John T

I never quite have the time to get involved in the whole EA business, but just want to say 1/ thanks to all who do, especially the developers of course, and 2/, this: ... is such a small, subtle, but brilliant improvement. This kind of workflow-focussed stuff is gold.

Honestly can't see anything to worry about myself. Cakewalk staff are replying on the feedback thread for the last version and talking about bug fixes they're working on right now. I'm generally happy for them to take their time. The problem with the monthly pay model towards the end of the Gibson era - I thought anyway - was that it kind of tied them to hustling out a monthly release ready or not, worthwhile or not. Not being tied to that has led to the most consistently stable Cakewalk / Sonar there's ever been, I think. And the new features tend to be more genuinely useful than headline-grabbing, eg: the export overhaul. That's a massive daily improvement to my work process. I'm really glad when they take the time to make sure things are thought through and properly beta tested and all that.

Can confirm I'm getting the same behaviour. The options are there, but they can't be selected. Not greyed out, just not working. I also have Workspace set to none.

I'm pretty sure automation is part of "events" not "properties". So you need to tick the "events" box in the dialog.

I do have virtual memory set to 16gb. I've just never noticed this before. Is it a recent change, or have I somehow missed it all this time?

My performance module is currently showing as seen in the attached image. Thing is, I only have 16GB of RAM installed. Is this a bug, or related to virtual memory in some way?

Yeah, I'd love to see more standard keyboard behaviour in the export window; I'm a "tab & type" guy. Agree with all the above.

New export features are all great. Really well-realised. I have one smallish niggle though. Why doesn't hitting the enter key (when not in an input box) equal clicking "Export"?

Yes, very likely. For one thing, intuitively, it doesn't make sense to do it from inside a project.

Yes. I know it's a fairly fringe use case. But among the things I do is post production on audiobooks, and a project queue for exports would be incredibly life-improving for that. It's not unusual to do a bunch of corrections on a whole book, and then need to export the full thing. And the generally most efficient way to work is one project file per chapter. To be able to queue all that up and walk away would be amazing.

I think it makes sense to leave it there after an export. Now that that's a process that can contain lots of tasks, going away (or just task switching away) while it works is fairly likely.

This is pretty tangential to the actual functionality that's been built this time around, I know. But just throwing this in: What would improve my working life, vastly, on a near-daily basis, would be the ability to queue up multiple projects for export. So a list of projects would load, export with current settings, automatically close, then automatically load the next, and so on. I can see that's outside the scope of current developments, but it seemed like a natural place to float the idea.

Heh, I was literally just about to write a post asking for this. Great news.

This is well worth a look, for anyone who has to deal with this frequently. $49, will check a batch of files and make sure it doesn't convert anything that looks mono but isn't, as Bitflipper refers to above. https://www.soundizers.com/

How dare you. I am 49. 😄

If memory serves, Noel said something recently about Bandlab Assistant being in line for retirement soon-ish, so I expect all of this stuff is being looked at.

I think all the functionality is there; in that sense, it's not limited. But you're right that it could be made more friendly and intuitive. And I know Cakewalk of late are very keen to improve user-friendliness.

Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. If you read it a certain way, it sort of sets you up to think "should I open the folder? Is that a thing that I need to do?" UI and workflow design is full of these kinds of things. Perhaps "update now / update later" is what this box should be asking. Or maybe it should just automatically update after downloading.

My first DAW:

I suppose the assumption is that you'll either open the folder to install from there OR install from in the program. So the pop-up is a fork in the path, not a hub, as it were. "Take a look and then install from in the program" has never occurred to me, but I see what you mean.

New format for this in the latest update is great for me, thanks so much. Really clear and readable, and LSR indication clearly separate from the name is a great addition.

Sort of, sort of not. The thing we've been talking about is the prefix numbers which the new update has added. None of those screen shots feature anything like that.

^ I don't understand this post at all.

Why close it? Anything can be discussed and thrown around constructively as long as anyone wants to if everyone just relaxes a bit. You seem to be saying "I have decided Cakewalk operate in a closed and hostile manner, and they should prove me right by closing down a conversation that I've decided they're not willing to have, despite them being here having it". Honestly, I don't think this stuff is helping anything.

It can never really be precisely defined for this kind of thing, I think. I mean, I think Reaper is really impressive, but I rarely use it unless forced to by work requirements. And that's exactly because every long menu and huge, 20-button pop up box in Reaper makes my eyes glaze over. At the same time, I know there are people who love that degree of reconfigurability. So there's the question-of-taste aspect. On top of that, there's the more objective fact that it is easier to find your feet in an application that demands you make technical decisions you might not have a view on less often, or perhaps never. Garage Band is at the far extreme of this, happily sacrificing flexibility in favour of ease of use. For what it's worth, I think Cakewalk is more and more successful all the time at presenting a friendly default top layer, but having lots of underlying flexibility for advanced users. So I think "staying away from excessive options" is a good aspiration, and one that's been yielding good results. I don't think it should be a dogma, though. But I think they get the balance right most of the time.