If I were reviewing Sonar X1b build 255

This week I installed Sonar on a new DAW, and finally began working with it.

I really like the visual changes to X1, the design is very nice and I don't mind learning a few new keystrokes and exercising muscle memory.  The problems with X1 are not in the design, but in the implementation.  In the course of about 90 minutes of composing I filled out 5 problem reports to Cakewalk:

1.  The instrument pane in the staff view no longer is connected with the active track.  So when the musician changes instruments in staff view, the active track does not change and the instrument being played via a MIDI keyboard does not change either.  One of the main reasons to have the instrument pane is staff view is to be able to change the active track without changing views.  For the first time in about a decade, it does not work correctly. 

2.  Sonar crashed three times, once when I loaded a 32-bit software synth, so that may not be the fault of Sonar.  And once when I was working on a file with only 29 MIDI tracks, no audio, no softsynths, no plugins.  I was saving the file and it hung, crashed and would not leave memory even when I used Windows task manager to ask it to leave.  Had to do a cold reboot, a warm reboot would not work.  It also crashed once with a 64-bit plug-in (Kontakt 4, latest version).

3.  The scrub tool, binded to the "b" key on the keyboard works sometimes.  If I am in staff view and press "B", most of the time the scrub tool won't activate.  I have to go to track view and back to staff view and then it will work. 

4.  I think screensets are a problem.  For example, by hardwiring the numbers 0-9 to them, in the event list when I am using numbers to enter data, I have to now press enter first, that's a new one. Also, in the event list, when I insert a patch change, the keyboard freezes and I have to use the mouse to reactivate the keyboard.  That's a new bug. Screensets often come up missing graphics.

5.  I tried to change the color of the active track.  No change.  Why have a color change option that doesn't work?  I think being able to change the color of the active track is important because the musician needs to know at a quick glance which track the cursor is on.

I think X1, with this incarnation at least,  shows a poor attention to detail.  The whole experience on a fast computer (i7-950 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 1 GB video RAM, 7200 hard drives and an Asus P6X58D-E motherboard) is sluggish.  Closing the preferences dialogue box takes 5 seconds, Sometimes saving a file with just MIDI tracks takes 10 seconds.  Besides the obvious bugs, X1 feels clunky, the whole experience seems unstable to me.  I now have to decide very soon to put my older DAW back in the studio and not run the choir library I bought because X1 is pretty much unworkable for me.  I've been a customer of Cakewalk since 1991 and have used their products extensively, so, this is a big disappointment.  I definitely cannot recommend it at this time. 

Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com