Jace, I've always found your posts to contain some of the more rational, intelligent, and well-stated arguments here, while avoiding ad hominems, name-calling, a berating tone, etc. I.e., a breath of fresh air.Jace-BeOS wrote:If you're so tired of my "self-centric" postings, you must be able to answer that first question yourself. As to the second: Is it therefore your opinion that I'm not allowed to participate in this thread because it's all just supposed to be in the past for me? That's not your call to make.flugel45 wrote:Jace, remind us again.... Exactly what version of Sonar was it where you felt you got screwed over, and how many versions/new owners of CW later will it take before you get this particular chip off your shoulder?Jace-BeOS wrote: (The usual paragraphs of Jace-centric ranting).....
Maybe it's people like the Cakewalk CEO that aren't "really using" the product...
Maybe when Cakewalk's behavior turns completely around I will feel no need to be defensive about the group of people I feel I'm still a part of. I read the Cakewalk threads here because they're meaningful to me: I want to see if Cakewalk is improving. So far, it seems they're not. i have opinions beyond the expiration date you want them to have. Tough. For each person that jumps in here to be dismissive of the thousand bugs they feel are immaterial, without having a history of personally experiencing frustrations with the product, I have an opposite opinion to share with them. That's how human beings and social forums work.
I'm not out here crusading to destroy Cakewalk or make you feel responsible for my happiness. Though it would be less irritating if people would curb their "self-centric" commentary for why ALL users should be acting like everything is fine because "I don't have that problem".
If people stopped with that crap, you wouldn't see my crap in response to it.
In that, there's an added complication: I'll speak up in all cases of this kind of dismissive crap in the computing world, whether I'm a customer of the product or not. These excuses and rationalizations are entirely unacceptable in most other industries (though they happen, such as when car flaws kill people, and we see how people react to that). The industry flourishes by enjoying its exception to consumer protection laws (like warranty) and any basic intuitive sensibility (such as "they said it does x so obviously it must, or they wouldn't be allowed to sell it", which those of us experienced in this industry know is not the truth at all). Sensibility has been perverted into a holy crusade of apologetics such as "no software can ever be bug free" and so on.
It's like fighting any other destructive social phenomenon: until people stop promoting an unacceptable policy as being "not an issue", I'll keep arguing against it. You can mute me. I'd be surprised if I'm not on a lot of mute lists already.
My personal experience with Cakewalk as a Sonar customer started around 2000, and ended probably around 2008(?); well, whenever Sonar 7 came out. Sonar 2 XL was my first "real" host, purchased as a graduation from Voyetra Digital Orchestrator, a pure-MIDI platform that could drive the soundfonts on my Soundblaster but had no plug-in support. I loved Sonar and found the workflow to be really easy to get my head around, but found myself completing almost no songs. As I had an overabundance of cash in those days (o tides of fortune!) I bought Cubase almost on a lark to see if it might "click" better. I found it confusing and unintuitive and so shelved it for a few years while I puttered around with Sonar, still finishing very little. Again I decided to try Cubase, but really devoted the time to learn its features and workflow, and this time it "clicked" and I found myself actually making completed songs with it. So I was loving Cubase but still had some unfinished projects in Sonar that I wanted to bring to a closure, and thus I sporadically upgraded Sonar. Sonar 4 was giving me some major issues with the plugin manager not registering all my plugs, the audio engine continually crapping out, and the whole program instantly vaporizing in a puff of bug-smoke with alarming regularity. The (by now) familiar refrain of "it must be your setup" was given (by official support and/or forumites, I forget which), which seemed silly because my computer was made by a major manufacturer with no hardware mods, I was running standard drivers, etc. Further, my music hosts by other manufacturers didn't have these problems. So I swore off Sonar: enough! Then Sonar 7 came along with its promised "gapless audio engine" and I succumbed to the sales pitch; well, guess what: same audio dropouts as before. When a DX plugin was constantly crashing Sonar, the official support response was that it was the plugin maker's fault. Etc. My experience with Sonar at that time was that it was an unstable mess and Cakewalk wasn't taking responsibility for its bugs. That was the last time I upgraded.
So, my points being:
a) The perception of Cakewalk releasing buggy software isn't new
and
b) If something isn't working for you and you've given it a fair shot, try something else.
Nowadays I used mostly Cubase and Live and couldn't be happier with my setup.
Oh, and my impression of the Cakewalk forum is that it was at least somewhat cultish and unprofessional, although I don't mean "unprofessional" in an entirely negative light, as there were several friendly amateurs there willing to help people out with problems. This, again, was from several years back.