Bajan Blue
Personally, if this gestapo like attitude of not mentioning other products that many of us have and use just so we can continue to contribute to a Cakewalk forum about music software in general, were to drive the likes of Rain away, firstly this forum would be demonstrably devalued and secondly I think MANY people would give up on it. period
What has got into people - this is a forum where other software is discussed, is it not.
This is only of BENEFIT to Cakewalk and Cakewalk users. If something like VCA is discussed,  it can only be a good thing, surely?
I had a horrible feeling when the reorganization and hosts etc were recently introduced that it would be a bad thing - seems my fears may well have been  correct.

It was a forum member who objected to talking about other software, not a host. Nothing has been deleted, no one has been banned, no one has been reprimanded by any hosts. And I stand behind this statement:
 
"If someone has nothing to do with Cakewalk software and comes into Cakewalk forums to discuss other software, at best that seems peculiar, and at worst, downright rude."
 
That's a RANGE of possibilities. I think it would be peculiar indeed if someone used only, say, Pro Tools and came in here to discuss some Pro Tools-specific topic. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to go to the Pro Tools forum, which is by definition filled with people who use Pro Tools and could therefore discuss Pro Tools-related topics with more authority? And at worst, if someone came in here and said "I use software XYZ, I've never used SONAR, you guys are all idiots for using it" that would indeed be "at worst, downright rude."
 
If you consider those actions Gestapo-like tactics, the only conclusion I can draw is that you don't know history. Here's a brief summary: 

• Identifying people to be put on trains and shipped off to gas chambers for summary execution = Gestapo
• Hosts saying it's okay to talk about non-Cakewalk software in a forum dedicated to non-Cakewalk software = not Gestapo. 

Now, can we get back to discussing the merits or lack thereof of VCA mixing? And can someone explain it to me in simple terms?

After all that, I still don't understand what the huge deal is about VCA lol

From Wikipedia....

 

In sound mixing consoles[edit]

Some mixing consoles come equipped with VCAs in each channel for console automation. The fader, which traditionally controls the audio signal directly, becomes a DC control voltage for the VCA. The maximum voltage available to a fader can be controlled by one or more master faders called VCA groups. The VCA master fader then controls the overall level of all of the channels assigned to it.[2] Typically VCA groups are used to control various parts of the mix; vocals, guitars, drums or percussion. The VCA master fader allows a portion of a mix to be raised or lowered without affecting the blend of the instruments in that part of the mix.
A benefit of VCA sub-group is that since it is directly affecting the gain level of each channel, changes to a VCA sub-group level affect not only the channel level, but also all of the levels sent to any post fader mixes. With traditional audio sub-groups, the sub-group master fader only affects the level going into the main mix and does not affect the level going to the post fader mixes. Consider the case of an instrumentfeeding a sub-group and a post fader mix. If you completely lower the sub-group master fader, you would no longer hear the instrument itself, but you would still hear it as part of the post fader mix, perhaps areverb or chorus effect.[3]
VCA mixers are known to last longer than non- VCA mixers. Because the VCA controls the audio level instead of the physical fader, decay of the fader mechanism over time does not cause a degradation in audio quality.

Digital variable-gain amplifier[edit]

A digitally controlled amplifier (DCA) is a variable-gain amplifier that is digitally controlled.
The digitally controlled amplifier uses a stepped approach giving the circuit graduated increments of gain selection. This can be done in several fashions, but certain elements remain in any design.
At its most basic form, a toggle switch strapped across the feedback resistor can provide two discrete gain settings. While this is not a computer controlled function, it describes the core function. With eight switches and eight resistors in the feedback loop, each switch can enable a particular resistor to control the feedback of the amplifier. If each switch was converted to a relay, a microcontroller could be used to activate the relays to attain the desired amount of gain.
Relays can be replaced with Field Effect Transistors of an appropriate type to reduce the mechanical nature of the design. Other devices such as the CD4053 bi-directional CMOS integrated circuit can serve well as the switching function.
 
Sounds to me as if VCA and DCA are nothing more than discrete methods of achieving a ganged (grouped) fader automation function. (I think we can look past a dated notion of a physical attenuator directly controlling a channel-amplifier's gain, since they don't exist in a DAW anyway.) Maybe 'VCA' sounds more 'professional'...I dunno.

As pointed out in the other thread about VCA Sonar has had the group function for ever. It is as described above and is proportional. These DAWs now have come up to what we Sonar users have had for a very long time. Thats what I get from all of this.  

John
As pointed out in the other thread about VCA Sonar has had the group function for ever. It is as described above and is proportional. These DAWs now have come up to what we Sonar users have had for a very long time. Thats what I get from all of this.  

They're not exactly the same, John - at first, I also thought so but there is more to it than grouping.
 
A very quick exemple. Let's say you have 3 faders grouped - the first two are at -3db and the third one is at -5 db.
 
Push the 3rd one all the way up to 0db. The others will simply reach 0db a bit earlier and stay there. Once you pull back that third fader, their initial "relative"  settings will be lost - the relation becomes absolute... At least in PT and Logic. I can't say for Sonar.
 
That's not necessarily something everyone would need but it's one illustration of how they differ from groups (which as far as I can remember works pretty similarly and offer as much flexibility in Sonar as they do in Logic).
 
There are others, but I'm just grasping the concept and there are people much better equipped than I am - and who don't have to worry about struggle with English language  - to explain it.
 
 

SuperG
VCA mixers are known to last longer than non- VCA mixers. Because the VCA controls the audio level instead of the physical fader, decay of the fader mechanism over time does not cause a degradation in audio quality.

 
Damn, so my SONAR faders are going to wear out faster than the ones in other DAWs! I'll try not to adjust them too much, so maybe they'll last longer. 

 

Anderton

Rain
A very quick exemple. Let's say you have 3 faders grouped - the first two are at -3db and the third one is at -5 db.
 
Push the 3rd one all the way up to 0db. The others will simply reach 0db a bit earlier and stay there. Once you pull back that third fader, their initial "relative"  settings will be lost - the relation becomes absolute... At least in PT and Logic. I can't say for Sonar.

SONAR will not only remember the relative settings for faders regardless of whether you top them or bottom them out, it will do the same with automation envelopes. But where SONAR really offers an advantage is the custom grouping option where you can set arbitrary limits for faders within a group.
 
For example suppose you have faders at -10 for tambourine, -4 for drums, and -6 for overheads. You group them together, but when you push the -4 and -6 up, regardless of how far they go you don't want the tambourine to go over -8. Custom groups can do that. You can also preserve a linear or ratiometric relationship with faders. 
 
I'm still not seeing any application where VCA grouping can do something SONAR can't do and that I would find beneficial. It would save some steps if you could assign a group to a fader in a group, but I can do that with buses if it's essential.

Looks like it's even less of an issue in Sonar land, then. :) I remember that even back in the Pro Audio days, there were some pretty interesting grouping options. 
 
As far as I can tell, the lead/dummy fader also acts as an extra layer of gain control. Meaning that if all your grouped faders reach 0 db and the VCA fader still has 5 db's of headroom, you will effectively be able to squeeze 5 db's more out of those grouped tracks.
 
I'm still trying to figure this out, and personally, I can't really see the use. 
 
In Logic, track stacks offer most of the functionality and also provides the lead/dummy fader. Meaning that you can have a track stack with its lead fader, individual stacked tracks sent to different busses, and grouped in any fashion. It's all layers really, but so far as I can tell, nothing one couldn't work around or do otherwise in most modern DAWs. 
 
There are few things on my wish list and VCA's definitely not one of them. I already have enough points of control on gain and automation in most DAWs I've worked with.

There is also offset mode with Sonar. 

Anderton

Rain
Another thing that is different from what I can do in my DAW* is that you can have tracks associated with more than one VCA fader. So you can have one VCA for all your drums, another VCA associated only to your  kick and snare.

You can just bus the kick and snare into a fader group and have independent control over the kick and snare as well as overall control from the fader group where the bus terminates. Any  DAW I've worked with can do that, it's nothing special about SONAR.
 
But I guess it would be lousy marketing copy to say "This exciting new VCA feature allows you to do things you probably don't do anyway and can already do with your existing DAW, but you don't have to create a bus! Isn't that just plain awesome?!?"
 
 

The difference is that you could have them assigned to a VCA fader - or as many as you want - AND bussed or not bussed.
 
VCA gives you an extra layer of control independent of bussing.
 
I wouldn't argue that this is incredibly useful - to me, it's actually useless, and, as I said, too many opportunities to mess things up. I can't imagine having 4 or 5 faders messing up with the level of my snare drums or any other track.
 
But I'm always hesitant to call something useless because there's always someone out there using that stuff all the time.
 
 The great thing is that I probably learn more about the potential or lack thereof of VCA in this discussion than I did reading.