Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]
Hello,
 
One of the things I saw recently caused the entire company to applaud and applaud loudly. I think it's the first time I've seen that at Cakewalk. Usually we're all very focused on what we're doing and to be honest it's hard to impress people who are extremely critical of their own work... so to see people loosen up for a moment with genuinely major smiles on their faces was a breath of fresh air.
 
Thanks for the message by the way. I'm looking forward to interacting with you guys again when we have some announcements.

I've been blown away before from the results of you guys working hard at this. I really look forward to experience whatever arrives.
 
You're a class act Mr. Munnis and thank you for sharing that.
Michael

Ryan,
 
thanks for stopping by.  And yea, it can be hard on these forums.  I have no problem w/ people venting - it is a user forum, so they paid for their slot.  I have no problem w/ the more professional users pointing out actual problems w/ the product, exchanging solutions, work arounds or baying at the Cakewalk moon to fix a bug.  And newbies - well, we've all been there and there is a lot to digest - and help them with.  Helpful solutions are ... helpful.  But I have less patience w/ those that want SONAR to be tailored for their method of work, or the last 100 threads about X3 or why doesn't Ryan hold my hand when their is a question (nothing personal, Ryan).  We all know there are those that want staff view despite the fact that Cakewalk seems disinterested.  I would have prefered P5 to be the next SONAR X, but guess what, Cakewalk didn't follow my suggestion - or those of the other P5 users.  They took the Inspector and a few other tricks and incorporated them into the older code of SONAR.  Foolish, in my view, but guess what - I don't think at this point Cake is going to do that.
 
There are plenty of problems w/ SONAR X2.  Pointing them out and complaining is perfectly fine, but I'd rather have Ryan etc. working on solutions rather than coming here to answer the same old tired questions - or not answering them as the case ususally is.
 
@
 

I must admit, as a long time professional Cakewalk user, a lot of the complaint threads I read on here are downright childish. I have gained a plethora of information here over the years, but the forum continues to harbour more and more chronic whining about the silliest "bugs". Granted, there are a few things that could use refining, but to the point of demanding results? Seriously, Sonar X2a is NOT that bad. I can honestly say that because it has been rock solid for me (despite a few minor gripes, but they in no way affect performance). If you don't like Sonar, switch over to another DAW and be done with it. And trust me, the grass isn't any greener (I also use Pro Tools, Cubase and Logic and they have thier own demons). Perhaps a lot of these so called "bugs" are system specific issues that are non Sonar related? I don't know. But I can also tell you that I've never been sluffed off by a support ticket....the staff has always communicated until an issue is resolved.
 
So to the Cakewalk staff, keep up the good work!! I know the Bakers are hard at work, and improvements will be developed as usual.
 
Sorry, had to get that off my chest

Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]

lawp
Where can we see the list of reported problems pls?

That's not how the system works. These reports often times have sensitive information (personal information from customers). We're not about to expose them to the world. The link to my previous post elaborates on what you're asking. Please take a moment to read my posts before replying. This is what made me suggest you didn't read my post in the other thread as well.
 
In addition, obsessing over the reports is not going to be helpful for yourself or anyone in the end. A lot of the bugs aren't bugs. A lot of the ones that are, are extremely specific to certain conditions.

Ryan,
   Sorry if this is merely a sore subject for you guys, but I think the question, "Where can we see the list of reported problems pls?" should have been worded, "Do you have a list of known bugs?" No personal information, just something like a "Caveat" list or Unresolved list. I know it doesn't necessarily look too "good" sitting there in open air on the website, but having these issues listed with either workarounds, or "in review" etc. could help mitigate the number of support calls you guys could get for the same exact bug. If a user calls in for support with a potential bug, followed by 3 or 4 more users calling in, at some point, you'll determine the issue is more widespread. But even one issue could be justified as a bug. I'm sure you guys have an internal list of known bugs, and ones intended to be fixed. What I think lawp is really looking for is the same thing I am: A list of known bugs/issues to be addressed, so that A) We all don't call in and waste agent minutes to troubleshoot a known issue, or B) We can determine if a potential bug we found isn't already listed but should be reported. Perhaps someone like me *thought* the issue was reported, but the submitted report failed for whatever reason, or, in my case, I couldn't provide enough details to perfectly recreate the issue every time.
 
Only replicated bugs need to be listed, and/or only those that Cakewalk intend to fix. This way, if more people are seeing an issue, but it has been dismissed by Cakewalk as unreproducible, it can be absent from the list, and others who need to report it might be more helpful to do so to help justify further investigation.
 
Does that help any? Having such a list doesn't present a failure, but rather that Cakewalk is proactive in acknowledging such issues, and this shows good intent on the company. It also doesn't give a competitor any information they may be able to find on their own using their own tests. It sounds like a sensitive information fear, but some of the largest companies who stand to lose billions from competition do this. Albeit, this also plays heavily into incremental updates (rather, small patches), but maybe that's something coming in X3, perhaps.
 
Anyway, I'm hoping maybe this has been discussed internally. I believe it would help calm down some of the Forum Fury. Thanks!

Thanks Brian,
 
I touched upon that briefly here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2853144
 
I think the key is doing it the right way, something that is going to take some careful design on if we ever went that route. Trust me, a lot of the reports that come in you'd be frustrated seeing because a lot of them are extremely hard to decipher.
 
I don't think the solution is allowing the public to see "problem reports", but more so allowing the public to know about big issues in an accessible way. This is typically what we use the Knowledge Base for actually. Identifying and reporting issues people need to be aware of. Here's the specific knowledge base for SONAR X2: http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/product.aspx/SONAR-X2 . Personally, I think a searchable, taggable, manageable knowledge base is much more effective than gigantic lists in forums.
 
Another effort that hasn't trickled down to the SONAR user base yet is something we did for Music Creator 6 Touch. Traditionally, the Read Me files have always been offline which means they only contain relevant information at the time of release. With MC6T, I worked with our devs to add a menu function directly into the program. It's Help > View ReadMe File. My copy of MC6T for example, takes me here: http://www.cakewalk.com/support/readme/musiccreator/6.5/readme.aspx?PID=CWMC650&LID=3&Version=6.5
 
The cool thing about this is it allows us to always keep it active if users start reporting issues we think are important to include in the Read Me. This shortcut will make it's way into SONAR as well and we'll keep it updated and relevant. If there's something significant we feel SONAR users need to know about, we'll put it there definitely.
 
There are some other ideas floating around that we might introduce at some point that could be helpful to the community as a whole, but that's a bit further off in the future.

What bothers me is that CW has to deal with those that seem to want to shut down CW. Yet true requests for real improvements have to get sidetracked just to answer the ones that have a nasty agenda. 
 
How much effort is being spent to track down the ones that want to hurt CW? 
 
I must say I am depressed to hear that anyone would PM to advise people to switch DAWs. 
 
We don't need the membership to become actively involved in policing the forum but I think we do need to be a little more on guard. 
 

I think what were seeing more and more of lately is when someone starts a thread "unusable"
im seeing a lot of the same users joining in on those threads and it turns in to a huge pile on.
there some good people who reply to those threads with real concerns, but then there are those same people over and over again.
it wouldn't hurt to just walk away once in a while.
 
there are plenty of yahoo's out there that use other DAW's that come here just to mess around with people here.
try not to get caught up in that.
 
I wish everyone here happiness and joy.

And Ryan and others from CW have stated and re-stated these processes to cretins who keep on posting the same sh#@t all the time. They (Ryan et al) cannot give these people ANY answer they will be content with so I reckon it is better to just let them have at it. The rest of us know who they are so why not simply put them on ignore and when they start to realise they get no attention to these puerile posts ( remind anyone of a certain age group ) they will get bored and go and play in the sandpit instead, which will ultimately benefit us all.
 
I take my hat off to all the staff at CW who must have the patience of the Saints. To Ryan and Brandon and others, please just ignore these people, don't worry, I am sure the rest of us will not think any less of you, you really are on a hiding to nothing by even attempting to try and explain anything to them.
 
I for one appreciate everything you guys write about, whenever you get the time to do so  I don't post a lot here, but I have been using Cakewalk since version 5 (pre-audio days) and it has never let me down - EVER!
 
Dennis

Ryan,
   The Readme direction is definitely a good start. For example, we've seen the crashing issue with Waves plug-ins used with Sonar where Sonar can "see" both 32 and 64-bit plug-ins, but there have been crashes as a result. Waves had the solution that worked for me, and Cakewalk had a suggestion to take as well, but having directions like this in an online Readme would have saved even me extended frustration earlier on. That's more in line of what I mean. A list of re-worded, but articulated bugs that others can see in a Readme is perfect. That's about all I could personally ask for.
 
Thanks!

I agree there's a lot of unproductive negativity and folks going to paranoid extremes about the future of the company, but I will also say that this is the longest I remember waiting for a Sonar update (we had 4 updates at this point relative to the release of X1) and for a number of months there had been next-to-no Cakewalk presence on the forum. I'm grateful that Ryan and others have been stopping by more frequently lately. We got pretty spoiled with Brandon and Seth and I think the absence concerned people - especially after Seth was so abruptly let go. 
 
I can't speak for others, but my own frustration with the present lack of an X2b comes out of my love for the product (I feel like it's almost there), not a disdain for those who create it.