pentimentosound
I am not interested in the yays and nays. I want to know if I have to wait for some notice from CW to renew or not.
 
I saw a $99 upgrade deal and am wondering what the "mechanics" of renewing my SPLAT for 2016 will be and when. I did mine on Jan 21st.
Michael

You will need to wait for Cakewalk to offer the renewal packages (or whatever they are going to call it). The products being sold today are for new users and users of X3 and older.

Thanks Steve, that is what I figured.
Michael

No problem for me.  Even though I am slowing down from age and disabilities,  I will be renewing for sure, man.  
 

NeoSoul

Anderton

BMOG
 
$150 times forever adds up over time don't you think? 

Yes, no doubt it does add up. In fact 35 years from now, it will have added up to what I paid (adjusted for inflation) for a 4-track tape recorder in 1975 which had no mixer, no processors, no instruments, and a need to feed it $156 worth of tape every month. (No, that's not a typo...35 years.)

I really enjoy using Sonar.   But it is quite an unfair comparison.  Sonar doesn't do anything without a computer + audio interface

 
I think very few people dedicate a computer exclusively to SONAR (even though they should, LOL). They are amortizing the expense of that computer over multiple applications. All a tape recorder could do was push tape.
 

The $150 is also just an update cost.  To start the process, sonar costs $500 for the version under question.

 
Consider the price I quoted for my monthly expense for tape. You can't run a tape recorder without tape...over a year, that would more than cover the $500, as well as $150 updates for 8+ years.
 

I personally thought it was odd that the developers came out with Rapture Pro, but didn't add that to the premium product, they just provided a stripped down version, and offer it as a separate purchase. Even Apple gave Logic users (a full DAW that costs $200, and even includes plgins like drummer) the Alchemy Synth as a free add on, not some stripped down version.

 
When you want to dominate a market, have $200,000,000,000 in cash on hand, and more importantly hefty profit margins on the computers people have to buy to run your software, you can take certain liberties with pricing. Remember that the goal of Logic is to induce you to buy a computer.
 

The same can be said for some of the pro-channel models they have released on the side.  The model has changed, why not start including those in the package, especially since they are of no value to anyone but Sonar users.

 
Because developing software and paying licensing fees to third party developers is not free. The more things SONAR includes, the higher the price will have to be to cover the extra expenses. Then people would complain about "I have Omnisphere, why do I have to pay for Rapture Pro? And I already have the Waves Mercury Suite of plug-ins and UA's Powered Plug-Ins. Why should I have to pay for more ProChannel modules I won't use?"
 
If you don't think that would happen, look at all the people here complaining that they don't want to pay money for particular features they don't use. It's a balancing act. No matter what Cakewalk does or does not include, their choices will satisfy some people and not others. To stay in business, all they have to do is make sure that most people are satisfied.
 
 
 

Ever tried pleasing all of the people all of the time?
 
 
Best of luck with that one.

Fabio Rubato
The last two updates I've 'paid' for have introduced issues where I'm unable to use these updates. Whilst it's fortunate that I am able to roll back to a version which allows me to continue making music reliably, the bugs introduced are creating loss of production time in trying to solve issues and are not giving me the benefit of what I'm supposed to be paying for.

 
What happens if something is broken in the last update of 2015 and you hadn't planned on continuing your subscription ?  You could roll-back to the second-to-last, but you'd in effect lose a month's worth of improvements.
 

Every try pleasing one person?  It is exhausting, and I swear I don't want all that much....
 

NeoSoul

Anderton

BMOG
 
$150 times forever adds up over time don't you think? 

Yes, no doubt it does add up. In fact 35 years from now, it will have added up to what I paid (adjusted for inflation) for a 4-track tape recorder in 1975 which had no mixer, no processors, no instruments, and a need to feed it $156 worth of tape every month. (No, that's not a typo...35 years.)

I really enjoy using Sonar.   But it is quite an unfair comparison.  Sonar doesn't do anything without a computer + audio interface, the cost of such a computer in 1975?  The $150 is also just an update cost.  To start the process, sonar costs $500 for the version under question. 

On second thought, it is indeed an unfair comparison. I was comparing SONAR to a 4-track tape recorder and not including a mixer, any processors, or backline. A more accurate comparison would be comparing SONAR to two slaved 24 track digital machines with a rack full of processors and a bunch of synthesizers, and of course you'd need a two-track so you could mix down to a format other than 2" tape. Under those conditions, assuming you bought a tricked-out computer dedicated to music, a brand-new really big monitor, paid for SONAR at list price, and bought only two reels of 24-track tape and just kept erasing them over and over to keep costs down, then saying that it would take 35 years of SONAR updates to pay off a recording system is wrong. It would be closer to 1,000 years 
 

I count myself among the folks who will have to think a bit about renewing. I haven't decided yet. Not because I don't think the bakers are delivering enough new stuff (they certainly are), but because the features that have been rolling out haven't really been geared toward my particular use case of film scoring. 
 
I have tried to advocate for features in the feature forum - mostly improved video support and better timeline/tempo tools. While there have been others who were supportive or posting similar suggestions, we don't seem to ever achieve the critical mass that would get attention. I try not to take that personally - Cake is delivering the updates they think would most benefit their customers and keep the ship afloat, and there just don't seem to be enough of us asking for those to justify the investment in coding time. Fair enough.
 
Here's my point - I do wonder, since the forum seems pretty disconnected from the account mechanism, if the Bakers will know why I do or don't choose to renew. I'd like to hope/fantasize that they will do a big ol' analysis in the spring where they pull reports to summarize feature requests and other forum activity and line it up against people's purchase choices. I think that could tell them a lot. Sometimes users will throw out a feature idea without it really meaning that much to them (they're going to upgrade every time, regardless), and for others a given feature is much more important and is a reason to choose or not choose a product. I do think this is a great product and a company that clearly wants to make a great product. I hope that sort of data enters their calculus, especially since the membership model will give them much more of that kind of data to work with.
 
Ugh. Making software is hard. My sympathies, guys :)
 
 

Paul P

Fabio Rubato
The last two updates I've 'paid' for have introduced issues where I'm unable to use these updates. Whilst it's fortunate that I am able to roll back to a version which allows me to continue making music reliably, the bugs introduced are creating loss of production time in trying to solve issues and are not giving me the benefit of what I'm supposed to be paying for.

 
What happens if something is broken in the last update of 2015 and you hadn't planned on continuing your subscription ?  You could roll-back to the second-to-last, but you'd in effect lose a month's worth of improvements.
 

And that would be your choice. No one is EVER forcing anyone to upgrade their membership (notice I did not say subscription?).