Lance- 
 
thanks for the reply.  I must admit, it does feel a bit like you are saying tough luck. 
 
I guess it's because I don't follow quite follow the reason given.  You say you "have been forced to keep our support staff small due to hiring constraints", yet the webpage is currently looking to hire for a marketing position.  How the heck does a company hire more to people to try to sell a product they aren't keeping up with support on?  I am sorry, but if the company has a dime to hire a single person, why is it marketing and not support?  Again, I am not inferring that I hold you responsible for these decisions.  I realize that's the role of some higher up mucky muck.  But in a rhetorical sense I am asking you, how in the world does that make sense?
 
And as I noted above, I just got an email from someone in support.  But that's only because of my many, many complaints and finally using a public shaming to get results.  What about the user above "tnipe" that says they have waited a month with no reply?  When are they going to be helped?
 
Honestly I have the luxury of my recording studio being a small part of my overall business.  But I still have had to force a client to wait three weeks on a project without resolution because of this issue.  I am ready to scrap the mix and redo it from the ground up just to get it out the door.  Serious wasted time.  If I were a full time studio and hadn't heard back from support in a month, like tnipe above, I would already be purchasing Pro Tools or something else by now and never look back.  How can you tell that person the company is looking to hire more marketing folks to make more money, but you have to just keep waiting if something goes wrong because we can't hire more support?  That seems like a greedy corporate move, the exact opposite of the small company feel that drew me to Cakewalk in the first place.

I wonder how high the pro market is on Cakewalks radar, and as you say above Michael, this would not be an acceptable situation for a professional studio. A software product without reliable support is not a product to be counted on. If it's correct that you're hiring new people in marketing, and your support department has been understaffed for what must be a long period of time now, it seems to me like it's not a priority for Cakewalk to have lower response times to support requests.

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I fairness and I should say I am one of the most critical of Cakewalk and companies in general but Support across the board are almost non-existent for most companies and forums have taken over.

You have to live with it. 

 
You are correct this isn't just about Cakewalk. In general, people want to pay the lowest price possible. They don't always consider the practical implications of paying lower prices. For example I avoid the self-checkout machines in grocery stores because I would prefer to see humans employed. But it's a losing battle. Stores that used to have a dozen lanes with checkout people and baggers still have the dozen lanes...handled by maybe one person, or two people when it's really busy. It's probably small comfort to the unemployed checkout people that they're paying a dollar less for groceries.
 
I think the future is no support from manufacturers, but instead, for-profit companies dedicated solely to support. Another possibility is companies turning support into a profit center, and charging for support past the first 90 days. This is becoming more and more common. It discourages frivolous complaints, and pays for additional staffing. 
 
Then again, banks want you to do everything online or at ATMs so they can get rid of tellers. Now pay attention because our menus have changed recently. If you disagree with me, press 1. If you agree, press 2. Para espanol, oprima 3. To access the forum directory, press 4. To speak to a customer representative, press 5. Your estimated wait time is 1 hour, 46 minutes. Have a nice day!
 

From the "Careers" section of the "about us" page......."Cakewalk is growing: we're expanding our existing product line,...".  Clicking on the open positions link, you see a posting for online marketing manager where it states, "In this role, you will develop and implement online marketing strategies to further the Cakewalk brand and meet aggressive sales growth objectives...".
 
So the understaffed due to hiring restrictions just seems a bit odd to me.
 
That means the company claims current growth, while also seeking aggressive future sales growth, while at the same time actively restricting investment in support with hiring constraints?  There is no career posting looking for support help, so it's not a factor of not being able to find the right people.  Which means the company has decided to not give money (which we assume must be coming in due to claimed growth) to hire new people.
 
I am sure the people they have working in support are fantastic people, if they are even remotely like the folks I have have the pleasure of working with in the past.  I don't fault them for being given an unreasonable workload that they are obviously too understaffed to keep up with.  It really is a blemish on the company's previously stellar reputation that they are obviously now prioritizing sales over support.

I have called tech support over the years! and it was great getting to instantly talk to someone who really helped. but the last time I called in like 2014 and the guy sounded...  NO COMMENT! Well I came here that night! and never left even though I was bullied, badgered and even ban & blocked several time that 1st night/ year? lol
many here hate me! but I know more then many of them, lol ;) so I'm here to help if I can! and I still need help sometimes... 
 
This is the best place for Cakewalk tech help! and BTW this help has very little to do with Cakewalk employees. 
Smart move for Cakewalk to find needed self centered people to work for free as tech support. lol
maybe me as well.... Now that my kids are older... :) lol
Really! Just look here and ask! No one cares if Cakewalk has no real tech support anymore. if that is even true!
 
 
 

Anderton- I can't imagine this is a case of paying the lowest price possible.  I have pretty much bought Cakewalk's top of the line offerings, in the biggest package, often with lots of extras and add-ons, going back for a full decade now.  I have sunk a good bit of money in their company.  So not a matter of being a low budget consumer here.
 
I even mentioned above that I would be willing to consider a pay for support model.  But until that day arrives, and Cakewalk claims to still be offering support, I find it offensive when there is no follow through.
 
Also, I have used support only a handful of times in ten years, and not for "how do I plug in my whatever" type problems.  Definitely not one to qualify for the "frivolous complaints" category.
 
If they aren't gonna offer support, if it is the future, as you say, then they need to take the link down!  Don't dangle the potential of assistance that will never come, that's just nonsense.
 
 

michaelnuzum
Anderton- I can't imagine this is a case of paying the lowest price possible.  I have pretty much bought Cakewalk's top of the line offerings, in the biggest package, often with lots of extras and add-ons, going back for a full decade now.  I have sunk a good bit of money in their company.  So not a matter of being a low budget consumer here.

 
I said "in general." It doesn't matter what you pay as an individual, it matters what the marketplace as a whole pays. Before Logic was bought by a company that now has $200,000,000,000 in the bank, it sold for $999. Cubase wasn't far behind, it was 650 pounds sterling in 2007...I guess that was around $999 at that time as well. Yet the cost of developing software has not really gone down due to more complex computers, tighter wages, more types of systems to be tested, higher taxes, etc. The kind of revenue companies used to make allowed for spending more money on things like...support, and marketing people to sell more programs so there's the money to pay support people. 
 
 

I even mentioned above that I would be willing to consider a pay for support model.  But until that day arrives, and Cakewalk claims to still be offering support, I find it offensive when there is no follow through.
 
Also, I have used support only a handful of times in ten years, and not for "how do I plug in my whatever" type problems.  Definitely not one to qualify for the "frivolous complaints" category.

 
Please don't take what I say personally. There is no question companies get frivolous complaints. Even in this forum, some people ask questions that could be solved in under a minute with Google.
 
'

If they aren't gonna offer support, if it is the future, as you say, then they need to take the link down!  Don't dangle the potential of assistance that will never come, that's just nonsense.
 

They are offering support, and a lot of people's problems are being handled. It seems unreasonable that some users would want to shut down support for all users because their particular requests were not handled to their satisfaction.
 
Remember, I am no longer employed by Cakewalk's parent company. No one ever put me up to say things anyway, and they still don't. I look at what happens to the industry as a whole. There are exceptions in terms of support, like Waves (although people complain about them, too) but by and large, I think you would find it instructive to search on [name of software company] bad support customer service 
 
I'm not going to name names, but I just searched on the above. Based on customer comments, the top five highest-grossing music software companies in the world all have horrible customer service and support. Do they? I don't think so. But I do think they probably haven't handled some issues to some people's satisfaction, those people are unhappy, and they make it known that they are. That's fine, but again, shutting down all support because some people aren't happy with it makes no sense to me.

I have been using Cakewalk products as my main professional software since they were called 12 tone systems. I have never once needed to call support. Fwiw, here's my formula for success:)
 
1. I never start from the premise that the software is faulty. The question is always what am I doing wrong, or what on my system could be causing this issue.
2. This one is the most important. I have read the manual! The fact is a huge percentage of all tech support is telling people things they could have figured out if they stopped screaming 'bug' and did a little research.
3. This forum is awesome, and more often than not, some helpful person has had your problem and solved it before you have.
4. I dont sweat small issues that are not show stoppers as I realise that the world does not revolve around me:)
 
The few very rare occasions that the software has been to blame and the issue is critical (I think twice in 25 years), once I had isolated the problem I sent a formula to reproduce to Cakewalk and the issue was fixed in a future update.
 
Problems are frustrating and we all fall prey to the odd cathartic rant. In the history of software though it has never actually solved a problem.

I've been a Cakewalk customer since the early 90s. This isn't a "cathartic rant" as Bruce put it, but I've watched the complaints about support grow consistently over the last few years. Fortunately for me, I've had few problems, and for the most part I've been able to solve them through the forum.
 
That being said.... I've documented two clear bugs in the software, and I've been waiting for two years for even an acknowledgment that the problems exist. TWO YEARS.
 
Neither are show-stoppers in the sense that they will cause projects to crash, but both will bite you on the tuchus if you're not aware of them. One of 'em caused me giant headaches until I figured out what was going on, and now I'm forced to go through a tedious and awkward workaround on a daily basis.
 
I wish I had a positive suggestion...I don't usually chime in just to beat up on someone, but it's got to be said. As a company, Cakewalk really needs to figure out how to address this problem - not just in terms of keeping up with incoming support requests, but also to adequately address long-standing issues that have gotten lost in the pile.

Let me frame it this way: I'm the chief engineer at one of the largest performing arts centers in the world. We recently went through an extensive testing and comparison process to upgrade our house consoles. The original systems were all Avid Profiles. Even though on an operational level, the Avid S6L was my first choice, I ended up recommending Yamaha CL series consoles almost solely because of support issues with Avid. At the end of the day, we bought three CL5s, a CL3, and two CL1s. That's a huge chunk of money Avid lost because of how they handle customer relations and support.
 
As a professional sound monkey, I want to know that if I *do* have a show-stopping problem with a given product, I can get help quickly and effectively. I'm not saying I would dump Sonar because of support issues (I ain't going anywhere...waaaaay too much time invested in the platform, and for the most part it works very well), but this has to be addressed or they'll start losing market share. If I wasn't already deeply invested in Sonar and was looking at the marketplace for a DAW, I can tell you I would be hesitant to go with Sonar simply because of the plethora of complaints about its support.