ramscapri
 
Though I am a dedicated lover & user of Sonar and appreciate all the great new features and also the way Sonar is growing, the development & update model, etc., I would be inclined to agree with the intent of the original post and what it means.
 
I would put it this way... rather than "change of focus", what is likely required is a "partial diversion of focus to songwriting areas". I myself being more of a MIDI and soft synth composer than a direct audio recordist (other than vocals of course), I can relate well to what this thread was started for. I sure think its time for more arrangement tools, better and advanced scales/chords/composition tools and the likes.
 
Having said all above, I would still want focus to be retained in audio engineering, editing and core interface improvements as that's where Sonar is pretty strong and I guess scores better than most other DAWs.
 
Lets face it though...it can't be expected overnight. I guess it will have to be a more than near-term laid out plan for development if the bakers go for it. I just hope they do go for it... or have they already ? 

Indeed.  After basically upgrading every year for years, I've decided not to for the time being to see "where they are going with this".  I currently have enough editing tools and since I don't see any songwriting tools on the horizon, I'll will have to be happy with the current version I own and continue using multiple DAWs based on need.
 
I hope they return to the songwriter mentality they once had so I may resume my upgrade path.  I also hope the Sonar staff can offer their POV or some statement of fact.

It would probably be helpful if someone presented a specific list of desired functionality for songwriting. So far all I keep seeing mentioned is an arranger track a la Cubase, and a more sophisticated staff view. Also break these down into audio functions and MIDI functions. The other sense I get it most people are talking specifically about MIDI, but I could be wrong...
 
I wonder if it's possible to add an entry in the utilities menu to call up rhymezone.com...that would definitely help with my songwriting.

Cool...thanks Craig

 
Thanks Craig. Looking forward to your ideas on song arrangement using markers.
 
I know songwriting is about everything in a song including lyrics. But I am particularly referring to features and tools for the music composition part of it.
 
Yes, most of music composition is art and imagination, and more barrier free as it is language independent. But some technical tools could help speed up the creative process. As an example, the chord pads in Cubase is something that looks a useful tool for song composition. Sure a Sonar user may not want an exact replica copy of it, as he or she trusts the bakers to turn the idea into a much more advanced feature, more intuitive and futuristic... 

A chord track like the one in Cubase is one of the best songwriting tools out there, it would be a great addition to Splat!
 

Anderton
It would probably be helpful if someone presented a specific list of desired functionality for songwriting. So far all I keep seeing mentioned is an arranger track a la Cubase, and a more sophisticated staff view. Also break these down into audio functions and MIDI functions. The other sense I get it most people are talking specifically about MIDI, but I could be wrong...
 
I wonder if it's possible to add an entry in the utilities menu to call up rhymezone.com...that would definitely help with my songwriting.

Craig,
 
I think I had quite a list  offered up to the Cakewalk folks some time ago.  I answered every poll received and made my suggestions through the proper channels.  From this I believe I've seen perhaps one implementation from a while back.
 
Specifically, I didn't want to turn this in to a feature request  thread, as there are a few of those already.  Many folks feel the same way as I've read through the requests;  are they just ignoring the main theme of songwriting?  I've got to believe they've seen the direction of Cubase/Studio One and thought some of the features were worthy.
 
 

Arranger track would be a great addition, also Drum map improvements, i'd love a piano roll like fl studio i can work so much faster on theirs 

Thanks Craig...A while back I wondered it you could use the Matrix view for an arrangement type thing, but didn't really have time to work on it long enough to figure anything out
I guess you could bounce your song parts to audio and drag them into the matrix view...
The smpte track program being just midi didnt' have all the work to do when jumping to a different section...even so if you had a really complex song with a lot going on right at the place in the music where it was changing sections,  it occasionally did "chug" a bit ...although it was a 128k computer with 1 meg of ram LOL

kson
 
Craig,
 
I think I had quite a list  offered up to the Cakewalk folks some time ago.  I answered every poll received and made my suggestions through the proper channels.  From this I believe I've seen perhaps one implementation from a while back.
 
Specifically, I didn't want to turn this in to a feature request  thread, as there are a few of those already.  Many folks feel the same way as I've read through the requests;  are they just ignoring the main theme of songwriting?  I've got to believe they've seen the direction of Cubase/Studio One and thought some of the features were worthy.

I'm not asking on behalf of Cakewalk, nor have I seen any list that was presented to them. I want to know for my own purposes because with more specificity, I could possibly a) come with alternative ways to accomplish the same goal, and/or b) review products for eZine that do what people want. But as long as all I have to go is that Cubase and Studio One have "worthy features," I'm flying blind. As I said, the only specifics I know about are a chord track and improved staff view and IIRC, Studio One doesn't even have a staff view.
 
For example, a company named 1manband makes an MFX Harmony Generator which they describe as follows: "MFX Harmony is a MIDI effect/plugin that can be used in any Cakewalk (Sonar, Music Creator) version that supports MIDI effects. It adds auto-harmony and extra voices to a single tone melody. The harmony follows chords that are placed in text events in the track."
 
That may answer the request for more songwriting tools, but I don't know if I don't know the exact nature of the request. Similarly, I've created a Chord Library for my own use that I use all the time for songwriting, including mapping chords to a MIDI keyboard so I can experiment with playing different chord progressions. Whenever I demo this at my "Recording on the Fast Track" seminars, the audience response is always very favorable. I could certainly describe how I did this in an eZine article, but I'm not going to if it's not of interest to anyone.
 
 

Anderton
 
 
Similarly, I've created a Chord Library for my own use that I use all the time for songwriting, including mapping chords to a MIDI keyboard so I can experiment with playing different chord progressions. Whenever I demo this at my "Recording on the Fast Track" seminars, the audience response is always very favorable. I could certainly describe how I did this in an eZine article, but I'm not going to if it's not of interest to anyone.
 

 
That sounds very interesting Craig. I would definitely be interested to know and read through that in the next ezine or whenever you can come up with those illustrations. Your inputs and tips are very valuable to say the least. Thanks. Your approach to being able to create unique and special purpose tools within Sonar with its available resources is commendable indeed. Its just that users like me may not be able to do that intuitively, hence look for built-in direct tools to serve the purposes.