Living Room Rocker
Hey, good job on covering the corners, Beep.  But, like you mentioned, there is so much that is yet to be seen in the coming year which can make or break a good deal for customers (both upfront and monthly members).  After all, we did have expectations based on CW's promotions (e.g. the "super synth" Beatscape, AutoSnap (which has only been updated to date), the Matrix View, etc.) which hasn't or is yet to be fully developed.  There are still some mature lingering bugs in SONAR which have never been resolved and features which have been requested ad infinitum (e.g. gapless playback which was addressed but only created "motorboating" is still not there; and dare I open the notation can of worms).  So, it does look like quite a gamble particularly for the mature user moving to a monthly membership, advantage of affordability vs. value for dollars.
 
Kind regards,
 
Living Room Rocker

Well as I said if you wait it out then you can see what has been done then hope on board if and when it seems they've developed a workable version for your tastes/needs/wants. This model takes away a lot of the doubt associated with a bulk yearly upgrade. For example let's say you like all the new features and stuff at a certain point and want to buy in but are concerned it may not work as advertised (due to bugs) or won't work on your system. Instead of dropping the whole upgrade price you could pay for a month, test it out and then if you like it pay for a 12 month membership starting the following month to take advantage of the "upfront" pricing. We were never able to do that before.
 
As far as bugs and things getting broken as the program progresses I'll admit this is one thing that concerns me. I may have a working version (or a version that works on my rig) then I pay upfront to upgrade and all of a sudden I've got problems that I'm stuck with. I have to trust that Cake is going to fix these things.
 
In that scenario though we still get more options because we can "rollaround" (as the Baker's have coined it) between versions while we wait for things to be fixed. Also we could have (shoulda woulda) tried it out for a month membership first but shiz happens so maybe we can get a little burned on that if we are not careful.
 
The thing is though because it seems the Baker's have settled on X3 as the foundation for this ever evolving program (which IMO was a good choice as a starting point because X3 is the most stable version I've owned since I bought in at X1) instead of releasing a huge version all at once that has only gone through the in house Alpha testing the Baker's do then the semi out of house Beta testing it is smaller bits and changes being rolled out. That makes it much easier to keep a handle on and fix bugs once things hit the market (and we can "rollaround" to the best working version in the interim).
 
So instead of a years worth of stuff all slamming the communities various systems all at once which inevitable uncovers a mountain of bugs all over the program which then need to be patched it will be one thing at a time. That is much more manageable and will result in a quicker, more focused response to problems as they arise.
 
This of course is all speculative and it relies HEAVILY on the Baker's doing their jobs and doing them well. I personally think they have put a MASSIVE onus on themselves but they certainly seem enthusiastic... if not outright elated... at the chance to operate like this so whatever. I'm rooting for them and personally have a good feeling about this.
 
And that's coming from a HARDCORE pessimist with sh*tass luck. Perhaps I'll be eating my words in a year but really... what exactly will I have lost? Absolutely nothing because a) I haven't even spent any money yet and b) even if I did I'd still own the current version being release which looks pretty awesome and so far hasn't caused ANY major complaints so far from the advance release users.
 
Seriously at this point during even the release of X3 the forum was ablaze with bug reports (albeit minor ones). Only a few people have it though so that may change but I'm assumign they did it this way so that they could get an extra testing stage between the Beta testing and the actual market release. They will probably have some patches before it is even available to the general public based on the input of the advanced users... which again is really smart and encouraging.
 
...wasn't I supposed to be working on my song? Oh yeah... lulzfurmaddiction!!11zors

Beepster
Well I feel bad for explaining basically how to take advantage of the Baker's trust and generosity ...

We all know how to do that.  I've felt guilty ever since I upgraded to X3P + AD2 for 75$.
 
Now you have to wait three years instead of one before screwing the Bakers.
 
 
 

Paul P

Beepster
Well I feel bad for explaining basically how to take advantage of the Baker's trust and generosity ...

We all know how to do that.  I've felt guilty ever since I upgraded to X3P + AD2 for 75$.
 
Now you have to wait three years instead of one before screwing the Bakers.
 

There may still be promotions. Still a $75 upgrade to X3e is still half price of the full upgrade of $150. So to get half off of $200 you would only have to wait one year... and that's AFTER this first year.
 
If you waited one year from now you would get X4, X5 and X6 for $200.
 
So $66.66666666666667 per version (or rounded to the nearest dime $66.6).
 
Oh my. That unbelievable value offends my Christian values. Perhaps the new Sonar truly IS evil!

Great post, but like many useful things, the people that need to read this the most are the least likely to read it.

dubdisciple
Great post, but like many useful things, the people that need to read this the most are the least likely to read it.

As with most things in life... all a Beeps can do is try.
 
For those who do read it and actually give a crap they can use it as a rebuttal to quash related wig outs.

Beepster
There may still be promotions. Still a $75 upgrade to X3e is still half price of the full upgrade of $150. So to get half off of $200 you would only have to wait one year... and that's AFTER this first year.

 
That's ignoring the 33% increase that was just tacked on.  I know our income didn't rise that much .
And some just upgraded for less that 60$.
 
 
I hope no one thinks I'm serious.
 

Beepster
Well as I said if you wait it out then you can see what has been done then hope on board if and when it seems they've developed a workable version for your tastes/needs/wants. This model takes away a lot of the doubt associated with a bulk yearly upgrade. For example let's say you like all the new features and stuff at a certain point and want to buy in but are concerned it may not work as advertised (due to bugs) or won't work on your system. Instead of dropping the whole upgrade price you could pay for a month, test it out and then if you like it pay for a 12 month membership starting the following month to take advantage of the "upfront" pricing. We were never able to do that before...

You certainly covered a lot there, Beep.  But just as you covered the bases, more problematic scenarios arose.  For instance, I go the monthly route and experience a bug.  I stick around for a month and still no fix.  Now I feel a bit trapped because the choice is stick around and wait for a fix or lose the money invested along with SONAR (full functionality) too.  We have already gone through a series of versions with some bugs still lingering for a very very long time.  Remember, SONAR X series is still a young generation compared to where the Bakers left the previous generation at 8.5.3, which was not bug free (stable or not) rendering some features unusable, like ACT.  Yeah, we can trust CW and see what happens, but is a semi/monthly commitment an answer to that?  No, at face value it is merely a means to make SONAR attainable at a more affordable price, albeit at a risk of value over time.
 
I am not trashing Cakewalk or a business model, just a long time user (much longer than the date of joining the forum) having both enjoyed SONAR and pulled my hair out over it.  It has already been quite an investment.  Can the Bakers offer or promise better results at this turn?  One thing I am sure of is at least SONAR will not cause any terminal health affects, lest I lose a huge contract when crucial, career making material is lost.
 
Kind regards,
 
Living Room Rocker
P.S. A rhetorical question at end.

I was one of the people who (quite enraged) didn't get the new model at first, I have already upgraded got platinum and have been using ait a little, the way I see it I got x4 now, the next 12 months will give me x5 and give cakewalk a chance to prove to me that they are worthy of me keeping the sub going in 12 months time, if they dont do that I cancel my sub and keep everything I paid for upto that point - easy.