• SONAR
  • Get a sneak preview of new Add Track Menu [Coming Soon] (p.14)
2016/02/21 22:20:44
Anderton
Funkybot
I'd love to see Sonar move in the direction of "FEWER menus, windows, and clicks" to truly speed up the workflow. For instance, 1) clicking the Add Track button should just automatically add an audio track routed to the master output. One click. Covers probably 90% of audio track use cases.



Remember, settings persist...so that's pretty much what Add Track does. The only difference is after the click to add track, you can review the settings before you do a second click to create the track. At least for me, and I suspect other people who use interfaces with more than one input, automatically adding an audio track routed to the master bus does not cover 90% of all audio track insert needs at all. What's needed also depends on whether you're doing direct monitoring with zero latency, whether you want to choose a different source, or need input echo. If on the other hand you have an interface with only one input and that's the only one you use, then just let the Add Track settings persist and it will give you an audio track, going to the master bus, with the whatever input, echo, and record options you specified previously with two clicks total. The tradeoff for the extra click is not having to go into some extra ctrl+whatever menu to specify additional options.
 
 2) Clicking and dragging an instrument to the Project pane should automatically add a single instrument track routed to the master bus. Single click and drag operation, covers most use cases. No pop up windows, no extraneous options.
 
Now...for when I want to add multiple tracks or want to route tracks somewhere else, or create a folder, how about: 3) Ctrl+Add Track Button to open the pop-up menu. Do something similar for synths when I need a multi-timbral or multi-out setup.

 
In general that's more complicated than the way things are now because again, settings persist. If dragging from the browser, you don't have to do anything extra (like hit ctrl+add track to do more sophisticated options) because a window opens up with those options automatically. Because those settings persist, you can just click OK and be done with it. If you want to do a multi-out setup, you can do that as well before you click OK. You can also uncheck "ask me every time" if you don't want to see that window again. Total is one click+drag and one click to what you describe in the first part of 2).
 
As to the second part, Add Track already handles the folder aspect if that's what yow want. However, what the current scheme does not handle is creating additional MIDI tracks for a multi-timbral setup, nor does Add Track. But at that point it gets more complicated anyway...number of tracks, which channels they should go to, which input they should receive, etc. so that's going to require "click+extra stuff" regardless.
2016/02/21 22:52:56
Anderton
Better late than never...I finally figured out what might be a better explanation.
 
If you really want to do the same thing 90% of the time when adding a track, think of Add Track as a way to set up a "preset" to do just that, and then it's two clicks away. But if you want to make changes to that basic preset, like choose a different input, you can do so.
2016/02/22 05:20:37
mudgel
I feel like I'm on a merry go round.
 
Every time Cakewalk do something which they see as helpful, often in response to previous requests or complaints, half of the peanut gallery goes on about how bad it is and determines to lecture Cakewalk on how best to use their resources.
 
Sometimes I don't understand why Cakewalk chooses to even have a forum. I wonder if it is really of benefit to them. I'm not discounting the peer to peer support provided. It seems that many decisions get made contrary to what seems popular on the forum. Perhaps we're not the large voice we think we are.
2016/02/22 08:53:20
John T
Can't possibly be a large voice. There are lots of forum members, but regular posters can't be more than about 100 or so people.
2016/02/22 12:30:14
stevec
John T
Can't possibly be a large voice. There are lots of forum members, but regular posters can't be more than about 100 or so people.





Huh...  that's actually a really good point!  
 
Overall forum membership is a far cry from active forum participation.   Just ask Bapu.  
 
2016/02/22 13:11:23
ampfixer
It's obvious that Cakewalk wants to hear from customers, and we never let them down. There is no benefit to anyone if that feedback is only there to make them feel good. This thread was a pretty good discussion over all, with the odd exception. Those that did venture into nonsense are a very small component of the regular user group. As JohnT points out, we are a small group of folks that hang about and post regularly.
 
If this thread has been problematic then Cakewalk should reconsider the planned feedback portal. It will be interesting to see how that new feature plays out. Even though we will have a line to the bakers built into Sonar, the regulars and the detractors will still likely post here, for a number of reasons.
2016/02/22 14:55:05
Andrew Rossa
ampfixer
It's obvious that Cakewalk wants to hear from customers, and we never let them down. There is no benefit to anyone if that feedback is only there to make them feel good. This thread was a pretty good discussion over all, with the odd exception. Those that did venture into nonsense are a very small component of the regular user group. As JohnT points out, we are a small group of folks that hang about and post regularly.
 
If this thread has been problematic then Cakewalk should reconsider the planned feedback portal. It will be interesting to see how that new feature plays out. Even though we will have a line to the bakers built into Sonar, the regulars and the detractors will still likely post here, for a number of reasons.


I believe the feedback portal is critical for us to communicate better with users. It will help us prioritize what features need to be addressed and what is of interest. Of course that doesn't mean we won't try to innovate and release stuff that users perhaps didn't even think they wanted or address new customer needs. That's the point of innovation. The Feedback Portal will be structured a little different from the traditional forum. It's too bad I can't give people a sneak preview anymore :)
2016/02/22 15:26:24
Bristol_Jonesey
Best of both worlds
2016/02/22 16:51:28
mettelus
I get very leery to hear the word "innovative" or its derivatives anymore. It is becoming as cliché as "new and improved" has been. I will leave it at that.
2016/02/22 17:06:41
southpaw3473
Especially the New and Improved Innovations with true analog "warmth"
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