Is X1 really an Improvement?

subtlearts


Nice find brundlefly...

I will say in the OP's defense that FINDING keybindings can be kind of tough, and that whole interface could use some TLC. However, it's also true that very often if you're looking for something it's in there, somewhere. 

BenMMusTech


Here we go again, NO.  It's that simple and I will use my analogy that I was using the other day and applies to you.  You get a violin (Sonar) you become familiar with it, it is your friend, you know all the nuances.  OK the violin breaks, you go to the music store and ask for the same violin.  Sorry sir we don't make those violins anymore but here is this alien and new violin.  It does not look or feel like a violin but you can learn how to play it.  I think you get my drift!!!

This is not how you run a company, I have paid my money and so I should get what I want.  I thought this was the tenent of capitalism, hmmm starting to sound more like a (corporate) dictatorship to me.

subtlearts

BenMMusTech

This is not how you run a company, I have paid my money and so I should get what I want.  

This is simply bizarre. "I have paid my money and so I should get what I want"? Really? Whatever you want? You feel they owe it to you, having collected your $99, to make the product work in exactly the way that you, as an individual user, feel it should work? Are you like this in all your transactions? 

Here's what I don't understand. What you paid for is a product that was clearly advertised as being a major departure from previous versions of Sonar. They didn't try to trick you. They told us it was very different, that they put everything they had on the table and rearranged it into a new program, with a new name. They told us all of this a month before it was even available. There were screenshots and videos intended to show how different it was.

So if you bought it thinking it would be the same, how can you possibly blame the company? It seems to me that they've upheld their end of the bargain. 

Brando

BenMMusTech


Here we go again, NO.  It's that simple and I will use my analogy that I was using the other day and applies to you.  You get a violin (Sonar) you become familiar with it, it is your friend, you know all the nuances.  OK the violin breaks, you go to the music store and ask for the same violin.  Sorry sir we don't make those violins anymore but here is this alien and new violin.  It does not look or feel like a violin but you can learn how to play it.  I think you get my drift!!!

This is not how you run a company, I have paid my money and so I should get what I want.  I thought this was the tenent of capitalism, hmmm starting to sound more like a (corporate) dictatorship to me.

If what you describe applied to software, we would still be using DOS, Wordstar, etc, etc, etc....
I value my DAW as much for its value in a musical capacity as for its innovation through technology - sometimes newer is better.
Also, by the way, depending on what you are upgrading from - your analogy may be flawed. If you are coming from 8.5 for example, it's hard to see how that compares to a broken violin as your former DAW is still perfectly usable. People are successfully using older versions of SONAR quite successfully. Usually what causes them to upgrade in the first place is the fact that they are looking for features and innovations - ie, the latest and greatest. (If you didn't upgrade from SONAR, a better analogy in your case is that you used to play a LUTE and you are disappointed that in SONAR you have a violin) -

What is bizarre is your misunderstanding of the issue.   If it were not for people like me, who have been buying Cakewalk products for the past 18 years, they would not even be in business.  You're ascribing the most immature and self-centered motives to what is essentially a problem related to musical intelligence and ease of use.   Software should change, I am all for experimentation.  Implementation of new features, better reliability, better ergonomics, etc.  are all welcome.  But to fix something that isn't broken, to make something worse, there is no excuse for that.  

Have I, or anyone else implied that we should get "whatever we want"?   I think not.  When I tell Cakewalk there is a bug in the display of dotted notes, or I explain to them that correct music notation does not place a dot directly on the staff line, as Sonar does, they should be listening to me.  They should care about these things.  Music is a fine art, an art with thousands of years of history and tradition and all the fancy computer gadgetry and software in the cosmos will not make someone a good musician, a good composer or orchestrator.  In fact it is the opposite, people learn how to use this technology and all of a sudden they believe they've mastered their craft.  Cakewalk should have some humility and honor the techniques and methods composers have been using for centuries.    They have Sonar at 3 price points, you would think that their top-of-the-line version of Sonar would be aimed at professionals who have dedicated their lives to music composition and have spent many decades honing their craft and their art.    Did Cakewalk even consult with a professional orchestrator, a symphonic composer or anyone that understands the value of music notation?

I applaud all the wonderful advances in digital and audio technology, music software, etc.  But the attitude around this forum, and perhaps even at Cakewalk,  toward the staff view is incomprehensible to me.  Something that has contributed so mightily to the advancement of music as an art is dismissed by those who don't understand what it has allowed, and still allows composers to achieve a depth of development, abstraction and structural integration that would not and could not be done without music notation.

Jerry Gerber
www.jerrygerber.com




subtlearts

BenMMusTech

This is not how you run a company, I have paid my money and so I should get what I want.  

This is simply bizarre. "I have paid my money and so I should get what I want"? Really? Whatever you want? You feel they owe it to you, having collected your $99, to make the product work in exactly the way that you, as an individual user, feel it should work? Are you like this in all your transactions? 

Here's what I don't understand. What you paid for is a product that was clearly advertised as being a major departure from previous versions of Sonar. They didn't try to trick you. They told us it was very different, that they put everything they had on the table and rearranged it into a new program, with a new name. They told us all of this a month before it was even available. There were screenshots and videos intended to show how different it was.

So if you bought it thinking it would be the same, how can you possibly blame the company? It seems to me that they've upheld their end of the bargain. 

JoshWolfer


Seth,

My main issues with the midi editing are as follows. Granted, I've been programming midi since pro audio 8, so I'm kind of stuck in my ways, but here it goes:

• Having midi follow the global snap, is obnoxious. I like to have my global snap at 1/4 or a 1/1, which means I'm constantly going back and forth now between 1/1 for global and 1/16 (or whatever I'm working in).
• The all-in-1 magic tool requires me to zoom in on the notes in order to get to the dragging points to make the notes do what I want. It's frustrating. I read in X1 power about the "midi microscope", but even though it's enabled, I can't get it to show up ever. I'm probably just using it wrong. 
• Having the default draw mode create a ton of notes in sequence instead of one note that I can drag around and audition, is silly. A friend told me that that is how Fruity Loops works, which pissed me off even more. I know that I can hold control or alt and click to make it behave like before, but I find that a nuisance. Like seriously, does anyone need to draw midi blast beats by default?!
• clicking on a midi note no long copies it's properties for the next note you draw. I used this TONS. When I'm programing drums especially. I use it to add more human feeling with varying length and velocities. Last time we met at guitar center, you showed me the matrix (i think it was the matrix) view, which was pretty nifty, and if I invested time to really learn it, I know it would be pretty awesome, but I'm pretty set in my ways on this one. And people comment on my midi tracks on how nice they sound.
• The midi grid no longer has orange separator lines to mark the major beats, I think quarter beats in 8.5, so figuring out the timing and placement is harder, since it's just a ton of vertical grey lines. 

I tried binding hot keys to used the varying tools, but they are so particular in how they function, that's almost more frustrating than trying to get the all-in-1 tool to do what I want. So I just deal with the all-in-1. Those are the main things I can think of. I think there was a few more.


But now that I said what I don't like, let me say what I do like:

• Only showing note velocities for selected notes... AWESOME!!

Cheers,

rkl122

5. You can customize this. Open Preferences | Colors and then click on Piano Roll View from the dropdown menu, then change Beat Rules, etc. to whatever you want. I have mine set to a medium blue. :-)

That's a nice tip.  I'm not Josh, but thx. 

But the PRV doesn't "remember" the grid resolution unless it's set to "follow snap."  Example: set it to 1/8.  Close PRV.  Open PRV.  Grid resolution is at 1/4.  Not that big of a deal, but what's the point of all those choices, on a per clip basis no less, if you can't make them stick.  Or am I missing something?

-Ron (build 255)