Paul P
There is also the fact that the current price will go up by 50$ (for Platinum) in the not too distant future and we have no idea if it will ever be on a similar sale sometime down the road.

True.  And actually, the effective price increase might be a little higher than that.  In the past, major upgrades were more like 12-18 months apart.  So it is possible that the top end user who always upgrades to the latest release could end up spending $100 more a year than in the past.
 
But I don't think this price is out of line.  A friend of mine has been just starting into the audio editing world.  He is really excited about Audacity.  I suggested that he take a look at Reaper so that he could experience the interactive workflow of a DAW.  But then, out of curiosity, I gave Reaper a good look for the first time in several years.  I was struck at how much more elegant and useful the Sonar UI has become in that time.  Many of the recent Sonar improvements have been very subtle, but important nonetheless.
 
I still think my friend should do the $60 Reaper thing to get started.  But if he really gets involved in the DAW world, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that he jump to Platinum at some stage.

Paul P

cparmerlee
To me, it seems the price is modest and the features are strong.

There is also the fact that the current price will go up by 50$ (for Platinum) in the not too distant future and we have no idea if it will ever be on a similar sale sometime down the road.

Cakewalk has done sales in the past, so I highly doubt they will stop doing any sales in the future. But if you jump on in six months to take advantage of a sale price, you won't get the content that had been added in those six months. I think many people will not consider saving $50 as a good tradeoff for missing the content. What's planned for the first update is pretty typical of what to expect in the future, which will help people decide whether it's valuable to them or not.

John I believe I'm the fool who talked you into X3 Studio... So now I'll recommend looking into Professional for the same reasons. You and me don't need the flagship... It's got more flags but the motor is still the same size. 
So $99 is not bad for the few new gizmos and it is nice being up to date. 
Buying now makes the most sense as we get a whole year of new stuff and updates. 
 
And as far a worrying about stability, don't. 
I never did run into a bug in X3e Studio and so far don't see any difference in Professional. You almost forget you upgraded. I have accidentally opened X3 dozens of times and worked all day without thinking about it until I notice a few missing new features. Most noticeable is there is now reverb and a delay send knobs on the channels strip instead of one being hidden. Very tiny details. No learning curve at all. 
 
If you look at the included features for Professional what they've done is given Studio owners more of the features that were in X3 Producer. So it's a win, win for us middle grounders. 
We now get Addictive Drums as example. Not that I've needed it. I still like Session Drummer because I can load my own samples. AD make you pay money for every new drum sound,, phooey on that.. 
 

I want my main workhorse in the studio up to date. Not only today, but also tomorrow.

And I see it as self-evident that you have to pay for development and support of such a software product. As long I see good improvements of the software, bugfixes and new content that make me happy, I have no problem to pay about 150-200 per year.
I see it as normal to pay around 500 for car service every year, so why not a yearly fee for a software workhorse like Sonar?
 
Let's assume that the next update contains a killing feature that makes your song a top twenty hit. Do you'll really want miss that feature because of a ridiculous annual fee of less than $200?
 


Cakewalk offers 3 different models of membership. And it's by you how much you want to afford.
 
And if you think you don't need updates and more features, you can stay on X3 as long you want.
It's your decision. You have to know what you want and it's not really relevant, what other people do and why.
 
_Markus

Anderton
 
 
Cakewalk has done sales in the past, so I highly doubt they will stop doing any sales in the future. But if you jump on in six months to take advantage of a sale price, you won't get the content that had been added in those six months. I think many people will not consider saving $50 as a good tradeoff for missing the content. What's planned for the first update is pretty typical of what to expect in the future, which will help people decide whether it's valuable to them or not.

This is contrary to what Andrew Rossa said in an earlier thread, where I asked what people risked "missing out" on if they were to wait before registering the upgrade. He stated that at point of registration one would get everything that was originally included in the new model, plus all additions. The only scenario he gave where one might possibly miss out on something is in the case of third party bundled products like AD2 if those products were no longer bundled with Sonar by the time one chose to apply the upgrade.

Anderton
But if you jump on in six months to take advantage of a sale price, you won't get the content that had been added in those six months. I think many people will not consider saving $50 as a good tradeoff for missing the content. What's planned for the first update is pretty typical of what to expect in the future, which will help people decide whether it's valuable to them or not.

Any unknown content that is missed now by waiting will be replaced by unknown content gained at the other end, so that's not really a factor.  And one can always update if something needed comes along.
 
Speaking of content...
 
Are the AD2 packs considered 'content' and subject to disappear at any moment ?  In X3P, you were guaranteed to get AD2 + packs no matter when you updated, but what happens now with the new perpetual version ?
 

paulo

Anderton
 
 
Cakewalk has done sales in the past, so I highly doubt they will stop doing any sales in the future. But if you jump on in six months to take advantage of a sale price, you won't get the content that had been added in those six months. I think many people will not consider saving $50 as a good tradeoff for missing the content. What's planned for the first update is pretty typical of what to expect in the future, which will help people decide whether it's valuable to them or not.

This is contrary to what Andrew Rossa said in an earlier thread, where I asked what people risked "missing out" on if they were to wait before registering the upgrade. He stated that at point of registration one would get everything that was originally included in the new model, plus all additions. The only scenario he gave where one might possibly miss out on something is in the case of third party bundled products like AD2 if those products were no longer bundled with Sonar by the time one chose to apply the upgrade.

If you could include a link to this thread that would be helpful. I'm quite sure he was referring to the additions to the program, not the supplementary content that's generated by Cakewalk or others specifically for the membership program; this was how it was presented numerous times in the "Giant Thread about the Membership Program." For example, your AD packs and Dimension Pro patches don't go away if you don't renew because they are part of the program. But things like loop libraries, expansion packs, and such that members receive are included for that month's update and that's it, unless they're offered for sale separately to non-members or users of other DAWs.
 
I'll ask Andrew, he's calling me later tonight but we have discussed this many times. Maybe they decided to change it.

To clarify, the products won't disappear if you are a member during the month it was released. And we aren't going to take away AD2 or anything else if you got them while you are a member. I can imagine there will be content down the road that we make available only to people who currently own the product or buy it in the month it is available. But as long as you are a member during the month it was released, you don't have to worry about it losing it down the road. We of course would tell people that this particular content is for only for this month so people will get fair warning. I imagine this will only apply to very specific content. And there will be content that will always be part of the program. Core features, fixes, and updates would always stay with the program. Anytime you download SONAR, you will always get the latest version of the software. 
 
 

igiwigi
 
Why buy Platinum if you had sonar x3

Because I am intelligent, reasonable, good, charming, and dog gone it, people like me.

 
Andrew, when I mentioned AD2 disappearing, I meant disappearing from the upgrade, not from installed software.  If I upgrade today, I get AD2 + packs.  I understand this to be part of the deal to upgrade and subject to change in the future.  Will we be notified before AD2 is pulled from the upgrade, or will we just notice that it's suddenly gone, replaced by something else ?
 
Before, the 'free' third-party elements were known to be available for the duration of the version, and we expected them to possibly change in the next version.  Now, there are no longer versions, so will we be notified of changes to the makeup of the current state of the version before they happen ?  I realize that before we didn't know when a version would change, but we could guess pretty accurately.