bladetragic
I seriously have to wonder if anyone saying Take Lanes is rock solid is actually thoroughly using it.  And I'm not talking about workarounds.  The fact that one of the reps has stated that Take Lanes has gone through a massive overhaul in X3 tells you that it is definitely not rock solid in X2 or X2a.

FWIW, I beat the crap out of take lanes when doing narration and vocals. The only real problem I've found is that sometimes (but weirdly, not all the time) V-Vocal crashes if I try to apply it to individual clips within Take Lanes. It's entirely possible that my particular workflow doesn't intersect with areas where instability could occur, but then again, it's a workflow that uses take lanes/comping to get the job done, so I haven't felt any need to try something else.
 
I don't speak for Cakewalk, but I assume the "massive overhaul" relates to the new Speed Comping feature, which was not possible with the previous implementation of take lanes.
 
 

cclarry

robert_e_bone
I have commented before as well - I think that X2a has been extremely stable for me, and for a lot of folks.
 
I keep reading posts that issue blanket statements about the bugginess of X2a, and of its instability, but when you look back through it all, and I have participated in a whole bunch of assisting folks with specific problems, these blanket statements are just not true.
 
There ARE no global show-stopper crashes going on with X2a, and while some population of folks have individual issues, another population keeps indicating that they are quite happy with the stability in X2a, and with what they feel have been workflow and feature improvements.  And to the best of my recollection, not a single one of the issues I have participated in resolving have ended being caused by X2a - but rather by either operator error, plugin problems (mostly 32-bit third-party running in x64 X2a), and interface driver problems (sometimes settings, sometimes drivers).
 
There are folks who think X2a walks on water, and those who think X2a is a dismal failure.  Excluding the fringes on both sides of it, X2a has some annoyances, but has in fact been globally quite stable, and for those with repeated crashes, as I indicated above, that has without little or no exception (again to the best of my knowledge), has not been from X2a itself failing.  There are even workarounds for most of the things that are annoyances.
 
I look forward to evaluating X3, whenever it shows up - seemingly getting close now, and it the base product is as stable for me as X2a has been, I will cheerfully explore whatever new features it includes, and following my evaluation I will either choose to upgrade or I will choose to cheerfully continue to use X2a.
 
Bob Bone
 

Now THIS is a LOGICAL conclusion....thanx Bob...I agree...

I'm going to take the "evaluate" and wait process this time...see how it goes..and 
then make a decision...rather then have to be the first on the block to have it...
They just got a hundred bucks from me a year ago...and they want another
$149 now to get fixes for what should have already been fixed....
so I'm going to make sure this thing is stable and viable before jumping
on the band wagon...I've got nothing to lose...and may save $149...so
it only makes sense to me...

I don't think the $149 is for bug fixes, it's for the extra features like Melodyne, Addictive Drums, Nomad plugs, tape emulator, VST3 support, speed comping, etc. I've been really happy with X2a, so initially I wasn't that excited about X3. But the extra features mentioned previously are very appealing. In particular, as a guitarist, the Melodyne angle is really interesting in terms of being able to play melodies on guitar, then convert them into MIDI for driving soft synths. That's pretty cool right there. I guess it would also be cool for singers who want to sing instrument parts...haven't tried that yet.

Anderton

cclarry

robert_e_bone
I have commented before as well - I think that X2a has been extremely stable for me, and for a lot of folks.
 
I keep reading posts that issue blanket statements about the bugginess of X2a, and of its instability, but when you look back through it all, and I have participated in a whole bunch of assisting folks with specific problems, these blanket statements are just not true.
 
There ARE no global show-stopper crashes going on with X2a, and while some population of folks have individual issues, another population keeps indicating that they are quite happy with the stability in X2a, and with what they feel have been workflow and feature improvements.  And to the best of my recollection, not a single one of the issues I have participated in resolving have ended being caused by X2a - but rather by either operator error, plugin problems (mostly 32-bit third-party running in x64 X2a), and interface driver problems (sometimes settings, sometimes drivers).
 
There are folks who think X2a walks on water, and those who think X2a is a dismal failure.  Excluding the fringes on both sides of it, X2a has some annoyances, but has in fact been globally quite stable, and for those with repeated crashes, as I indicated above, that has without little or no exception (again to the best of my knowledge), has not been from X2a itself failing.  There are even workarounds for most of the things that are annoyances.
 
I look forward to evaluating X3, whenever it shows up - seemingly getting close now, and it the base product is as stable for me as X2a has been, I will cheerfully explore whatever new features it includes, and following my evaluation I will either choose to upgrade or I will choose to cheerfully continue to use X2a.
 
Bob Bone
 

Now THIS is a LOGICAL conclusion....thanx Bob...I agree...

I'm going to take the "evaluate" and wait process this time...see how it goes..and 
then make a decision...rather then have to be the first on the block to have it...
They just got a hundred bucks from me a year ago...and they want another
$149 now to get fixes for what should have already been fixed....
so I'm going to make sure this thing is stable and viable before jumping
on the band wagon...I've got nothing to lose...and may save $149...so
it only makes sense to me...

I don't think the $149 is for bug fixes, it's for the extra features like Melodyne, Addictive Drums, Nomad plugs, tape emulator, VST3 support, speed comping, etc. I've been really happy with X2a, so initially I wasn't that excited about X3. But the extra features mentioned previously are very appealing. In particular, as a guitarist, the Melodyne angle is really interesting in terms of being able to play melodies on guitar, then convert them into MIDI for driving soft synths. That's pretty cool right there. I guess it would also be cool for singers who want to sing instrument parts...haven't tried that yet.

 
I'm especially looking forward to this feature although it's a shame that the upgrade to Editor is $299 if you want polyphonic conversion...not sure I could justify that. 

There still is not a basic sampler (and along with it, an easy way to slice to MIDI notes) included with X3.  With all the new plugins added, rather than having yet another reverb, it would have been nice to include this.  Yeah, you can hack something up using Session Drummer 3 and using Audiosnap, but it's quite convoluted, and not as straightforward as the competition, and you also don't have any envelope control.