e.Blue
- Browser Looping - Despite it having the most flexible browser of any DAW, SONAR's browser also has several long-standing bugs and it actually appears to be getting worse. I say this because each of these problems crept in several versions ago and I'm amazed that they seem to not irritate anyone else except me. Three out of the four bugs that I am about to list could possibly be fixed by simply applying the already existing Groove-clip looping feature to loops as they are being browsed.
- MIDI looping bug - SONAR can not properly loop browsed MIDI files that do not end exactly on a bar measure. While looping, SONAR will immediately trigger the first notes of the next loop cycle at the very end of the last note, instead of waiting until the next bar starts, This will cause the loop to go out of sync with the sequencer. This behavior does not occur when the same loop is placed on a track in track view.
- Audio looping bug #1 - Horrible tempo detection at lower tempos. SONAR cannot accurately detect the tempo of most loops that are below 80bpm and only gets worse the slower that the original tempo is. You should also have an option to specify the correct tempo and number of bars.
- Audio looping bug #2 - Horrible artifacting when changing loops from the original tempo even when the correct tempo is detected.
- General looping bug - Let's say that you have a currently playing loop(s) selected in a Media folder that contains many loops and then choose to navigate to one of the other Media Browser tabs eg. Synth or PlugIns. Despite the fact that the loop(s) continues to play, when you return to the Media tab, none of the playing files remain selected. This means that you no longer know which loop(s) are currently playing without potentially re-auditioning every file in the folder.
No, some of these irritate me too. Especially Audio Looping bug #2. Let's say I would like to audition claps or hi-hats or ride samples. Sonar artifacts the heck out of them. I either have to open up Battery and drag drop them in, or drag drop them on a track. This is pretty painful if all you really wanted to do was 'test' to see how they would fit into a mix.
As an aside to the above, I'd like to see Sonar add Z-plane Elastique, or at least a better time/pitch algorithm that what is used now for all of it's stretch/pitch manipulations (although I admit, we now have Melodyne as a possibility, but it's overkill just to do most simple stretch/pitch).
Now, I have a question/comment/feature request for browser:
Is there any way to preview a sample in a different key than the project key while IN the browser? As E-blue stated, if they treated browser preview like groove-clip, I would be able to do this. Even better, on an Acidized wave clip, it would automatically put it in the correct key. If there is a way it can be done, please let me know. If not, it would be great as a feature request -- which I will make in the appropriate forum. Otherwise, this really, really makes browser preview for me pretty useless.
Also, another feature request would be a small waveform preview either at the top or bottom of the browser window. Live has this, and it makes it easy to identify if a file like a 'crash' is a LONG crash or a SHORT crash. It would also be useful because on long samples SONAR 'waits' until a 'loop phrase' starts before playing the sample.
I really hope some of the upcoming changes will help with browser previewing.