Scook was not being testy or agumentative, just precise. As usual. we can all be thankful for that.

Anderton

abacab
I would be happy to see one decent update a year.

 
Part of the reason for the monthly update was because of Sonar having a reputation for bugs and lack of stability. The sense was that releasing monthly updates with lots of bug fixes, rather than having to wait a year for them to be rolled into a big update, would be perceived as an improvement (even if obviously, not all of the bugs were going to be fixed). When Sonar did the yearly updates, there was a lot of grumbling that bug fixes didn't happen fast enough.
 
I do think during that time Sonar did become more stable, and now that quest for better reliability is happening with CbB. When there is a bug fix, I certainly don't see any reason not to release it as soon as it's been tested.
 

I agree Craig.  I merely said that to balance the expectations of those that feel entitled to monthly updates for a free product.  They can take as long as they need to provide a stable release, no need to rush a feature out the door.  It will be good when it is good and ready!
 
Back when we were paying for support, it was expected that we would get regular bug fixes.  But now I am just relatively happy to get anything at all, for as long as it lasts. 

Oh do I love these threads. It's like stepping into an alternate Universe where tech product manufacturers let the world know way in advance when new versions of their products will be coming out and what new features they will include instead of closely guarding that information so as not to, y'know, give their competitors a chance to scoop them, disappoint the user base by making promises they are then unable to keep, etc.
 
I mean, I've never owned a license for any software where the developers could or would want to publicize their plans for new features, release schedule, etc. This is the first place I've ever even heard of such a thing. Instead, I join beta teams where the agreements require you to forfeit a toe if you even drop too strong a hint that you're on the beta team.
 
The only thing I can think of is that this expectation was born when Gibson was trying to finagle people into buying the lifetime licenses. I guess you would need to stoke desire to do that by convincing people that it would get a new release every month and that committing their coders to developing specific new features rather than leaving them some breathing room to fix errors was a best practice.
 
I saw a thread, yesterday was it? where someone earnestly asked if BandLab could perhaps provide them with email notification every time there was an update to Cakewalk by BandLab. You want to know why that is such a pants-wettingly hilarious idea to me? Because Bandlab, from the very first version of Cakewalk by BandLab, have distributed it via their very own tiny footprint program called BandLab Assistant that among other cool things like delivering free loops, will check the version of Cakewalk you're running and let you know whether it's up to date. In real time. It talks to their server on the other side of the planet to get this information.
 
And when it first shipped, there were people who howled because I think maybe you had to use Task Manager to turn it off if you wanted to free up the 110MB of memory that BA gobbles when it's running in the tray and had to know how to disable an auto-start program if you wanted it not to start when you booted your system.
 
Good lord, I can only imagine the kind of tin helmet conspiracy theorizing that would flare up if the company offered optional email notification.
 
"This is it!! I've been waiting for this moment, when BandLab would eventually reveal that all they wanted from this was our precious bodily email addresses to sell on the black market for thousands of dollars! I just know this thing has a software switch in it to turn my computer into an automated spam-bot! Nothing's free! Nothing, you hear me! Wake up you fools before it's too late!"
 
Followed a week later by Henry Hearsay, to whom the idea of reading existing forum posts feels like using "existing" napkins at a restaurant: "I heard about the new BlandCake by LabWalk but I keep running SONAR X1 because my friend told me it floods your inbox with email about updates...."
 
My suggestion is that anyone who's worried about the future of the company or how fast the updates are going to come or is dismayed by not being shown a "roadmap" of new features for the next year, just go to the forum of whatever other DAW looks good to you and ask to be informed about those things before you cough up your money and invest your time and effort on that product.
 
If Yamaha don't kick down with the 411 on their business plan for making sure Cubase and Nuendo get enough financial backing, what with all those dirtbikes and drumkits and auxiliary generators vying for resources, or PreSonus won't give you a definite on what schedule the StudioOne updates are released, or Ableton aren't able to show you a roadmap of new features that will be included in the next few upgrades of Live, then you know you ain't gonna be satisfied.

Euthymia
Oh do I love these threads.
 

I love them also. But I do not feel superior to someone else on this forum!

Why are people obsessing about such a small thing as the frequency of updates? It's amazing that folks still have so much pent up heat needing to be released, this long after the ecstacy that followed the epiphany that this obscure company, Bandlab, was rescuing Sonar from its all but certain demise. And then later, to find out it would be free!
 
Me, I thank them every day (and yes I did made a contribution) for what they did. I will never forget the morning that I came down to my computer, fired it up, checked the Sonar forum (always my first stop, even when I was using reaper), and in my still bleary-eyed state it slowly dawned on me that my favorite music software had actually been sold, and would continue. I had not felt that good in a long time, and have not felt that good since (yeah, I don't get out much). I cried tears of joy. 
 
Wake up, people. Bandlab buying Cakewalk was the best thing to ever happen in the history of music creation software. It was almost a divine act as far as I'm concerned. Okay, maybe that's a little over the top. But we need to be more respectful and grateful for what this cat Meng has done. He and Bandlab have bent over backwards to keep our beloved Sonar-now-Cakewalk program alive. I am still in awe of the whole thing. They have never given us any reason to be suspicious. There is no reason to harbor any negativity at all toward this company and its owner. They are good people. We disrespect and distrust them at our own peril. They didn't have to do this, and they don't have to keep doing it. 
 
And let's not disrespect each other, either. There are more knowledgeable people on this forum than any other such site in the DAW universe. I even came back here to ask questions when I was using Reaper. These guys are the best, period. 
 
So, wake up, smell the coffee! Life is good; Cakewalk lives!
 
 

I went from Pro Audio 9 then to Sonar 4, Sonar 6 Sonar 8, 8.5 then Platinum/SPLAT for life and now CbB.   I generally stayed at the level I had paid for - often for several years without updates - unless a feature become available that made an upgrade worth paying out the extra for.  And I was happy.   One or more of the monthly SPLAT updates caused me such problems in recording that I migrated away from the platform at the time of the Gibson announcement with few regrets.  I now use Studio One for recording and mastering and CbB for mixing. Personally I'd have been much happier if SPLAT had introduced many fewer updates and concentrated on maintaining stability.   If that is the strategy for CbB then they get my vote.

marled
But I do not feel superior to someone else on this forum!

I do. I don't want to, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

Hi folks, 
 
Most software companies don't publish roadmaps, at least not detailed ones for many reasons... Its impossible to predict release timeframes, plans change, or there are details that are confidential or bound by IP.
Its also called vaporware and most people don't appreciate hearing about things that may never see the light of day :)
When we did the annual membership model at Cakewalk we used to publish some known items that we were working on primarily to give annual members some idea of what to expect if they wanted to purchase the annual plan. Even that got problematic to maintain so we discontinued it. BTW none of this had to do with Gibson twisting our arm to do anything. It was all part of Cakewalk's working strategy to make a better model to serve customers in a more responsive way and I still strongly believe that a more frequent update model is the best way to maintain software.
 
Regarding the frequency of CbB updates, there is no guarantee that we will have monthly updates. We release updates when we have something in a finished form, whether it be bug fixes, optimizations or features. While its been a very regular cadence so far, we may slow down sometimes when there are deeper features. For example the elastique integration took many months of work. This month we have some nice performance optimizations that will benefit some many users especially those with large projects. We also have a new feature as well which is taking longer than expected, so it will ship when its ready :)
 
There is no need for concern, as others have said. Meng is committed to the product and community and in another couple of months it will be a year since we have been doing this under BandLab. Things have only gotten more stable and richer for Cakewalk users...

Thanks for this Noel and thank's for everyone's work on CbB - much appreciated

I think, we are all pretty curious, what you'll come up with  Especially in relation to future strategies of Mr Mengs Bandlab. He announced something big to come, seems he has a really long view. But his vision and cakewalk's role in it isn't clear to us, that's why insecureness takes place.  However, I'm quite happy with CbB, and looking forward to attend the unfolding of the conjunction of Cake / Bandlab.
 
Cheers