When I started SONAR this morning, it came up in Demo mode. I had taken advantage of the $99 sale price for a SPlat annual subscription, but then got charged another monthly fee. Support had me call Cleverbridge to cancel the monthly sub. and refund the overpayment. Which they did. Very quickly. And then SONAR dropped back to Demo. I emailed Cakewalk support this morning, and they corrected the problem within minutes. Super awesome.
 
Now the rest...
 
Melodyne 4 - It took me over a week, and numerous emails back and forth, to get M4 Studio authorized on my PC. What a pain! But I had a pretty good experience with their support staff.
 
Arturia - I simply cannot get ASC (their version of CCC) to run on my PC. It installs OK, but fails immediately on startup, popping up a Win10 error message. I've been working on this since Sep/Oct. Their response has basically been "well, it works here". That's it. I keep sending them additional info (like stuff from the registry) that I think might help them diagnose the problem. But...they have just stopped responding to me. So...I'm out the money I've spent on their VIs.
 
Slate Digital - I spent over a year f**king with the iLok. Unreliable under Win7 and just toast under Win10 on my PC. They never once replied to a single email I sent them. Nothing. So I'm out a bunch of money. I HATE Slate. I hope they go the way of the Betamax.
 
PreSonus - I'm gonna stop here. I've been banned from the PreSonus forum for complaining about their lack of responsiveness and their abandonment of newer products when an even newer one is released. No need to repeat that litany of misery.
 
So...
 
I'm still feeling really good about switching to SONAR.
 
Keep on keeping on!
 

TheMaartian
When I started SONAR this morning, it came up in Demo mode. I had taken advantage of the $99 sale price for a SPlat annual subscription, but then got charged another monthly fee. Support had me call Cleverbridge to cancel the monthly sub. and refund the overpayment. Which they did. Very quickly. And then SONAR dropped back to Demo. I emailed Cakewalk support this morning, and they corrected the problem within minutes. Super awesome.

I'm very glad to hear of your positive experience. However, I really wish Cakewalk would switch from traditional phone support to Skype and/or chat so that international customers don't have to pay long-distance charges. After all, it is the 21st century

Anderton

TheMaartian
... I really wish Cakewalk would switch from traditional phone support to Skype and/or chat so that international customers don't have to pay long-distance charges. After all, it is the 21st century

+1 for skype
And the few times I've had to call customer support have been good experiences.
Fast and efficient for the most part.  I know everyone might not have gotten the same experience, but mine came out okay.
 

True this forum can't solve every problem but a mention about it would be nice. 
 
If you think about it. So few help so many so often! Though CW's phone support is one the very best around, I would guess that in sheer volume we help more and we do it free for CW.

I have contacted Cakewalk support a couple of times via mail, and have gotten response within a day each time (except once, over a weekend). I had the same positive experience with Celemony. 
Cannot comment on the rest, as I have not used support from them.
All the best.

I remember back 20 years or so when I first purchased Cakewalk.  I had just gotten off Dr T's on the ATARI ST and was having all type of problems installing CAKEWALK on my first IBM PC.  I called CAKE and they spent hours with me on the phone getting the install to work.  I don't remember what the problem was but I do remember the remarkable customer service experience.
 
Now all this time later, I am very happy that sticking with CAKE didn't turn out to be the wrong decision.  I have tried other DAW software (Presonus Studio and AVIDs Pro Tools) but I realized the learning investment I have in CAKE when I couldn't even begin to figure out how to edit a midi note in those other products.  Very terrible to have to open the manual for every little process in my workflow that has now become second nature with SONAR.  I still say that CNTL S happens automatically now and when SONAR does STOP RESPONDING and I am surprised that most of the time I haven't lost a thing because of the CNTL S keystroke that happens all by itself.
 
Jim

Cakewalk and XLN support was quick and helpful so far.
 
I had rather bad luck with (for now 2) online score stores. I am not sure who is more illegal, who publishes copyrighted scores in public or who "legally" selling "2 printing attempts"...

TheMaartian you do know you can login to their site and download all the updates separately and do offline authorisation as well.

But I do agree their support is lacking I reported an error in May of 2015 with the Prophet V which they actually acknowledged this week.

Wookiee
TheMaartian you do know you can login to their site and download all the updates separately and do offline authorisation as well.

But I do agree their support is lacking I reported an error in May of 2015 with the Prophet V which they actually acknowledged this week.

I thought the ASC "was" their activation system. There's another way to authorize without the ASC? News to me. I'll have to take a look.
 
I've been on the d/l page and can see all of the latest updates. The first thing on the list? The ASC. The November update? Same problem. The most recent January update? Same problem.
 
I'd love to be able to get Matrix 12 V authorized and playable.