Your project sounds like a creative use of Sonar's capabilities.
 
I use Track Folders to focus on specific sections within the existing project to work out LV takes and comp/flatten the preferred phrasing into a keeper LV track. Section Folders are archived or deleted once a performance is worked out. Can't say if this is intended behavior or not but have used multiple takes in a single track as a convenient doubling performance. 
 
I run into problems with free style vocal phrasing (e.g. gospel) where takes do not line up neatly and Speed Comped clip boundaries quickly degrade the editing process by "splintering", blocking clip start/end drags within take lanes and eventually crashing Sonar if you pile up too may consecutive edits. I expect this is a pretty demanding use case and plan to document a clear set of steps for submission when I have time. 
 
The current implementation of Take Lanes / Speed Comping is still very useful despite the issues. 

I think I can relate to the OP. The issue I relate to is real. Sonar still has idiosyncrasies in Copy/Cut/Paste in Take Lanes, and they're not always intuitive. For example, When you're working in a website and you copy/paste something, many times you Right-Click to paste something into a field. Wherever your cursor is, that's where you expect the Paste to happen. Not so in Sonar. Sonar's Paste function will drop the copied piece of a clip in the same lane it was sourced from, even if it splits the clip underneath the paste.
 
Obviously, editing here is non-destructive, if you merely grab the edges of a clip that was split and drag it out. But it's NOT intuitive. I've been begging on the forum for CW to go back and re-work some of these things in the editor. It's not the complex things like group editing and making things faster and easier by creating new, and complex ways of editing quickly (ala speed-comping), it's fixing the issues we've complained about so that you don't have to read the manual or watch videos to get it. 
 
Where I see many people support the quite useful new, time-saving features, I still see older ways of doing things still broken, or at least, not working as a newby or old-schooler would expect.
 
I'm still VERY frustrated with working in Lanes, since X2. In my opinion, if you aren't having editing issues in Take Lanes, I will (rustle some feathers here) say, you aren't spending enough time there, or you've been able to stay within the narrow lines of editing Cakewalk's way.

Thanks again everyone. Seems that a good solution for me for now might be to have a separate track for every phrase I'm singing, which will reduce the number of lanes in a single track. I have to be open to changing my work pattern, because probably one or two changes will take care of 72% of my frustration.

Beepster

icontakt
Those who are happy with Take lanes don't do these:
 
- record to more than several lanes per track,
- record more than several clips per lane,
- use clip automation,
- adjust split points, and
- copy/cut and past clips across lanes.
 
And I've been very unhappy with the feature (I submitted a couple of FRs but they've been unimplemented...)

 
I do all of those things and they work fine. Well I think I do because I don't know what you mean by "record to more than several lanes per track". Do you mean recording into multiple lanes on the same track at once or do you mean recording a buttload of takes into the same track?

 
It's the latter, Beepster. Also, it depends on what "work fine" means. I'll show you and others why I mentioned clip automation, split point adjustment, etc.

First, please take a look at the screenshot below. The track has 30 lanes and each lane has one best portion (unmuted one) ready to be comped. This is only a test project which I've just created, so all the lanes have exactly the same data. In other words, it's much simpler than real-world cases (but you'll witness issues).
 
 
 
Now, how do you precisely adjust the split points between each best takes by vertically zooming the lanes/waveforms? Try doing it (not you Beepster, you already know I' suffer from this). Unlike Studio One, Digital Performer, etc., SONAR doesn't allow users to adjust split points in the parent (promoted) track. So you have to change the order of lanes each time you edit split points. And, what's worse, you can't anchor the lanes when vertically resizing them. This is the worst part of Take lanes in SONAR.
 
 
Next, the following video shows why clip automation is unusable in Take lanes (for me). I've experienced a much more serious issue caused by clip automation in Take lanes, but I'll only show you a very basic one. In the video below, you can see that it takes a few seconds for the lanes to collapse/expand after I click the button in the track header although I only created just one to a handful of straight, non-edited clip automation envelopes. Also, notice that the envelopes are gone (hidden) after the lanes are re-expanded. If you create more envelopes and edit them, it'll start taking longer for the lanes to collapse/expand. Unusable. 
 

 
 
 
Lastly, as I already said, the issue in which clips land on wrong lanes when pasted is an officially confirmed (2+ year-long) bug. I'm guessing it's very hard to fix.
 

 
 
 
I like a lot of things about SONAR (that's why it's still my main DAW), but Take lanes definitely need enhancements and more fixes. Feature requests have been posted already.

Hi, J...
 
So in the first scenario I can see what you are talking about but it never affects/bothers me. When I'm adjusting split points/X-Fades I pick one of the clips that will be faded together and just adjust that one. If I need a visual I'll look at them individually to get an idea of where the transients are/where I THINK the best spot for the split is then choose the best of the two (like maybe one has a more pronounced waveform transient I can use as a landmark). Then I move the split to that spot, listen back and re-adjust/set the X-Fade as needed.
 
So really I use my ears more than my eyes. I just use the waveforms at first to get an idea of where the split/fade will likely work best. Never fails. Maybe I'm missing the point but yeah... even though you can't see both clips it doesn't matter (at least me). However I would like to see the Auto Track Zoom style action be an option instead of the default. That's always bugged be as does the min/mas Lane height.
 
In the second scenario I would never create automation on unflattened comps like that. I'd get the comp together, flatten then add the clip automation to the comped Lane/Clip. I could see maybe how one may not want that if you want to hear the effect of the automation on the comp before flattening but I simply would not do it that way and I don't really think that's intended usage.
 
That said, to me automation in general is one of the most cumbersome, unintuitive and infuriating aspects of Sonar. Any time I try to create anything aside from the most basic envelopes inevitable SOMETHING gets in my way. This looks like another example of that type of silliness and I'd count that as a poorly thought out automation issue.
 
For me clip automation should completely confined to that clip. Not to the entire lane. Take Lane automation could (and should) be just another extra option/technique but Clip Envelopes should be self contained and move with the clip wherever it goes.
 
For the last thing you showed... I have seen you post that before and yup, some of the way things populate lanes is wacky/nonsensical but I've learned to get around stuff like that. It should be fixed. In that scenario though I'd probably move each part one at time (PITA) or if it were going into an empty track I'd clone the source track instead then delete any lanes I did not want in the selection. I'd have to play with that specific move to see if there are better ways.
 
That to me might be moving more into "Problems with Cut/Copy/Paste" stuff as opposed to purely a Lanes issue but definitely exasperated by Lanes.
 
I still haven't had a chance to finish my vid on Lanes but might have time again soon (hopefully). I've gotten really comfortable with them and never really run into issues anymore.
 
Cheeers!
 
 

jkoseattle
Thanks again everyone. Seems that a good solution for me for now might be to have a separate track for every phrase I'm singing, which will reduce the number of lanes in a single track. I have to be open to changing my work pattern, because probably one or two changes will take care of 72% of my frustration.

That's exactly how I do it, I loop record each part or phrase on it's own separate track.
 
It might seem like an extra unnecessary step, but at the end it's faster and better to handle than endless scrolling through 40 and more Lanes.
 
 

I don't know if it makes sense for your workflow, but there is an option in preferences to have each take go to a new track rather than have the takes stacked within an existing track.

jkoseattle

icontakt

tenfoot
It's a bit like saying this car is rubbish because it sank when I tried to drive it across the lake.

 
I respectfully disagree.

I respectfully agree with your respectful disagreement.

And I respectfully accept that you both disagree with me.
 
See - that never happens on gearslutz:)

kevinwal
I don't know if it makes sense for your workflow, but there is an option in preferences to have each take go to a new track rather than have the takes stacked within an existing track.

Thought of that. My thinking was I'd have a track called "Three blind mice" which contains all the takes for that phrase, then make a new track called "See how they run" etc. If I were to use the separate track for each take, I could have a "Take 1" track, and a "Take 2" track, etc., but then AFAIK I couldn't go back for the second phrase and start recording on the Take 1 track again and have it do it's second take on the existing Take 2 track - it would create brand new tracks.
 
@icontakt: Looking at your screen shots reminds me that I'd love to have the ability to collapse Take Lanes the way I used to be able to with layers. Basically to say ""Remove unused space and compact the clips as much as possible" without actually combining anything. The laughable Remove Empty Take Lanes feature sort of does this, but it can only be called from the track lane itself, and you have to be selecting on a clip.  And if I'm at bar 438 and there's a one second clip at bar 12, that lane won't be removed but I won't know why without scrolling back to hunt it down myself and then dragging it by hand. Ridiculous.
 
The more we talk about this, the more I think my best solution is to development workflows that get away from take lanes as much as possible. 
 
Lastly, is it anyone's job at Cakewalk to monitor these forums for areas of concern? If not, where do they look for taking user temperatures on features? If not here, where are people actually heard? Who has real influence? 

jkoseattle
 
Lastly, is it anyone's job at Cakewalk to monitor these forums for areas of concern? If not, where do they look for taking user temperatures on features? If not here, where are people actually heard? Who has real influence? 

There have been a few take lane threads in the Features forum which AFAIK is the best place for that type of thing at the moment (until replaced by the upcoming Feedback Portal).  Things like lane height, zoom, lane cleanup (a personal favorite), copy > paste, etc., have all been discussed. 
 
I wouldn't expect anyone from CW to read thru all threads like this because there's no way to know upfront whether it actually amounts to anything useful (this one did!).   Not to mention having to pick through a lot of back and forth discussion to find those nuggets.
 
And that aside... I do hope that Take Lanes get a little love this year.    For my own use they don't really need a lot: a consolidation feature of some kind, free-form copy>paste behavior, and increased lane height options would probably do it for me.