ACT was created 2007, but now we have 2015 and todays MIDI controllers have more functionality than before.
Cakewalk Generic Surface is also outdated and has a crazy handling.
It would be interrested, who uses ACT and Cakewalk Generic Surface realy?
On the other side some MIDI controllers, eg. VS-700 are not longer supported.
 
What we need is a modern MIDI Controller Support for actual Hardware with a user friendly GUI.
This is a realy important feature, because without a good MIDI Controller Support the best DAW is uninteresting

Hermu
ACT was created 2007, but now we have 2015 and todays MIDI controllers have more functionality than before.

As cars have not learned how to fly, MIDI controllers still just send/receive MIDI
 
ACT is using VSTi specification to control parameters (all other "new" technology use the very same approach).
 

Cakewalk Generic Surface is also outdated and has a crazy handling.

I do not see something which can "outdate" in this particual plug-in, and its handling is hard to beat in simplicity.
 

What we need is a modern MIDI Controller Support for actual Hardware with a user friendly GUI.
This is a realy important feature, because without a good MIDI Controller Support the best DAW is uninteresting

CW goes the "Touch" way.
 
Some time ago hardware producers had dedicated support for Sonar. But they do not do this now. And so, nether CW not Controllers manufacturers agree the feature is important.
 
While a bit buggy, Sonar has Open Source and more or less complete Controller Support. So in case someone producing "actual Hardware" (in fact selling 20 years old devices with face lifting, at most with 10$ worse LCD display addition) want support Sonar, they can.

azslow3

Hermu
ACT was created 2007, but now we have 2015 and todays MIDI controllers have more functionality than before.

As cars have not learned how to fly, MIDI controllers still just send/receive MIDI
 
ACT is using VSTi specification to control parameters (all other "new" technology use the very same approach).
 

Cakewalk Generic Surface is also outdated and has a crazy handling.

I do not see something which can "outdate" in this particual plug-in, and its handling is hard to beat in simplicity.
 

What we need is a modern MIDI Controller Support for actual Hardware with a user friendly GUI.
This is a realy important feature, because without a good MIDI Controller Support the best DAW is uninteresting

CW goes the "Touch" way.
 
Some time ago hardware producers had dedicated support for Sonar. But they do not do this now. And so, nether CW not Controllers manufacturers agree the feature is important.
 
While a bit buggy, Sonar has Open Source and more or less complete Controller Support. So in case someone producing "actual Hardware" (in fact selling 20 years old devices with face lifting, at most with 10$ worse LCD display addition) want support Sonar, they can.

Sorry, but compared with other actual DAWs on market has Cakewalk a poor MIDI controller support and i want to keep struggeling with this software and i am no ready to buy this Software anymore.
Yes, "Touch" way is cool and the old Hardware should fly?
Is Cakewalk SONAR a Software for the users or only for developer?

Hermu
Sorry, but compared with other actual DAWs on market has Cakewalk a poor MIDI controller support and i want to keep struggeling with this software and i am no ready to buy this Software anymore.

Any example what Cakewalk does not provide for MIDI controller and other "actual" DAWs do?
That will be constructive.
 
If you are speaking about some particular device, which one?
 
Please note in case producer of some device does not deliver Sonar plug-in as they do for other DAWs, that is a question you can ask the producer of the device.
 
It is like asking General Motors why some "modern car radio XYZ" does not fit into the car with proposal to change the car design and claiming you will not buy any cars from them till that happened
 
Ready to accept "car radio converter"? See my signature. You can cooperate any controller with Sonar. But near everyone asking similar questions is this forum "has no time" for that and ask for "boxed" support. So again, if you want see something inside the box, ask the producer of this box.

azslow3
Any example what Cakewalk does not provide for MIDI controller and other "actual" DAWs do?
That will be constructive.

Ableton, Bitwig Studio, Cubase, Reason, Studio One which supports also plug&play Controller device recognize and it's also possible to write or adapt your own config html file for not supported hardware controllers.
that's felxiblity and it's not realy important to have a Hardware producer support or not.
 

The best example I can give for the need to improve CS support in Cakewalk products is the fact that in other DAWs, I can get the proper response to encoders, sliders and buttons setup from scratch in a reasonable amount of time.
 
However, trying to get things working in Sonar is, for me, like trying to operate a spacecraft with everything labeled in a language I don't understand.
 
I think the fact that "we" have to rely on the kindness and generosity of a third party to get things working speaks all that needs to be said on the subject.
 
How would I prioritize this?  I honestly don't know.  There is a lot to be done all around.

Well, so you do not want some particular device does something special with Sonar. I could help with that.
 
But you are asking Cakewalk (only) to do some "Magic", so any device is automatically controlling "right things". I can not help with that (and I guess no one can).
 
About spacecraft language and either it is possible to avoid it. Just 2 real life examples:
1) Faderport buttons send not the same MIDI signals as it expects to lite corresponding LEDs. Even worse, the fader expect feedback value in lower 10bits of 14bit field while sending the value in upper 10bits of 14bit field.
2) Some encoders send 1 on turn left and 127 on turn right, other send (1...10) on turn right and (64...74) on turn left (speed dependent).
How to call corresponding options in DAW Surface Configuration without using "special" language?
 

Hermu

azslow3
Any example what Cakewalk does not provide for MIDI controller and other "actual" DAWs do?
That will be constructive.

Ableton, Bitwig Studio, Cubase, Reason, Studio One which supports also plug&play Controller device recognize and it's also possible to write or adapt your own config html file for not supported hardware controllers.
that's felxiblity and it's not realy important to have a Hardware producer support or not.

Cakewalk support plug&play MIDI device recognition, fully configurable ACT MIDI and Generic Surface plug-ins, "Remote control" MIDI learn and Open Source MIT Licensed API with complete source code for several devices. In case you like "friendly" way to edit XML files, you can configure my plug-in to do whatever you like (on the level not available in any other DAW, prove me wrong if you can).

azslow3
Well, so you do not want some particular device does something special with Sonar. I could help with that.
 
But you are asking Cakewalk (only) to do some "Magic", so any device is automatically controlling "right things". I can not help with that (and I guess no one can).
 
About spacecraft language and either it is possible to avoid it. Just 2 real life examples:
1) Faderport buttons send not the same MIDI signals as it expects to lite corresponding LEDs. Even worse, the fader expect feedback value in lower 10bits of 14bit field while sending the value in upper 10bits of 14bit field.
2) Some encoders send 1 on turn left and 127 on turn right, other send (1...10) on turn right and (64...74) on turn left (speed dependent).
How to call corresponding options in DAW Surface Configuration without using "special" language?
 

Hermu

azslow3
Any example what Cakewalk does not provide for MIDI controller and other "actual" DAWs do?
That will be constructive.

Ableton, Bitwig Studio, Cubase, Reason, Studio One which supports also plug&play Controller device recognize and it's also possible to write or adapt your own config html file for not supported hardware controllers.
that's felxiblity and it's not realy important to have a Hardware producer support or not.

Cakewalk support plug&play MIDI device recognition, fully configurable ACT MIDI and Generic Surface plug-ins, "Remote control" MIDI learn and Open Source MIT Licensed API with complete source code for several devices. In case you like "friendly" way to edit XML files, you can configure my plug-in to do whatever you like (on the level not available in any other DAW, prove me wrong if you can).

You are obviously too close to this one.  There are standards and there are implementations.  The standards should be supported and the implementation should make standard support AND also make customized actions/ranges/etc. simple.
 
 

It will be great in case there are some standards. But Control Surfaces went away from MIDI specification long time ago (for example, Mackie use PitchBend for Volume faders, not CC7/27). At least before that was common to specify what device sends/expects in the manual.
 
But long time ago some protocols become unpublished (HUI as a well known example). With USB it is obviously possible completely avoid MIDI in communication with computer (all Novation Automap devices) and declare "glorious proprietary protocols" (Nektar Panorama). In such case manufacturers can control which software they "support" and with which software the device works in "generic MIDI mode".
 
While the hardware is still the same and dummy, the expectation from Control Surfaces is big. While simple "one to one" mapping is easy and understandable without background knowledge ("MIDI Learn", Generic Surface plug-in), even visibly light smartness is far from intuitive  for "non programmers" (ACT MIDI plug-in, read "ACT MIDI explained" on my site for what is going on behind the scene).


Once it comes to "deep integration", the logic is unavoidably complicated (you can look on my Faderport preset, just one encoder and one fader!). No way presentable as "intuitive user configurable".
 
So, back to the original topic. If you are looking for simple mapping, it is there. If you are looking for deep integration, it is possible. If something concrete is not possible or not working or you do not know how to do this, ask and may be someone can help (or CW can be convinced to implement). But I do not see how statements like "make it better" can help to understand what people are missing.
 

I would really, really appreciate if CS support would be given higher priority, but every few weeks we have similar threads and if you follow them, you realize this will not happen because ...

1. hardly anyone in the Sonar world seems to be using it - it is always the same few people who reply/help when CS issue appear so you can estimate the rather (low) number of users actively driving Sonar via CS
2. more people seem to work with touch (despite being seriouly limited compared to CS) and this is where Cake puts (some) money
3. all CS source code has been published and released into the public domain, hence no more work from Cake on any of the legacy CS dll (which basically means no further improvements on any CS integration)
4. worst of all, even ACT, which is controller independent and still advertised as one of Sonars strong points for "seamless" integration is seriously broken since X3 and getting worse now with Platinum ...

any more points needed ... ???
sad but true.
 
personally I'm still on the vs-700 and it works as it did since X1d (which is good) and I definitely don't want that to be broken ... but I can't expect any fixes ... I even embarked on trying to compile the source code myself and see if I can figure out some improvements myself ... however that would cost me about 500€ to update my dated dev environment and so I put that on hold until I have more time/money/motivation (which just may never happen)