I don't think I'll be waiting for a price cut. Gotta give the Melodyne a try.
 
Lots of the stuff looks tasty. I must say the Tape Sim looks appealing. What are fly-away eqs?? just dockable? gotta wonder...
 
Where's our Youtube vid??

Seth, I can't believe you guys haven't implemented VST4. Come on! Get with it! lol
 
Seriously, I want to get X3. 
 
Incidentally, I went through all the new stuff listed on the sweetwater site and checked out demos of each. My favorite being a Melodyne Essential demo on youtube. The song he was using as the demo was pretty good so I bought and downloaded it. Now it would be a shame if I fell $0.99 short of buying the X3 upgrade on the 28th. 
 
The other stuff is pretty cool too. Nothing I need really but then again, I don't need recording software but still, hear I am. :-)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the most consistent of users here do consider the DAW itself Sonar's strong point.  I know user experiences vary, but X1 and X2 were very stable for me and each time I had an issue, it was usually something on my end.  Even gripes I have with Sonar are more preferences than bugs.  I find Sonar to be no more buggy than most DAWs. As far as the synths and effects, some are useful and some not so useful...just like every other D.A.W. It all depends on music genre.  Of course, Cakewalk is going to throw in new plugins, just like every other company does when launching a new version. If they didn't , people would whine that they are falling behind competition on that. Yes, it's fluff, but I suspect some of that fluff will excite some people.  Even though SD3 had it's uses, I suspect many will be more excited about addictive Drums.

Is that tape simulator an all new development or is is built off of the old one?

Sylvan
Is that tape simulator an all new development or is is built off of the old one?

100% new

And yes, I will point out that many of my posts are Negative Nancy on this forum because really the only time I'm here is when I'm having a problem with something or when the company whose products I use is being acquired by a company I despise. Many of us have invested thousands of dollars into Cakewalk and have felt quite left in the dark, especially where the V-Studio is concerned, so understand I'm far more cautious about giving my money away on a whim anymore with blind trust.
 
Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.

I just want to know what's been done with take lanes.  Somewhat disappointed that they didn't go back to layers.  But if take lanes work better in X3, I'm in.  If they are as broken as X2, I'm probably out.
 
Sure, all the extra goodies are nice, but my work-flow took a huge hit with the change to take lanes.

I'm curious about take lanes as well??? Were they improved guys???

I already own XLN Addictive Drums, and don't use VST3 effects. I also happen to be one of the few folks out there who like V-Vocal and get good results with it. I imagine it's no longer in the product (and I very much doubt that the version in X2 "just works" in X3 although that would be cool if it did).
I'll have to wait and see what the "color customizations" really means.
 

Terrasin..i get it.  I'm sure if my experience with Cakewalk was similar to yours I would feel the same way. I guess take a look at demo when it is released and go from there.  Why do you despise Gibson?