15 workflow ideas for SONAR
During my daily SONAR usage, I've compiled a list of usability/workflow tweaks that could make the experience even smoother - here goes:
1. Virtual Instruments: Warn before loading a preset which will erase/unload existing sounds loaded - I've lost several multi-setups to this :( This can occur when the preset selector is inadvertently highlighted and you press up- or down arrow, thereby loading another preset without any warning.
2. When selecting a soft synth midi track for 'bounce to track', automatically highlight the corresponding softsynth audio track as well
3. Add an option for automatically disabling the metronome when *recording* an audio track (ie an audio track is armed and you press 'record'). I can't really think of a scenario where the user would like to have the metronome running while recording an audio track.
4. Add a keyboard shortcut to enable/disable the audio engine. Sometimes SONAR does not detect when you navigate away from it, thereby leaving the audio engine running and locked. If there was a shortcut for disabling it, the user could make a habit of always disengaging when navigating away from the SONAR window.
5. Allow a keyboard shortcut for enabling/disabling the 'Use Audio Metronome' option
6. Add a toolbar button for selecting time signature (I've only been able to find this on the Large Transport toolbar - maybe I missed another place to set this?)
7. Track arpeggiator should default to the channel where it's enabled
8. Improve drag and drop from VIs - for instance, dropping midi tracks from Spectrasonics Stylus RMX into SONAR is still a hit-and-miss with regard to where the clip ends up
9. Automatically rebuild layers when the user selects 'show layers' for the first time
10. Allow multiple lasso selections in the piano roll - ie if you want to add more notes to the current selection, allow the user to do another lasso selection
11. After recording, highlight the event that was just created/recorded (as the user would in most cases want to perform further actions on that event)
12. If you have two events on top of each other in the track view - say, a short and a long event - SONAR should allow you to select the one you click. If you click the short event, SONAR seems to sometimes select the longer one for some reason.
13. Allow the user to select how many midi tracks to add when inserting a Virtual Instrument
14. Allow closing of the "Snap-to-Grid" box using the ESC key
15. Add/allow keyboard shortcuts for inserting basic midi events such as pan and volume
post edited by mystp - 2010/06/29 16:24:16