Poll: How much would you pay for an update of bugfixes & stability?

I would pay $400 for bug fixes...a mere drop in the ocean!

If it means stability, I'm happy.

Bring it on

$200 easy. Maybe more. To be honest if Cakewalk didn't release any new features over the next two years and only did bug fixes, I would not complain. 

According to my online order and my receipt I already own that piece of software.

I paid for that product on December 12th 2010. The cost was $99. It was a special price because I have been a regular annual updater.BTW the upgrade price is not something I asked for, it is offered as part of Cakewalk's marketing to maintain user loyalty. I didn't read anywhere that my product would be unusable till a future updated version was released (called X!C).

I've been doing that for a long time now fully knowing that "all software has bugs" and will need patches to iron a few things out.

At the time If I was told that there were quite a few problems encountered because of the radical departure from previous verisons and 1. there would be a delay in release for 6 to 8 months and 2. it would cost me more; I would gladly have waited and paid more. BUT they didn't do that; they chose to release X1.0 after a 15 month development cycle since the previous version SONAR 8.5.
For many the X1 release was great and for quite a large number of users it was anything but great. For some of us it still isn't a full prodcution spec piece of software despite having spent hundreds of hours of testing, experimenting all the while waiting for the update that would make your version stable.

So in short; no I wouldn't pay for the update that had nothing but bug fixes. We've been asking for that one for a number of years. I've already spent a bucket of money in my time etc on this version. I even planned and followed through on an extended studio close down of 6 weeks so that I could devote myself exclusively to absorbing all of DAW 2.0 and be ready to run with it the earliest time.
History indicates that I wasted that time completely as far as learning this new wonder DAW as it hasn't been till X1C that it is anywhere near stable. and "Near Stable" is only a term I use to demonstarte the relative stability against the previous X1a and X1b versions.

Time to shut up.
Sorry for ranting.

To put a more positive spin on it, Sonar has been pretty stable (for me) in the sense of not crashing and since I am overall satisfied with the features of Sonar, I would much rather just have the bugs focused on entirely. A lot of them may be minor, but they can still be pretty frustrating.

People use the word stable a lot and I wonder if they know what the word means. X1 is not stable on your system I would get a new system.

The bug fixes come free in Expanded

John


People use the word stable a lot and I wonder if they know what the word means. X1 is not stable on your system I would get a new system.

I tend to agree, up to a point.
 
One thing I'm not completely sure about, but suspect to be the case, is that there may be a significant correlation between having stability problems and following out-of-date and incorrect advice, like "never connect to the internet", "do these obscure system tweaks" and so on. So starting from a point of a not fully up to date, bodged Windows set up and continuing from there.
 
The counter to this is that there are DAW programs that seem to be more tolerant in this regard. There's certainly some truth to this, though I think it's a bit overstated.

 
$3
 
Which is the equivalent of £3, roight

I tend to agree, up to a point. One thing I'm not completely sure about, but suspect to be the case, is that there may be a significant correlation between having stability problems and following out-of-date and incorrect advice, like "never connect to the internet", "do these obscure system tweaks" and so on. So starting from a point of a not fully up to date, bodged Windows set up and continuing from there. The counter to this is that there are DAW programs that seem to be more tolerant in this regard. There's certainly some truth to this, though I think it's a bit overstated.

John I don't know about other programs and such I do know that X1 is and has been more stable then any other DAW I have. It is also more stable then 8.5.3 which was very stable. I think some here confuse stability and bugs. If a bug pops up that to them is an unstable situation. I look at stability as will it crash or not. I look at bugs as something that causes an error of some sort. This could be from a disappearing component to a node that wont go where one wants. A bug could cause a crash but I have not found one. If ones system is up to date and has the right components of high quality than its unlikely that a crash will occur. On the other hand marginal components are very prone to cause a crash.  Memory that is cheap and perhaps not fully compatible is a major problem. Buying add on memory modules that are not of the same type and manufacture will also cause instability.

X1 may be the program that uses the memory that is not working as well as it should and so on. There are simply too many areas that one needs to check out before blaming a program for the problems. The thing I see is that lots have very stable systems and report that X1 is stable too.  One also has to ask what is CW running that they can't get the instability that some report. 

So why doesn't the software crash on Cakewalks Rig

Maybe there using the next gen components like 3mill ghz with quadrillion Intel lightspin copper and 50 zillion TB

Bug fixes should be free as should stability. Fortunately Sonar has never been unstable for me, if it was and I was convinced it wasn't my system, I'd be using something else.

Bugs are more a grey area. I'm sure there's several bugs that I don't notice because of the way I work and by the same token several I do notice that other people don't. Of course I want all the ones that bother me fixed NOW, and the others I couldn't care less about.

John T




I think this is a tricky one for software developers, simply because the view that "working properly is not an upgrade" is both a common and largely fair enough position to take. And it's cognitively weird for users too; the thing they probably want most is also the thing they're least willing to pay for.

but they've already paid for it when they bought the software originally - Is it such unreasonable expectation to expect stuff to actually work first time round?

I'll preface my answer with this:  Thus far, Running X1 with Eastwest Symphonic Platinum and a huge number of tracvks during all phases of recording, editing and mixdown I have yet (knock on wood) to have a problem serious enough to have me worried.
 
That being said, WHY would I pay one red-blooded cent for something that SHOULD be as advertised out of the box?  Bugs are common and patches should always be free.   Stability?  Well, if one advertises stability right out of the box then it SHOULD be just that without an additional cost.
 
I dont know about the rest of the community, but finally going the Producer version isn't cheap.  Even more that I backtracked and bought 8.0 Producer to avoid the bugs until they were patched.  So now I have two awesome versions of Sonar in the producer realm working very well for me.
 
We should not have to pay for what has been offered to begin with.
 
Me

Lets plough more money in!

Maybe when the next version comes out and it is a stable release. The expanded pack will make more sense.

It is a shame that the chiming in of the big heads is not happening and the crowd go back to mass hysteria as the dust settles.

Cake have thrown down the gauntlet and they realise this (which is quite obvious to me) the next upgrade they will have to deliver.

Simples tsk!