Sonar X1 Piano Roll Requests and the smart tool
Hi all,
I would like to post some of the things that come to mind when using the piano roll editor in Sonar X1.
I am a very old Cakewalk user (since pro audio 9) and was thinking that some of the new changes
in the piano roll editor become tiresome and time-consuming. I believe that the older version was more intuitive
and simple for the average towards pro user while the new one seems to be aimed to new users only.
You can check out some videos of me composing in realtime using Sonar 4 at my youtube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheodorKrueger?feature=mhee I have also sent these requests with the official form, but thought that they might get some more attention and possible corrections from others here.
Here are some things that come to mind:
a) When you use the draw tool to insert notes and hold the mouse key down, it inserts a series of notes, such as using the "Paint" tool in the older versions of Sonar. I think that the draw and paint tool should be two seperate tools. This way it is hard to paint a single note and move it around as it draws a chain of notes. The only workaround I have found is setting the Smart tool to both S and D, So it acts as both a select and draw tool
b) There should be a "Classic" key assignment where you can assign S to Select, D to draw, W go to Start, E for erase, B for scrub and N for disable snap. That way older users can feel comfortable working in the new environment without having to adapt to a totally new concept which might not be as succesful or fast as the older one.
c) When using the smart tool you need to double click to insert a note, I believe that single click note drawing would work better. This seems to be assigned to the Alt key, but I think that using a single click without any keyboard shortcuts would be easier. Perhaps there could be a "Insert note with a single click by default" on the smart tool configuration.
d) Please re-enable holding down the Shift key in order to draw a line in the controller panel.
e) When inserting Controller data, the data is inserted depending on the musical time selected, so if you have 1/16 there is a controller data inserted every 1/16th. This way you need to disable snap to grid each time you want to draw controllers in order to get controller data in series. Also, there seems to be no shortcut key for "analog" style drawing such as holding down Shift or Alt.
f) disabling "show controller handles" does not disable showing them. The handles are still there.
g) It takes too much time having to move the mouse all the way to the top, select the new controller that you want to use and then go all the way down again to insert the controller data. An idea is this:
Insert 3 new icons in the controller panel. One would be a [V] which would have the Edit/New Value type menu, this way it would not take up much space and would also adapt to the new desing. The other two buttons would be small arrows [<] [>] to cycle through the existing controllers in a single panel instead of having them all add up.
h) If you are using the Smart tool and insert a note, then resize it, the next note inserted has the same length as the original note time you have selected. A very clever aspect of Sonar , was that if you resize a note then the next one would have the resized length, so you can make a staccato and then insert more of the same length. I would really like to see this feature come back in a future version of Sonar X1 as it really speeds things up.
i) You cannot copy paste things using the Select tool neither can you move around a selected portion of notes. If at least the select tool would work like it used to and if you are able to assign it to S , then things would be much more like the older versions. A "Classic" Sonar key assignment would be wonderful as would be the old functionality of the piano roll tool.
j) While using the smart tool and holding down ALT: Instead of the scissor icon appearing which is seldom useful, I think that the resize tool should appear as default and:
Smart Tool functionality 2: While holding Alt and drawing notes, the length of the notes is changed instead of their position. The best would be previous note memory, so you can insert new notes with the same length as the previous you inserted.
k) there should be a small space between the 0 value of controller data and the position slider at the bottom of the screen so you can draw 0 easier. It is also a bit more difficult to draw 127 with the new system while in older version of sonar you simply drag the mouse up and draw horizontally.
l) Suggestion: While using the smart tool and drawing notes, you can press alt+right click to bring up the musical value menu. This way you can easily change the note length. This is not nescessary if the previous note memory is restored as an option.
m) I think that Audio tracks and Midi tracks should have a more distinctive colour in order to seperate them easier. Now they are exactly the same. Perhaps the Audio tracks could be a few tones lighter than the midi tracks or have a different hue.
n) Right Click + N doesn't seem to work in order to insert a new audio track.
o) You should be able to draw automatically in the controller panel using the Smart tool instead of having to switch to the draw tool.
p) Store Project Audio in its own folder should be disable by default in New menu.
q) When you right click on an audio or midi track there should be a "Colour" option so you can select what colour the track will have. (Not only the clips or audio data on the track). Some colours should be there by default as a factory recommendation.
Others:
- Polyphonic velocity audition should be disabled by default.
- If you set the keys to a normal Sonar key assignment the following happens:
You have to cycle through all the Draw tools when using the Draw tool and pressing D, only to find that you cannot resize notes without the glue tool coming up. The select tool doesn't allow you to move and copy paste notes.
Of all these, I think that the most important are: Seperating the draw from the various shape drawing tools. Restoring functionality to the Select tool. Disabling Controller handles completeley and restoring the old controller drawing as an option. Reactivating Shift for draw line. Offering more customization for the Smart tool so more users can define their worklfow.
I hope these are taken into consideration. Thank you for reading.
All the best,
Theo Krueger
www.theodorkrueger.com http://www.youtube.com/user/TheodorKrueger?feature=mhee
post edited by TheoKrueger - 2011/10/14 15:44:21