I've been surveyed several times. 

I have received surveys, but I do not think that they are particularly valid as a way of judging customer interest. A good survey, like a good political poll, needs to be very carefully designed and randomly sampled to have any validity. The Cakewalk surveys I have seen look more like the kind of thing you get from political parties trying to create a mailing list for contributors, or just tricking you into thinking they are really interested in what you think, so that you will feel an affinity for them. As I recall, most have been triggered by a purchase at the Cakewalk store.

In that context, the interest expressed for various features or fixes in this forum seem to be equally a waste of time. By allowing users to beg or vent here, the marketing department gets to make you feel you are really a part of the Cakewalk process, when you are not. It is like the "like us on FaceBook" or "send us your story" faux participatory manipulation that has become a part of marketing every damn thing in contemporary commerce/culture from selling Kotex to the local TV news program. 

The users of this forum represent a minuscule proportion of actual Cakewalk customers, and respondents to their poorly designed surveys are so biased by self selection as to be useless.

Our time would be better spent on bug confirmation and user-to-user assistance than on these endless futile attempts to influence a company that is immune to our wishes. I believe that Cakewalk does take seriously bug reports that are filed using their report forms, and that multiple identical reports will be given additional weight if not more urgent attention. Whether "feature requests" are equally well considered is another question. But as to whether development decisions are significantly affected by Cakewalk employees combing this forum for advice, I seriously doubt it.

Surveys are typically written in a way to validate the next step the company plans on taking anyway. This is not a complaint, just an observation; Cake is no exception for the 5 or 6 surveys I've been asked to fill out.

A true open ended survey would probably end up in a list that is unattainable (read: less profitable) in the next two or three releases given their available staffing.

Just my opinion as a past VP of Software Development of a VERY LARGE business application that typically sold in the $.5 to $1M range per installation and we had over 40 customers and counting when I left the company.

Customers will always want waaaaaay more than the company can do (in a resonable period of time while trying to stay ahead of the features curve in the marketplace.

Again all subjective experiential opinions by me which are to be taken (or not) with a grain of salt.
 

I've never gotten a survey, but then I seldom get Cake emails.

My wish list isn't that big.  First, go back and work out the kinks.  Funny little things happen between/within projects that aren't so funny.  Yesterday it was buses skipping to different outputs.  I've had that happen a few times.  It usually takes some time to notice that something sounds different, and I've learned to go back and check the routings.  Of course, I've upgraded to a new computer and 64 bits, so some of that may be the cause.  Another reason not to upgrade to win 8 and a touchscreen until those have been out for a while (and I replentish my bank account).

A roland space echo for the Pro Channel.

A new synth to replace most of their older ones.  I love Rapture and DimPro and Z3ta, but something that takes the best of those and raps it up in a nice performance package.  Oh, and Beatscape.  That should be cool w/ touchscreens.  wire in the supersynth, loops or samples and touch and go w/ it.

Finally, a less dark overall color.  Sometimes it is hard to read the screen.

And one more thing - a better file system.  More control over where stuff goes, but easier, too.  The little ... buttons are so 2000.

@

AT


I've never gotten a survey, but then I seldom get Cake emails.

Daveny5 would probably accuse you of having a cracked version of SONAR.

CakeAlexS


LOL. Like their IT infrastructure will handle it.

Somehow I find this funny. I also work as a Network Engineer for a mass-email (ethical-only) marketing firm that sends millions of emails and surveys daily. So, I get to see these metrics. I wonder if Cakewalk uses their own internal IT staff for mailings and surveys, or do they out-source to companies like us.

I love Sonar because it is the best cracked version around.  None of that Fruity Loops for free for me.
;-)

note:  the above user doesn't use cracked software - he has enough problems w/ the legitimate kind.  Neither does he endorse the use of pirate software, matey.

Brings up a good point: Would you use Sonar X2 immediately for Free (as-is, with no future updates or fixes), or would you consider paying an extra $200 if they had a version that was "guaranteed" stable within a list of validated hardware. For example, if you bought only the hardware (or combination of) in a list that Cakewalk validated (even if the list were relatively small), and still had issues, Cakewalk would expedite testing your scenario to quickly find the solution, and place priority of those "fixes" in the next version of Sonar. They would give you patches that you can test as well.  

Personally, I'd pay extra for that. Free, or even cracked software gives me the willies. I don't support that, and it causes companies like Cakewalk to streamline, hurting the rest of us.

brconflict


Brings up a good point: Would you use Sonar X2 immediately for Free (as-is, with no future updates or fixes), or would you consider paying an extra $200 if they had a version that was "guaranteed" stable within a list of validated hardware. For example, if you bought only the hardware (or combination of) in a list that Cakewalk validated (even if the list were relatively small), and still had issues, Cakewalk would expedite testing your scenario to quickly find the solution, and place priority of those "fixes" in the next version of Sonar. They would give you patches that you can test as well.  

Personally, I'd pay extra for that. Free, or even cracked software gives me the willies. I don't support that, and it causes companies like Cakewalk to streamline, hurting the rest of us.

a possible solution would be re-brand 8.5.3 as Sonar "Classic" for the enthusiast and sell X1 and X2  to the pro`s who need the full audio/video production suite.
that`s the model the auto industry use to good effect and could work here.
cheers

Beepster offered the best suggestion: offer some token gift for filling out the survey and limit participation to registered users. 

People will go to great lengths to get something for free - just look at the ongoing Plug & Mix debacle. Just don't make it a prize drawing (fill out the survey and maybe win something). Too many users won't bother.

I've been involved in customer surveys in the past. Not in my own company, of course  - I sleep better believing every customer is deliriously happy with my software. But my previous place of employment was a large Fortune 500 company that was very fond of surveys and maintained a full-time staff to administer them. Problem was, nobody paid much attention to the results unless they bolstered already-held beliefs. Customers who insisted you were doing everything wrong were written off as crackpots.

Not that we have any crackpots among this user community.

Survey questions I'd like to see answered and aggregated (but won't ever be):
    - are you still a SONAR user? (what % of registered users are still users)
    - how long have you been a SONAR user? (sales increasing, decreasing or steady)
    - what version of SONAR are you currently using? (who's not upgrading)
    - what was the best SONAR version? (not everybody will say "X2")
    - what features do you never use? (how many care about the Matrix View)
    - do you use MIDI a) exclusively, b) often, c) sometimes, or d) never?


Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many people are still using SONAR 4 and are perfectly happy with it? Cakewalk should want to know, too, and try to figure out what it would take to get those folks back onboard the upgrade train.