X2 users: Would you buy X3 if there was no X2b?

Me? I don't think so. I believe it would be very poor etiquette to leave X2a as it is. It's not unusable, but it's very annoying (visual bugs? really?). If this were to happen, at best I would consider upgrading to X3x only after hearing several reports of it being the most stable and bug-free daw of all time. What about the rest of the sonar forum crowd? We have to realistically consider that possibility, by now. It's not like I'd move elsewhere, I could deal with X2a for a few years (mostly out of a great dislike for all the other options), but I'd have issues with supporting a software workstation company with such abysmal level of support, to be quite frank.

I'm definitely not a serial upgrader.  I only upgraded to Sonar 7PE after version 8 had been released, then stayed with the same version for 4½ years.  If v7 had been as buggy as X2a is, I may not have stuck with it for so long.

The way things are for me now I cant see me buying another version of Sonar beyond X2.
Fixes or not I dont see anything positive in the Cakewalk and "me" relationship.
I dont see any response to peoples concerns and legit questions.
What I do see is that a company like Presonus is so engaged with its customer base via its web services, that its patently clear it can be done and done well. Cakewalk has lost that engagement with its users that Im alarmed at the number of talented folks who have left not only this once great forum but Sonar as well. Very sad. I still enjoy participating in the forum but even that is less and less with time.
I dont have any major x2a issues but then I no longer work professionally so dont push it as hard as i uswd to.

Yes

Feel free to chime in anytime Cakewalk..........

I have had a copy of Studio One Artist for version 1 and 2 for a while now.
I have used it as well as Sonar 7, 8, 8.5, X1 Expanded , and X2.
I stayed with Artist so I would be forced to use just what comes with it (no 3rd party vst support) to make music.
Studio One will do the job. I still like the Sonar way to do things. But with that being said, I was so hoping that Sonar would add true wave editing (like Wave Pad, Sound Forge) as part of that core of features, along with in the box mastering, like the tools in Studio One Professional. Sadly I do not think this will happen any time soon. So will I upgrade?  The answer is yes.
But it will not be to another version of Sonar. I will enjoy what I have and watch to see what happens.

Bristol_Jonesey


Almost certainly, unless it was Win 8/touch only.

If that was the case then X2a would be my final DAW

+1.

Same opinion as Mudgel, already using Reaper for most of my work. Cakewalk lost the plot with all the people leaving-side stepped or sacked by Roland.

I'm with mudgel on this one too. Just not feeling the love any more. My next DAW spend will take me out of here I think. A shame but all good things come to an end sooner or later.

mudgel


The way things are for me now I cant see me buying another version of Sonar beyond X2.
Fixes or not I dont see anything positive in the Cakewalk and "me" relationship.
I dont see any response to peoples concerns and legit questions.
What I do see is that a company like Presonus is so engaged with its customer base via its web services, that its patently clear it can be done and done well. Cakewalk has lost that engagement with its users that Im alarmed at the number of talented folks who have left not only this once great forum but Sonar as well. Very sad. I still enjoy participating in the forum but even that is less and less with time.
I dont have any major x2a issues but then I no longer work professionally so dont push it as hard as i uswd to.

You may or not be aware that the mover and shaker that is taking the Presonus message to the streets and who is engaging with, *gasp*, real life performing musicians from all walks of life is a former Cakewalker named Carl Jacobson.

Every time I consider this, and see all the wonderful musicians who are working with Presonus on promotional videos, blogs, live streaming sessions, etc, I wonder what mechanism within the Cakewalk organization prevented someone with great ideas and lots of energy from helping connect Cakewalk with all those wonderful musicians.

I can only guess, but I'm guessing for every one man band film composer, sound designer, or d.j., that there are a 1000 play a day musicians who enjoy recording their stuff in their living room or rehearsal space on occasion.

It's incredible to think that all those musicians and the guys at presonus can sit around and talk about stuff... you see the results every time you launch Studio One and see how well thought out it is.

If I was a Roland manager I'd try to find out how something like that can happen. 

How do you end up losing a bunch of your customers too a upstart that is outpacing you?

Cakewalk just had it's 3rd (maybe 4th) year of year to year declining sales but officially "SONAR X is Cakewalk's most successful DAW... ever".

Cakewalk keeps trying to put stuff on sale and give away a bunch of free stuff while other companies release constant improvements.



It all started when Cakewalk back tracked by adding a Step Sequencer. The Arp kludge that needed an instant update was a bad sign too. I haven't seen a sensible idea executed in 5 years. The thing is, SONAR had such a great head start that it's only after all this time that SONAR 8.5.3. Classic Edition is starting to take a back seat to some of it's competition.

I personally think that Cakewalk should have had the confidence to make small and steady improvements on an already fantastic product. Instead, someone at Cakewalk got a chance to butcher it, dress it up like a pig at a fair, and sell it at half price to a few folks that really enjoyed the experience of paying to be beta testers.

4 years later the speculation has proven true. Cakewalk got distracted and the sales figures reflect the disillusionment realized by many former customers.

The fanboys made it so unpleasant to speak about the circumstances that many folks simply moved on.

Roland's official explanation: 

"sales decreased in the major markets of North America and Europe amid continuously weak individual consumption,"


doesn't jive with what's actually happening in the market. The fact is, companies making stuff that people want to buy are moving right along. The companies that depend on frivolous or disposable income may be hurting. Blaming it on the economy isn't very proactive, effective, or even practical.

I have already payed for PT11. 

Cubase 7 has got the cool tempo mapping features that I though SONAR had so I think I'll be buying that. 

I'm looking forward to the next Studio One upgrade.




Oh BTW, I'd pay for full custom color options... and smaller buttons in SONAR. I'll pay the old $179 too. 

I hope there comes a time when Cakewalk realizes that relying on a *free stuff* and "discount" upgrade mentality is closely related to the results that are being seen on the bottom line.


best regards,
mike

I'd lose a lot of faith in them as a company but I'd upgrade if I saw that a) X3 had significant fixes and b) had an equal or greater amount of cool extras like X2 did (mostly bought it for R-Mix). Otherwise I might start giving Reaper a look. It'd be cheaper than a full Sonar upgrade anyway and I could work in either one based on their strengths and limitations. I was contemplating Cubase for a while but that's far too much money to drop and I hear it has its share of quirks.

Yes.

I like X2...it has many usability improvements over X1. I would never go back to Sonar 8.5. The tutorial on X2 from Groove3 that I got from the Cakewalk Free Content Club a few months ago was very helpful. 

Like others here, it would depend on the added features and cost.

For the most part X2a has been excellent. I'm not as heavy a user as some here, but it does what I need it to do.

yes I would because what I use it for and how I use it proves productive for me.
99 dollars for an upgrade is a small price to pay.
and I do see each version improving. from the x1 - x2.
x2 has some quirks about it but there not show stoppers by any means to me.
I would however like to see some interaction between cake and the forum.

In the end it would depend on the fixes/enhancements in X3 but right now I'm leaning toward no.

Dan