The survey I received was for X2 Producer users.
 
I have been using Cakewalk sequencers/DAWs since ProAudio 9. I went from 9 to Sonar 2, Sonar 5, X1 and now X2. I have been happy with them thus far. I realize the X series had more bugs than the previous series but it was almost a complete re-write.
 
I have had only a couple of X2a crashes that were both caused by 32 bit effects/VSTis. Those are gone now and although there are a couple of minor quirks/annoyances X2a is very stable on my system.

Here's the thing guys...

It doesn't matter how "great" this is for you or "that" for you...

Some people need other things...and that is why they use other programs...
and or "rant" about things...

If you don't, that's great.  If you can get by with just X2, that's awesome...FOR YOU,
just be respectful that some CANNOT.

We need to remember that there are millions and millions of "other" users out there..

The "bad" feeling that the OP gets is from the "silence" about product development.
I agree.  It's VERY bad business.  Cake may consider it the "surprise" factor or 
whatever...but the bottom line is "It's just bad business"

Stinkberg is now active in just about every forum, as they've matured enough to realize
that the competition is getting heated, so the ONLY way to keep the customer apprised
is to BE ACTIVE and COMMUNICATE with the customer.  This gives the "Customer" a sense
of being "important and relevant" to the Company. 

IK is actively participating in the forums...they HAVE TO...to keep their customers apprised
of what's going on.  

Other DAW's are doing likewise..getting the "fixes" out ASAP...not playing games...

When a company goes "MUTE" about the PRODUCT, the customer feels "CUT OFF" and
"SEPARATE" and as if he no longer matters to the company.

Cake has developed the mentality that "The Company" is what's important, not the "CUSTOMER"
And the biggest problem that I've seen and heard is that which has been stated

WE DO WHAT WE WANT, SAY WHAT WE WANT, AND YOU JUST SIT AND WAIT LIKE A GOOD LITTLE
CUSTOMER...


I'm sure there are great things coming from Cake, but to remain silent only heightens "speculation"
about what's going on with the Company.  It gives the Customer the impression that he/she "really doesn't
matter" to the Company any more.  IT'S BAD BUSINESS...just look downstairs and see how many
people are switching to Cubase or Studio One....

Cake has a track record of "doing what they want".  They held out on VST to the LAST POSSIBLE MINUTE..
then FINALLY caved, not because they wanted to but because they couldn't see the forest for the trees....
and NOW, history repeats itself with VST 3....they STILL haven't got on board...and that train left the station
several years ago...

X2 is a really good product.  It has the potential to be a GREAT PRODUCT.  They just have to stop playing
the "Corporate Game" and get on with being there for their customers.  They may currently be "gagged" 
by Roland.  If so, then SHAME ON ROLAND.  They need to "look around" and see what's going on.

There is FAR TOO MUCH COMPETITION out there to play these "Games" and the competition is GETTING
FIERCE.  NOW is NOT the time to "retreat" it's time to "ADVANCE"  Only time will tell...

"WE DO WHAT WE WANT, SAY WHAT WE WANT, AND YOU JUST SIT AND WAIT LIKE A GOOD LITTLE
CUSTOMER..."


I think that's a really unfair representation of Cakewalk's response in this thread just because you didn't get the answer or level of detail you wanted.  Some vendors don't attend their forums at all - it's not as if CW hasn't provided any communication in years.  It's obvious you (and some others here) would like more frequent communication, but some comments in this thread come off as adolescent angst more than customer feedback requesting a company to alter their communication approach.

I don't believe that it is a communication issue per se as much as it is an effective communication issue.

Roland management should be able to spill the beans if an update is coming for X2a. Magaement makes those decisions all the time. I have been part of the software support and testing field for many years. When the peasants get angry, you try to do some damage control which is what Ryan and Andrew were doing yesterday and part of today so far.

IF management would just allow the indians to say if there is gonna be an update or not, that would quench this fire. I believe that SONAR could be a great product. With X2, they took a couple steps back with my workflow. I would like to see some update that may address what I have already reported. For the most part, Twelve Tone was a stand up company. Unfortunately those days and most of those people are gone. Roland rules the roost now and there have been significant changes.
 
If Greg was to come in here and give a pep talk, THAT would be cool. I don't know that he is even part of the goings on anymore. :)
 
I am not angry that I paid for a producct that does not work well with my workflow after the 1st update. I am just a bit irritated.

I actually don't really care if the Bakers are super involved with the forum. They are smart and helpful dudes but to be honest I find the users here to be a little more insightful in regards to problem solving. The only communication I need from the company at this time is whether a patch is coming. If not I have to start learning Reaper so I can do the things I am currently unable to do efficiently in Sonar. I won't be able to afford a paid upgrade this fall (it will only have been a year and I have other stuff to buy) and I don't have the time to figure out what the new bugs are or wait for them to be patched.
 
If there is no patch coming that's fine but I need to know so I can plan my next course of action. Really I think the only thing screwing up X2 for me is editing so if I can edit in something else (even X1 if I have to) then mix in X2 that's what I'll do. I would just rather keep things all in one program if possible.
 
If that makes me a crybaby, well that's just like... your opinion, maaan.

As someone who has 20+ years experience in IT mgmt for a major global company - maybe I have a different expectation and perspective. 
 
I agree communication is a good thing, however there are likely multiple factors contributing to when CW issues communications:
- Maybe they've not yet decided whether to include bug fixes within a new major release, or just issue a stability patch? 
- Maybe there are financial aspects to making such a decision which could be tied to other parts of Roland's revenue streams.
- Maybe there are liability issues as well - e.g. if they comment either way and wind up changing their approach, does that expose them legally?  These are realities within any corporation. 
 
Bottom line - CW has clearly outlined very politely and multiple times that they're not yet ready to comment on the question of issuing another patch for X2 just yet.  It's also clear from above that CW understands people are looking for this information as soon as possible.  I appreciate you don't like that decision, but how you chose to react is up to you.  

OT: I watch my weight and I log it in a spreadsheet incessantly. Any given day I could gain (or loose) as much as 4 pounds (2 kilos) from the previous day. All I care about is at the end of the week, month or year my weight is where it should be overall.
 
It occurs to me that overall I have a pretty good feeling about Cakewalk. They have provided a lot of value for my investment and I sincerely wish them godspeed (dogspeed for you dyslectics) in their quest to deliver a great DAW.
 
Regards,

I think a few of the long time users are amused that people are worried about cakewalk and the fact they aren't holding worried customer's hands.  That Cakewalk won't tell them and their competitors what Cake's next step is.  Because we've seen this all before.  In the golden days of yore Brandon etc. used to be on the forums all the time telling everyone exactly what was in the next update or version, kernal-like. 
 
It never happened.  Cake has never gotten specific about timelines other than soon.  They have never revealed what X2b/3 was like, or what was in SONAR 5.  Never will.  brandon and Seth were great and did spend time on the forum at TIMEs.  Most of the time they didn't, having a day job.  And we never found out what was coming until it got here, all wrapped up like a Christmas tree.  I suppose they have a timeline for releases, and I suppose these change w/ the Beta testing.  That is why they don't release timelines or prospecti, because they don't know.
 
For the record, I would like an update of X2.  It is glitchy, esp. w/ some of my 32 bit effects.  But then, iLok just released a complete redo and it is screwing up my softube bundle.  Much worse than most of Cake's sins.  X2 is a little glitchy, but nothing that stops me from working.  I just have to come up w/ clever work arounds and make sure to Save.
 
But I ain't worried about them and some secret plan to drain your bank accounts w/ faulty products.  They just spent money w/ Overloud to bring out a new PC effect rack.  Doesn't sound like Roland (who has been around longer than many on this forum) plans to dump Cakewalk
 
So chill dudes.  Make your views known here on the forum - just realize Cake doesn't use this forum for market research or tech support.  They do stop by in their free time to see what us users are saying, but it is usually as users themselves.
 
@

trimph1
One thing..are the bakers busy porting X2 to Macs now?

It already runs on a Mac so why "waste" time?

I run X2a on a MacPro under boot camp and it's very solid and fast!

I don't use the Mac OS (lion) itself as I don't actually like working that OS... But I get the powerful dual-quad processors and lots of RAM....

If you really need to run MacOS, I'm told that Sonar runs fine under Parallels so you can run Sonar while in the Mac OS...

Keni

The Cakewalk folks are in a no-win situation.
 
When they release something too soon, and it has bugs, folks here in the forum bash them incessantly over that.
 
If they instead take the time to either add complex new functionality, OR they take time to do more testing to reduce the insertion of additional bugs, then folks in the forum freak out and bash them incessantly over that.
 
It's almost like they are in the position of being referees, in that they are GUARANTEED that a whole bunch of folks are going to be dissatisfied with any call they make.
 
And, has been pointed out before, for a GOOD many years, this cycle has been repeating itself, so wise up folks, it is likely how it will remain.  They are OBVIOUSLY deep in the middle of whatever they are working on, and whenever they feel like they have the set of things that will make their internal deadlines, as well as honoring any partnership contractual timelines and restrictions, at THAT point they will have the collection of items that will constitute the next release of their software.
 
They have clearly pointed out an awareness of everybody's feelings on all of this, and they will at the same time do what they do, in THEIR time frame, with THEIR collection of items to be included in the release.
 
So, GET OVER IT, or don't.
 
If the step sequencer feature request I submitted long ago keeps getting bumped because they choose to work on things like Pro Channel, or Take Lanes, or any number of features that affect WAY more folks than me, I support that, because it makes good business sense for them to do that.  Do I still hope that someday that change will filter into a release?  Sure, I do.  But I am quite happy that Pro Channel exists instead of them providing a small alteration to something that is really only an annoyance for me.
 
I want them to fix show stoppers above all else.  I believe they have a pretty good track record of doing just that.  We saw that with the multiple sub-releases for X1, and we saw a quick fix come out to deal with show stoppers when X2 first appeared.
 
A lot of the bugs that are out there are more annoyances than anything, and I am sure that as they have ALWAYS prioritized their work efforts for the past 20 years or so, that they are continuing to address things that they feel affect the most folks beneficially - fixing the things that are MOST annoying or truly are real problems where there are no work arounds.  As I noted before, the X2a release fixed more than 250 bugs, in addition to adding new functionality and cleaning some things up a bit.
 
Lastly, time and time again, in the course of the countless hours I spend trying to help folks to the best of my ability, I see a large percentage of the issues out there from inexperience,  not reading installation instructions, obsolete hardware that is long past when it should have been expected to work with newer operating systems and DAW software - where drivers are years and years old - and yet folks think that it is Cakewalk's fault, or people have issues caused many times by mostly older 32-bit plugins (and some 64-bit ones too, but mostly 32-bit ones) running on 64-bit systems.  I believe that there are lots of folks about there who have X2a installed and working fine with 32-bit plugins ON 32-BIT WINDOWS.
 
I have Native Instruments software that just will NOT run in Windows 8, and may not have run in Windows 7 (can't remember).  I LOVED their Pro-53 software, but it just does NOT work anymore on current OS versions.  If I REALLY needed to hang on to it, I could build a machine that runs XP Pro or Windows 7 (if it still worked there, again cannot remember), and it would work just fine.  Instead, I have chosen to have MY system run 64-bit Windows 8, with 64-bit Sonar X2a, and ONLY 64-bit plugins, with the exception of the MinimogueVA and the ARP2600VA, which I love dearly - and they happen to work just fine.  And guess what?  I NEVER have had a crash with Sonar X2a.
 
Bottom line, there ARE configurations that run crash free, and there are known things that can cause problems.  We have choices that we have made and continue to make, and those choices affect the stability of the systems we are trying to work with.  When things CAN be adjusted or worked around, COOL, make the changes and keep on trucking.  
 
WE make the choices as to how we set things up, and WE have to live with the consequences, both good and bad.  That's life.  THEY will continue to do their best at developing a balance of new features, enhancing existing features, and trying to eliminate bugs in a top-down prioritization, releasing each version of their product when it meets THEIR corporate planning and delivery schedule needs.
 
The end.
 
Bob Bone