There are plenty of law practices around using Win 98 but that don't stop 'em from making money!
:-)

I think Cake should just pay Scott loads of money to write the manual

+1

vintagevibe

gothic.angel

...Nope, guys... don't pretend to not understand the point....

It's not JUST about SHIFT + F, it's a GENERAL issue.... you just CAN'T remember ALL KEY combinations, and there are scenarios where you may not be using the PC keyboard at all, when a single mouse-click is the most comfortable way...

You may twist it inside-out as as much as you want... over and over.... but ALL AT ONCE visible customizable TOOLBARS (or modules...)  are still the most convenient and surely FASTEST way....

...which simply means they should be, AT LEAST, an option......................  

My PC keybooard is on the far side of my controller keyboard.  My trackball is conveniently located on my controller.   The more time I spend typing the more time I'm hunched over in an uncomfortable position.  Moving everything to the keyboard is ergonomically very bad for me.  These things are important if you spend many hours working!  Sonar should return to the philosophy of choice that has made it so versatile and customizable for 2 decades. 

 
 
 
...Yes... that simple....
 
...and I won't ever buy the happiness of those users who still deny such a basic concept.......

You MAKE an interesting POINT, but in a WAY that is KIND OF grating to READ.

Hi, John T....
 
Again, I apologize for the "grating" feel.... I knew it could be someway perceived like that, but it was not my actual will nor feeling....

Far as the X1 users, you  (and others, of course...) may be one of the satisfied ones, but I honestly believe it's fair to say that MOST complaints come from long time users... I don't think it's necessary to name them here, as they are quite well known.... 


     

dgrm44


So I have not posted on here in a bit as my frustration level reached an all time high due to Cakewalks handling of the X1 release. At the risk of starting a flame war (famous last words), what is the general consensus on X1 now? Did Cakewalk resolve all the bugs/issues? Is it ready for prime time? If not, will it be soon?
 
Most importantly for me is this - Has Cakewalk publicly declared that they will do whatever it takes to make X1 bug free?

Well this has not been my experience - but I am merely a recent convert and an amateur.  I bought Studio then upgraded to Producer a few weeks later.  It crashes occasionally but SO WHAT? IMO it is wonderful. Of course I am now going "have to" spend even more and get a proper computer and OS which can handle very large amounts of memory.  And then get East West Gold.

depends on who you ask. I think it's substantially better personally but there's still room for improvement. I like the edit filter concept but it could be more elegantly implemented.

gothic.angel


Hi, John T....
 
Again, I apologize for the "grating" feel.... I knew it could be someway perceived like that, but it was not my actual will nor feeling....

Far as the X1 users, you  (and others, of course...) may be one of the satisfied ones, but I honestly believe it's fair to say that MOST complaints come from long time users... I don't think it's necessary to name them here, as they are quite well known.... 


     

I was wondering when you'd start talking 'bout me! ;-)

Keni

Rothchild


I'm a relatively long time user (came in at SonarXL) and gothic.angel's comments ring very true to me. 8.5.3 is achingly close to my perfect DAW X1 is a long way off (and mostly because of a number of very small, apparently trivial, changes).
 
I can no longer percieve any real difference between Sonar and the bulk of the competition. The TV has been depreciated, the program is clearly designed to be used with a single large (widescreen) monitor rather than my 2 rather spanky, square, 19"ers (and I think this is the case with S1 and Reaper also), useful visual feedback has been mis-identified as 'clutter' and hidden. Changing the way the app looks, to suit the user's needs, now requires reaperesque levels of geekiness (no offence panup and benstat! ;-))
 
I agree with Mike about the PC, it should be a standalone plug not hardwired.
 
Once X1 gets customisable TV controls (content (including phase and interleave), colour and positioning) a sensible size FX bin (in the tv), the ability to set the width of the track name as wide as you like, and a three way option for envelopes to either work as per 8.5.3, with the new envelope filter and with lanes, I will rejoin the ranks of the faithful; for now I'm still out in the desert. :-( Child

Yeah, me too...

Tho I'm managing to use X1 (only on a few of my own pieces), I doubt I could without the help of benstat and Paup's work... The workflow and missing items/methods slow the work down to a PT level....

Think about this one... I have a friend (un-named) who owns a decent size commercial studio... Both analog and PT.... He uses Sonar for himself... But his reasoning for PT is easy... If he claims working with Sonar he charges x/hour but if he's working with PT he gets X+/hour and it takes more hours! He makes on both fronts! So he doesn't even offer Sonar to clients! this is how it feels to me as well... In the process of building in more "safeties" (lock into "only" envelopes is nice so that you don't get the accidental drag/move accident, but at the cost of requiring isolation in and out... I had far fewer accidents requiring undo/redo than I did success so it was much faster and overall more efficient to allow for the occassional error in favor of the speedier workflow... Now I'm trapped into slow and safe.... Very uncomfortable when trying to work as fast as I think... (I guess you can tell I really hate the edit filter)...

I don't mind that Cakewalk no longer supplies the tool buttons as benstat's program does an excellent job of replacing most of them and even doing some other jobs (2 snap setting once again!!!)... and Panup's work got the colors and readability back to where I can read/see better....

As to PC? I believe I understand at least some of the reasons they chose what they did and I don't agree... I think they would have done better to simply make the three standard plugins, bundle them with Sonar and sell them individually and bundled to averyone else.... Far more sales in that... Built-in look/feel?  Bah.... Over rated... We can easily use templates so that when you start a project, all tracks have a "built-in" set of tools/plugins... that would have saved all that extra programming time, resolved countless issues still at the stage of "trying to figure out how to solve".... To me, that would solve all the PC issues for Sonar as well as sell the danged plugins to PT users as well! ;-)

Keni

Even though I'm not currently pleased with X1., I feel confident Cakewalk is on the case and will address these concerns and hopefully have us raving about it when X1c comes out. I've used all their flagship products since the DOS days, they certainly have proven they care deeply about taking care of their customers.

This new version was a big leap forward with tons of changes and that brings bugs,  confusion, a steep learning curve, and oversights. I think it will be sorted out soon.

timidi


subtlhearts, I think you missed my point, even though I guess it does come off sounding negative and bashing maybe. I don't mean it to be. I really don't care all that much. I'm just simply curious why they just don't make something that works right (or, at least stop marketing it like it does.). Can't be that hard. But then, if some folks like it then so be it. 

And, I didn't say "Cake's grand master plan is to try to make us dislike the program and switch to something else". That's a way overexageration of what I was trying to say. The main point here is I think, as I said earlier, that there is a balance between giving people what they want while always promising that more/better is right around the corner. Along with, basic broken promises that get attacked but then drift into the ether as other issues arise. Very similiar to the US government actually, but, I won't go there.


I don't need to try the program, based on what I've read from a lot of people I respect here and the specific issues they have pointed out. But, as I said, I don't really care for now. 8.53 works ok. In a few years X1 will probably be ready. It's been the same cycle so far. 6 to 8 versions before they get it right.

But it does work right - more-so than ever now.  I and many people I know are happily making music with it (not to mention many on this very forum). That's the reality  - as I see it anyway.

I plan on spending a good portion of this weekend in fact gleefully making music with X1.


(and don't' get me wrong...I think everyone knows I'm not saying that it's perfect in every way blah blah etc. I'm just saying...well you know...)

"In a few years X1 will probably be ready."


It's more ready than 8.5.3 in my opinon- it is more solid, can do anything that 8.5 can and can do plenty more besides. I also got a kick learning how to use it.

timidi

And, I didn't say "Cake's grand master plan is to try to make us dislike the program and switch to something else". That's a way overexageration of what I was trying to say. The main point here is I think, as I said earlier, that there is a balance between giving people what they want while always promising that more/better is right around the corner. Along with, basic broken promises that get attacked but then drift into the ether as other issues arise.

I have this vision in my head ... follow me on this ....

Programmer #1, "Man, the economy has gone to **it." Programmer #2, "Yeah man, if I lose this job I'm gonna lose my house, car, savings." Programmer #3, "Yeah, we need to create some job security." Long period of silence. Programmer #2, "I got it! We'll put this software out with all kinds of tiny little bugs. Then we'll release little quick fixes for it so people will be happy that we're working on it, and we'll still have jobs." They all look at each other and smile and all at once all three say, "Yeeeaahhh Boooyaaa!"

I like X1 very much. It's working great on my system, and I don't miss 8.5 at all.  
Last time I used 8.5 was in March, and It was just to confirm that I prefer X1. 

I think the impression that "a whole lot of people do not want X1" is not that straightforward at all. If you count the number of negative post here you could get that impression. It looks like there are a lot of problems posted by a lot of people....

In reality, however, if you take a closer look at those posts, you realise it are the same handful of people posting over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. They post on every occasion they see fit, and even on occasions that has nothing to do with their problem.

For instance: When someone has a problem a lot of times you see a lot of initial reactions like "yeah - X1 is $%#@!", even before the problem is analysed. When it turns out to be a user error, driver error or just something missed in the manual - those people that gave the negative reaction are nowhere to be found. Let alone admitting they where wrong here. Problem is - that negative reaction keeps running around in the "back of the head", and when something happens someone would think "hey - I remember there was something bad going on a while ago?". Especially people that have some bad feelings about X1 will only remember the "$%#@!" remark, and not that this remark was completely wrong or off-topic...

If you should count the "negative" (not strictly negative but lets call it that way) and positive reactions, and count by person (and not by post) you will notice the overall reaction is not that negative as some like to paint out...