I don't go far enough back with CW, but can anyone remember when this wasn't an issue? and what version of Windows changed it?

ORIGINAL: SteveJL

I don't go far enough back with CW, but can anyone remember when this wasn't an issue? and what version of Windows changed it?

Neither do I but I suspect it's a consequence of an original design decision, to store port numbers rather than names, and so has always been there.

ORIGINAL: pjl

ORIGINAL: SteveJL

I don't go far enough back with CW, but can anyone remember when this wasn't an issue? and what version of Windows changed it?

Neither do I but I suspect it's a consequence of an original design decision, to store port numbers rather than names, and so has always been there.

I'd be surprised at that, as CW started as a MIDI sequencer, some 20+ years ago, and multi-port interfaces have been around a LONG time. circa 1989/90 and on, it was not unusual to have 64+ ports active driving a multitude of synths/devices.

ORIGINAL: SteveJL

ORIGINAL: pjl

ORIGINAL: SteveJL

I don't go far enough back with CW, but can anyone remember when this wasn't an issue? and what version of Windows changed it?

Neither do I but I suspect it's a consequence of an original design decision, to store port numbers rather than names, and so has always been there.

I'd be surprised at that, as CW started as a MIDI sequencer, some 20+ years ago, and multi-port interfaces have been around a LONG time. circa 1989/90 and on, it was not unusual to have 64+ ports active driving a multitude of synths/devices.

By always there I mean since SONAR 1, since I've always assumed that SONAR was pretty much a rewrite from the ground up rather than a rebadging of Pro Audio - but I don't know that to be the case.

PJL - I just don't get why you feel obliged to be an apologist for CW - it's decades since CW was a struggling, idealistic developer of something on the frontiers of experience. Now it is part of a global corporation. The sympathy would be better directed towards, say, Cockos (which appears to be trying to establish a new paradigm, at least). My sense is that CW (like many corporations at about this age) is starting to lack responsiveness, maybe in part because it is saddled with an ageing code-base that is therefore especially difficult to maintain. With your experience of software development, you will presumably recognise that all-too-common scenario too. Ageing software and organisations all seem to reach the sclerotic state eventually - luckily, individuals never do

Roflcopter...

Sometimes Sonars device assignments seem end up containing what amount to dead shortcuts - especially if physical devices have changed. This what I think is happening when the port is there, but it doesn't seem to do anything. The easiest way to correct that I know is to delete ttsseq.ini for midi devices and aud.ini for audio interfaces. That's what I meant by "trashing settings".


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Even when Sonar can lock our device assignments, I don't think there will ever be complete reliability with this stuff (esp USB) as long as the products don't uniquely identify themselves and then be actively "discovered" by the application. Relying on assigning them to an instrument by their still being where they were originally is not good enough.

I wonder if future audio hardware products could be given friendly names by the user? I mean stored in a flash memory on the device and entered as part of the installation process. So you could have...
"Channel faders 1-8"
"Channel faders 9-16"
"Bus faders"
... for a mix console built from three otherwise identical 8 channel USB controllers.

and...
"B4 Upper manual"
"B4 Lower manual"
... for 2 identical USB keyboard controllers dedicated to organ playing.

Now the application can discover exactly which device is which from it's unique name (and far more sensible than assigning a friendly name to the port - which is actually pointless if your ports get swapped), and exactly what to do with it.

Jim

ORIGINAL: ChristopherM

PJL - I just don't get why you feel obliged to be an apologist for CW - it's decades since CW was a struggling, idealistic developer of something on the frontiers of experience. Now it is part of a global corporation. The sympathy would be better directed towards, say, Cockos (which appears to be trying to establish a new paradigm, at least). My sense is that CW (like many corporations at about this age) is starting to lack responsiveness, maybe in part because it is saddled with an ageing code-base that is therefore especially difficult to maintain. With your experience of software development, you will presumably recognise that all-too-common scenario too. Ageing software and organisations all seem to reach the sclerotic state eventually - luckily, individuals never do

Sorry, Christopher but I really think you just don't understand the realities of the software business, and that's fair enough, there's no reason you should, but trust me I do. It's what I do for a living, I'm a professor of Informatics in a School of Business. I don't mention that in attempt to pull rank or to be an arsehole, and I'm certainly not trying to under value the frustration you feel at bugs that hinder your work flow. I'm just trying to tell you that I know what I'm talking about and to get people to understand that the economics and practicalities of the business mean that no software company can satisfy all of it's clients even if they charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for their product - the mathematics just doesn't balance and the priorities of the user base are far too diverse. I also don't think you realise, despite the injection of Roland cash, just how small a company Cakewalk still is. In 2007 the company had revenue (not profit) of a mere $14.2 million, that's less than 12% of the 2007 revenue of Atari ($122.3 million) and most peopple thought they went broke years ago.

The thread is getting kind of weird.

Imo, Cakewalk has spent their precious "resources" on bells and whistles trying to attact a still larger base of audio users. That's might be ok if that is the only target market. But Sonar is considered the flagship DAW/sequencer by many. The potential for Sonar is certainly in the stratosphere. Many users could or would buy anything that might promise an end to the frustations. The chore and druddgery of dealing with such simpleton problems seriously interfere with what Sonar is expected to do.


I have felt for several years that there really should be 2 VERSIONS. Since it has been stated now as an EXCUSE that resources are limited which precludes the ability to fix what some may consider non showstopper bugs, but otoh evidently there are plenty of resouces to keep piling on more code to accomplish dubious tasks, how about 1 version for the base of happy users that are looking for more wizbangs for guitar and a way to make their screams sound better, and a separate yearly subscription or maintence fee for the folks that really see the potential, want to see it fulfilled and must have these types of issues resolved.

Along the same lines, here is a really simple question, but no one ever seems to able to answer satisfactorly and some might even yet consider silly. But maybe it's not so silly after all:

I learned early on and have continued to do so throughout my recording years (30+), that the common practice was (still is ?) to document all tracks, assignments, effects, and pretty much everything else that has to do with a recording, and store this info in a binder. Computers store data and easily print it. Someone somewhere must have made a command decision that either DAWs are so perfect or the music we are recording is so worthless that there was no need to document the information anymore. What a stupid decision that was. I challenge anyone with 20 or more midi ports that has perhaps installed even more recently, to open a song with 30, 40 or 50 midi tracks that they may have started recording 2 or 3 years ago and come up with the original port assignments. Funny thing is, if ONLY we could print out the tracks and all relevant data, the original information would absolutely be available in exactly the circumstances this thread acknowledges. So why can't we print such basic information from a computer ? I am NOT referring to a screenshot. I propose that this correlates to the title of this thread, ie: that some of the most basic tasks have been entirely overlooked in the RUSH to get a product on the market in the hope that most of the people will accept it. A old guy like myself would have to suspend common sense in order to accept such basic oversights as mere software bugs. Sorry, that ain't going to happen. I expect far better from such a fine company as Cakewalk. I will gladly continue to support them if they show some efforts in correcting these types of problems that many users in the community have continually brought to the table as major issues . But I will not continue under the existing UPGRADE scheme which forever allows serious defects to be considered as insignificant and ESPECIALLY when predictable post such as the software programmer here espouses which in effect tells us what a bunch of idiots we are for expecting the product to work. He seems to have all the same old excuses down pat.

Regards,

Danny

Danny,

There is nothing unreasonable in saying that CW have got there priorities wrong. You have every right to say that this bug is the most important issue with SONAR and it should be fixed before anything else. Anyone who disagrees with that point of view is just expressing an opinion. My only point was that they can't do everything that everyone wants so there will always be a large group of us saying they have their priorities wrong. I don't present the resources argument as an excuse, just as an explanation.

As for your comments on documentation, you are right on the money there. I too come from the era of logging everything and, yes I do have a log book and track sheets to help me sort out what's going on with projects long past. These days I use the notes page in SONAR more often than paper records but it would certainly be nice to have something that was substantially more automated as you suggest.

As for the MIDI bug, I think Alex's comment earlier in this thread is an indication that this one is on their radar. He didn't give a guarantee but that's probably just because he has neither absolute control of the development team nor the authority to commit CW to any such promises. I'm hopeful this one will have a happy ending at least by the time V8 is released.

I'm just trying to tell you that I know what I'm talking about

and I still don't get why you are so eager to be unappointed spokesperson for CW's CEO in this thread ... whatever your knowledge of the generic case, I would venture that you have no particular inside knowledge about CW's circumstances and priorities. Based only on my own now very long experience of using CW products, I am certain that CW has relentlessly moved from being a company which was responsive to its users (tech support would respond to a message, for instance) to a company which is happy to churn out more and more "features" but never even gets close to getting them into a high state of assurance or operability. The MIDI port irritation is just one of these - think of the "motorboating" issue; the idiosyncrasies of Step Sequencer; the raft of automation-related issues; the unnecessary complexity of ACT; the primitive features and documentation of Publisher - none of these has been resolved AFAIK. And they are not bells and whistles - these are fundamental inhibitors of workflow and hence productivity. So despite the many great things in Sonar, working with it is becoming increasingly frustrating.

And I don't mean to be rude, but I really don't need any patronising lectures about "the realities of the software business". Until a few years ago, I worked in that very business and I think that I have a reasonable grasp of said realities. The most telling reality is the question of competitiveness, and I am somewhat concerned that CW is losing ground here by following its present strategy of trying to be at the bleeding edge in features and functions from a code base that must now be fifteen years old in parts. Bizarrely enough, Project 5 appears to have a much different code base to Sonar, and is beginning to overlap Sonar in many areas. Unfortunately, P5 doesn't have enough capability to replace Sonar for my purposes, any way. So to your comments about scarce resources and prioritisation, I can only wonder why CW deliberately set out to duplicate so much of Sonar's functionality in P5, unless it was meant to be "Sonar NT" or whatever and eventually replace Sonar.

The recent "benchmarking" issue around multi-cores was probably more of a side show than anything for the majority of users, but it seemed to me to illustrate the problem. CW's CTO (no disrespect to him) made a zillion posts here defending CW's position, but meanwhile the wider DAW community is left with the perception that Sonar is an under-performer. It only takes a relatively small number of such criticisms to gain common acceptance and to be extrapolated more widely than is actually justified and the product and company can be in serious trouble- there are still people who spurn VIA chipsets because of a similar set of circumstances in VIA's history. Meanwhile, hungrier or more agile competitors steal market share.

We users have a lot of learning invested in Sonar (in some cases to work around bugs, of course!) and I really do not want to see this squandered, so I sincerely hope that CW will pull through what looks to me like a crisis in its strategic course.

Now what was the original question ? Oh, yes ... some boring techy stuff about MIDI ports, whatever they are.