Anderton
Not to drag this out any further, but here's how it works on the Interwebz. 1. Person A's post is misinterpreted as being out of line.2. Persons B, C, D, and E jump on Person A for being out of line.3. Person A, not realizing what he said could be considered out of line by rational people, gets defensive and attacks persons B, C, D, and E.4. Loop steps 2-3 multiple times. There are only four possible endings. 1. Deterioration into giant flame war. Moderator closes thread.2. Realization by one or more parties that things have gotten out of control. Apologies. Group hug.3. Person A really is a jerk and was not misinterpreted. If same crap continues to happen, person A gets banned eventually4. Sun collapses into a dwarf star. All life on earth ends. Forums become irrelevant. 

Or person A is being an arse.
Person b,c,d,e says he's being an arse because he is being an arse.
Person f says he's not an arse
Person A says he is not an arse
Person b,c, and d get defensive. E reconsiders and realised he is probably an arse as well.
Things get confusing.

World explodes.

Oh for heaven sake please lock the thread before I do something stupid :)

CakeAlexS

kitekrazy

lawp
while I agree that the bang for buck is great for a user who doesn't have many 3rd party plugs already, I think the bundled stuff distracts from the daw itself

 Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner. 

Please let me know what plugin you would like as your prize (actually scratch that all you need is a cassette recorder).

Did you get an idea  to what the poster was referring too? What of there were no 3rd party addons?  Then you have to market the improvements.   Sonar 8.5 to X1, no need for 3rd party stuff and it would still sell.  There comes to a point where advanced users are not interested in 3rd party apps and are more concerned what's under the hood.
  I've come across plenty of people who dropped other DAWs for Reaper only because of it's efficient audio engine or basically do recording where they need little.  The most ignored request in Sonar has been improvement to the staff view.  Now they use Cubase.
  I've bought licenses of Sonar since Sonar 2. They always do something to pull you in. It is not my main DAW but there are other reasons I always upgrade.  They offer great deals to existing users and I also support companies that have the I trust you attitude towards the end user.  From their surveys (always fill those out please) they think it is important too.
 What the OP inquired is not uncommon, he just chose the wrong forum.  If we were concerned about 3rd party addons, that could mean we haven't dug deep enough into an app to know all of it's features.
 
 

CakeAlexS
Oh for heaven sake please lock the thread before I do something stupid :)

See I was right ;)

CakeAlexS
Oh for heaven sake please lock the thread before I do something stupid :)

Try not taking criticisms of software so seriously. You fit the fanboy image to a tee. EastWest forums would be a great place for you. They ban people for such threads as these. The perfect utopia.
 
 I bet 10-1 the OP still spends money on a future license of Sonar.

How can my last comment be taken seriously in any way other than a self derogitary comment? It is unlikely that when I'm slagging myself off in these forums I'm hardly being serious ;) Another reason to lock the thread I should have shut up ages ago...

And huh? All software has bugs what are you talking about ... Sonar has plenty of bugs, and so does windows, drivers and firmware... Er exactly where are you getting this fanboy image or are you just being grumpy?

Oh I've just realised you are person F and I am E.

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

John
I would hope that the Staff View gets an upgrade soon. I think it will add a lot more to the value of the X series. 

I understand. We know this has been requested but there's a lot more involved. We'll discuss it of course.

It's good to hear that it is even being discussed.  

pbognar

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

John
I would hope that the Staff View gets an upgrade soon. I think it will add a lot more to the value of the X series. 

I understand. We know this has been requested but there's a lot more involved. We'll discuss it of course.

It's good to hear that it is even being discussed.  

We are always looking for ways to improve the product. The operative word is discussed though. That doesn't mean we will implement it but obviously this has been brought up a time or two :)
 
Back to the OP's point or concern. We put a lot of work into core workflow, features and stability. ARA and VST3 were huge undertakings and we are continuing to improve these new features. We also spent a lot of time on comping and tried to not just implement it but make it the very best we could. 
 
We also have to look at plugins and synths that are included. In X3, we replaced many of the old plugins with newer ones that are much better. The question of whether to go with third party or do it here is always a trade off. With pitch correction for example, we could look at doing it ourselves at the cost of dev time that could be used on other parts of the program or we could go with the industry leader, Melodyne and add ARA. I think we made a great choice. And Melodyne Essential is not an LE version. It sells for $99. We upgraded our synths and plugins on many levels. While some existing users may not care about some or all of them, I bet a ton of new users and existing users are loving it. If we never updated these plugins and synths, people would be buying products with synths and plugins that are 15-20 years old. Honestly, I feel synths and FX need to evolve as well. We did it with ProChannel. None of that stuff is lite at all...just because we include it in the program. We continue to work on DSP and we try to pick our battles wisely. 
 
And the final note on this issue...the $149 you pay for the upgrades is huge savings compared to what you would pay individually for all the components. Start adding up all the new stuff you'll probably get well past $500. Even if you upgraded for just the new workflow features and one or two of the new plugins, it would still be a bargain. And who knows, in the process you might find a a few new plugins you will really enjoy. I'm bias of course but I really think the upgrade is a great value and that we have much more affordable pricing compared to our competitors. Plus we give away a ton of free stuff and are constantly putting out tips, videos, and other education material to help guide users along :)