sorry, who was it you agreed with?

Whoops

pwalpwal lol.
 
No sweat Joe. I've done that too.

Audioicon

Starise
Maybe it's the language barrier here, but you aren't making any sense now at all.
 
Extra loaded? What do you mean by that comment???? Excuses?? I can maybe see how you think there are excuses. 
I don't see them as such 
 
Reasons are not excuses.

Loaded as in written to solicit a response. You know based on the origination of this Post that the OP is frustrated about the lack of support. So responding without making Cakewalk accountable in some form, even if little, can come across as loaded.

For example: I said in one of my posts that it is not unusual for companies to have bad or no support and the OP experience with CK Support is not isolated to or exclusive to Cakewalk. With that said, I also recommended that Cakewalk have paid support or that they do not make promises or expectations that they cannot keep.

Cakewalk is a company, and sometimes I understand the emotional connection most users have but I have to tell you, I love Yamaha but Yamaha is not my brother or my child, if my $4000 Montage breaks, I am going to not be happy, is that simple.

I am sometimes flabbergasted as to the length people will go to exonerate Cakewalk, no other company gets these breaks.

It's nothing personal, but do not make promise you cannot keep, do not make people feel as though your system is easy when in fact it is not. 

Most of the issues here could be fix by re-working the language on how they advertise products.

In the case that originated this post the user is using Sonar X3. If I understand the post correctly posted by Lance. The user received an acknowledgement and a few suggestions for a fix to the problem. In the first post the user acknowledged receiving good support in the past from Cakewalk. They don't have a history of neglecting their customers. The problem is with console emulation. Lance explained why there was a delay in customer support.
 
Several things about this strike me as unusual. How long should Cake offer free support to someone with 5 year old software?  One of the solutions was to rescan plug ins. Did he do that? In my thinking, the  elimination of that problem should probably start with a complete software update. X3 is no longer supported and is fast becoming a dinosaur.
 
How many larger studios using Sonar would stall a project because they don't have console emulation? I personally would use an equivalent emulation or do without it. In the whole scheme of things console emulation is trivial to the completion of a large project and would not cause a customer to stop using the software.
 
If the user has a recent version of Sonar they can roll back until the problem is corrected. Once again they bypassed obvious solutions to the problem.
 
I agree the console emulation problem should be corrected as fast as possible, yet I haven't ever had this issue, nor have many others. This points to something less obvious as the problem.
 
If Cake advertises instantaneous support I'm unaware of that. Personally I think a paid support plan would leave a bitter taste for most users. 
 
 

Hey Starise- I really need to pop in and correct you.  I am the OP.  You are making a few assumptions here.
 
You say:"We know that support still exists. Alex has said they are looking into this problem which btw probably isn't expedited by a nasty post. " 
 
Not true.  I did not know one way or the other, hence the post.  I made a support request and never heard back from a human being.  After three weeks of not hearing back, and having no other channels or means with which to directly contact Cakewalk and ask if something had changed, I asked the question here of the community.  Legit request for info.  (And by the way, I have now heard from support.  So my request actually did get expedited because of my "nasty post" as you'd like to call it.)
 
Also, somehow you have assumed I am on X3.  I never said that, don't know how you came to that conclusion.  In another thread which I posted in problem reports, asking for help there, I have a detailed account of what I am using.  But I never mentioned it in this thread.  So, sorry, but I have the top of the line, all the bells and whistles (plus lots of extras) and completely up to date (as of yesterday) version of platinum producer.  No need to upgrade/update/rescan.  (Lance's post had a link to an old problem in X3, but that's not what I am using, so any help given there isn't currently applicable, unfortunately).  And yes, I should expect it to be supported if the product website has an option for such, which it currently does.
 
Also, I did not get any acknowledgement (until I posted my "nasty post"), or suggestions about fixing the problem.  I was asked "had I tried....(fill in the blank)" and the answer has always been yes.  So no progress yet on that front.
 
I also agree the console emulation should be fixed.  Problem is, it has happened to me before, maybe three years ago, and that's when Cake acknowledged it was an internal error in the software and gave the 64 bit precision engine/ mono-stereo interleave workaround.  That was several years ago I got that help. This is now a new iteration of pretty much the same behavior.  That's great for you if you've never had it happen, but it's annoying.  It means I have to go back and spend a few wasted hours remixing the project if the only solution is to turn the emulators off.  I was hoping to avoid that, but I guess I have now wasted that and more needing to re-explain myself a few times over.  Oh well.
 
This thread was a legit request for the current status of something that had been a value in the past and now seems inaccessible in a timely manner.  Nothing nasty about wanting to know what the reality of that situation is.  Maybe a little testy and frustrated at being ignored, but not nasty.
 
And the fact that this thread has been viewed 1800+ times in four days tells me I am not alone in feeling that way.

There is a third business model for handling product technical support; third party sales vendors. Online vendors like Guitar Center, Sam Ash, American Musical Supply and Sweetwater sometimes have in house product experts to provide support for the products they sell.  These experts will work to develop back door channels so they can obtain answers beyond their knowledge base.
 
This was explained to me by an online vendor when I asked why they sold Sonar Artist but did not sell Music Creator.  Sonar Artist is a professional grade product which requires professional grade support.  Music Creator was a consumer grade product so professional grade support was not necessary.  Music Creator support was handled by email.
 
Most of the online vendors I've dealt with are proud of the service they provide to their customers.  Most will support any product they sell for as long as the product is in use by the original owner.
 
With this information in mind, when I do upgrade my DAW I will likely purchase it through a music store, not Cakewalk so I will be assured of receiving the level of support I desire.
 
I think it would greatly benefit Cakewalk to consider steps that would drive customers to vendors and minimize direct customer sales.

coolbass

Anderton
I really think paid support beyond 90 days is the answer.
 

• It would discourage people from adding to support's workload for questions they could get answered in seconds by searching the documentation of visiting the forum.
• It wouldn't add to the price of the program. This matters because people who don't need support wouldn't have to subsidize those who do (or think they do).
• Not having free support is no longer considered out of the ordinary.
• The money paid for support could finance a) adding more support people, and b) solving issues that cause support problems. 

This is outrageous.
Let's see: I have problems with an app. I contact support.
It turns out this is a bug or a fault in the authorisation process that shows after 1 year.
I am supposed to pay for a solution?
Talk about turning the world on its head.
Nonsense.

Don't shoot the messenger.

• First, you're complaining about a hypothetical situation that may happen in the future, maybe, and you don't know what Cakewalk's response would be if this happened because...
• Second, companies waive costs all the time when the problem is due to something that's their fault. 
• Third, this has been an established practice with many software companies for years, so the world was already "turned on its head" a long time ago. Search on "single incident support Apple," "single incident support Avid," "single incident support VMware," "single incident support Microsoft," etc. I'd also wanted to recommend "single indecent support Sony Vegas," but Sony has discontinued all support for their older software. 

 
This has been the way support works with enterprise software for years, it's just trickling down from the pro to semipro worlds. As Quora says, "As the business process integrations and change management become material, you'll find in general customers are OK paying for premium support of some sort. In fact, in many cases, they've already budgeted it in." Of course you won't have paid support for your $1.99 iOS internet radio applet, but for mission-critical software where someone's business depends on immediate answers, they increasingly need to pay for it.
 
Take a look at what Adobe has to say about support. Seriously, click on the link (and again, don't shoot the messenger). I'm sure you'll especially love this part of the EULA (and remember, you're paying to agree with these terms - and the "all caps" is them, not me, so don't blame me for shouting):
 

1. All information, software, or other materials provided by Adobe are supplied “AS IS” without warranty of any kind as to their accuracy or completeness. ADOBE DOES NOT GUARANTEE RESULTS OR IDENTIFICATION OR CORRECTION OF PROBLEMS. ADOBE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICES, SOFTWARE, OR OTHER MATERIALS PROVIDED.

 
This is Adobe, a company with $5,850,000,000 revenue in 2016 and 22% year-over-year growth. If Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and most SaaS ("software as a service") companies don't have enough resources to provide unlimited free support, then draw your own conclusions about whether Cakewalk can realistically do so when companies that are multiple orders of magnitude larger cannot.
 
Finally, support costs a company money. That is part of the cost of doing business, and that cost is reflected in the price of the software. Why should I have to pay for people who need support if I don't? I'd rather pay less for the software, and pay for support if needed, than having it built in as a hidden cost that people pay whether they need it or not.

Anderton
 
 Why should I have to pay for people who need support if I don't? I'd rather pay less for the software, and pay for support if needed, than having it built in as a hidden cost that people pay whether they need it or not.

That right there is an excellent point, something I would not have necessarily thought about, and makes a lot of sense. Makes me see paid support in a whole different light.

I think I have to agree with Anderton on that last bit (paid support model) with the one caveat:  if support finds the problem is inherent to the software and not user error, the support charge would be waived for that one instance.  Otherwise, I am happy to pay for support. 
 
When I have had support from Cakewalk in the past, it has been stellar, and it has worked.  I would be happy to pay a little extra to know that level of trouble shooting and problem solving was readily available in a timely manner again.  That is added value to the base product, and I agree, it helps incentivize self-help problem solving. 
 
But we all know there are times when you do the due diligence, you search the web and faq's and the forum, and there's nothing there.  And you need and answer, now.  In those moments I would gladly pay for timely support of the caliber I have received from Cake in the past.

michaelnuzum
I think I have to agree with Anderton on that last bit (paid support model) with the one caveat:  if support finds the problem is inherent to the software and not user error, the support charge would be waived for that one instance.  Otherwise, I am happy to pay for support. 

Waiving charges for warranty work and the like is much more common in this industry than you might think. When I was consulting to Alesis many years ago, their warranty expressly said that repairs would be free within the first 90 days, assuming there wasn't outright abuse of the gear. But the reality was that at that time, they NEVER charged anyone for repairs. 
 
I asked why they didn't mention that more prominently, because it seemed like a real selling point - free warranties for life! The answer was "keeps out the riffraff." They would rather have people think they'd have to pay something, then find out that there was no charge. This was even for things that were clearly the customer's fault.