I like your thread. I think when one has invested years and money in a piece of software and the software is just missing a few essentials it makes sense to get in contact with the developers.
What I think is sad is that it all just seems so disorganized. I mean if you find a bug and you write on the forum there is no proper feedback as to whether or not this bug will ever be fixed - or is even considered a bug. Are we supposed to write directly to tech hotline with simple feature requests/ bug fixing suggestions?
Who are responsible for viewing forum threads and organizing feature request? And where are they listed so that consumers have a proper change of knowing in what direction the development is aimed?
I wrote many months ago about the issue with high resolution screens and turning knobs without anybody in the forums knowing anything about it (besides some having the same problem) - only to find out that this was already a "known issue" listed somewhere on the huge cakewalk site. I mean isn't there a knowledgeable forum moderator to go through forum posts and answer simple questions?
Considering simple feature requests, if in two years time Sonar still doesn't allow me to move more than one track at a time - and that the whole track moving feedback is still so confusing I would properly look to another DAW.
And there are other confusing user interface things that bugs me - accidentally turning knobs when using mouse wheel scroll when scrolling the screen up and down is another serious issue for me, please just allow me to uncheck the "mouse wheel turns knob" feature.
And the "double space bar click returns time marker to zero" is also just plain stupid! (wrote about that one before but no reply if they would actually consider fixing this, at least allow one to turn it off)
Yeah - and we cannot edit gain in audio clips directly like you can in Pro tools, well we could if we would like to spend 2 min on it per clip... In Pro tools you just select an area of the clip and with buttons change the gain of the actual audio clip (not automation). We have to choose process effect and load up some vst and change the gain staging in that one.
Alternatively we could automate the gain staging, but there is no way to make the automation line completely horizontal. You can draw a straight line, but it doesn't snap to horizontal. In Pro tools you select the area of a clip and just drag down from the top, automatically making a horizontal straight line.
BTW, on a positive note, I got a Pro tools student subscription but gave up on Pro tools immediately - the reason was their audio engine, couldn't even run 2048 samples like I'm used to in Sonar! So if I ever should change DAW Studio one is in my eyes the only competitive candidate, and only in certain areas. Heck you don't even have folders in Pro tools...