Beepster...oh my God!!
You should have X3 free just for the lenght of your post!!!!!  

Ha. Yeah, that was a bit of a diatribe but I was doing my morning ice/heat the bad back routine so it kept me occupied. ;-p
 
BTW... when I was first scouting out X1 I saw a TON of threads like this one where people were freaking out. It was concerning. Then I dug a little deeper and all those threads were pre X1d. All the threads after were relatively happy people. Maybe the same thing will happen this time. Cheers.

Nice post, Beeps.  I may not agree with everything you wrote, but the overall point and (more important) the manner in which you stated it makes it a +1 in my book.
 

Thanks, Steve. I'm not really angry or anything as I am pretty happy with the program. Just think it could be a little healthier.
 
I also forgot to mention Roland/Cake should REALLY stay on top of their hardware drivers. I feel bad for the guys who dropped a small fortune on those devices only to have them screw up on the next release. Not that I can afford Roland gear anyway but if I could I would be very hesitant due to some of the problems I've seen brought up here. That's a lot of freaking money to be dropping. :-/

Beep, when I press the character G on my keyboard I can go to anywhere in my timeline I want. (yes I'm reading your whole post).

gswitz
Beep, when I press the character G on my keyboard I can go to anywhere in my timeline I want. (yes I'm reading your whole post).

Yup. The problem the OP (Bob) was having though was that the Go To dialog didn't have the correct time format he needed so he couldn't use it to get the exact point in time he wanted. If we could just enter the value directly in the Transport Module the Go To dialog would be obsolete and could be removed. I always found that kind of a weird way to do things anyway. That was however just an example of something simple that could be made a little more intuitive. Cheers.
 
Edit: And I think the reason I thought that could be done was because of Nuendo (maybe... it's been a long time). Here's another example of something simple but ever so useful that Nuendo did. That version didn't have layers or lanes or anything so all your takes got piled on top of each other in the track. What you did was you right clicked on the track and a list of all the clips would pop up. Then you just chose one of the tracks and it would go to the top of the pile and mute whatever was underneath it (unless you forced it not to). It made comping and auditioning in a single "lane" pretty easy.
 
Okay... that's not really a good example of what I meant by make existing features more intuitive but it would help a lot I think. Once I've figured out which takes I want to use I think I'd find it a little easier to edit them in the parent track. It certainly saves screenspace. As it is I have to delete takes I may want access to later to achieve the same thing.

Hi Beepster...
 
As always, you show solid, thoughtful responses... I agree with so much of what you say... So I will do my best to avoid a lot of repetition.
 
All of the DAWs have their issues and I'm not interested in competition tho I understand how companies do... Vying for the business...
Whichever I chose I will run into ti's issues sooner or later. Honestly X2a runs fairly well here. My "regular" crashes only seem to happen when changing songs so nothing is hurt... what few other crashes I recall were tied to old plugins...
I'm just a musician who wants to make music with everyone, not against them... ;-) I have a few others and I have run a number more when necessary... I can usually get around in any tho obviously I'm faster in my primary... My issue is how can I work the most expediently for the way I think and Sonar now has me dancing around far too much... It's as solid as the next DAW or better and that's always installation-dependent when using "common" hardware... this was Digi's biggest lead for a long time. they only developed for a very specific hardware setup.... But that just isn't practical in the modern market...
 
I still feel that X should have been a new product while Sonar continued to be improved and updated! ;-) I would have loved 8.5.3 to become 9 with ProChannel and more shortcuts available... The change in UI warranted this in my opinion as it's not what we all want/need... But I also understand the extra cost that is for them to support two lines of code, so once again my belief is that everything should be optional and a user selected toggle... New UI? Select it as your default or make the installation modular... Yes it's still more work for the coders, but this is a flagship, "pro" product and dealing with professionals means catering to their needs...
 
I'll bet more development of Project5 would have fit right into the EDM market as well or better...
 
Right now the more immediate issue for me is the lack of communication between Cake and it's Users... I think they are losing touch and the surveys make this more evident to me... If they don't know those answers from the postings here, I wonder why they haven't been "listening"?
 
My battles with displaying the info I want/need is most exasperating and an "always in my face" issue. It takes more of my time than all my actual work put together (it seems) ;-)
 
BTW  ;-) Thanks for the note...  Here's hoping our voices reach them and urge some changes to happen!
 
Keni
 

Keni
Right now the more immediate issue for me is the lack of communication between Cake and it's Users... 

Exactly, I think that this is some kind of a silly marketing strategy to creating the Wow effect. 

djjhart@aol.com
I been with CW since version 2.2 and I too have just ordered cubase 7 , never thought I would leave CW

I too, never thought so, but there's no boat anchor tied to my DAW commitments, so I have moved forward by acquiring another, [Q7], and will give it every chance & opportunity to prove worthwhile, just as I gave Sonar for the last 5 years & Studio One for the last 3.  

Studious
...I'm just shocked that they can watch all this without saying a word...
 
Regardless of restructuring and what's cooking in private, the secrecy and communication blackout surrounding a simple update is not acceptable to me.  The Cakewalk staff we know seem like good people, but whoever is directing them is severely out of touch!  It's not the product that's pushing customers away; it's the company.

Yes, it's like the current director is a 'staunch sports coach' that yells at his players on the bench, who's only goal is to go out there & do their best - and yet they get benched, and told to keep silent until told otherwise.
 
Sometimes the 'new coach', may have seemed the right way to go, but in essence, couldn't have been a bigger mistake of choice, and the decision needs to be reviewed, reversed and the coach quickly replaced because not only are the players depleted & demoralized, but the whole fan base now knows that something's very wrong! They can sense it, smell it & taste it. 
 
+1 Studious

 
If, as has been suggested, Cakewalk's staff are somehow contractually unable to respond to our comments (or even acknowledge them), maybe a direct plea to their Roland overlords might be worth a try?
 
I'm certain that between us, we could compile a legible and coherent email (or better, a letter) asking for a return at worst to the input and concern we used to get from Cakewalk staff, and at best some sort of mission statement from on high to reassure us that all is well.