With this new Sonar membership it's got me wondering; in the past updates were on average quarterly, and mainly only for bug-fixes, i'm wondering with this new monthly membership paradigm and regular update approach, does this mean that bug fix updates etc will now be on a more incremental 'continuous' streaming basis, or will Cakewalk do things like they always have, wait for a whole bunch of bugs to be indexed and then do a major patch update. Just wondering.

Perhaps both.  I think the idea is to get patches out quickly. I also think updates will come along often. Its something that we will have to see how it all works out. 

The answer may have to do with the importance of the bug fix.
 
There is a cost to releasing code to customers that comes primarily in testing and support. Keeping these costs reduced means more money for other things. Releasing features in clusters means less duplication of effort.
 
At my job, in our source control repo, we have different branches of the main code that isolate the development efforts. That way, if we want to release features 1,2 and 4 but not 3, we just don't merge the code for branch 3 into the trunk for release. Once we have merged 1,2 and 4 and deployed to our test envs, our testers can vet the code before we release to production. If we find a problem with feature 2, that can be removed before we go 'live' and we only deploy features 1 and 4.
 
I'm guessing that if they aren't already doing something like this, the Cakewalk developers will be soon.
 
In a waterfall approach, it is possible to only deploy off the trunk of the code. You only really need to branch the code to continue to deploy bug fixes on the current code base. Agile works pretty differently from a source control perspective and there is a learning curve for the developers and the testers.

yep, what John said...
 
 I think we are going to all just have to jump in and hang on.
 
I'm thinking the 1st year this works out well for us consumers.  We pay for an update and get new things along the way, extra updates throughout the year .  The second year things get dicey....Will the 2nd year membership be more a leap of faith?  
 
It would behoove the bakers to be honest with the updates and not hold back.  Cake has been a very honorable company in the past.  I have little doubt they will continue.
 
My guess is... there will be a feature or 2 (Staff View maybe!!) plus a host of things (like AD2) that will make the membership renewal more than worth it.     
 

Actually, I'm going to be more optimistic (and correct !!) and refer back to some original statements from Cakewalk that stated that the benefits of membership are that they can release updates/bug fixes on a more timely fashion and NOT have to wait to accumulate enough to make it worthwhile to make another [update] release.  That's the whole purpose of the Command Ctr...so we'll see when new update/bug fixes flow in... and we can get them more immediately, than actually in the past.  This is ONE reason why this new structuring should be better than in the past.  It is probably much less costly to do it this fashion, rather than a whole new update (Sonar Platinum 1.1...etc)
Quite honestly, I think Cakewalk had plans all along these lines when they released X1, knowing that updating the entire program, would put them in the position that they are today.  This probably isn't a recent thought or idea.  My opinion is we're going to really see Cakewalk shine, and I'm really excited.  As consumers, we're really going to benefit, as much as I hope Cakewalk grows, continues to develop, and make a stronger statement to all their competitors.  It wouldn't bother me at all to see Cake become the "industry standard", quite frankly.

I'm with mixmkr. In the beginning CW staff have said they will make it worth it to members.

I think they will do exactly that and more. And come next year, it will be a no-brainer to renew our membership.

There have already been two fixes, the Melodyne fix just before the hard launch, and the replacement of the prototype CA-X amps with the finished versions. As gswitz points out, with fairly significant bugs like these it behooved Cakewalk to get them out as quickly as possible. But this doesn't mean Cakewalk will release daily bug fixes because they do have to be tested and QAed. I suspect that the first update will be heavy on bug fixes but these will diminish over time and the updates will have more to do with features and additions. But we'll see how it plays out. 

Grem...you're right.  Cake actually has a lot on their plate to deliver, or else they're going to suffer in the sales dept.  I'm POSITIVE they know this, as they aint stooopid about this stuff either (along with making a great piece of software) and I'm sure have thought this out in length.  After all, getting the option to upgrade to a Les Paul Supreme, ONLY for members, has got to be around the corner!! ;-D

Look at it this way. This year you pay for what was developed in the last cycle. Next year when you pay you already have been using the things released during this coming year. Don't look at it as paying upfront. If you pay now and don't like what the cumulative updates were during any year, then don't renew the next year. You still have everything you paid for.

As for what will it cost in 2 or 3 years time who knows, before this new sales model we didn't know what was going to be released in the future or what next years price would be. The only change that I can see is that Cakewalk has put its neck in a sling by having to live upto promises about future releases. For us the cost hasn't changed only the delivery. Just pay up, and hang on for the ride.

Jimbo 88
Cake has been a very honorable company in the past. I have little doubt they will continue.
 

 
Agreed, i have noticed this about Cakewalk. Can't say that for many other companies these days, even the iconic ones like Apple and Sony etc. Do i have any examples of this?...
 
I bought an Apple iPod Nano on the info at their website that it has 29 hours music playback time. Biggest load of **** ever, and not just depending on how we use it. Just a point-blank lie to sell millions more of them. And with Apple's other products their pricing strategy is so 'manipulative' and contrived to a point that can be easily seen as utter ruthlessness beyond normal company prerogative! Especially the way they allow only certain iMac models to be upgradeable so that we can't get any value-for-money with the cheaper models etc. And Apple got sued recently in America over the iPhone 6 having much less available ram memory than was advertised. Can't tell me Apple wasn't aware of this.
 
Sony designed the menus in the Playstation 4 to make it an utter annoyance to turn-off the controller when viewing movies which we need to do because the controller has such bad battery time. It could easily have been a one-click affair, but Sony made it an 8 button-push affair so that we would get so fed-up and just buy the accessory TV remote. They figured that if even only 10% of Playstation owners buy it that would give them an extra $250 million just by 'deliberately' causing annoying inconvenience with the onscreen menus. 
 
Microsoft refuse to include a default program to allow us to fix constant and continuous registry errors that detrimentally affect Windows just by mere virtue of 'everyday normal use'. There is a third-party program which does this (repatches the entire Windows registry to the best optimal state as if totally reinstalling Windows but without having to actually reinstall it and without affecting installed programs/apps etc). Considering all the headaches that Windows is notorious for, one would think that Microsoft would buy the third-party program and integrate it into Windows as standard.
 
Canon and Sony deliberately downgrade video functions in their high-end DSLR cameras (these deliberate downgrades lock internal digital codecs and bitrate to suppress performance) in order to sway cashed-up serious video producers to folk-out for the $12,000 camcorder models. This can easily be deemed unethical rather than business prerogative. And Nikon actually refused to admit a major and obvious fault with one of their high-end DSLRs and thus only a class-action lawsuit in America made them replace all the cameras free of charge. 
 
Seiko sells 8 year model watches as if they are this years model and supplies them to retailers. Thus the retailer even has to open the watch to replace the battery to keep up the pretense it is new (thus making it technically second-hand), but also means a major service is required soon after buying it. As happened with me recently and thus i had to take them to court over it. Amongst all the wrangling, the service attendant at Seiko accidentally blurted-out that this is an 8 year old model, even though i only bought it months ago. 
 
 
Certain TV companies buy B and C grade near-reject panels and use them for quick mass sales etc. I've had to return 4 different TVs because of this. Blemishes and blotching in the panel that they could argue is nothing strange when they know very well it is low-grade garbage and affecting our viewing experience.
 
And on and on and on, it's endless. Integrity and honesty is always of utmost importance to me in my own dealings, thus I hope Cakewalk always continue on the 'intergrity' road.