And I've worked for the 2nd or 1st (debatable) biggest PR firm in the world for several years of my life, do I win a prize?
After spending several decades with marketeers I've come to believe they believe in their own BS.
Biggest qualification right now is I happen to be a mere a customer.

BobF
Affluent people don't quibble over $10 purchases of things that last forever.

I am not quibbling about it.  As I have said several times above, I paid my $10 a long time ago.  I am simply pointing out that this is a really dumb position for a company that is spending so much development effort to be taken seriously in a very crowded DAW space.  The word many marketing people use for that kind of nickel-and-dime thing is chicken-bleep.
 
I have a bit of investment in the learning curve with Sonar and I would like to see this product be taken as seriously in the marketplace as products like ProTools and Cubase.  I see lots of technical work being done, but I don't see any evidence that this is backed up by a comparable marketing effort to raise the product's standing in the market.  I am not claiming that this one issue will make or break Sonar's image, but it is does appear to be consistent with an overall lack of marketing leadership.

Marketing person .... What do we need to take the product in the big league?
Marketing person.... Yes mp3 export charge them an extra $10 even if they don't use it
Marketing person ... Hooragh we've cracked it!
Marketing person... I agree
Marketing peron.... What is MP3?
Marketing person... No idea, but that will kill Pro Tools...
Marketing person... What's that?
Marketing person... No idea, maybe we should do a survey and find out...

cparmerlee
I worked over 20 years in a marketing organization for one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world, reporting directly to the VP of marketing for the last 8 years of my career there.  This was a company that did $2 billion - $3 billion of sales each year in the product areas I was involved with.  I had direct reports on every continent except Antarctica.
 
I actually do have a little experience in this field.
 
And I assure you, we never let $10 get between us and a customer.  Customers are more valuable than that.

Okay, now I totally get where you're coming from. So, I thank you very much for giving specifics instead of speaking in denigrating generalities about Cakewalk's alleged incompetence and insensitivity to the needs of its consumers.
 
Given a company that you say did $2 to $3 billion of sales each year (and apparently with greater grosses than that, considering that you limited your statement to product areas in which you were involved), I can completely understand why you think $10 spread over tens of thousands of pieces of software is trivial.
 
In this industry, it is NOT even close to trivial. 
 
Global sales of the entire musical instrument industry for 2013 (the last year for which I have figures) - including DJ gear, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, PAs, ukuleles, recording gear, software, interfaces, headphones, microphones, studio monitors, power amplifiers, pianos, synthesizers, strings and accessories, tuners, brass, woodwinds, sitars, drums, etc. - is estimated at under $17 billion dollars and under $8 billion in the US, the world's largest market. According to the best data I've been able to gather (correct me if I'm wrong, please) Avid, by far the market leader for DAW software, tops out at quite a bit less than $900K/month during the two-month holiday season spike and goes as low as under $500K during other months. I can assure you that no other music software company, including Cakewalk, is even close to that.
 
So, given your expertise, I remain interested in how you propose that Cakewalk cover this expense given the constraints imposed by the size of this market. Except now I am very interested in your answer, because perhaps you have do something of value you can contribute if you can fully grasp the disparity between your frame of reference of what a company makes, and that of companies in this industry. So ultimately, the question remains...who's going to pay the $10 per unit sold, which in the case of a company the size of Cakewalk's, literally means the difference between firing and keeping an employee if Cakewalk has to absorb that cost?
 
And it's not like Cakewalk has employees sitting around doing nothing that the company could easily afford to shed. In fact the company needs to hire more employees.
 
Consider this not a lecture about marketing, but straight talk about the realities of a tiny industry, which has been the context of everything I've said. If you have meaningful answers to the questions I have asked that are relevant to the constraints of this industry, believe me, I'm all ears.
 
I have zero doubt that if Cakewalk was pulling in $2-$3 billion a year, they could indeed "eat" the costs of including a $10 encoder...because each copy of SONAR Platinum would have to cost several hundred thousand dollars in order to bring in that kind of revenue. Unfortunately, I do think that pricing strategy would limit the size of the customer base 

Kev999

WDI
Referring to post 63, for me, MP3 is proofreading...

 
As for the "proofreading" thing, it's not really recommended to use a format that entails a risk of introducing unwanted artifacts, however small or subtle, if you are going to be listening critically.
 
MP3 files certainly have their place, particulary as a suitable format for uploading music to the web. But conversion to any lossy format should only be done as the very last stage. This doesn't just apply to audio. JPEGs would be similar.

No, what I do is make and MP3 from an MP3 from an MP3 and then I master from that.
 
Being funny. HAHA!
 
But seriously, I don't need a technical lesson. It's coming across a little condescending. Merely trying to explain why I would export an MP3 from Sonar as requested. But regardless,  an explanation or justification should not be needed. If that's what someone wants to do then so be it.
 
This whole thing has gotten outta hand ridiculous.

Kev999

WDI
 
But seriously, I don't need a technical lesson. It's coming across a little condescending. Merely trying to explain why I would export an MP3 from Sonar as requested. But regardless,  an explanation or justification should not be needed...

 
I don't think it's unreasonable. In the feature request forum, I always expect people who are proposing to add or change a particular feature to provide an example scenario of its typical use and to explain why it would be beneficial, rather than merely state what they would like to see and wait for votes. I realise that this thread in not in that forum, but maybe it ought to be (if we disregard all the discussion about marketing).

Fair enough.
 
One thing all this has made me think about though is one day I'm probably going to want re-digitize my music collection with a higher quality format. Where as MP3 was universally accepted format, the other lossy and lossless formats not so much.

 

Kev999

WDI
Referring to post 63, for me, MP3 is proofreading...

 
As for the "proofreading" thing, it's not really recommended to use a format that entails a risk of introducing unwanted artifacts, however small or subtle, if you are going to be listening critically.
 
MP3 files certainly have their place, particulary as a suitable format for uploading music to the web. But conversion to any lossy format should only be done as the very last stage. This doesn't just apply to audio. JPEGs would be similar.

This ^^^^^^
 
Kev, talking of image files, comparing RAW/TIFF/PSD files to JPEGS is an excellent analogy for comparing WAV files to MP3s.
 
I process a lot of my own photos - all the way from the RAW file taken off the camera through conversion to TIFF or PSD to edit, and then resizing, sharpening and, if necessary - changing the file type, to end up with an image appropriate for archiving, printing, or uploading to the web. The final colour corrections and (especially) sharpening can only reliably and accurately be applied to the final file format and image size.
 
Using an 8bit sRGB 900px x 600px 72ppi JPEG image to "proof read" the 16bit AdobeRGB 5200px x 3500px 300ppi TIFF you created it from would be a ridiculous proposition. All you can proof read with an mp3 is an mp3.

SteveStrummerUK
We definitely need a new word *
 
Or at least some way of discerning software subscription from other types of subscription.
 
I subscribe to a couple of print magazines, and if I stop subscribing, I still get to keep the issues they've sent me.
 
 
 
* Anywho, I have a suggestion: Subscrurchase..... or maybe better - Purchscription
 
Tell marketing they owe me £3.9m for saving their corporate asses.

IMO those still carry remnants of "subscription"
 
How about something tried and true?  "Installment Plan" makes the most sense to me.
 
Or if the marketing crowd wants something new, I like "Playaway" since it's like a layaway except you get to play when you make the initial deposit.  I only require $1M USD, quite a bargain compared to Steve's offer 

Well I guess it's worth bringing this one out again...
 

Anderton

I think we can all agree that money doesn't fall out of the sky...
 

Man, my day is totally blown... I guess I should remove all the money catchers installed on my yard that the neighbors complain about.

Why didn't the guy who sold them to me share this???

WDI - I don't think anybody is knocking you or anybody else for having the desire to export to mp3.  mp3 is everywhere and has many uses.
 
From what I've read of this thread, the bad mojo toward mp3 is in the context of someone claiming that a product that doesn't include mp3 encoding can't be considered a professional product.
 
I won't speak for everyone, but I personally don't think anybody finding use for mp3 formatted audio is in any way deserving of less respect than those that don't.
 
I use mp3s myself and I don't even feel dirty when I'm done with them.

WDI
...as it seems I need to defend myself for some silly reason...

 
It's not really about defending yourself. Any feature request needs to be argued for in terms of workflow and from a user's perspective. This is something that has been rather lacking in this thread. It shouldn't matter if you think you work differently from other users who question why you need this feature. Everyone has their own way of working, but most people here are not necessarily set in their ways and are not averse to hearing other points of view.

Kev999
but most people here are not necessarily set in their ways and are not averse to hearing other points of view.

I am not averse to hearing other points of view at all. But it does seem to be the other way around. This is what I'm talking about. Besides, regarding your response stating why you question why someone wants to do something a certain way, I responded already and said "Fair enough".  Also, you pretty much took my quote out of context by taking only part of the sentence.
 

BobF
WDI - I don't think anybody is knocking you or anybody else for having the desire to export to mp3.  mp3 is everywhere and has many uses.

 
Thanks BobF for giving me a way to bow out gracefully from this thread. Much appreciated.
 

Anderton
However, if you're only transferring files within a closed system of a few collaborators as opposed to the general public, most of the time Ogg Vorbis is a better choice in terms of quality vs. file size. I would draw an analogy between JPEG (MP3) and PNG (Ogg Vorbis). I use Ogg Vorbis and PNG whenever possible, for the same reasons.

 
IMO the only problem with Ogg Vorbis vs MP3 is support. MP3 is universally supported. You don't have to worry about whether someone is going to be able to play MP3.