Tom Riggs
 
I'm in a rural area in the Philippines and there really are few options for internet service.
 

 
I hear ya. We get our internet from the Philippines, and every few months the connection is awful. Some Vietnamese conspiracy theorist blame the Chinese for cutting the under sea line. It's been dreadful for the past week. I can't watch the youtube demos of the new features, instead I have to download them from Youtube (since they killed the buffer option a few years back). The Audiosnap 4 and half min video was going to take 2 and half hours earlier, so I gave up.
 
Putting my XLN 3 Adiictive Keys and 7 Addictive drums on my new laptop a few weeks back took 2 days to download. And then the internet was running well (for Vietnam).

From the FAQ:
 
"Why is SONAR Membership is better than how I used to buy Upgrades?"

Any chance of giving us the UK prices? Inc VAT of course.
Ta

Greeny

Skyline_UK

EezyP
......I just hope the UK price reflects the actual rate ($150=about £98) and they don't just swap $ for £.  It's software, there's no shipping. 

Yes, I'm looking out for that chestnut.....

+ VAT, cake wont pay our taxes unfortunately :(

Looks like the new store is going to give UK buyers a better deal than previously. The "CA-2A T-Type Leveling Amplifier" is showing at $118.80 then £83.86. Maybe not the £78 you would expect but not a kick in the pants away from it.

I don't have a strong opinion on the subscription concept, though the devil is in the details:

• We're being told that Producer owners can get the $20/month rate when everybody else has to pay $50/month... I can't see that lasting forever. I'm never going to commit to spending $600 a year on one piece of software so I'd probably want to continue doing what I do, which is pay the full price to upgrade every 2 or 3 years. But I don't see any information on what sort of upgrade pricing will exist once this has been underway for a while. If I upgrade to 'Sonar 2015' (ie. the next version that comes out), I'm not willing to pay the full $499 up-front for Sonar 2017 or 2018. So this is an increase in uncertainty. (Sure, we never knew for sure that future updates weren't going to have massive price hikes, but that was unlikely when the business model stayed constant. Now, it's different.) Ignore this - I'd missed the part where they specify that upgrade pricing and subscription resumption pricing are the same - so it would be $20/month or $200 for a year, either way.
• This is producing a culture of paying for 'updates' where updates include bug fixes - but bug fixes should be part of the initial payment, because when you pay for a product, it should be working in the state that is advertised, and if something is clearly broken, I am entitled to a fix for it even if the fix takes 13 months to develop rather than the 12 months included in the subscription. Sonar has been frustrating in recent years because I end up having to pay to get upgrades to increase stability, while seeing much of the work appear to go on new features I have little use for (screensets, analog-style plugins, ProChannel) and leaving other features that I would like to use in a half-broken state (step sequencer, matrix view, take lanes sort-of-but-not-really replacing layers). Please, I know it's not sexy and you can't put it on your sales page to drive new custom, but please dedicate some more time to fixing these old problems with features we've already paid for - then we'll feel better about paying for more things in future.

Regarding the new features themselves, it looks like a reasonable selection. The majority I don't care about (new Control Bar, Audiosnap enhancements, Pattern tool, PRV enhancements (unless it fixes the note name column problem - I certainly don't want the massive chunky notes shown in the new video), Direct Stream Digital), some I don't need as they duplicate stuff I already have (REMatrix Solo, new FX chains, Addictive Drums 2, custom amps), some I will try out and might use sporadically (VocalSync), a couple could be really useful (mix recall, MIDI clip stretch), and a couple are laughable ('FX Stacking' and 'Expandable sends' are not really features but just reflect someone finally working out how to handle dynamically sized UI elements with the Skylight UI system - something that should have been in from day one). Is this enough to justify the upgrade? Not really - unless I see some evidence that there are fixes to old problems, or maybe if some of my other feature requests get a look in (split-with-crossfade, FX bins and faders on track folders, etc).

One thing I'm seeing asked but not answered in this thread: if I recently purchased X3 Producer (in last 3 months, $150 non-sale pricing) will there be a different pricing scheme?

Kylotan

• We're being told that Producer owners can get the $20/month rate when everybody else has to pay $50/month... I can't see that lasting forever. I'm never going to commit to spending $600 a year on one piece of software so I'd probably want to continue doing what I do, which is pay the full price to upgrade every 2 or 3 years. But I don't see any information on what sort of upgrade pricing will exist once this has been underway for a while. If I upgrade to 'Sonar 2015' (ie. the next version that comes out), I'm not willing to pay the full $499 up-front for Sonar 2017 or 2018. So this is an increase in uncertainty. (Sure, we never knew for sure that future updates weren't going to have massive price hikes, but that was unlikely when the business model stayed constant. Now, it's different.)

 
The $50/m or $600 is for new users, similar to how it cost that much in the past to enter the Sonar world with your first purchase of Sonar. After that initial year, you turn into a renewal/upgrade model and will thus pay upgrade prices, again similar to how it worked in the past.
While it's no guarantee of what will happen in the future, it has been mentioned somewhere by a Cakewalk rep (but don't recall exactly where) that you can perfectly suspend your membership for a while and then pick it up again at a later date at merely the upgrade price. Again this is no different from the past. E.g. I was still on Sonar 2.1 XL (from 2003) when I upgraded to X1 eight years later for $199. So I would be surprised if Cakewalk now would let anyone who ever had Sonar X-something pay the full price again.
 

jonboper
One thing I'm seeing asked but not answered in this thread: if I recently purchased X3 Producer (in last 3 months, $150 non-sale pricing) will there be a different pricing scheme?

It's in the price list and has been confirmed but it may have been elsewhere: the discount for X3 users is that you pay $14.99/m or $149 vs the regular $19.99/m or $199 upgrade price. This is regardless of whether you purchased X3 last week (and in a sense wasted $20 since you paid $79) or a year ago.
 
What hasn't been answered yet, is how long this discount will be available. But I guess it will at least be a few months and many 'last chance' mails from Cakewalk before that happens :).

Sorry for this question. Would my Vista Pentium T3200 with 3 GBs machine work with the new and improved Sonar?

henk.vanwulpen
The $50/m or $600 is for new users, similar to how it cost that much in the past to enter the Sonar world with your first purchase of Sonar. After that initial year, you turn into a renewal/upgrade model and will thus pay upgrade prices, again similar to how it worked in the past.

 
Ah, I think I see what you mean... it's only $50 for the first year, but everybody pays the $20 rate for the 2nd year onwards, so for new users it's as if they've bought it outright and are then paying upgrade rates, whereas I'd be paying upgrade rates from the start. Fair enough.
 

While it's no guarantee of what will happen in the future, it has been mentioned somewhere by a Cakewalk rep (but don't recall exactly where) that you can perfectly suspend your membership for a while and then pick it up again at a later date at merely the upgrade price. Again this is no different from the past. E.g. I was still on Sonar 2.1 XL (from 2003) when I upgraded to X1 eight years later for $199. So I would be surprised if Cakewalk now would let anyone who ever had Sonar X-something pay the full price again.

No, but it is easier to manage upgrade paths when there are a small number of different versions of the product - with there being almost infinite different versions in future, this wouldn't be so straightforward. But, with your clarification above, if they keep the "I own an older version of this" and "membership renewal" rates the same (as they currently are), that confusion is eliminated, so it's ok. I'd be paying $20 a month/$199 total for the latest version and a year's updates either way.