APC40 and SONAR X1b

Just thought I would share some thoughts on getting the APC40 working with SONAR X1b.

Two methods, tried the ACT CONTROL SURFACE first.  Can control the Sliders and pan... that's about it.  Tried installing a Cakewalk Generic surface to get the buttons working while having ACT CONTROL SURFACE as well... the two did not play nice together.... deleted and started over.

Insert CAKEWALK GENERIC SURFACE.  Input APC40 - Output APC40.

Learn mode:  The interface for the generic surface is straight forward.  I was able to set 5 parameters.  8 strips... 1 strip at a time.  Slider, 3 buttons, and pan.   I chose, Volume, Mute, Record Arm, Solo, PAN.  Every time I touched a knob or button or slider, I would hit...."LEARN" until I had the tracks programmed.  On the right side of the Generic Surface window towards the bottom, I had three buttons I wanted to program... STOP, RECORD, and PLAY.  I got each of those programmed in. 

During working with a song, my SONAR crashed.  Even though I saved those settings, when the program came back up, the apc40 was "forgotten."

I went through the steps again.  This time I saved the settings and shut down SONAR and restarted sonar.  This time it saved the settings.  I worked on three different songs.... With each song APC40 set itself in place and worked fine. 

What I have not tried....

I did not try to program APC40 to any plugins yet.
I did not try to program cells in MATRIX view.  I still find matrix view buggier in Sonar than in Ableton LIVE...  The loops seem so out of whack... it's probably a setting but no big deal, I'll tinker with ableton till I'm ready to lay tracks.

Quirks - the Record Arm, Mute, and Solo buttons sometimes need to be pushed twice to activate or deactivate.  You cannot go by the lights on the APC40 for those three buttons.  Not really sure how to program the MASTER fader to work.  Tried having my MAUDIO oxygen also set as a control surface... two surfaces just don't seem to play nice together.  I guess sonar only wants people adjusting 8 parameters at any given time.

The best part - A $350 control surface is now working ok with my favorite recording program and that sure beats the devil out $3500 Sonar surface, $1500 Maudio Project Mix or $1000 worth of Mackie surface.  The volumes, pans, STOP, PLAY, and RECORD work just fine on my APC40. 

Any thoughts on what I could do better in the form of programming this thing?  I hope this helps anyone hoping to get an APC40 working in SONAR.

Have you applied all the patches and quick fixes?

Try opening in safe mode i.e. hold down the shift key then click open.

This allows you to choose what load plugins etc.

I found that there was I plugin I did not recognise.

Once loaded save immediately with some change to the name, exit project, exit SONAR restart SONAR and re open project.  PIA work round but seems to work for me.

Hope that helps