Excellent news!

Hey Noel !

Regarding the Audio Engine improvements  - I realize you wont want to be too specific prior to release, but:-

=> are the X2 Audio Engine improvements  in addition  to the native Windows 8 better load balancing & low latency improvements  ?

and

=> I realize that after Sonar 4  [ from memory ]  the phrase  " gapless audio " is not often spoken of  [ :) ]  but will we be seeing some Audio Engine improvmements in this area also with X2 ?

Tom

I notice musicians only complain about the bugs in music software, and hold the music software companies to a much higher standard than they do Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, and other companies with massive resources...

I almost never hear people complain, "my internet explorer, my chrome, my iphone, my windows is constantly crashing, and seems quite buggy."

iExplore?  It crashes.  Chrome? quite often.  All my apple products?  troubles - from blank screens, to powercords I was constantly having to buy ( infact, my next phone?  a windows phone, meh.. I'm over apple )...   If there is one software that I can not stand at all, "its microsoft word." and facebook is the buggiest website on earth.

btw, I notice Sonar does crash on that midi-clip/midi-effect thing..  and Rapture is on life support over here..  There's something terribly wrong.

Other than those two things for me..  Sonar be extremely stable over here..   does not crash, or have more bugs than any of my other licensed music tools...

Bet they still haven't added "time of selected area" for all us commercial broadcast guys yet.

pfffftt....

Shockwave Flash crashes Chrome...every time.... 

vintagevibe

Linear Phase


I notice musicians only complain about the bugs in music software, and hold the music software companies to a much higher standard than they do Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, and other companies with massive resources...

I almost never hear people complain, "my internet explorer, my chrome, my iphone, my windows is constantly crashing, and seems quite buggy."

iExplore?  It crashes.  Chrome? quite often.  All my apple products?  troubles - from blank screens, to powercords I was constantly having to buy ( infact, my next phone?  a windows phone, meh.. I'm over apple )...   If there is one software that I can not stand at all, "its microsoft word." and facebook is the buggiest website on earth.

btw, I notice Sonar does crash on that midi-clip/midi-effect thing..  and Rapture is on life support over here..  There's something terribly wrong.

Other than those two things for me..  Sonar be extremely stable over here..   does not crash, or have more bugs than any of my other licensed music tools...

We don't pay hundreds of dollars for browsers.

irrelevant, as browsers were not the only product I mentioned, and we pay for facebook, and google..  most people do not pay with, "cash out of their pocket," but you certainly pay by being advertised too, and certainly pay by investing unpaid time, to constantly create the content these companies run on.




** internet explorer is part of the windows package.  i believe iexplore was given away free to crush netscape regardless...

Linear Phase

irrelevant, as browsers were not the only product I mentioned, and we pay for facebook, and google..  most people do not pay with, "cash out of their pocket," but you certainly pay by being advertised too, and certainly pay by investing unpaid time, to constantly create the content these companies run on. 

** internet explorer is part of the windows package.  i believe iexplore was given away free to crush netscape regardless...

Money out of my pocket is way different than being subjected to ads IMO.

Linear Phase


I notice musicians only complain about the bugs in music software, and hold the music software companies to a much higher standard than they do Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, and other companies with massive resources...

I almost never hear people complain, "my internet explorer, my chrome, my iphone, my windows is constantly crashing, and seems quite buggy."

iExplore?  It crashes.  Chrome? quite often.  All my apple products?  troubles - from blank screens, to powercords I was constantly having to buy ( infact, my next phone?  a windows phone, meh.. I'm over apple )...   If there is one software that I can not stand at all, "its microsoft word." and facebook is the buggiest website on earth.

btw, I notice Sonar does crash on that midi-clip/midi-effect thing..  and Rapture is on life support over here..  There's something terribly wrong.

Other than those two things for me..  Sonar be extremely stable over here..   does not crash, or have more bugs than any of my other licensed music tools...

Oddly enough I don't have any issues with any Cakewalk plug ins as far as stability goes. Chrome crashes sometimes but Sonar crashes more often on me. Idk I complain a lot about Sonar because out of everything on my computer it seems to crash the most. 

I predict that X2 will be nearly bug free and usable by the end of August 2013. 

TomG


Hey Noel !

Regarding the Audio Engine improvements  - I realize you wont want to be too specific prior to release, but:-

=> are the X2 Audio Engine improvements  in addition  to the native Windows 8 better load balancing & low latency improvements  ?

and

=> I realize that after Sonar 4  [ from memory ]  the phrase  " gapless audio " is not often spoken of  [ :) ]  but will we be seeing some Audio Engine improvmements in this area also with X2 ?

Tom

Yes we can't take credit for what Microsoft did :) There are some major updates to the audio, MIDI and automation engines, which I will outline in detail when I get some time later. We have also made some very significant and noticeable improvements to editing in general, as well as smoothing out transitions with some common operations that users complained about.  

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk
]

I don't recall the midi fx issue - if you have a tracking number please list it. Will check it out and see if its still an issue. 

Hi Noel, the MIDI FX problem is repeatable, by quite a few people here. Please refer to the following post, where more details are given:-


http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2626434

I seem to remember that when it happened to me I sent one of them automatic bug report thingies...

There are also innumerable fixes for problems some of which date back to 10 years ago. Stability and addressing longstanding problems has been a priority on X2 from day 1.

 
Me likes...   I've never had many crashes with SONAR, so resolving some of the un-crash related bugs is great.  At least that's what I'm assuming Noel is referring to since he didn't explictly refer to crashes.   So here's hoping these fixes also make a difference for those that have experienced frequent crashes.
 

  There should be no need to remove previous versions. At least that is how it has always worked in the past.

same thing here from a Daw point of view bitflipper and jumping ship, although not the same approach to music and editing techniques I will presume or same wants overall.

But I jumped back and too from Sonar to studio one a few times,  but  the automation was the overall killer still, as from X1 I was expecting better.But with Studio one I will always miss the inline piano roll it does not have, I feel lost without despite Studio one being good and very too the point too use. 

So with Sonar x2 and the inline piano roll I miss in Studio one,and now the new automation lanes are going to solve one problem so the thing I await on is the New automation drawing that is  mentioned, really looking forward to seeing if at last all areas of Sonar automation are fixed and improved on, but will it be enough to compete with what I guess will be introduced to Studio one sooner rather than later, as the majority of Studio one user have requested automation clips/block similar to Reason and fruity loops, that can be dragged to the browser and displayed fully in the browser and is universal automation that can be applied to any other vst parameter i might add, and a dam good guess will be that this is on its way over the next update or two.

Again like I say the main thing I miss is the inline piano roll the GUI/appearance In sonar is also  a little better, taking poor resolution into account I think sonar needs to have a way to compress all used track lines into view /Fit to size.

In sonar x1 I was also finding doing my mix downs a doddle with pro channel, this I also miss. So its gotten quite exiting all round for me,  I doubt I will sell out On studio one yet until I see if these automation clips/blocks will happen I have learned that lesson mainly with past instability I had with Sonar so it was unuasble that being another major issue along with poor all round automation , But for the small upgrade fee to sonar x2 definitely worth another look and I do like the way the GUI is now looking in X2 with the transparency of data clips, cakewalk may just be making one of the biggest comebacks, at least to the point they may actually be listening to people like myself so it may be worth sticking around just to see If over the next couple of years they get Sonar 100% Good for what I need, let the battle commence, its a good thing in my eyes, healthy competition, It may also warrant me actually putting in future request, knowing that Cakewalk sonar are not dead in the water, its taken a sharp shock if you ask me, and they may now actually listen to us the users who know what we want, sonar did used to be quite patronising of feature request, that never ever really seem to materialise or get improved on. 
Not the ones that mattered as a game changer for a competitive market, us computer musicians as myself needed future proofing,but can cakewalk revolutionise new ideas that is the question ? and give us some new creative effects and instruments
so far they still lack here, its more about the generalised band and instrument player, not  the twisted dance genre producers like myself, but a very big market is out their, Sonar has most generalised things that will supposedly work come X2 I guess, so I need less volkswagen beetle  and more cutting edge formula 1 now for my genres.

bitflipper


Random thoughts after watching the video...with frequent pause-and-rewinds. (I know attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, but really?)

I'm glad to see that CW appears to be getting back on track after their (hopefully) brief obsession with looking like Studio One. Back to some ergonomic editing, organization, composition and workflow features. There is insufficient information to decide if it's enough to bring me back on board, though - marketing hype can raise your expectations unrealistically.
The main reason I stayed on 8.5 is because of what they did to automation editing in X1. Will automation lanes save the day? We'll see. But mention of automation editing enhancements makes me cautiously optimistic. This, for me anyway, is the primary potential deal maker/breaker.

The Replace Synth feature could be a useful enhancement, although what I'm always wishing for is a Replace Plugin feature.

Many other bullet points could turn out to be anything from uber-cool to ho-hum, given the lack of details. "Aim editing"? "PRV editing enhancements"? "Widget enhancement?" All of these could be wonderful improvements (maybe the widget enhancements are that you can put the interleave button back in the track header!!!)

Breverb, I'll take it but I don't need it. Is this a "lite" version? The Overloud version goes for $200. The UI looks the same, but I'm guessing there are fewer algorithms in the SONAR-bundled version. Ever since ValhallaRoom came along, I'm guessing it's pretty tough selling $200 reverbs anymore.

R-Mix, meh. When I first saw it I thought it might be akin to Adobe Audition's spectral editor. Alas, it is not. A toy for remixers, I think. This also appears to be a "lite" version of the (normally $200) full product, based on fewer UI elements.

Many new features fall under the category of "might be interesting but probably won't be". "Smart snap" for example. Only loopers and drag 'n drop "composers" snap to a grid. Real audio - the kind that comes out of a microphone - does not quantize. Matrix view enhancements are definitely irrelevant to conventional recordists. Auto track zoom? Enhanced time-ruler zoom? Unless they've done something really clever, nah. And don't get me started on "console emulation", the emperor's latest fad.

In the screenshots, it appears that clips now have title bars. That could be useful, but not useful enough to give up a quarter-inch of vertical screen real estate per track. Maybe they're optional.

MIDI timing and MIDI/audio sync enhancements, audio engine optimizations - now that's the old Cakewalk I've grown up with! Marketing doesn't know how to sell stuff like that, but it's key to long-term customer loyalty.

How do you guys know that you dont need to uninstall or delete X1?

How close are you guys to telepathy or the insiders at cakewalk?

Surpises me how much knowledge of a new product you have got. Wouldn't it be better to wait and see or to ask questions to get information first.

Some of you guys are from the Water Margins aren't you cool it down sensei!