skitch_84

tenfoot

kb420
and I still believe, that the majority of Sonar users don't really compose midi in Sonar.

I start every project and do most of my editing in midi and use Sonar all day every day -  I am reasonably certain I am not alone:) 
 
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain

Same here. I'm a video game music composer and 99% of my work is done using only MIDI (sample libraries, etc.). I use Sonar Platinum from beginning to end. :)

I didn't say that there weren't ANY users that compose midi in Sonar.  I just said that I believe that the majority don't really compose midi in Sonar. That Mark Twain quote doesn't apply here.  You can believe something and your entire belief system can be wrong.  Just as I may be wrong.  Honestly,  I don't KNOW for a fact that the majority of Sonar users aren't composing midi.  I just believe that to be the case based on the fact that there are other programs out there that are so much easier to work with.  Usually a companies success is based on how well it listens to the needs of it's users.  If midi composition were a big request for Cakewalk users,  then it's implementation would be a lot better.
 
I remember when destructive input quantize wasn't even a feature in Sonar,  and there were users who absolutely didn't want it added to Sonar. They all considered that to be something unimportant,  and they wanted the bakers to focus on other things.  I don't think it was added until Sonar 8.  

tenfoot

Sanderxpander
One thing I miss in Sonar that Logic does is nondestructive quantization. In Logic, you can select a recorded (i.e. "human timing") clip and apply for instance 16th swing quantization at 70 percent strength. You can set quantization strength for each clip and you can change it after the fact. In Sonar if I quantize at 70 percent strength and later realize the part needed to remain a bit more human, it's not so easy to fiddle with that number anymore. 

+1 for that Sanderxpander.
 
There is a way to do it in Sonar though. Rather than using the quantize function from the process menu, you can insert the Cakewalk quantize midi plugin into the tracks fx bin. That way you can go back and make any changes you like at any time.

The quantize midi effect has been in Sonar a lot longer than the input quantize feature.

Thanks I'll try using that instead. If it works well my feature request is mainly a matter of reorganization - put a wuantize midi effect on every clip by default (set to zero strength perhaps) and put some sliders in the PRV or imspector. Although, does the quantize midi effect actually visibly move the notes? Sometimes that's quite helpful. 

kb420
1.  The Piano Roll View.  It may just be a personal choice,  but I'll take Live, Studio One,  and Maschine's Piano Roll View over Sonar's any day of the week.  All 3 of them seem to be so much more responsive and easier to make edits on.  There's never any hidden muted notes.  No guessing about which parameter you may or may not be editing when you attempt to select a note.  Nudging notes,  and manipulating the grid on all three are incredibly easy when you compare it to Sonar.

Piano Roll is mostly working okay for me these days, but I've lost count of the number of times when I've lasso-selected a bunch of notes and some other notes, completely outside the lasso, got selected too. Or I nudged some notes over, only to have other nearby notes get deleted. That's not to mention basic usability issues like not showing clip boundaries.
 

2.  Non Linear Midi Composition.  Sonar does have a groove matrix,  so this may not be as much of an issue,  but I've never dug in to it much.  I doubt it's as flexible as Live's Session View.

In my experience, Matrix View barely works. Once I upgraded Sonar to get access to Matrix View, hoping it would help with my non-linear composition problems, just to be frustrated by the number of glitches and problems with it - some soft synths would never play at all, some audio clips played wrongly (because they were slip edited, I think), etc. Basically useless. And judging by the last few years, that experiment has been quietly abandoned since I don't recall seeing any fixes for it.
 

If you take a look at Studio One,  which is primarily a linear sequencer,  you still have a super flexible way of recording midi when you consider the Arranger Track and the Scratch Pad.  With the Arranger Track,  you can actually treat whole sections of a song like patterns in a hardware sequencer and string them together any way you want to on a Scratch Pad.  The Arranger Track and the Scratch Pad are new to Studio One 3,  and they are what really gained my attention.

This is where I'll be spending my money next time around. Ableton is probably not quite right for me, being biased towards electronic music and MIDI-first composition, but Studio One strikes a good balance.

3.  Take Lanes.  I absolutely hate this for midi loop recording,  and nothing else I've ever used has anything like them.  You can't truly disable it. No matter what you do,  you always can tell that they are there in your arrangement window unless you comp them all.  It just seems like it's extra work for no reason.  I can understand the usefulness of Take Lanes when recording audio from a musician,  but I just wish you could completely disable it when working with midi,  especially midi loop recording.

Here's what really annoys me:

• If I want to record kick drums, then go back and layer on hi-hats or whatever... 2 takes. I have to bounce them to clips, then trim the clips, etc. I have to work to stick the clips together.
• If I want to edit a new drum pattern in the measure after some existing one... Sonar will sometimes just arbitrarily decide that I'm extending the previous clip and add my new drums to the old clip. This is ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING when that clip has 15 linked copies elsewhere in the song, all of which now overlap with the clip that comes after them, and now I have to perform some convoluted combination of copy/paste/split/undo/lock/whatever to get the old clips back to how things were without losing the work I just did in the new clips.

If someone wishes to use Ableton or Cubase or (insert non-Sonar DAW here) then good luck to you. I think you will find that that the grass is not always greener. Each has their own unique set of weeds, bugs and holes.
 
Personally, I cut my second set of teeth on Cakewalk so it makes more sense to me than others I have used. I will say that the PRV was one of the first tools I would go to but with all the new features and hot zones and the like, I find myself more frustrated with it and, if possible, I try to avoid it now.

Sanderxpander
Thanks I'll try using that instead. If it works well my feature request is mainly a matter of reorganization - put a wuantize midi effect on every clip by default (set to zero strength perhaps) and put some sliders in the PRV or imspector. Although, does the quantize midi effect actually visibly move the notes? Sometimes that's quite helpful. 

It doesn't visibly move the notes.  You will see the notes exactly how you played them,  but you will hear them quantized.  

In that case I would still prefer the Logic way :p
Still, it's a good tip and I'll try it out!
 
As far as midi take lanes go, I actually like these, but mostly because of another thing that we can't do in Sonar but can in Logic - mute specific midi notes. Recording first a kick and then a hats part leaves me with the option to quickly mute on or the other. In Logic, I'd just select whichever notes I want to mute. 

You can do the mute like that with a drum map.

I can only mute "all" notes on a kitpiece, right? 

I thought that's what you wanted, no?  Otherwise, you can mute individual notes in the PRV now (mute tool).