to Sonar Pro and just do notation in Cubase.
 
So if other people work like me - Cakewalk, be smart on how you release major stuff?
Sales psychology is like that - you are ready to pay if there is something you really want.
So this general thing with rolling updates does not work to pay up again - not for me.
 
So if Forum Hosts can avoid moving this to a forum where nobody participate - it could be good feedback to Bakers how you feel about the same thing.
 
Are membership for rolling updates working for you to pay up again?
These endless campaígns from Cakewalk tells me it's not quite working for them as anticipated.
 
Sonar is a fine daw, and I have the longest history with Sonar from Sonar 4 Studio, before that Cakewalk Pro 3.0 late 80's.
 
So chime in how you feel about it....
Best regards
Lars

Hi Lars-
 
I think I'm pretty much where you are. I started with Cakewalk for DOS many years ago and left for a few years after 8.1 before coming back and signing up for a year. The updates were impressive, but not enough to make me want to commit for another year. I'll keep an eye on new offerings and maybe opt in again at some point. There's too much going on in my two other DAWs right now (with free updates) for me to make an additional financial commitment when I don't really know what I'd be getting for my money.
 
-Susan

Anderton
Because no one has yet defined what "do this" is. So far it has mostly been defined as "do VCA automation." 

 
I think that may be all there is to it. People have heard the buzzword and they want it. They aren't particularly sure why they want it, they just want it because it is something newish to DAWs, is featured in Pro Tools (which is popular for reasons beyond my understanding) and hearkens back to the glory days of analogue consoles which is the hot thing lately. I don't think there is many, if any, cases of someone saying "I need to be able to do X in my DAW and I can't, however I can do it in a DAW that has VCA faders."
 
I kinda feel like Cakewalk should just implement it if it isn't too much effort just because it'll make people happy to have the feature. Not that it is useful, but they'll be happy because they have the cool new feature that everything else has.

What, and divert precious development resources away from enhancements/toys which a lot more people would gain benefit from?
 
No thanks. 

I thought if you let your membership lapse, it would cost more to come back than to simply renew. Is that no longer true? Not that I'm thinking about it, mind you, the last few updates have really fixed some things that were bugging me, but I just don't think it's as simple as dropping out, then dropping in with a renewal whenever you decide to.
 
Regards,
Dan

As I understand it, it doesn't cost more exactly, but if your membership has lapsed, you have to commit to another full year if you want to keep all the updates.
 
On the other hand, if you keep your membership continually active, once the initial year is over, you can keep all updates from then on a month by month basis.
 
So, for example - you do a full year, and stay active for another 3 months. If you then stop your membership, you keep all those 15 months worth of updates. Then you opt back in say six months later; you get all updates up to that point that you missed, but you only get to permanently keep them if your new membership runs for a full 12 months from that point.
 
This would seem to be to prevent people trying to game the system, eg opting in and out every two months in order to pay half the rate or whatever.
 
 

Sycraft

Anderton
Because no one has yet defined what "do this" is. So far it has mostly been defined as "do VCA automation." 

 
I think that may be all there is to it. People have heard the buzzword and they want it. They aren't particularly sure why they want it, they just want it because it is something newish to DAWs, is featured in Pro Tools (which is popular for reasons beyond my understanding) and hearkens back to the glory days of analogue consoles which is the hot thing lately. I don't think there is many, if any, cases of someone saying "I need to be able to do X in my DAW and I can't, however I can do it in a DAW that has VCA faders."
 
I kinda feel like Cakewalk should just implement it if it isn't too much effort just because it'll make people happy to have the feature. Not that it is useful, but they'll be happy because they have the cool new feature that everything else has.

Some truth in what you say, of course.
I see a daw as having tools that assist you to do many things in a simpler fashion.
 
Daw with no VCA's: Move or automate a fader to go from 0dB to -8dB - you also have to adjust a possible send to get the same sound, unless a different ratio dry/wet is the effect you are going for.
 
Control group still have to adjust all sends on affected tracks manually to sound the same but different level only.

 
If there is one such jump in level, you can calculate a ratio for send level adjustment for that. But if two or more such changes in a mix, or a slope curve of some sort you are screwed.
 
So which ratio is to be used for volume instant change from 0DB to -8dB?
Needs to be done for each such change, on every track individually.
 
Careful planning with routing through busses for both dry and returns from wet busses - can let you automate buss fader.
 
It's common you can get away with maybe 8-10 stems in a project, parts that may need individual adjustments through out a mix. The amount of planning of routing, and duplicating the same effect to return wet signal to the same buss is growing rather quickly.
 
Daw with VCA: Move or automate a fader to go from 0dB to -8dB - do that on a VCA fader and it takes care of sends adjusted to sound the same. One track, or 100 tracks affected, belonging to that VCA group.
 
Nested VCA also adjust other VCA's affected tracks. And your project can stay pretty flat when it comes to routing and busses.
 
VCA is basically a global offset automation for any range of tracks and busses.
It need not handle any audio at all - just automation.
 
This is how I see it.
Not needed for every song or piece of music - but nice if it is there if you need it - I call it headroom in my tool.

I'm honestly not seeing how that can't be done with sends as post-fader, which is what they are with default. Apologies if this has already been explained, but if it has, it's not clear to me.

As it goes, I can think of a use case for VCAs which Sonar currently doesn't handle well.
 
Say you've got a bunch of tracks that you want to automate up and down as a group. A drum kit might be one example, or a group of backing vocals.
 
Now, if you have sends on the tracks, but route the tracks themselves to a bus, in order to run into the bus, you do run into the problem of the sends not being adjusted along with the bus.
 
A VCA type control would mean you could automate things at the source track level with only one lane of automation. Currently, you'd have to create the automation for all the individual tracks. This is because grouped tracks don't obey automation from a single track within the group.