I have had issues with this for a long time. Posted about a particular isse a few eeks ago or so and got help, but many chimed in about this shortcoming. I use to do Tech work, stopped in 2000. This is a windows program and I would love it if it worked like windows like Sharke mentioned "copy and Paste" for instance. 
 
I must add this won't make me switch daws either but sure make me a happier Guitar player\composer

Not the most elegant (and probably already touted in here) but starting a new project and setting the revbised structure tempo/time sig map, then cutting and pasting from old to new project usually handles my most complex needs.
 
I might add that if I'm still in tracking/arranging mode I'm less likely to have bus automation (despite my suggestion is post #58) and any that I might have is most likely easily reproduced as I try to keep my bus automation as simple as possible (near nil) until I'm actually in the mixing stage.
 

sharke
Moving time signature changes and tempo changes manually is a pain. What we're really looking for is a way to edit arrangements quickly and intuitively.

Okay, then I misunderstood because I thought the premise was an easy way to remove time from a project, so that's what I was addressing.
 
A lot of my "Friday Tip of the Week" entries come from my being stubborn enough to think "there must be a way to do [name a function]." I'll see if I can at least come up with the easiest, 100% reliable method to remove time from a project per these requirements:
 

bapu

sharke
So to recap, a "delete time" function should:
 
1) Delete ALL data in the area you specify
2) Move ALL data to the left to fill the gap. 
 

3) Move ALL bus automation left to fill the gap. 

 
This is something I could use anyway from time to time 
 
 

sharke
But Sonar already has options like insert time and delete hole which have options for things like markers, tempo changes etc - it's just that they don't work properly.

 
I can also try tackling what "doesn't work properly" if you can specify what doesn't work, and what the intended behavior should be. For example, I still don't understand what the intended behavior for tempo changes would be if you removed them, unless you had an option to specify what the intended behavior would be per the Kylotan approach.
 
As you alluded to with time signatures, for groove pitch markers in a deleted area I think there's really only one use case - if there was one in the section to be deleted, then it should be at the beginning of the section that was moved over to the left to fill the hole. Ditto program changes. I don't think it's possible to tell SONAR where to place those things as a result of deleting their existence, but I can certainly give it a try 
 

sharke
So to recap, a "delete time" function should:
 
1) Delete ALL data in the area you specify
2) Move ALL data to the left to fill the gap. 
 
No nonsense, no worrying about tracks losing their relationship with each other, no manual selecting and dragging of clips, just the simple process as described in bold above, something which should be as simple as deleting a word in a word processor and having the remaining text reposition itself to fill the hole. Please!

+1.  I'd love to see this in the next build; it's long overdue.
 

Anderton

sharke
You want to remove a portion of time from the start of a song. You want everything within those measures to be deleted, and everything which remains to shift along by that number of measures to the left. This should be doable with a simple, hassle free, bug free and foolproof one click method.

I've been thinking about this, and I can't see how you could do this with one click. AFAIK you would at least need to tell SONAR:
 
1. If needed, the tool you want - presumably the Smart or Select tool. (If you currently had the Erase or Mute tool selected, that probably wouldn't be appropriate.)
2. The region you want to delete (probably a click+drag).
3. That you want the Delete Time function (probably a click+drag from a menu, or a keyboard shortcut).
4. Another click on OK to confirm.
 
I don't know how you would simplify this to one click. Even with a word processor, if needed you have to choose the right tool to select words, select the words you want to delete, then either go to a menu or use a keyboard shortcut to perform the actual cut operation. You also need to use a different shortcut to delete and not put something in the clipboard, compared to cutting and putting something on the clipboard. 
 

I'm probably exaggerating a little with the "one click" rhetoric. I see it more as a menu option in which a dialog comes up, much like insert measures or delete special. 
 
Another way to think of it is like this. Imagine you use Insert Measures to insert 16 measures in the middle of your project. You end up with an empty gap, right? Well now hit CTRL-Z to undo. Hey presto, those 16 measures are now gone and your project looks just as it did before the insert. If undo can achieve this, then why not a Delete Measures function? It's just the reverse of insert measures. 
 
Granted, it is a little more complicated since when you undo an Insert Measures action, there is no data in the new measures at the point of undo. But I remain certain that the Bakers can handle this intelligently. I still think it would solve a lot of complications to disable Delete Measures as long as there is any data in the region you want to delete. So as for things like audiosnap markers, pitch bend information, MIDI notes etc, well it would be up to the user to decide how to handle those things before carrying out the Delete Measures function. That leaves things like markers, time sig changes and tempo changes. So let's look at those in turn:
 
Markers: You may want to delete those and slide the rest over, you may not. Make it an option. 
 
Time Sig changes: As above. However, if you do wish to slide the remaining time sig changes and slide the rest over, it would be a simple case of taking the last sig change event in the region you're deleting, and adding it to the join after the delete has been carried out. After all, if it's the last time sig change in the deleted region then we can safely assume that, given your desire to preserve the time signatures of all proceeding measures, that the first measure after the region you delete must have the time signature of the last time signature event of the deleted region. 
 
I'll try and illustrate what I mean with a labeled example. Here I've marked off the section that I wish to delete with START and END markers at measures 3 and 8. Within those measures, I have inserted time sig changes of 6/8 and 3/4 (also marked). Note that the time signature at measure 8, the first measure after the region slated for deletion, is 3/4 despite there being no time signature event there to state it explicitly (of course).
 

 
Now here's what would happen after the measures are deleted. The last time signature change in the deleted section was 3/4, so that must be the time signature at the join. What was measure 8 is now measure 3, and Sonar has inserted a new time signature change of 3/4 there. 
 

 
I guess if they could also check to see whether the last measure before the join was also at 3/4, and if so, refrain from inserting a new time signature event since it would not be needed. 
 
Tempo changes: As above. Either you wish to preserve them as they are in absolute time, or you wish to delete the ones within the deleted measures and slide the rest over. 
 
So with a region completely clear of data, those would be the only options you would need, right? It's basically a "slide special" command. 

Anderton

sharke
It's far more important that Sonar preserve time signature and tempo changes, given that it's a music creation program.

Maybe I'm just slow, but I still don't understand how SONAR would know where to re-place a time signature or tempo change event if it existed in an area that no longer exists. Kylotan presented one option, but then, someone could argue that groove pitch markers or MIDI program changes are equally important, and require their own pop-up menu..and then the "keep it simple and fast" option becomes much more difficult.

It may seem that "tempo change", "key signature change", "patch change", controllers, etc are simply events, but really they are boundary markers for properties of the music that remain constant between events. So the 4th measure after a tempo change event has the same tempo as the 3rd, 2nd, etc. With that concept, wherever some musical time is deleted, the following music should retain the properties it had before the deletion. Sonar already knows how to "chase" such events.
 
In any case, messing up the tempo wherever there is non-tempo-stretched audio would be a bad thing. Is it really worthwhile to leave open the options? If the tempo change is moved to the beginning of the remaining section and the composer doesn't want it for some special reason, they can delete it.

I guess maybe what they could do is just incorporate this functionality into "delete special." Right now we have "delete hole" and I would challenge anyone to admit truthfully that this function worked exactly how they expected it to work when they first tried it. In fact if you look for references to Delete Hole on the forums, it's nothing but confusion and frustration (some of it from me probably, lol):
 
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=cakewalk+forum+delete+hole+site:forum.cakewalk.com
 
 

sharke
 
Another way to think of it is like this. Imagine you use Insert Measures to insert 16 measures in the middle of your project. You end up with an empty gap, right? Well now hit CTRL-Z to undo. Hey presto, those 16 measures are now gone and your project looks just as it did before the insert. If undo can achieve this, then why not a Delete Measures function? It's just the reverse of insert measures...

 
Undo just reverts the project to a previous state, as saved in RAM. It doesn't involve any detailed calculations as such.

Anderton
I agree that "real" ripple editing would be a useful feature. It's something I depend on in Vegas. I think one of the main problems with "Delete Hole" stems from a decision not to cut MIDI notes in the process.
 
In the spirit of full disclosure, it doesn't affect me that much. I always leave a measure at the beginning to allow for taking a "noiseprint" when mastering. And, my songwriting approach is more modular with grouped clips, so I just move things around on the timeline rather than cutting and such. (This is also why an Arranger function isn't that important to me, songs are created with arranging in mind.) However even though I don't need to Delete Hole often, when I do it takes effort to get it right.
 
So at this point rather than discuss what doesn't work I think it would be more productive to throw out some solutions. Here's a proposed workflow that hopefully wouldn't be too hard to implement.
 

• Change "Insert Time/Measures" to "Insert/Remove Time/Measures."
• Place the Now time where you either want to add measures going forward, or remove measures going backward.
• Specify the the number of measures, then specify add or remove. If remove, choose whether to Ripple Edit or just leave the measures blank.

 
If remove/ripple edit, the previous X number of measures prior to the now time and everything contained in those measures (and to keep this simple I mean everything, including things like program changes, time signature changes, groove pitch markers, tempo changes, etc.) would be removed and the hole would close up automatically. Again to keep this simple, if MIDI notes cross over the boundaries of the area to be removed, they would be split at the boundaries. 
 
This would assume you would do any "housekeeping" of elements you didn't want removed beforehand, e.g., place a time signature change, key change, etc. just before or after the hole.
 
Again, there's the standard caveat of "I don't know anything about code" but it seems this "meat cleaver" approach would be the simplest way to implement what people seem to want.

I think this is a great workflow.  The option should be added to quantify what's added or deleted by time/frames to assist those who are editing for video.
 
If the corner cases need to be accommodated add radio buttons for those at the bottom of the dialog (and make them persist at least in the project.)

vanceen
By coincidence, I spent an hour earlier this morning helping my son sort out a mess resulting from inserting four bars into the middle of a project with tempo map changes and automation.
 
I fear my attitude about this kind of thing is becoming less patient and more uncompromising. I don't care whether or not fixing these things can be given a good marketing spin. I don't even care if the coding is difficult. These are basic DAW functions. Having a way to easily get the desired result is essential to a DAW product.
 
I'm not one of these "SONAR sux!" trolls. At the risk of sounding corny, Cakewalk and SONAR have been part of my life for twenty five years. I'm fond of the product; I'm pulling for it. I'm happy with the changes that Gibson has apparently encouraged (or at least allowed), not least the contributions of the excellent Craig Anderton. But that doesn't stop me from saying that there are some long standing issues (already highlighted by others, better than I could) that really need attention soon.

To be honest, this thread is concerned with deleting measures from the timeline, not inserting.
 
I can't speak for anyone else but I've never had any trouble inserting blank measures into a project and getting everything else to move in sync.
 
It is *probably* user error.

I've found times when the Insert Measures tool doesn't bother to shift all the tracks, just some of them. If I undo and repeat, it works properly the 2nd time. Just one more thing that makes me wary of trusting Sonar's large-scale edit operations.

Bristol_Jonesey

vanceen
By coincidence, I spent an hour earlier this morning helping my son sort out a mess resulting from inserting four bars into the middle of a project with tempo map changes and automation.
 
I fear my attitude about this kind of thing is becoming less patient and more uncompromising. I don't care whether or not fixing these things can be given a good marketing spin. I don't even care if the coding is difficult. These are basic DAW functions. Having a way to easily get the desired result is essential to a DAW product.
 
I'm not one of these "SONAR sux!" trolls. At the risk of sounding corny, Cakewalk and SONAR have been part of my life for twenty five years. I'm fond of the product; I'm pulling for it. I'm happy with the changes that Gibson has apparently encouraged (or at least allowed), not least the contributions of the excellent Craig Anderton. But that doesn't stop me from saying that there are some long standing issues (already highlighted by others, better than I could) that really need attention soon.

To be honest, this thread is concerned with deleting measures from the timeline, not inserting.
 
I can't speak for anyone else but I've never had any trouble inserting blank measures into a project and getting everything else to move in sync.
 
It is *probably* user error.

It doesn't work properly when you have time signature changes. 

sharke

So to recap, a "delete time" function should:
 
1) Delete ALL data in the area you specify
2) Move ALL data to the left to fill the gap. 
 
No nonsense, no worrying about tracks losing their relationship with each other, no manual selecting and dragging of clips, just the simple process as described in bold above, something which should be as simple as deleting a word in a word processor and having the remaining text reposition itself to fill the hole. Please! 

+1 +1 +1 +1....

Here's what I have to do now to get around this (it's clumsy, time-consuming and nearly but not quite perfect, but I have it down now):

- I place markers at the boundaries of the region to be moved or deleted (easier to select thereafter)
- I add dummy midi data to blank areas and boundaries in that region (sometimes I add dummy silent audio too)
- I select everything in all tracks (CTRL-A)
- I split all the tracks at the start and end section
- In tempo view I add a redundant tempo change right at the boundaries, just before and just after the splits (at both ends)
- In time signature I do the same as with tempo (very important to do both if there are tempo changes and time sig changes)
- I select all tracks again
- I select the timeline region between markers
- if moving the region I will first make all the selected clips part of one group
- then I use the Cut... dialog and make sure everything is checked off
- if moving, I first paste the clips sometime after the song and then revisit the problem of moving
- I cleanup and cross fade clips at the boundaries
- then I listen to see if it worked
- later I might deal with sudden tempo changes etc.

Basically the above steps should be automated and reduced to a few simple clicks.

Everything I mention above works, and it works every time if I am careful. There may be a step or two that are not necessary or whatever, but this is what I have learned to do over time.

I think an update here to handle this is a must.

This reminds me of the "Clean Audio Folder" tool argument.
 
99.9% of folks just want to hit a button and remove unused audio files.
99.9% of folks start new projects with "Store Project Audio in its own Folder" - which is default.
(In fact I just noticed in Platinum there is no choice anymore anyway).
 
But then come the arguments: There could be old projects. The user could have done this. Or could have configured the system like that. So we have an inpenetrable tool that nearly everybody tries once and then gives up on. AND IT'S JUST HAD A BUGFIX IN THIS RELEASE!?!
 
Seriously.
 
I agree there are any number of special cases. But the vast number of pop/rock/blues songs have the same time signature and tempo throughout.
 
We are all adults.
 
In most situations, a pop-up warning explaining what happens if you cut out tempo changes etc, and to which you can say "don't show me this again", would be more than enough.
 
A simple, basic "Cut from here to here", maybe with an option or two to cover the most common corner cases, would be fine.
 
Look at some competing products. They don't make such a fuss.