I remember the worries at the time.  I think that I am.  X2 has been a quantum leap.  Hard to know whether Roland drove that.  Still at least Roland is a company dedicated to music making.  Unlike Logic users who are at the mercy of a consumer electronics company that puts out an update every 3-4 years.

Mostly, I agree. I wonder though if things like being 'locked into' using V-Vocal, the speed of updates for VS-700 might be negatives that may have happened differently in a sans-Roland universe.  As an example, maybe without the Roland connection, Melodyne might have been integrated into SONAR a la Studio One. 
I do love X2 though, and I am very pleased with how things have turned out. 

I'm sure X2 would have happened with or without Roland. It just might not have included R-Mix. Meanwhile "V-Vocal by Roland" remains abandonware, which I really didn't expect. We might have hoped that Roland's financial and marketing muscle would have been lent to Cakewalk, but I see little evidence of that. Cakewalk has a smaller booth now at NAMM, and is presented as just one of many Roland products with the same booth space Roland gives to their accordions, organs and stompboxes.

Roland has always been big on collaboration over mentoring. Most of their acquisitions have remained separate entities, to succeed or fail on their own. I think the CW folks will tell you that there was never a big meeting where Roland execs sat them down and said "this is how we do things at Roland, and by the way here's your new boss straight from Japan, whose expertise is acoustical guitars".

Credit and criticism should go to those same folks in Boston who've been giving it their all for so many years. Credit should also be given to Roland for keeping their hands off and letting Cakewalk do what it knows how to do.

So to answer the thread's question, IMO it's a (somewhat qualified) "yes".

Just my opinion, but I think X2 is the best DAW that CW has produced to date.  The mixing tools and Prochannel and workflow enhancements have made my life easier.  In regard to Melodyne in Studio One; that version is Melodyne Essential, which is less powerful than V-Vocal, imo, so that's a moot point.  Not that there's no bugs in X2, but CW usually handles most issues well.  Long before CW, I owned a number of Roland products, some which have become classics over the years.  So, no worries here.

Of all the companies to invest in Cakewalk, we could have done a lot worse than Roland.

Any time you take away from software, especially abilities/features that have been a staple of the software for many years, it's not a good thing. I really can't see Cakewalk doing this on their own.

Anytime you are locked in to a proprietary (Pro Channel) situation, it's not good. I can't choose to not install, or uninstall this VST product, that's bad.

The inability to customize the tool bar is a massive step backwards.

Lack of visual customization ... real bad. It was a total disregard for people with vision problems. For that 'feel good' reason alone you would think they would put at least a little effort in to fixing that? It's been there for many many years, why take it away? I gave an explanation of my thoughts on this based my experience with companies based where Roland is and the admin deleted my post ... so I'll keep my thoughts to myself on it as to not ruffle feathers. :)

Screensets are great, but honestly, that's the only new thing in Sonar that I see as an improvement.

This is my honest opinion. If yours is different, and you love the new offerings of X1/2, then that's excellent. Glad you like it.

I don't think Cakewalk made these drastic changes on their own. I think they were at the very least guided by Roland, if not forced. So I'd have to say, no, I'm not happy at all with the direction Cakewalk has gone since Roland bought them.

Again, these are all just opinions and random thoughts. No more or less valid than anyone else's. I'm not stating any of this as fact, just my take on it.

Thanks,

Bub.

I just thank The Lord that Microsoft doesn't own cakewalk like apple owning logic. That way we'd have updates once every four years.

I just thank The Lord that Microsoft doesn't own cakewalk like apple owning logic. That way we'd have updates once every four years.

IMO, it's not about the frequency of updates, but about the quality of the features in place. Sometimes it seems like cakewalk should slow down and perfect thier ideas. Often it seems like they go in a new direction just to get people to upgrade leaving some very basic things not working as good as they should. 

Lynn


Just my opinion, but I think X2 is the best DAW that CW has produced to date.  The mixing tools and Prochannel and workflow enhancements have made my life easier.  In regard to Melodyne in Studio One; that version is Melodyne Essential, which is less powerful than V-Vocal, imo, so that's a moot point.  Not that there's no bugs in X2, but CW usually handles most issues well.  Long before CW, I owned a number of Roland products, some which have become classics over the years.  So, no worries here.

I was speaking about ARA specifically, not just the inclusion of Essential. ARA technology is applicable to all variants of Melodyne - 
Here is info about the sdk - 


http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=ara_sdk

MS code is in sonar, from what I recall ? .. and it's one of the few you can't transfer license for.. which actually is a pity as the majority of others it's possible. I can write more , but this forum software needs fixing and I'm posting on a linux machine. finding that quite ironic, as it's the only forum out of many I have any issue with.