Paul P
 
I've been dreaming for a year or two of acquiring Sibelius, but I found the cost was just too high.
 
Now that Sonar may be 200$ / year, Sibelius is starting to look more interesting.  I think I can live with X3 for three years (thank God for X3).  I can buy Sibelius in the meantime and upgrade Sonar after that, if I really think it's necessary.
 
Or I could upgrade to Sonar with a proper Staff View...
 

 I have Finale and Finale Print Music. You'd be surprised that the smaller package is only what you need.

bapu

microapp
The new model does not lend itself to new complicated features.

Why not?
 
Features can be developed in parallel.
Month 0           Month 1                                Month 2    Month 3                        Month 4
Feature 1----------------------------------------------------->Complete
Feature 2------Complete     Feature 3--------->Complete     Feature 4-------------------
 
I'm pretty sure the whole dev team does not work on one feature at a time.

Bapu,
I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying that if it were easy. it would have been done under the old system where a good portion of resources could be applied without time limits. Now, Cake is going to have to deliver monthly updates and some new features. The flow will look like your diagram but more complex since (I hope) we get more than one bug-fix a month. 
I distrust the new paradigm because now, the devs will be under 12 deadlines per year rather than say one or two. What will happen will be reduced expectations. I have seen this occur in software shops many times.
You will see more things like the AudioSync feature. I have not yet tried it (Wed. I hope) but it looks like a knob assigned to do a nudge. I consider things like this as relatively simple since the functionality(a nudge) is already there and just needs to be assigned to an interface function which in this example is a knob control. In some cases things like this can be a huge plus to workflow so don't get me wrong here, I am not attempting to trivialize them.
I am simply saying that to meet the monthly deadline, you will see much more of this kind of thing rather than a staff view rewrite, complete MIDI rewrite or a drum re-mapper.
How many software devs does Cake have?  I would guess 10 +/- a factor of 2. That is not a lot considering that there will be monthly projects, 2 month projects and so on.
In addition (this has been mentioned elsewhere) you have to test these monthly updates thoroughly to make sure they interact with other aspects of the program properly and do not break other things.
So I am not trying to put down Cake, I am only stating what I have seen in my own experience.
I really, really hope they can pull it off otherwise there will be a lot of disappointed people.
 

microapp

bapu

microapp
The new model does not lend itself to new complicated features.

Why not?
 
Features can be developed in parallel.
Month 0           Month 1                                Month 2    Month 3                        Month 4
Feature 1----------------------------------------------------->Complete
Feature 2------Complete     Feature 3--------->Complete     Feature 4-------------------
 
I'm pretty sure the whole dev team does not work on one feature at a time.

Bapu,
I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying that if it were easy. it would have been done under the old system where a good portion of resources could be applied without time limits. Now, Cake is going to have to deliver monthly updates and some new features. The flow will look like your diagram but more complex since (I hope) we get more than one bug-fix a month. 
I distrust the new paradigm because now, the devs will be under 12 deadlines per year rather than say one or two. What will happen will be reduced expectations. I have seen this occur in software shops many times.
You will see more things like the AudioSync feature. I have not yet tried it (Wed. I hope) but it looks like a knob assigned to do a nudge. I consider things like this as relatively simple since the functionality is already (nudge) there and just needs to be assigned to an interface function which in this example is a knob control. In some cases things like this can be a huge plus to workflow so don't get me wrong here, I am not attempting to trivialize them.
I am simply saying that to meet the monthly deadline, you will see much more of this kind of thing rather than a staff view rewrite, complete MIDI rewrite or a drum re-mapper.
How many software devs does Cake have?  I would guess 10 +/- a factor of 2. That is not a lot considering that there will be monthly projects, 2 month projects and so on.
In addition (this has been mentioned elsewhere) you have to test these monthly updates thoroughly to make sure they interact with other aspects of the program properly and do not break other things.
So I am not trying to put down Cake, I am only stating what I have seen in my own experience.
I really, really hope they can pull it off otherwise there will be a lot of disappointed people.
 

There is way too much slippery slope action to agree with the kind of conclusions this post leads to.  Have you ever done logic grid puzzles? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_puzzle
 
I don't  ask to be condescending  but so as not to assume.One thing I learned when doing them is that if you fill in a square based on thinhs that are not facts, you set yourself back because everything after that is based on a false conclusion  that builds upon itself. For instance, your perception of Vocalsync is off, making conclusions drawn from that even more so. The simple control may look like  a nudge but it is far more advanced.  Imagine taking some of the timestretching features of melodyne and condensing to a simpler, easier to use subset adjustable with one knob? That's  closer to truth than it being a glorified nudge. There are more examples but I don't  want to do an itemized list.

dubdisciple
btw, adobe has proven it is possible to continually  develope a rolling release and end up having what amounts to what would have been an annual upgrade of features. Hate the financial model, but have no complaints about feature rollout. Once in awhile i get surprised by a major new feature that felt like it came from nowhere.

Proper resource allocation.
 
That's the driving force of ANY software development effort.

As I said I have not tried VocalSync since I did not win the lottery to get an early release.
From what I have read in other threads some people are disappointed with this particular feature. This may be a bad example but the gist of what I said is valid.
If Cake were reluctant to redo SV before they will be even more so under the new paradigm.
With all this said, I have already ordered Platinum. I have been putting off a new system waiting for X4 and I am counting the hours until the release of 2015. 
I have been doing this (software/hardware) for longer than most of the people on the forum have been alive. I have worked in most of the common software development paradigms (Xtreme, Agile, Waterfall, Scrum) and they all have their benefits and their pitfalls. Most of the time it all boils down to the individuals involved as to how well a paradigm works. And not just devs, sales has a lot to do with it not to mention management.   I know Cake has some top-notch people and I am 100% in their corner. It is a gutsy move but you have to take chances if you want to separate your product from the mainstream drivel that seems to be the new norm.
 

microapp
The thread had degenerated to singling out a guy as a troll with alt ID's. (He was a pita for sure). A few others chipped in with the corporate conspiracy meme.

The problem was that it was started as a way to explain that yes, it's understandable that people who kept calling the membership program a greedy grab for money and impugning Cakewalk as being liars and such had goof reasons to be so cynical about the world in general. I just found it really sad and depressing that the world had deteriorated to a point where people automatically assumed that anything was done for the wrong reasons, having been bathed in it for five days straight. But then it got into a whole thing about capitalism, twisted what I said into something completely different that was going to have to require additional explanations (ironically, by interpreting what I said in the most cynical possible way so at least it was consistent with the premise ) trolling, and veering off into purely political topics that had nothing to do with the reaction to SONAR in amongst the rest of it.
 
I suppose I could have been industrious and deleted the political posts and left the rest, but posts often dealt with both. And then people would have said "why did you edit my post. Censorship! Evil!" Some people felt it wasn't an appropriate topic in the first place, while others did because it addressed an attitude that had been pervasive over the past several days within the SONAR forum itself.
 
The troll who was called out acknowledged that he'd posted under multiple alts and got conciliatory, as did I for his acknowledging it. So it seemed like the thread had run its course and my concern was that it would flare up into more politics, as it had already crossed the line for excessive political content and that element was picking up steam.
 
Frankly I was not aware of the degree to which politics could not be brought up in any context in these forums. At Harmony Central we had a dedicated political forum precisely for this reason, but if there was a political issue that impacted music (e.g., copyright revisions) or products (e.g., Gibson raid), it was allowed to live in music or product forums. Given that the topic was entwined to the reaction specifically to SONAR, I figured it was a SONAR forum thing. That is very clearly not the way things work around here.
 
The final element was my wife was rushed by the hospital shortly before I deleted the thread. I realized it was going to be a long night and I would not be able to monitor the forums any more at that point. I felt it was risky to leave such a potentially volatile thread unattended.
 
If anyone wants to make up a conspiracy theory of why it was removed other than the pretty obvious reasons stated above, feel free. We can always use another conspiracy theory.

microapp
As I said I have not tried VocalSync since I did not win the lottery to get an early release.
From what I have read in other threads some people are disappointed with this particular feature. This may be a bad example but the gist of what I said is valid.

I'm among those on here who probably have the most dire need of such a feature to work and I can honestly say it is too early to give a decent assessment. I'm not jumping up and sown on the roof proclaiming how great it is , but not ready to dismiss it yet either. In any case, the gist of what you said is still based on a feature you know noting about.
 
 

microapp
If Cake were reluctant to redo SV before they will be even more so under the new paradigm.
With all this said, I have already ordered Platinum. I have been putting off a new system waiting for X4 and I am counting the hours until the release of 2015. 

 
Honestly i don't see how that can be determined when there is no definitive one reason for the staff view not being improved. Again, it is speculation based on a complete unknown.  Again, with Adobe the changed financial model has not seemed to make a difference in development speed or priorities.

Dub,
As stated elsewhere, consensus seems to be that Cake does not have the right to modify the Staff View code. There was a 32-bit plug(I forget which) where the author passed away and nobody could find who owned the rights in order to convert to 64-bit...same thing. I think here though the owner of the rights is known.
This means a total rewrite of SV and Cake does not have the resources to to this in parallel with everything else.
Maybe Craig knows for sure if all this is true?

microapp, there is a discussion in another thread about the pitfalls of a la carte: http://forum.cakewalk.com...nt-a-BLT-m3150296.aspx

microapp
Dub,
As stated elsewhere, consensus seems to be that Cake does not have the right to modify the Staff View code. There was a 32-bit plug(I forget which) where the author passed away and nobody could find who owned the rights in order to convert to 64-bit...same thing. I think here though the owner of the rights is known.
This means a total rewrite of SV and Cake does not have the resources to to this in parallel with everything else.
Maybe Craig knows for sure if all this is true?

I have no idea, except I do know the plug-in you're thinking about is the VC-64, and no one knows what happened to the author. If he for sure had passed away, at least there could be negotiations with his estate.
 
I don't know about the staff view code, but the reality is there are Windows DAWs that do notation well. For example Avid bought Sibelius so they basically had a turnkey notation system. Cubase has always emphasized staff view and with Yamaha having a strong presence in the educational market, I would be willing to bet it will never be de-emphasized. So, there would be two reasons to beef up staff view: Lure away Cubase and Pro Tools users, which means the staff view would have to be equal to or better than what they offer if it's that important to the user. The other would be because it was very important to Cakewalk's user base, which so far has not proven to be the case.
 
I think the most likely scenario (and in the immortal words of Herman Cain, "I don't have facts to back me up") is that Cakewalk can chip away at any bugs in staff view to bring it up to the level where it's functional for the majority of users. I think there's more concern among users about having a decent, working staff view than "the staff view to end all staff views." Those who want engraving quality notation can use something like Finale. (Cakewalk added MusicXML export specifically so that even if people didn't compose with staff view, they could bring the files into notation programs.)
 
The new model will likely facilitate this approach because they can deal with it a piece at a time instead of making a big deal of "ALL NEW STAFF VIEW!!" in a future "big update."

Just a quick comment about VocalSync. When I was testing it, I filed numerous complaints about how much it sucked and that Cakewalk should not release it because it wasn't ready for prime time. That's because I kept thinking that if I turned it up all the way, the sync would be tighter and if I turned it down all the way, it would be looser. Logical, right?
 
Well, I found out that the "sweet spot" depends entirely on what you're trying to sync. The tightest sync might be fully counterclockwise or clockwise or somewhere in the middle. It's a combination of moving and stretching that also must be rendered (like AudioSnap) to go out of preview mode and have decent audio. Also results depend on the clip length. It's not intuitive, but once you realize that, at least there's only one control to be non-intuitive  

3 bugs were fixed here:
https://www.cakewalk.com/...13331/SONAR-X3c-Update

Alex,
Thanks for the memory jog. I remember that list.
Not sure these fixes would have to be in the core code (proprietary part) though.
All three seem to be entry/display fixes...who knows.
We will never know anything about this for sure until Cake confirms it.
I am just hopeful about the musicXML route.

microapp
I agree with your point about printed scores. This I think is important for very few Sonar users.

~35 by my (semi) Scientific Study 

http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3151842