I use a dummy midi track as a lead sheet and input chords there looking at it in staff view.  Imputing chords could be easily be made more efficient in Sonar.  Also having the ability to transpose Chords would make my life soooo much better.
 
I've been doing a lot in Cubase and I'm not impressed with how you input chords there either, but at least i can transpose them.  

cparmerlee
What I would really like to see in a notation program (or in the Cubase MIDI editor for that matter) is a visual display when a note is not "inside" the chord, which is to say a note in the modal scale that is most associated with the named chord.  Such a note may well be an error, but it might not be, so it would be nice to see it highlighted.

 
I would LOVE to:
 
1) Have SONAR extract key and chords from a melody track. (with the ability to correct mistakes, of course)
 
2) Have SONAR's piano roll highlight the notes that are part of the current chord so that I'm more likely to use a good note when I'm working on the bass line of a song. (I'm not smart enough to be able to just look at the piano roll and know where the notes of the chord are. I end up guessing and not so infrequently, guessing wrong.) I'm starting to drool just thinking about this feature.
 
3) Have a way to easily select a chord and cycle through inversions (and move those inversions up or down an octave) with a keyboard shortcut(s).

Kamm Schreiner

cparmerlee
What I would really like to see in a notation program (or in the Cubase MIDI editor for that matter) is a visual display when a note is not "inside" the chord, which is to say a note in the modal scale that is most associated with the named chord.  Such a note may well be an error, but it might not be, so it would be nice to see it highlighted.

 
I would LOVE to:
 
1) Have SONAR extract key and chords from a melody track. (with the ability to correct mistakes, of course)
 
2) Have SONAR's piano roll highlight the notes that are part of the current chord so that I'm more likely to use a good note when I'm working on the bass line of a song. (I'm not smart enough to be able to just look at the piano roll and know where the notes of the chord are. I end up guessing and not so infrequently, guessing wrong.) I'm starting to drool just thinking about this feature.
 
3) Have a way to easily select a chord and cycle through inversions (and move those inversions up or down an octave) with a keyboard shortcut(s).

Take a look at Tracktion Waveform and its MIDI pattern generator and chord features. It would be nice to see many of these things in Sonar.
 

To make the Pattern Generator even more powerful, you can program a global Chord Track and
allow your generated clips to follow it instead of entering a progression into each clip

 
Create chords, basslines, arpeggios, and melodies.
 

 
Downside is no score view, but if you like working with piano roll editing, it's good to go!  You can use suggested chord progressions, or create your own.  Custom chords, inversions, etc are possible.

abacab
 
Take a look at Tracktion Waveform and its MIDI pattern generator and chord features. It would be nice to see many of these things in Sonar.
 

To make the Pattern Generator even more powerful, you can program a global Chord Track and
allow your generated clips to follow it instead of entering a progression into each clip

 
Create chords, basslines, arpeggios, and melodies.
 

 
Downside is no score view, but if you like working with piano roll editing, it's good to go!  You can use suggested chord progressions, or create your own.  Custom chords, inversions, etc are possible.

Thanks very much for that info and I hope that Bandlab will watch it to get some ideas. However, I actually own Waveform 9 and I hate it (I'm being nice - seriously). I'm finding it difficult to even force myself to use it. I purchased it because they are currently allowing upgrading even from the free version and I like some of the included FX, etc. making it worth the money. I guess I now know why they are almost giving it away. The UI is just nowhere close to mainstream. It seems they were going out of their way to make it not user friendly. There are lots of really tiny things to click (as in that video for moving chords up/down an octave) that are so small it is difficult if not impossible to see them and you have to concentrate to get the mouse over them. Lots of tiny text. The menus are inexplicably in a box at the bottom left. There is NO HORIZONTAL SCROLL BAR in the midi editor. I'm still beside myself on that one. What??? The only way I can find to scroll a large clip is to drag (and drag, and drag, and drag) the top of the clip in the midi editor. If your clip is the entire length of the song and your zoom is high, well, good luck with that. If you know of a way to show a horizontal scroll bar in the midi editor, please let me know. I'm still in the stage of forcing myself to use it, but I'll probably be exiting that stage soon. I'm sure there are lots of nice features in Waveform, but I doubt I'll ever get past the user interface problem. Just being honest...

Kamm Schreiner
 
I'm sure there are lots of nice features in Waveform, but I doubt I'll ever get past the user interface problem. Just being honest...

I can appreciate your frustration with a non-Windows based UI (is cross platform Windows, Mac, and Linux), not everyone's cup of tea, especially if you are primarily a Windows based user.  Probably better to take that discussion elsewhere, so as not to divert this thread about chord tracks and arrangement. 
 
I was merely trying to point out some chord features that may exist in another app, that would be very useful to have in Sonar. 
 
I bought Waveform a year ago, long before the Gibson/Cakewalk announcement, after demoing several products that had a chord track function, or the equivalent.  My finalists came down to Cubase Elements 9, and Traction Waveform 8.  Both were $99, and I went with Waveform.  I still might pick up Elements.  I like it too, but I already had a lot of Cubase features in Sonar (except the chord track). 
 
My goal was to have something to sketch out chord progressions with, and then import them to Sonar.  Obviously, it would be awesome if Sonar added some of these features, as it would help workflow in this regard tremendously! 

abacab
I can appreciate your frustration with a non-Windows based UI (is cross platform Windows, Mac, and Linux), not everyone's cup of tea, especially if you are primarily a Windows based user.  Probably better to take that discussion elsewhere, so as not to divert this thread about chord tracks and arrangement. 
 
I was merely trying to point out some chord features that may exist in another app, that would be very useful to have in Sonar.

I appreciate that and did find the features intriguing I'm not one for using presets but the features that allow easy manipulation and addition of various chords and inversions would be very welcome in SONAR.
 

abacab
I bought Waveform a year ago, long before the Gibson/Cakewalk announcement, after demoing several products that had a chord track function, or the equivalent.  My finalists came down to Cubase Elements 9, and Traction Waveform 8.  Both were $99, and I went with Waveform.  I still might pick up Elements.  I like it too, but I already had a lot of Cubase features in Sonar (except the chord track). 

 
I own Cubase too and like it a lot. Not as much as SONAR, but a lot. Can't say if you'd like it too, just letting you know for what it's worth...

I noticed an old Cubase AI license from a Yamaha purchase.  Updated to 9.5 for $10 and got it installed.
 
Now I can see what all of this chord track hullabalu is about

Awaiting your review, Bob! 

abacab
Awaiting your review, Bob! 

Quick & Dirty results:  Meh.  If I didn't already have EZ Keys it might be more exciting.  Mind you I have NOT recorded a buncha parts to tweak either.  I'll obviously have to spend more time with it to truly appreciate it

Stupid question alert:
 
What is the difference between simply playing the chords you want/need yourself and using this chord track thing? 
I looked at some videos and from what I can tell it is like a library of progressions you pick and chose from? Not sure I see the benefit of that, but I am sure I am missing the point as always. 
 
Next logical thing is a similair thing for melodies, and then we can toss our DAW's all together as music creation is nothing more than picking and chosing what the computer tells us. :)