kday
X2b will be released. Probably by Namm.
 
There were too many "fixed" bugs from X2a to not be released as a separate maintenance release.
 
CW will probably release X2b after X3, to minimize X2 owners from being discouraged from X2 improvement.  
 
 
 

I'm willing to bet my entire stash of Becan that this will not happen.

To all those that are excited about X3, don't you have a nagging feeling that X3 will get released with some bugs (many of which have existed for years), you'll get a maintenance release called X3A that only fixes some bugs, then have nothing but silence from Cakewalk for a year until X4? X4 of course will include some of those old bugs that Cakewalk has never fixed, along with introducing some new ones.
 
That's what happened with X2, so yeah, I'd temper some of that X3 excitement and keep the above in mind.
 
Meanwhile, for comparison: how many free Cubase updates have come out since 7.0? How many free Studio One updates since 2.0? Don't you think it must be nice owning software you know is going to be supported...
 

Nah, I don't have that feeling.  Looking at CW's history, X2 was an anomoly and not the norm.   So what I really expect is a return to the traditional 3-4 patches per version.  After all, they have returned to (what appears to be) the yearly-ish release cycle.
 
As far as Cubase and Studio One go, I happen to own one of those as well so am already familiar with the updates.   Is it nice?  Sure.   Does it make me think I should jump ship and move to the other DAW because of that alone?  Nope.  You'll have to do better than that.   It's the total package - features, workflow, comfort level, forum, etc - that matters most... at least to me.
 
Edit: I just realized you weren't explictly referring to jumping ship.   So to rephrase, it doesn't make me think I should temper my excitement one bit.  For al of the same reasons listed.

Funkybot
 Meanwhile, for comparison: how many free Cubase updates have come out since 7.0? How many free Studio One updates since 2.0? Don't you think it must be nice owning software you know is going to be supported...
 

pretty much why I feel some users that don't use other things have a blinkered view perhaps. My concern isn't how many staff a company does / doesn't have etc .. if I wanted to know that I'd be in their HR department.
 

Funkybot
X3 will get released with some bugs (many of which have existed for years), you'll get a maintenance release called X3A that only fixes some bugs, then have nothing but silence from Cakewalk for a year until X4? 

Come on, when did that ever happen except that once..?
 
Besides, I'm shooting for X3 manifesting itself as the prophecised bug-free Messiah DAW that must come (again?) sooner or later.

I've got a good feeling about X3. The bakers have seen all the discontent on this forum over the past year, and I'm sure they don't want to hear about it for the NEXT year. And the fact that they had been pretty inactive on the forum before the announcement tells me that they've been working really hard on this to make sure they got it right. I have confidence in them and will be among the first in line to get X3. I can't wait!

I have to say...that from what I read, X3 is packed with some very enticing features and additions. No one wants to spend money, but if my $150 upgrade returns all those features and keeps Cakewalk afloat, that's fine with me.
 
To me, what they need to do for X2 is fix the quirks in the track lanes. I go crazy cutting and pasting in them sometimes. BUt as far as I am concerned, that's all they owe us.
 
 

TheSteven
If you're willing to wait - Melodyne Editor has gone on sale every summer (50% off) for the last couple of years.

Are you talking summer in the North?  That's 9 months away.  I'd probably do something sooner than that.

Funkybot
don't you have a nagging feeling that X3 will get released with some bugs (many of which have existed for years),

Yes, of course.  Every complex piece of software ever created has had bugs at first.  While I agree that X2 has more than an average amount of bugs for what should be a fairly mature product, most of them have reasonable work-arounds.  And the large, large majority of things I see people complaining the loudest about are not bugs.  The take lanes have some real bugs where names get criss-crossed and such, but the people complaining most about that argue that the feature doesn't work the way they would like to work.  That may be a problem, but it isn't a bug.  Lack of VST3 support was not a bug, etc.
 
Cakewalk claims that they have addressed many of the problems reported against X2 as they redesigned big parts of the system at X3.  It makes no sense to me to get hung up on the principle of a discrete X2b patch versus upgrading for a modest price to get those fixes plus a bunch of new capability.
 
And let's not forget the nature of the challenge.  They support the product on several OS versions, a virtually unlimited combination of motherboards and CPUs, lots of different audio interfaces and control surfaces, etc.  And on the software side, they support VSTs from any supplier.  Yes, it SHOULD all work seamlessly, but that is a lot of complexity to deal with, and it isn't surprising that some users have combinations that mess with the program.  It is inherently more complex than a closed system like a word processor or a spreadsheet app.