I really don't care where Cakewalk chooses to install their product. I can handle that. I just want to be able to rely on Cakewalk providing the product in a way that I can install it on a new machine a year from now. As it stands, I cannot rely on Cakewalk providing a complete version of Platinum even if I need to install it 2 months from now.

I must say that I am fully confused at this point. I have not and will not do any updating until hopefully Cakewalk officially clarifies exactly what needs to be downloaded and a step by step process of how to do it. The content looks great, but they need to guide us through a successful updating procedure.

The Braintree update is pretty straight forward and Cakewalk give explicit instructions in the opening post of the announcement thread.

The other issues are resolved by going to your Store Account and by selecting a particular download element once the download file is created by you clicking on the download link, you'll see the version number of the installer and you can check against products versions on your already installed products and update where necessary.

scook
I just want to be able to rely on Cakewalk providing the product in a way that I can install it on a new machine a year from now. As it stands, I cannot rely on Cakewalk providing a complete version of Platinum even if I need to install it 2 months from now.

Are you sure that's the case? I would assume (i.e., in the immortal words of Herman Cain "I don't have facts to back me up") that if you were doing a new install on a new machine, you would download the Command Center to it, it would be linked to your store account, and it would download whatever Platinum's status was at that time. You'd miss out on any content that's only available exclusively with a particular past release, but if you created a copy as you went along after downloading, you'd still have it available to install (basically what you would need to do if you downloaded a sample library from Big Fish or whatever).
 
Hopefully an official Cakewalk person could clarify.

Another issue I forgot to mention is that I had to download 1.3GIG of data to get a 48mb Sonar reference guide and updated help file that was even smaller. That's pretty poor organisation. Considering the difficulty some guys have with download speeds and limits that's a bit extreme.

Perhaps Cakewalk have been rushed getting February's update out in time but it's this lack of attention to detail that takes the spotlight off the big goody items and focuses it on minutiae.

Who came up with the name Braintree? I'm a person that likes numbers and order to keep track of things. It will be a pain to talk about features in the Braintree update vs the Triffid update, and let's not forget the big changes we had in the Vampire update.
 
I also don't like the blended update model. For me, there should be a unique update package for each level of membership. It's really the only way to tell if a more expensive membership delivered the goods over the year. I don't do dance or loop based stuff, so this update was a dud for me. The Doggy plug doesn't meet my criteria for a Pro Channel plug because it's more of a special effect as opposed to being something I want available on every track.
 
So there I go, the first member to say he's underwhelmed. I don't want a year of loops and EDM stuff. How about every update attacks something from the problem reports forums, or generally moves the product down the field toward the goal. Dance beats will not work for me nor will bass samples.
 
Maybe next time. And before I forget, committing to release something every month is not a good idea. The membership model was to release updates as they became available. Instead we're on a monthly release schedule now and that just encourages people to  collect floor sweepings if they don't have something meaningful to deliver.

Anderton

scook
I just want to be able to rely on Cakewalk providing the product in a way that I can install it on a new machine a year from now. As it stands, I cannot rely on Cakewalk providing a complete version of Platinum even if I need to install it 2 months from now.

Are you sure that's the case?... You'd miss out on any content that's only available exclusively with a particular past release, but if you created a copy as you went along after downloading, you'd still have it available to install (basically what you would need to do if you downloaded a sample library from Big Fish or whatever).
 

This is the point. Cakewalk shifts the burden to me. Up until last month, I could rely on Cakewalk for copies of content which they provided with previous versions. Now, without notice, that content was removed and now with Brainfree we are not told but figure out that we are expected to keep track of all future content starting today. I don't see Cakewalk as a Big Fish or whatever you choose to call them. It represents an unwelcome change in how Cakewalk is handling their product. I can deal with it but it just complicates what use to be a fairly simple process of going to my account, collecting what constituted SONAR and installing. In quick order, Cakewalk introduces a overly simplistic front end for installing their product and complicates the users life further by requiring them to keep track of parts of the product which will not be in the installers beyond one month.

Don't forget the 25 fixes and extensions to Mix Recal, Vocalsync. They're pretty big considering it's just a month since release.

Anderton
, but if you created a copy as you went along after downloading, you'd still have it available to install (basically what you would need to do if you downloaded a sample library from Big Fish or whatever).

Wouldn't a Big Fish provide their sample library as a zip file or installer and not require the user to create their own from the installed content?

We also used to have access to previous version updates to download from Cakewalk. All I get now is whatever is the current installer.

As scook said it places the burden on the end user to maintain their own file backups as you no longer have access to last months downloads if there was a change this month.

I suspect some ironing out will need to be done because this is showing some holes in the Cakewalk release plan.