You can add my name to the list. I'm going to have to up my vitamin intake so as to increase the odds of my living long enough to see all this stuff implemented.  Kudos to all who organized this. 

Brendan McEnaney (Damp Sneaker)

UnderTow
That is exactly what Jose did. (In the plural). Those (/we) are the writers of the list.

Oh, I simply meant the typist/poster of it.

You are mistaken. Everyone in that list is a Sonar user.

By "user" I was referring to people who use it a their active DAW.  Tho I suppose that line can blur pretty easily. Just like the line between "frustration" and "basher" that you referred to as well.

This is all reminding me of how Congress works (or doesn't, as is usually the case). That's why quibbles aside my support is still present. I want affordable health DAW.

A "Lord Alge" as a unit of measurement might just be the coolest part of this thread.  Awesome!

Wow! <-- How many times have I used that word in this thread? Anyway, I can't help it. Just added:

David Baer
David Miller
Brendan McEnaney (Damp Sneaker)
Jesse Melcher

Thank you for your support!

All good ideas, jm24. But this one

track templates WITH data: audio and midi

elicited a "huh?" response. I can see possible applications of having some preloaded MIDI, perhaps to initialize some synth parameters. But I can't think of any reason to have audio attached to a track template. What's the scenario you're thinking of?

jm24

I am less sophisticated with my use of Sonar than most of ya'll. So, although I can relate to many of the main ten items, my immediate annoyances are a bit more "basic."

So basic you even confused bitflipper. ;)

 
 Import/Export Projects:  track templates WITH data: audio and midi
 
Been asking for this for a long time: The basic programming is the same as the track templates.
AND: there is no reason to not add the audio and midi data to the track template import/export.
And then to expand it to project import/export.
 
This is so basic to me. It should have been the case when track templates were introduced.

Maybe it wasn't clear but this is partly what I meant by "Import Project Data". The idea originates from Pro Tools' "Import Session Data" command. It allows you to import data from an existing session (a Project in PT speak), an OMF or an AAF file into the current project. You can select which audio/video tracks/auxes to import, with or without playlists (the actual sequence of clips on a track), with or without automation/groups/plugins/etc/etc. It is a very powerful feature.

I like your other suggestions too!

UnderTow

Hey undertow:

Thanks for entering into that bit of dialog onmy last post. I was only offering some food for thought after having read and reread many of the threads lately and was offering a different view than I ahd previously held. thanks for your comments.

I don't have any special insights I just try to reason on what I read and develop ideas and opinions accordingly. I guess in the end we hope that our collective and even individual efforts in this particular area of new features, directions, workflow whatever, are heeded by Cakewalk and we can proudly say that I was part of the group that made that happen. Will we ever really know though?

Cakewalk have publicly declared when SONAR 8 was released that this forum was a feature of the Cakewalk experience so they obviously recognize the worth it adds to their bottom line in that we do collectively provide a pretty good support to our favorite DAW.

BTW when I mentioned 1 million sales I think that figure quoted by Cakewalk was in respect to their total product range and it should read 1 million units sold. Not necessarily SONAR units but Home Studio, the various synths Dim Pro, Rapture, Guitar whatsi etc etc. But then I think you probably knew that anyway.
Thanks for your comments

bitflipper


All good ideas, jm24. But this one

track templates WITH data: audio and midi

elicited a "huh?" response. I can see possible applications of having some preloaded MIDI, perhaps to initialize some synth parameters. But I can't think of any reason to have audio attached to a track template. What's the scenario you're thinking of?

jm24, these are also real great ideas, and like bit I would support all of them.  The track templates WITH audio and midi data "issue" that bitflipper has brought up (and probably many would also think similarly) can be easily resolved by having the option to include or exclude audio and/or midi data when exporting / saving. 
 
Or am I wrong ?

Johannes H


Put me on the list as well.

Excellent, done! Thank you for your support!

Thanks James and Jose! Also everybody else involved in this, I  appreciate the great efforts.

Due to personal family tragedy my mind has not been focused! Again I sincerely apologise for my misunderstanding.

#9. Here we go again... Sonar is a production suite, not a notation suite. If it tries to be the jack of all trades it will be master of none.

What is Cubase then? What is Logic then? What is PT then? What is Digital Performer then? Of the DAWS listed Sonar is the least notation friendly program. Why do you want it to stay as inept as it is in this area?  Why do you want it to be the worst DAW around with notation?

As for the other things on the list I will not use all of them myself but the members here want them and they will not harm you or me if the were to get them. Therefore I support their wishes. Besides we can't know for sure that these ideas wont be useful for us. By showing a unified front CW will take notice. This has been proven in the past. You haven't been here long enough to know that.

About #9, staff notation, we are not 'going anywhere again'.  Yes, this topic has been thoroughly discussed, and Cakewalk acknowledged the weaknesses of the present implementation.  They have stated only that it was not going to be addressed for version 8.5.  The purpose of this 'top ten' list is to ensure that Cakewalk is reminded that this is a feature some of us consider very important.  As for SONAR not becoming a notation suite, I quite agree.  I would be very happy with a minimum functionality, taking the same approach as the other software examples mentioned just above by John.

yevster


Some good points, but it does not make sense to lump them all into one list and SPAM cakewalk with it repeatedly. Unless you want these requests to be collectviely ignored.

That is ridiculous. We will not SPAM Cakewalk let alone repeatedly.

And I don't think these are good features to request in the first place:

That is OK. YMMV.

#1: Huge development cost and even huger testing cost. Room for very many regressions.

The main numbered points are areas of improvements. In each area we have suggested a list of possible improvements. Dismissing a whole area of improvement misses the point and intention of the list.

This is a wish list. Not a demands list. We hope that Cakewalk will be inspired by it and can implement some of the suggestions in the next version of Sonar. By no means do we believe everything will be implemented by next version!

#3: How about even being able to select the right envelope where two envelopes are closer together? Or being able to use a "smooth" curve and specify a default curve so you wouldn't have to change it every time? These are much more frequently encountered problems than those described in the post.

By no means is our list exhaustive. So many things have been suggested by all the forum members over the years. It is impossible to list them all within one document. At least not in the short time in which we wanted to act. The most important thing for us is to convey the message to Cakewalk that we would like them to focus on workflow related improvements.

That said, I believe the Envelope Lanes suggestion would more than take care of your first point. The "smooth" curve suggestion is a good one. So is a default curve (or several default curves). Personally I would prefer bezier curves that can easily be changed.

As for which problem is most frequently encountered depends on everyone's way of working. I don't think it makes much sense to make such statements for all Sonar users.

#4: All for FX chains, but as described, the features do not eliminate the mess of busses necessary to do parallel sends. Without being able to do parallel effects chains on one track (with sidechain support), the feature will be of very limited utility.

FX chains are unrelated to routing. They reside squarely within FX bins. It is another word for an "FX Bin Preset". Very handy!

Your routing point would be covered by a Routing Matrix.

#7. This description still leaves the MIDI functionality in its seemingly eternal stone age. What of routing MIDI to multiple soft synths, or mapping individual notes to multiple outs?

Are you saying that because a feature request doesn't address every single aspect of Sonar it is a bad feature request? That seems  a rather strange way of looking at it.

Your suggestions of having more than one synth attached to a MIDI track is a great one! As for mapping individual notes to multiple outs, I suppose that could be interesting. Anyway, extended MIDI routing is a good idea.

As said, by no means is our list exhaustive!

#8. The freeze metaphor is inherently inefficient as it requires the freezing/unfreezing of an entire SoftSynth. Far more useful would be a "Print" metaphor, where you can select a portion of a synth output track or SIT and have just that portion rendered to WAV.

As Dave Escobar mentions, I think this is more of a semantics debate. I think the Freeze concept in Sonar is already much more extensive than in other DAWs causing it's own complexity. Having a partial track Freeze (and calling it Print) would only make it more complex and IMO will cause problems down the line but this is not the place to discuss that.

I am sure Cakewalk will see your suggestions when they read this thread.

#9. Here we go again... Sonar is a production suite, not a notation suite. If it tries to be the jack of all trades it will be master of none.

That is a matter of opinion. I personally don't use the Staff View but it is an integral part of Sonar. For those that make use of it, it makes a lot of sense to want improvements for it.

So I do NOT want to sign this petition. Don't know why anyone else who doesn't agree with 100% of it would want to. 

I don't know why anyone that wants workflow improvements would NOT sign the letter. There are not two Sonar users that could possibly agree 100% on which 10 feature improvements are the most important let alone a list of several dozen improvements categorised into 10 main areas. That doesn't mean people can't agree on a general area of focus.

The aim of this endeavour is to ask Cakewalk to focus on workflow improvements. Only Cakewalk can decide which parts of Sonar will or will not get improved. The actual list presented here is nearly irrelevant except that it is all about workflow, workflow and workflow.

That said, I fully respect your choice not to sign.

Cheers,

UnderTow

Have you tried using the mute tool?

Steve E


Something I’ve always thought off  (which may just pertain to the way I work - or something I’ve missed that already exits in which case I apologise for my ignorance), but when I’ve many, say, vocal takes to compile into just one, having to constantly mute & unmute the relevant tracks can be really tedious. So I thought wouldn’t it be great, if the
Just a thought. 

Steve,

Look up "comping takes" and "clip muting" in the SONAR help file and you'll find just what you're looking for...

Best,
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/  - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

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