I am getting new hardware today for my music production, and am thinking this might be a convenient time to make the leap from X3e to Platinum, or Professional, or whatever it's called. But really, I'm mostly happy with X3e except for one ENORMOUS area of constant frustration. I'm wondering how many of these things are improved significantly by upgrading. If not, I probably won't care to. Like I said, except for the one ENORMOUS hated feature (---> Take Lanes <----), I'm happy with x3e.
 
1. I have to expand any track just enough for the Show/hide Take Lanes (and show/hide envelopes) buttons to appear. Irritating as f**k. Is this different post X3e?
2. I cannot solo multiple take lanes. Better if I upgrade?
3. Dragging/copying takes from one track to another is fraught with unknowable peril. (i.e. inadvertently overwriting clips, all takes piling into a single lane, etc.) Better if I upgrade?
4. I liked the old layers and would love to still use them instead of Take Lanes at all. Is this possible in the newer version?
5. I can't adjust the vertical zoom of all take lanes at once in x3e. Can I now?
6. In general, cleaning up vertical space when using take lanes is mostly a laborious, time-consuming manual process. Is this handled better now?
 
You get the idea. In short, if Take Lanes work a LOT better than x3e, it's worth a hundred bucks to upgrade. If not, then it isn't.
 
(And please, no comments such as "If you take the time to use take lanes the way they were designed to be used, they actually are great", thanks :-) )

Well based on your closing remark you'll probably disappointed ole Beeps bumbled in here but in general... no Take Lanes have not really changed in SPlat.
 
So...
 
1) There is actually a keybinding that'll pop open lanes instead of having to drag out the track pane to expose the lanes button (this kind of irks me as well). Sorry I don't know the exact binding but a quick search should bring it up.
 
2) No... and yeah this is something that has recently started bothering me as well. Ideally only one clip/lane should be playing at a time in one track BUT sometimes I want to try out multiple takes in unison to see if I have a good double take (like for rhythm guits) in a series of takes before moving the double into a new track. Not having that exclusive solo action though might cause more workflow problems so I'd prefer maybe an overide feature as opposed to complete abolishment of the way lane solo works now.
 
3) I think there have been some minor improvements here but the way I do this reliably is to simply create a new Take Lane (by clicking the + button on one of the other lanes) and drag whatever I want into the empty lane. Works flawlessly. Otherwise... yeah, unpredictable things can happen.
 
4) Nope. Layers be gone, yo. Don't think they're ever coming back at this point. I would like to see them as an extra option though just for those who want them. Don't think I'd use them again unless they were massively improved from the original layers scheme.
 
5) Not sure what you mean. On a track by track basis it is forced. Never tried doing it across tracks. There might be some obscure zooming option for that though.
 
6) Again, not sure what you mean. How do want things cleaned up vertically?
 
Cheers.

There have been a few fixes for take lanes in Platinum. However IMHO this functionality still needs big improvements. I just use track templates for the moment.

Thanks for the (disappointing) news. Sounds like an upgrade isn't necessary. I also just installed the Professional demo and don't see anything signifcantly better in terms of the things I hate about Sonar, so clearly they are casting after different markets than folks like me. 
 
(Editorial: I'm used to Cakewalk's touted upgrades that basically just add more stuff I'll never use "Now includes a limited version of Gnubiakamoo's XCD3Ed-500 Plug-ins!" Cakewalk: Fix what's broke, don't add more stuff that might also break!)
 
What I mean by the vertical zoom is I will make a bunch of audio takes, and since the take lanes are pretty narrow (vertically), I can't see the audio signal well enough in each take to be able to tell tracks that are obviously mistakes, or that are out of time with the others. When I screw up a take, I like to clap into the mic, so that the big audio spike caused by the clap makes it easy to find the mistake takes and delete them without having to listen through all of them. But when I can't see the signal I have to vertically zoom them. But I can only do this one at a time. Grrrrr.
 
In general, Sonar's handling of vertical space is abysmal. Sometime take a few minutes to notice how much time you spend scrolling up and down through tracks and takes. You can delete empty take lanes, but only if you manage to click in the right place in the track. Even then, they don't always delete. And you can't say "Combine takes together to conserve vertical space" by finding clips that don't overlap and getting them to share a take lane. Layers used to be great at that. Also, sometimes I want to close all take lanes and get a good look at my whole project, but I can't just say "Collapse everything AND hide all the take lanes". Or at least, I don't know how.
 
And what is a feature that should never have to even be built, but in Sonar's case is sorely needed, how about a feature that says "No matter what I do, DO NOT overwrite write anything. When you don't know, always assume I don't want to lose stuff I've already laid down. I mean, duhhh...
 

The fixes made to Take lanes this year are minor, and I don't expect big improvements to happen during the next several months at least, because the last Sonar survey didn't include Take lanes in the response options to a "What do you want to see improved?" or similar question. Also, there's one issue that started happening in Splat. In some of my projects, clips in Take lanes fail to link with each other when I copy/paste them with linking enabled.
 
I still can't avoid using Take lanes when working on MIDI tracks, but, as for audio, I decided to do everything from recording to comping outside Sonar, just because of design flaws in Take lanes. 

Beepster
 
2) No... and yeah this is something that has recently started bothering me as well. Ideally only one clip/lane should be playing at a time in one track BUT sometimes I want to try out multiple takes in unison to see if I have a good double take (like for rhythm guits) in a series of takes before moving the double into a new track. Not having that exclusive solo action though might cause more workflow problems so I'd prefer maybe an overide feature as opposed to complete abolishment of the way lane solo works now.
 

 
I can, in both X3e, and Hopkinton, play multiple take lane clips at the same time easily. Just us the comping tool (i.e. smart tool),   press control and select multiple clips.  
 

Beepster
 
3) I think there have been some minor improvements here but the way I do this reliably is to simply create a new Take Lane (by clicking the + button on one of the other lanes) and drag whatever I want into the empty lane. Works flawlessly. Otherwise... yeah, unpredictable things can happen.
 

 
For me, the exact procedure is to use the Move tool, keep  CTRL held, select the clip you want to copy, drag it to the empty space, then release the mouse. Took me a while to stumble on that. Read it here somewhere. I'd been having a hell of a time with that. 
 

Beepster
 
5) Not sure what you mean. On a track by track basis it is forced. Never tried doing it across tracks. There might be some obscure zooming option for that though.
 
 

This is strange for me ... I'm puzzled that both you and the OP say this is how it works for you. For me, it's the opposite!  In both X3e and Hopkinton, I want to but *cannot* resize one take lane without resizing them all. In fact a super annoying additional behavior is that when resizing, it doesn't anchor the view to lane you are expanding, so that if, say, you want to enlarge the last take lane in a group of 10, by the time you finish the move, you have been whisked to the first of the 10 lanes. Disorienting as hell and bugs me no end, because I basically dwell in take lanes. Constantly have to reorient.   

lingyai

Beepster 
5) Not sure what you mean. On a track by track basis it is forced. Never tried doing it across tracks. There might be some obscure zooming option for that though.
 

 
This is strange for me ... I'm puzzled that both you and the OP say this is how it works for you. For me, it's the opposite!  In both X3e and Hopkinton, I want to but *cannot* resize one take lane without resizing them all. In fact a super annoying additional behavior is that when resizing, it doesn't anchor the view to lane you are expanding, so that if, say, you want to enlarge the last take lane in a group of 10, by the time you finish the move, you have been whisked to the first of the 10 lanes. Disorienting as hell and bugs me no end, because I basically dwell in take lanes. Constantly have to reorient.   

 
As you say, it's not possible to resize each lane individually. What the OP is saying, if I'm not mistaken, is that it's not possible to vertically resize the waveforms of all lanes at once, which is true, and I've also suffered from it many times.
 
As for the anchoring issue, I posted a feature request here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Make-TakeAutomation-lanes-positions-adjustable-while-vertically-resizing-the-lanes-m3223939.aspx#3223939
 

lingyai

Beepster
 
3) I think there have been some minor improvements here but the way I do this reliably is to simply create a new Take Lane (by clicking the + button on one of the other lanes) and drag whatever I want into the empty lane. Works flawlessly. Otherwise... yeah, unpredictable things can happen.
 

 
For me, the exact procedure is to use the Move tool, keep  CTRL held, select the clip you want to copy, drag it to the empty space, then release the mouse. Took me a while to stumble on that. Read it here somewhere. I'd been having a hell of a time with that. 

I think the issue #3 the OP is talking about is this:
 

 
It's technically the same issue as this one, I believe:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Take-Lanes-Clip-cant-be-copypasted-into-a-lane-of-different-T-number-Confirmed-by-CW-m2994675.aspx
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

@lingya... I think you misunderstood what was being referred to in those comments.
 
1) Is actually referring to not being able to use the Take Lanes Solo buttons on more than one lane at a time. Yes you can promote multiple CLIPS and they'll play back at the same time and that works for some things. However once you flatten a comp the original clips of that comp remain active/promoted as well as the flattened comp. If you disengage the solo button on the flattened lane it plays over top of the original clips. If you only want one of those sections or a few of those sections playing instead of being able to solo the lanes they are in you have to mute all the other lanes... one at a time (because for some reason quick grouping lanes doesn't allow you to mute them all at once). It also can get weird when you have created multiple flattened comps in the same track. It's a little hard to explain in text the scenarios this becomes problematic but once you encounter it you'd know what I mean.
 
3) IME that doesn't always work as intended and sometimes there isn't an empty space to be had (like a clip already exist there). Creating an empty lanes just ensures nothing wacky happens. And yes, I was referring to Ctrl + Dragging... just into an empty lane.
 
5) Yes, all the lanes in a track expand simultaneously to the same height. I think what was being asked about was across tracks (multiple tracks). I would personally like to be able to disable the "auto zoom" size adjustment in lanes as well as a ton of other stuff (like hiding and archiving lanes I don't want to look at anymore).
 
Cheers.

jkoseattle
I'm mostly happy with X3e except for one ENORMOUS area of constant frustration. I'm wondering how many of these things are improved significantly by upgrading. 

Bad News: Take lanes haven't changed that much since X3e, except for a truckload of bug fixes.
Good News: Through (sometimes painful) changes in workflow, users who used to rely on Layers have come to appreciate the good things about Take Lanes. You have to be willing to change... it's not for everyone.
 
Even Better News: If you're suffering with Take Lanes in X3e now, you can upgrade to Platinum and be no worse off. However, the new features (unrelated to take lanes) could easily blow your socks off and make you more willing to put up with the perceived compromises in workflow that Take Lanes are imposing on you.
 
Good luck and happy music making.