John T
Indeed. I'm pretty sure that the last thing I want is development solely guided by forum requests.

Well, development is indeed guided by forum requests, but not dictated by them. And like you, I agree that's a good thing.
 
Keyboard magazine did a reader survey many years ago where not one reader asked for sheet music in the magazine. Yet the editor thought it would be a great improvement, so he went ahead and started including it anyway. It became one of the most popular elements of the magazine...but people didn't know they could ask for it, so they didn't.

Anderton
...
How well Cakewalk navigates multiple conflicting priorities to satisfy the greatest number of users will determine the company's success.

And so far they're doing a fine job from my perspective.  A big part of it for me is the performance and stability that has improved incrementally each release.
 
TODAY I can fire up Sonar, record, mix and utilize my favorite VSTi without annoying mojo killing hiccups.  THAT is the most important feature for me.
 
At some point I hope to see Drum Map improvements so I can fully cross-utilize EZD and AD without first earning a degree in Sonar Drum Mapping.  I also want to see solid control surface support built in.  And a menu option-dialog box for everything I have to use a 3rd party tool or edit the registry to accomplish ...
 
My expectation is that these will happen in time along side new features and other things that are important to other users.
 
Some of these things take long lead times to build/rebuild, with interactions among other features that we users can only imagine.  I'm convinced that Noel and team have a vision and a plan to get things done in an order that minimizes disruption and rework along the way.  To think otherwise I would have to believe that things like Drum Maps are being arbitrarily ignored because the dev team is a bunch of stubborn yahoos that only want to do stuff they think is fun.  Sorry, I'm not really ready to go there.
 
What was the subject again?  Oh yeah.  Start Screen.  Looks cool in the video.  I'll let you know what I think when I get to use it 
 

Anderton

Doktor Avalanche
I didn't see a request for a drum replacer

 
As soon as it was announced that a drum replacer was forthcoming, the forum was filled with people who inquired about when it would be available because they wanted it. AFAIC that qualifies as requests. For many production styles Drum Replacers are a very big deal.
 

The plugin upsampler?... Well I saw your threads.

 
People won't ask for something if they don't know it exists. As soon as I mentioned the improvements at 96 kHz, someone suggested upsampling during render. Others confirmed that upsampling made a difference, and what Noel did was WAY better than the workarounds I proposed. I can't imagine someone putting in a nebulous feature request for "improved audio quality" but once given an indication of how that could be done, they wanted it. (Frankly, I was skeptical that is was worth the development time because not everything benefits from upsampling. However, after doing final renders on all the songs for my next album, I have to say the cumulative difference is significant and I'm glad the feature has been included.)
 

Nobody asked for win10 certification, previous versions are probably win10 compatible, I do agree it win10 was a bloody good thing to do. I don't think any of these were in the top 10 or top 100.

 
Several threads were started as soon as the preview version was announced, and people wondered about Windows 10 compatibility. I'm pretty sure both Windows 10 compatibility and the Drum Replacer would place in the Top 10, or at least the Top 20, of desirable enhancements.
 

I'm just talking about main priorities, issues that seemed to have lasted forever. Day to day workflow. I remember when the survey came out several months ago there was a few long discussion threads as a by product, and it seemed pretty clear what people needed.

 
Don't think I consider issues like ACT's problems, remaining comping issues, etc. unimportant. It's vital that these be addressed. It's great that some of the deal-breaker Staff View issues were fixed but of course, it won't make any difference to anyone who doesn't use Staff View, and anyone who doesn't use Drum Maps will wonder why you mention it constantly. Obviously Drum Maps are important to you and other people, but is it more important that Staff View? Fixing ACT? Take Lane clean-up (granted, there have already been improvements to that but more could be done)?
 
There are some people who don't want new features - just fixes. I understand that. There are other people who no matter how many bug fixes you do, want new features and I understand that as well. Look at the threads about how Cubase has some whizbang MIDI chord feature...I bet the people posting those threads would rather have SONAR incorporate a whizbang MIDI chord feature than a new Drum Map UI. OTOH I doubt you care about having a whizbang MIDI chord feature.
 
Personally, I want to see a "drum machine mode" in the Piano Roll View where previous notes are still visible and accessible for editing while doing overdubs. We all have certain things we want, but the one thing I can guarantee you is that there will always be tradeoffs between what the community wants, what they think they want, what they don't know they want, and the available company resources. How well Cakewalk navigates multiple conflicting priorities to satisfy the greatest number of users will determine the company's success.
 

One of your super long massive threads designed to make us relent and put our hands up. :) :)

I stand by what I said earlier I don't think it was inaccurate. I won't disagree with much of what you have written either.I also wish to state again windows 10 certification is not the same as compatibility. But again I say it was a good thing it got certified.

Meat and potatos Craig, meat and potatos.. :) It's 7 months now. I think the roadmap for the next 5 months is super critical now. That will be my critical review point...

Rap Pro and Z3TA+2 on the other hand is a different matter, the silence we've had is far too long. Might as well add concrete limiter.

Cheers..

I was about to go to bed, but couldn't help replying to this thread before doing so. I'll probably be ignored or strongly disagreed with by saying the following, but let me say anyway.
 
First, the drum replacer, plugin upsampling, etc. weren't requested in the Features & Ideas forum. This means that the requests and wishes posted here in the main forum are prioritized over those in the F&I forum. This ISN'T good. It is natural that more people reply to requests posted here, because it's the main forum, in which far more people participate. If someone had posted a request for DR, plugin upsampling, etc. in the F&I forum, it probably would have received only 10+ votes if lucky.
 
Also, although the F&I forum vote results don't necessarily reflect the users' real demand (because, as I said, not everyone accesses that forum section), I think the most popular requests in that forum SHOULD be given top priority. We are advised to post our requests there, and also support others' ideas if we wand them implemented. So, go there and post/vote, and if you don't, don't complain about whatever feature that appears in the new update. Even if a feature that I absolutely don't need gets implemented, I'll find it totally fair if it received tens of votes. If I see more and more people support features that I don't need at all, I'll start thinking maybe SONAR is no longer the daw for me and will look for another daw that might be more suitable for me.
 
Remember, people take their time to post their ideas and request in the F&I forum. And they cast their votes believing it would make a difference. If the requests and discussions in the main forum are more important than those in the F&I forum in deciding what feature to implement next, then remove that forum section, because it will only waste people's time.
 
Btw, Craig's Keyboard magazine example is surely a nice, successful example, but we should also look at unsuccessful ones. Many users didn't like the changes introduced in X1 (e.g. no longer fully color customizable) and left SONAR, for example.
 
Thanks for reading. Good night.

It is good that we have some new features every month at least. Maybe when their ideas will be over at some point, there will be more attention for feature requests :)

Anderton
I agree that revising the Start screen is somewhat underwhelming, although there are new companion elements (like the new templates that come with it). Being able to pin projects and templates is helpful, as is having notifications so you know when, for example, an update is available. 
 
However, the background is that track-to-track recording, which some people have been quite vocal about wanting and is scheduled for the next update, is a very complex undertaking. It's understandable that August would be a "light" update to allow the developers the time needed to do track-to-track recording right.
 

I see that you refer to this up-and-coming feature as "track-to-track recording" versus "track-to-track routing" as listed on the website.  Do you have insider info about this particular feature and what it's actually designed to do?  Seems to me that "recording" would allow a real-time bounce or recording of ANY signal, such as recording a soft synth to a different audio track.  But by referring to it as "recording", it inherently seems to be limited to rendering/recording/bouncinging to a waveform (which, to be fair, is sort of what the web's write-up focuses on.)  On the other hand, "routing" seems to suggest more bus-type behavior, whereby an audio track's signal can be routed to any other audio track for any type of processing.  To me, this type of workflow would be great for those of us who don't particularly care for separate track/bus sections.  I personally like having instrument groups, FX busses, a mix bus and the master fader all grouped together, but if I'm doing parallel processing on an individual track, it would be nice to have that right next to it in the track view as opposed to relegated to the bus section.
 
Of course that my individual taste, but it seems to me that true track-to-track routing would give people much more flexibility in setting up their session.  Those who like a separate bus section can continue to work that way, those that like the "aux track" functionality of something like PT would have that same functionality within Sonar, and since the signal can be truly routed anywhere, that opens up the possibility of being able to record said signals.
 
Anyway.  I know the update is about a week away so I'll find out in due time, but I'm curious if you know what's in store and if it is truly is track-to-track routing or just an option that allows the recording/rendering of other tracks within the track view.  I typically wait a few months to update to ensure bugs get worked out, but this particular feature has been on my wish list for quite some time so I'd been eagerly awaiting its arrival.  But if I misunderstood what this feature was designed to do, perhaps I'll chill out and lower my expectations a bit. :)

To put it all in balance the audio routing was definitely one of those vocal requests. Cakewalk have certainly gone the right way about that one with their approach so far, we shall see how it goes.

icontakt
Remember, people take their time to post their ideas and request in the F&I forum. And they cast their votes believing it would make a difference. If the requests and discussions in the main forum are more important than those in the F&I forum in deciding what feature to implement next, then remove that forum section, because it will only waste people's time.

Agreed, I would also same the same thing about getting reproducible issues into the problem reports forum or through other channels.

Doktor Avalanche
One of your super long massive threads designed to make us relent and put our hands up. :) :)

 
You stated as a fact that you hadn’t seen anyone ask for what has been delivered over the past four month. I disagreed and gave a three-sentence reply. Every one of those three sentences was a true statement, but you disputed them. I felt you were expecting a response, so I responded.
 
My purpose is not to get people to relent and put their hands up, but to provide what I feel are detailed and transparent responses. I have no illusion that people can be reasoned out of positions they didn’t use reason to attain, but I believe there are people here who are interested in entertaining a variety of viewpoints.

streckfus
I see that you refer to this up-and-coming feature as "track-to-track recording" versus "track-to-track routing" as listed on the website.  Do you have insider info about this particular feature and what it's actually designed to do?

I have no insider info on this feature. I'm simply calling it that because that's how people couched their original request. I guess Noel took it further if it's now called track to track routing...although I suppose people will complain because no one asked specifically for track to track routing, only recording