The last drum edits I did I used "tab to transient" then split the clip. I then hold "shift-alt" to move the clip data within the clip window to align it or just move the clip and cross-fade. Make sure you have all the drum clips in a selection group.

Lord Tim
AS got better in the X series but was made slightly worse by Platinum, IMO. The detection probably got better overall but the noise rejection and transient start got worse.
 
But there's seriously so much other stuff which is fantastic in SPlat that it's a no brainer to upgrade. I have no doubt AS will be improved down the track, but in the meantime, I'm definitely getting my value for money elsewhere. The track routing and Aux tracks alone make things like drum submixes so much more convenient than it used to be!

 
Did Platinum address the problem with transient markers disappearing when hovering over with mouse?

Kylotan
When I recorded our last album with Sonar, I basically just exported the drums into a different DAW to do the drum alignment. There, I aligned each hit manually, but given that the method only requires about 3 seconds editing time for each beat, you can get a song done in half an hour. The routine was - given that all the tracks were grouped - middle-click just ahead of each transient to split the clips with automatic crossfading enabled, then drag the audio within the clip to move the main transient to the beat. Repeat for each beat. If you're really strapped for time, just do it for each measure, as that will mostly-correct the beats in between anyway.
 
I don't know how I'd reproduce that workflow in Sonar without it taking 3 or 4 times as long, sadly. A valiant Cakewalk employee once posted a workshop on drum editing and it looked like a nightmare in comparison. I certainly wouldn't trust Audiosnap for any of this process.
 
(The other DAW also showed a waveform for the group as a whole, which is a bonus.)

What is the other DAW? I have been contemplating switching after X3 

reginaldStjohn
The last drum edits I did I used "tab to transient" then split the clip. I then hold "shift-alt" to move the clip data within the clip window to align it or just move the clip and cross-fade. Make sure you have all the drum clips in a selection group.

There seems to be a consensus that a manual method or a hybrid method is the best way to go.
 
Thanks guys.

Haven't had any markers disappear on me, so I'd say that's not an issue now.

I have to say that once you get past the odd detection, I haven't found a good reason to try any other apps. SONAR is pretty fast and efficient and can give great and transparent results if you use the stretch method (it can get laggy if you use the split method, so if that's your preferred method then I can see why another app might be more useful for you).

The biggest problem with AS in SONAR is it's not particularly intuitive to know how to start. Once you have the method down, it's easily as capable as anything else out there.

I've installed Platinum trial to see how it is handling AS. Transient markers are fine now, they won't disappear with a mouse hover over them. However, there are various erratic behaviors. 
When I managed to place the marker where I want, and quantized the clip. When I bounced it to clip, result is a silent audio clip. I undid, and checked if clip was muted or something was overlooked, everything was fine, tried again, sam result, tried with another audio clip, same result. as soon as I bounce the stretch-quantized clip, result is a silent clip. 
then I decided to try splice and quantize beginning of audio slices. As problem with X3 reappeared here. Cwp file size gets so big even after I turn off AS for all clips, only way to get it down to a reasonable is to bundle the project (that bounces every audio clip to new audio file, and relation to original takes are lost) and unbundle that into another folder. 
 
Arrrgghh! so frustrating. This is mabye the only surgical tool I need Sonar to do for me, but since X3 I keep running into it. At this point, I am very interested what other DAWs Sonar users move to and avoid a big learning curve? DAWs with similar workflow, interface? 
 
Thanks.
 

That's bizarre! I've never had anything like that happen here.
 
You're not using take lanes or anything like that?

I cant say ive seen this behavior either. as Tim just said, take lanes would be my guess as well (muting other takes)
Possibly just me but ive had rather great success using Audiosnap for quantizing audio.

I keep opening this thread and wanting to post my methods/experiences but it will be a loooooooong post because it's all quite complex and I actually DID switch to another DAW to get through my recent alignment work (entire live session of 8 song both recorded twice without a metronome). I didn't really want to blather on AGAIN about another DAW.
 
BUT, since you asked... I switched to Reaper just to get all the takes bulk aligned and now have imported the resulting files back into Sonar. Since the Reaper demo is fully functioning you can go this route without dropping a cent (but of course it's technically a $70 purchase for home users).
 
Basically what I did was set up a Reaper project for each song on the "album" and imported the two takes for each song as their own set of tracks (so tracks 1-9 were take 1 and tracks 10-18 were take 2). I then grouped the clips (or as Reaper calls them... "Items") of each set of tracks with each other (so all the clips of Take 1 grouped together, all clips of Take 2 together).
 
In Project Settings I changed the timebase setting from "Beats" to "Time" (this makes it so the clips don't stretch when making Tempo changes which WILL be done later but not yet). With this setting I created a Tempo map of the first set of Tracks by inserting Tempo Markers on the dowbeat of each measure (and I added more intricate Markers as necessary for things like odd fills/time changes as well as inserting Time Sig changes as needed).
 
Once everything was mapped I created Splits across the first set of tracks at the spots where I have put Tempo Markers. Bbefore doing this I adjusted the Auto X-Fade On Split settings... or whatever it's called to create an extremely short linear x-fade for each split... like under 10ms. Since the splits/x-fades were joining the same original clips having it short seemed like a better idea to make them less intrusive to the original sound (I was just guessing that was the right thing to do though).
 
Then I went back into Project Settings and switched the Timebase thingie back to "Beats" to allow stretching upon Tempo Changes.
 
All I have to do at that point was double click on the Tempo Markers and insert the tempo I wanted for each measure/section and the clips automatically stretched to accomodate while remaining locked to the timeline (this alters the tempo map of course).
 
Since this material has a lot of speed ups/slow downs/drastic tempo changes I spent a good amount of time fiddling with the tempos until it all sound JUST right and everything flowed how I wanted. I did a save as of this version to preserve the splits for further editing later if need be.
 
THEN I selected all the clips and used the "Glue Items" option (Reaper's version of Bounce to Clips) which created full clips for each track with the tempo changes applied. BTW at NO point did I get any artifacts or unwanted noise before (or after) gluing even with drastic changes/stretches.
 
Once that was done I moved on to the second set of tracks. For that set all I did was go through and created splits at all the downbeats and essentially everywhere else I had inserted Tempo Markers on the first set of tracks. I used the Slip Stretching option to line up the splits on the second set of tracks with the first set of tracks (Slip Stretch is Alt + Shift IIRC). Since the clips were grouped all the stretching applied to all the clips (as opposed to Sonar which for some extremely annoying reason ignores Selection Groups when Slip Stretching).
 
After that's done I glued the second set of stretched clips.
 
Bingo bango I now have two full sets of tracks sync'd to each other that I can edit/comp together in Sonar or whatever program I want.
 
The plan now is to comp together the best bed tracks (drums and vox actually because I'm retracking everything else but don't have access to that drummer or the vocalists anymore). Once I get those comped super takes together THEN I'll start aligning any individual hits or sections that still need work. I'm hoping to use the Audiosnap Merge and Lock function for this but if it screws up I'll just head right back over to Reaper and use it's finite transient/section editing tools.
 
 
Please note that although I did research all this quite a bit it was really my first major undertaking in Reaper and some of the things I did may not have been necessary and/or I did some things the long/hard way. Example... I''m not quite sure I needed to create the splits on the first set of takes and I may have been able to do the stretching on the second without the splits (by using the transient stretching thingie). Also I'd like to figure out a way to apply the same tempo to multiple tempo markers (like if there is a long stretch with a steady tempo) as opposed to entering the same tempo over and over again manually (deleting Tempo Markers and letting one marker control an entire section works but then those markers are gone so they cannot be tweaked/changed again and the reference points are lost for the Slip Stretch alignment of the second set of tracks).
 
 
Anyhoo... still a very truncated version of what I did and I actually want to create a vid of this procedure when I have time but might help you figure things out for now. It's a looooong process (I can plow through one complicated song with two takes in about a day after TONS of practice) but it works brilliantly. Everything stays in phase and the sound quality is great. No glitches, crashes or corruption at ALL.
 
Oh... also in Project Settings I switched the Render settings to the highest quality as well. Reaper's default is middling quality.
 
Sonar is my baby fo' sho' but I'm really digging having Reaper as a secondary DAW for things like this where Sonar just kind of chokes on itself.
 
REALLY hoping that some better time stretching tools come along in Sonar which is part of the reason I was hell bent on getting the Lifetime Upgrade. I'm sure they'll get to it someday. Just not today.
 
Sorry for going on about another DAW. Poor form but sometimes you just need to get things done and I see nothing wrong with using tools that work to get on with things in the warm loving embrace of Sonar. ;-)
 
Cheers!

Oh and when I drag the corrected clips back into Sonar for comping I insert both takes into their corresponding tracks (eg: both the Kick takes go in Lanes on the Kick track, both snare takes in the Snare track, and so on). Once each take of each element is inserted into the Lanes of the appropriate track then I go through all the lanes and group all instances of Take 1 with all the other Take 1 clips and all of the Take 2 clips with the take two clips, etc.
 
Now I can comp/edit across all the tracks easily because each set of track takes are grouped together and respond all at once as a group. It's pretty slick.
 
Cheers.

aaaaaand there was a similar thread recently where forum guru Brundlefly described in detailed a tempo futzing workflow in Sonar that might be of use to you. I still have not tested it yet nor do I have a link to the thread but if he's around maybe he could analyze your situation and see if he can come up with a Sonar centric plan for you based on those concepts.
 
Cheers.

Lord Tim
That's bizarre! I've never had anything like that happen here. 
You're not using take lanes or anything like that?

 

chuckebaby
I cant say ive seen this behavior either. as Tim just said, take lanes would be my guess as well (muting other takes)
Possibly just me but ive had rather great success using Audiosnap for quantizing audio.

 
I've solved the problem of bounced clips coming up silent by changing SONARPLT.EXE compatibility property to Win 7.
Saw another thread where someone was having similar issues on Win 7. I thought that must have to do with Sonar not able to communicate with OS properly.
 
I've also come up with better solution of file size issue when using AS. Instead of bundling and unbundling, by a fluke, I discovered that when I open and save the same project with Sonar X3, file size gets back to normal, then I open the project with Platinum again. 
It warns me about version differences and I might lose some features, but I'd have t assume I am only using feature available in both version until I actually see something missing.
 

Beepster
I keep opening this thread and wanting to post my methods/experiences but it will be a loooooooong post because it's all quite complex and I actually DID switch to another DAW to get through my recent alignment work (entire live session of 8 song both recorded twice without a metronome). I didn't really want to blather on AGAIN about another DAW.

 
Thanks a lot. This is illuminating. I read your post top to bottom, but I need to install reaper and follow the steps to fully grasp the method.

Beepster
Oh and when I drag the corrected clips back into Sonar for comping I insert both takes into their corresponding tracks (eg: both the Kick takes go in Lanes on the Kick track, both snare takes in the Snare track, and so on). Once each take of each element is inserted into the Lanes of the appropriate track then I go through all the lanes and group all instances of Take 1 with all the other Take 1 clips and all of the Take 2 clips with the take two clips, etc.
 
Now I can comp/edit across all the tracks easily because each set of track takes are grouped together and respond all at once as a group. It's pretty slick.
 
Cheers.

This is something I've thinking that it might be a good to insert each take to take lanes, group the clips of same take across multiple tracks. 


I have them in track groups now, and comping is not that intuitive.
 
Thanks.