Tom Riggs


I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I downloaded the s1 2 demo and have been playing with it a bit. I think I could get used to its work flow pretty quick and a few things jump out that are nice. Like the separate lanes for the automation. However they do not have a bridge to use the 32 bit vst/i in the 64 bit host. I could buy Jbridge I guess but why. I will play with it some more to see what else it may offer. I have had pretty good luck with stability using Every version before X1 and with the x1c update things seem pretty stable to me. back on topic for this thread: I have not yet updated to x1 expanded. I may but the new stuff will not do a lot for me. As far as the up coming updates go Cake has already stated there will be more unpaid updates to both x1 and x1ex. The fixes they put into the expanded were needed to provide the new functionality IIRC. So no worries it will come. Sorry for the block text I am using Firefox at the moment.

Kreative

ggg


Expanded...  small sum to continue to keep bakers in Starbucks/jolt/other legal stimuli.

Incremental but worth it. 

Studio One? Went to their forum hoping for peace, harmony and creative bliss. NOPE! Same bucolic nonsense we have here. So why spend $400 to dance with a new set of problems.

ggg

No bliss, no peace, no harmony for S1 2 users. The cracks are showing and the landslide is in progress. Its just another DAW that's half baked and not quite ready for prime time. The money comes in to the corporate bank account while the end user waits for the software product to become fully developed. 


Its a shame that a person can't pay for the software incrementally, since so many customers only get the software functionality incrementally.

Funny that this endless madness is mostly found in the audio software world, namely DAWS. My video editing software has never undergone all of this kind of epic dysfunction.

ggg

But I don't spend much time over there and I spend less time here than I used to

+1


One minute on any forum seems to subtract two minutes of creative energy.

Also, as to Expanded... part of the reason I upgraded is a feeling of not wanting to be left behind combined with an almost OCD to have bigger, better, faster, latest, more...  there is seldom any cost benefit, ROI analysis. Probably something most "upgrade cycle" vendors count on.

ggg

CakeAlexS


I'm pretty sure there are more fixes in Expanded for the original code than in X1C even though the official line says not. The code would have had to be morphed pretty much for Expanded (of course). In a way it's quite a legit thing to do as you want your latest build to be as stable as possible in testing, and some of the new features would have required original code to be rewritten and/or fixed....

The mistake in my view was not releasing an X1D at the same time Expanded came out..... it's not the end of the world though as I'm an optimist in that I think Cakewalk will or should learn from this in future... and I would expect this to be rectified in due course.... My disappointment right now is no announcement of the approx time scales of X1D, and it seems the QuickFixes have been abandoned (which maybe a good thing if it gets the major patches out quicker).

It's all very well speculating though.

CakeAlexS


Well here are some hard facts....
 
When X1 was initially released, and there was so much angst and issues being reported, many here (including myself) felt like X1 was not fully tested and that, to some extent, it was more of a "beta" release.
 
There is no such thing as "fully tested" believe me - most people have no idea how much it takes to test esp with all the combinations of hardware/software setup + huge product... unfortunately this goes with the territory... there's only so much time you can spend before a product needs to be released.... sometimes the call is a good judgment and sometimes it is bad - this is the world of software (software testing can be a great unknown). In an ideal world I suspect Cakewalk would have love to have spent double the amount testing but then they would have charged you double. People might say "well automate the tests" but only this can go so far and it takes a lot of time to do.

> However, this is the way CW seems to be doing business these days -- meaning their QA seems to be less important these days (though I'm sure - and expect - they would argue differently).
X1 seems on the whole to be mostly entirely new software (although somebody may correct me). Assuming this is the case it will take ages to iron out all bugs, if not years.... it's like starting again. The situation isn't entirely unexpected. It probably won't be until X2 or even X3 until everybody is happy. NB I'm quite happy as I see the situation as it is, i.e. no gain no pain.
 
>I think an opt-in public beta test approach would be a better approach for smaller releases like "Expanded," but I don't really like being a guinea pig without giving my permission.
 
This is an illusion. This sounds great on paper - but in reality nobody will test, or at least nobody will test extensively.... it takes 100's if not 1000's of man hours to test, and if you add up all the testers nothing is going to approach anywhere near this mark. And the other problem is, most users cannot file extensive bug reports to the developers (i.e. give full and accurate steps to repro and extensive info about their hardware setup).... not being critical, it's just a fact.

I've worked in a QA dept before, I know all about this sort of stuff unfortunately. QA is where you get to see the grim realities of software, the testing just never ends and you can never get things 100% right with complicated software... the best you can get is maybe 93%.... unless you are Microsoft or Apple who have huge funds to throw behind it.
 
In the end your users will end up "beta testing" your final product for these reasons..... it's just the way software works nowadays (software is far too complex). My advice is if stability is key, stick to the previous version always. Otherwise if you find the situation acceptable (like I do) then grin and bare it.
 
Cheers

ba_midi

rbowser


+3. Regular readers of the Forum won't be surprised to know I'm still using 8.5. I can get my work done, still works great - last of the great programs from Cakewalk. X1 sits on my computer like a homely, distant relation that nobody wants to talk with at a family reunion. Something went Very Wrong from day 1 of X1's inception - and the beat she does go on. RB

Gee - I'm starting to feel guilty for having bought into the Expanded now LOL.

Like you - I was very much disappointed and upset with X1 in many ways, mostly that it simply wasn't getting along with my main system at all.

And, as you now probably know -- Expanded seems to have solved most if not all of that.   I actually have now made it my regular Sonar (ie, I no longer am using 8.5.3).  So for me, "Expanding" was a good thing.

I think many will be watching (and waiting unfortunately) to see how Cakewalk handles all this, with regard to "fixes" for the non-Expanded users.

Somerset

Now we have to pay another $79 for a big knob...

dmbaer

ba_midi


I do agree that in this last year Cakewalk does seem a bit off their game, but I suspect they don't think so.

So if their bottom line (for now) is good, they probably just laugh at the comments made on this forum that aren't in the fanboi column.

I don't think anyone not on the inside should assume they know what's in the heads of the CW staff.  These are largely the same people that grew Sonar into the first rate DAW it was before the X1 major misstep.  I personally don't believe they're indifferent to their mistakes or that they hold their customer base in contempt.
 
True, businesses are about profits, but even more critical is not losing money.  It's no secret what a brutal economic environment we've been through in the last few years.  It's got to be especially tough on companies that depend upon discretionary dollars.  I work for a power utility, and that's one of the last things people will choose to do without when short on funds.  Music software is at the other end of that spectrum.  So, yeah, they are probably under a lot of pressure to not loose money (and I'd suspect that their bottom line is far from "good" as you've speculated).  In any case, that doesn't mean they're greedy opportunists.
 
All I'm saying is that we shouldn't assume CW doesn't care about it's bad performance in the last year.  The best of us screw up from time to time.  X1 was a major evolution ... probably too ambitious a one in retrospect.  It'll be interesting to see what happens over the course of the next 18 months. 

dmbaer

So, yeah, they are probably under a lot of pressure to not loose money (and I'd suspect that their bottom line is far from "good" as you've speculated).  In any case, that doesn't mean they're greedy opportunists.
 
All I'm saying is that we shouldn't assume CW doesn't care about it's bad performance in the last year.

rbowser


+3. Regular readers of the Forum won't be surprised to know I'm still using 8.5. I can get my work done, still works great - last of the great programs from Cakewalk. X1 sits on my computer like a homely, distant relation that nobody wants to talk with at a family reunion. Something went Very Wrong from day 1 of X1's inception - and the beat she does go on. RB