Quoting Blogman: "8.53 may look like a toy but I'm constantly having to use it to do the functions that haven't worked or have been broken in X1. 1. Drag midi effect from clip to bin, or clip to clip. Fatal Crash 2. Can't Fastbounce melodyne or Antares to clip as of X1D (Mel doesn't process at all fastbounce since X1D, Antares doesn't bounce properly. 3. Frozen tracks becoming un-freezable, and non-frozen tracks showing as frozen. 4. +99.9db on tracks when audio snap is on, clips follow project tempo (stretch), online set to groove clip, Change the tempo and then click around the timeline. Horrible distorting sound. (reproducible by cake) 5. Audio snap not displaying the correct snap markers and threshold slider not functioning/swallowing cursor till sonar closed. (Having to audio snap in 8.53) 6. Pro-channel not working as expected. (on but not ON). Not remembering state on frozen tracks. 7. Export audio adds audio left in buffers to front of bounce unless play tails after stopping is checked. (best to clear buffers in a silent spot. These are but a few of the X1Ds troubles. More fatal crashes since X1D. Customer support working on these issues. X1 looks more Pro, but 8.53 acts more Pro. X1 is STILL not ready for primetime, atleast not in REAL world recording where you use those features that no one else's DAW can do to give you the edge. Edge lost. (eg. here, uh, let me just rename this project so I can open it up in the OLD version to do the tuning, time stretching and cool stuff that's been broken in the NEW version)Shame on DAW. Under pressure, X1 cracks like poorly sacked eggs. FIXES PLEASE!!! Thank you bakers, I know you're trying.... try harder." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I agree with Blogman, exactly the same troubles with Sonar X1D for me, and constantly having to go back to 8.53, which actually does mostly work despite the confused GUI. Also add to this the problems with Jbridge crashing with Sonar X1 64 bit in Windows 7 64 bit and X1 is pretty much a dead duck for me. Plus add to this the unfixed 8.5.3 problem of sonar intermittently crashing when doing a file cleaning operation, and I say intermittently because it might crash 15% of the time when it's still searching through the system drive for files. I've decided to move on and use another much more reliable DAW for my main work, and keep Sonar there for the mean time to see if X2 is any better. What I'd like from Cakewalk / Roland is: 1. to fix the problems outlined by Blogman and myself 2. to bring back the 8.5.3 clip automation menu using right click not the cumbersome system used in X1 3. To introduce automation lanes!! this feature is really essential for reliable editing. 4. To improve the GUI so it doesn't look so bulky with it's huge buttons etc, all things outlined before in various posts. Colour would be nice, in fact essential, as it looks pretty dull at the moment. 5. To make the video function more reliably with different video formats, which it doesn't do well at present, and with dual monitors the video tends to flip upside down in the video window as you move it around, which makes Sonar unusable for any serious work involving writing music for videos or films. The little things I've detailed above are essential before I'd even consider using Sonar again as a serious work tool. All the extra bells and whistles are eye candy and mostly not important, so listen up cakewalk, please fix the broken stuff and don't add lots of new stuff and I'll be happy using Sonar again. And people wonder why professionals generally use Logic or Pro tools, well the reason is that those DAWS (and I use these now) generally do what they're supposed to do without all the daft bugs that seem to plague Sonar. But all said and done Sonar is actually a great environment to work in, and damned easy to use, much more so than most other DAWS so it would be a killer app if it was actually reliable to use. Hope you take this on board folks at Cakewalk, because you could really make Sonar destroy the competition if you tried. Cheers