Beepster, like most of the posters on this forum you sound like someone working for Cakewalk's marketing dept. The majority of the issues I've encountered with X1 have little or nothing to do with the system I'm running it on. In theory an Intel I7 based Window7 64 machine should be more than adequate to run X1. I only mentioned hardware issues because they are part of the problems with X1. The main issues as i see them are:
 
 A. the lack of straightforward and obvious functionality enhancements which I believe should have been added to Sonar and haven't. This makes me think that the 'upgrade' was not planned in proper liason with anyone who had done a significant amount of editing work using previous versions of Sonar.
 
and
 
B. Functionality that has been removed during the introduction of the new screen layout which I consider to be significantly inferior to the previous layout. I believe that whilst it was not perfect a lot more though went into the previous interface than Skylight. Skylight looks like it is was built from some kind of interface construction kit hindered by a host of ridiculous limitations... which inevitably have now been transferred to the Sonar product.
 
Ultimately I don't think this can do Cakewalk any good at all.  I think they have shot themselves in the foot with this one. New customers will be not be impressed and old customers... well you know what I think. 
 
I hate it when people try to fix stuff that isn't broken. Improve it - yes - but to throw it away and start from scratch is just mad. The interface on Sonar 5 wasn't perfect but it was much better thought-out than X1.
 

Heh... I can most definitely guarantee I'm not a fanboi nor a Cake rep. I'm a realist. In fact I've only gotten to the point of kicking the tires of this beast of a program (I got the Suite FWIW) and have had already had a few issues which are now getting sorted out. Sure I could have spent another year or two saving up to get the equivalent in Nuendo/Steinberg software and frankly if I had the dough I probably would have done that (I dislike the hardware proprietary aspects of Avid/Pro Tools stuff so... yeah, until someone is paying me $300 an hour they can get bent IMO). I knew it might have a few issues and I came in knowing that. However the overall decision came down to price, functionality and support. All of which I've found are stellar so far in my experience as a new user. I didn't realize you were running on a modern system and if that's the case... well I'm not a tech so I don't know what to say to that but Cake support has been more them helpful for me and the product should work on a properly setup and configured system. The GUI setups and feature issues you describe I cannot attest to because I have never run the older versions so I just don't know. I do see massive potential for this software for my personal applications and hope they just support this current version to a point that I can use it for years to come without worry. But that is yet to be seen. So... IDK, man. It seems you got a beef with Cake and X1 but really there are tons of other platforms out there. If you don't have the dough maybe look into Reaper or something. That's what I was gonna do before I decided I wanted all the extra goodies the X1 Suite offered. Again, new user, not a fanboi... just callin' 'em as I sees 'em. Peace.

Hehe, No worries man. I'm sure you'll be very happy with X1. What bothers me is it's not as well designed as the older Sonar.  Unlike you I don't need half of the features supplied with X1 I just want a clean-cut DAW that is fast and efficient to work with. Unfortunately X1 just doesn't cut it compared with the previous version of Sonar I was using. I'm now looking at switching to Sonar 8.5 instead but now I'm worried that some of the problems that have crept in to X1 were already present in 8.5.  I had a look at Reaper and whilst it looks better in some ways (incredibly similar to Sony Vegas) I don't think it's stable enough yet and I fear its development will  go off on a tangent and it will end up being yet another bloatware package. Incidentally I use Vegas for video and since X1 has failed to impress me I am considering using that as my principal DAW even though it has no midi support.

I'm actually very interested in The Reaper project merely out of it's low footprint and open source aspects. Very punk rock. I however don't really have to time mess around with it and figure with Cake stuff I'm kind of in the middle. Avid being "The Man" and "Reaper" being the gutter punk. The more I poke around at the various features of the Suite I just realize more and more what a powerful tool I bought. It's a little mind blowing really for someone who just did dirty band room tracking. However it is exactly what I need because I can sadly no physically longer play or house drums (and I wasn't that great a drummer to begin with) and as far as I can tell I'll be able to get a decent final product out of it whether for my own publishing or sending off to a mastering house if someone decides to sink a bit of coin into my work. So yeah... haven't really been able to mess with it and unfortunately the meatworld is currently drawing my attention away from my sonic goals at the moment but I'm very optimistic about what my artistic future holds with this current set up. Chin up and frowns down, yo. There's always a solution.

When a poster makes vague pronouncements about functionality being removed from X1 one has to wonder what they are talking about.

I did a thread asking for posters to list features that were removed from X1 shortly after it was released. The reason at that time there were a lot of threads complaining that feature had been removed. What really happened was that only a couple of feature had been removed. One being the Patten Brush. I forget the other.

What these posters were finding was that X1 had changed how to get to a feature. It turned out in very many of the cases that they had not read the manual or used Help to see what or where and how to access those so called missing features.

X1 has all the features that 8.5.3 had plus it adds tons more.

Another problem is that X1 was and is meant to run best on a modern system with either Vista or Windows 7. It prefers to run in 64 bits as well.

What we have seen is that users that have obsolete gear are limited in how well the program will run on their gear. X1 takes advantage of Aero which is not available on XP machines.  It also requires a graphics card that is capable of providing Aero support.

Trashing X1 simply because one has no clue how to use it and expects to get it to run on an obsolete machine and OS with better performance than previous versions did is ridiculous.

Here is the thread that asks about features being removed.

Here is another one on Vista. It also applies to Windows 7.

As users of a very powerful program we need to be informed  about new and advancing technology so that we avoid problems and issues. When a developer offers applications that use this new technology it behooves us to find out what is required for us to get the very best from the products we use.  

Expecting the world to stand still so we can keep using our old systems and than complain when it wont perform as well as we wish is nonsense.

When I moved to 64 bits I knew that some of my gear would be rendered useless. So instead of putting my head into a hole in the ground I started looking for replacements. I read up on what worked and what didn't

Now I have a machine that can handle X1 with ease. I have had no problems with crashing or instability. I have moved from using 32 bit plugins  to 64 bit plugins. The very few I have that remain 32 bit work with no issues under X1 as the host.

Now as to some one posting positive things about X1 being called a fanboy if that is what makes a poster feel better about their situation so be it. It only reflects on them being totally clueless.

@John... will you be my new daddy?

Beepster


Heh... I can most definitely guarantee I'm not a fanboi nor a Cake rep. I'm a realist. In fact I've only gotten to the point of kicking the tires of this beast of a program (I got the Suite FWIW) and have had already had a few issues which are now getting sorted out. Sure I could have spent another year or two saving up to get the equivalent in Nuendo/Steinberg software and frankly if I had the dough I probably would have done that (I dislike the hardware proprietary aspects of Avid/Pro Tools stuff so... yeah, until someone is paying me $300 an hour they can get bent IMO). I knew it might have a few issues and I came in knowing that. However the overall decision came down to price, functionality and support. All of which I've found are stellar so far in my experience as a new user. I didn't realize you were running on a modern system and if that's the case... well I'm not a tech so I don't know what to say to that but Cake support has been more them helpful for me and the product should work on a properly setup and configured system. The GUI setups and feature issues you describe I cannot attest to because I have never run the older versions so I just don't know. I do see massive potential for this software for my personal applications and hope they just support this current version to a point that I can use it for years to come without worry. But that is yet to be seen. So... IDK, man. It seems you got a beef with Cake and X1 but really there are tons of other platforms out there. If you don't have the dough maybe look into Reaper or something. That's what I was gonna do before I decided I wanted all the extra goodies the X1 Suite offered. Again, new user, not a fanboi... just callin' 'em as I sees 'em. Peace.

 
there are some people you can just tell when they join the forum that they
will be around for awhile.
seeing that in you.

A V Man


Hehe, No worries man. I'm sure you'll be very happy with X1. What bothers me is it's not as well designed as the older Sonar.  Unlike you I don't need half of the features supplied with X1 I just want a clean-cut DAW that is fast and efficient to work with. Unfortunately X1 just doesn't cut it compared with the previous version of Sonar I was using. I'm now looking at switching to Sonar 8.5 instead but now I'm worried that some of the problems that have crept in to X1 were already present in 8.5.  I had a look at Reaper and whilst it looks better in some ways (incredibly similar to Sony Vegas) I don't think it's stable enough yet and I fear its development will  go off on a tangent and it will end up being yet another bloatware package. Incidentally I use Vegas for video and since X1 has failed to impress me I am considering using that as my principal DAW even though it has no midi support.

Without wishing to get involved in yet another one of the X1 vs previous version arguments (but I'm probably going to with this statement ) one thing I don't think I could ever call 8.5 is clean-cut.

X1 is clean cut. 8.5 is not. I have a very strong feeling AV Man has actually never used X1.

Good catch FBB. I overlooked that point.

@chuckebaby... it's a perfectly cromulent forum.