If not, that would be great feature to add! In case someone is not familiar with with the practice (Reaper, ProTools, etc., have it), you place the Playhead anywhere you want to start recording and press 'record'. Then the music starts playing BEFORE the point of recording (where you placed the playhead) by the amount set in the "recording pre-roll" preference. So, if you want to start recording on bar 41 and your pre-roll is set to 2 bars, you place the playhead at bar 41, hit 'record' and your the music starts playing from bar 39, with recording beginning exactly 2 bars later, at bar 41. It makes punching in and out a lot easier. PLEASE!!!

You can do this in SONAR.  In track view, choose Options > On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker. Set the punch points where you want to record, then place the Now time wherever you want the pre-roll to start. Whenever you stop, the Now time will return to where you initially set it to provide the pre-roll.

Sorry, but it's not nearly the same. I know you can manage with workarounds, but if you have ever used ProTools, Samplitude, Reaper, Logic, etc., you will know it's a very popular and old feature that makes recording much faster, simpler and efficient, because there is just one step (place the playhead wherever you want to start recording) to accomplish the task. Hopefully, Cakewalk will implement it. As it is, I'm using Reaper to record vocals (pre-roll makes it so much faster) but would love to completely move to Sonar, because virtually everything else works nicely!

I must admit I have never used punch in/out on a DAW, and any desire for such disappeared completely with speed comping.

I guess I always think of punch in/out as a destructive edit on tape where prior material gets obliterated. In a DAW there is no such thing, so I always loop an area to include the pre/post roll and lop the ends off later.

Am I missing something with punch in/out here?

I just watched a youtube video about how to set this up in protools. Honestly I don't see how this is easier to manage than what Craig suggested.
 
It is just a different way to do it.

Or just record more than you want and cut out the bit before the "start" time?

Tom Riggs
I just watched a youtube video about how to set this up in protools. Honestly I don't see how this is easier to manage than what Craig suggested.
 
It is just a different way to do it.

Not to be argumentative or anything (and I have no idea what ProTools video you watched), but compare what Craig suggested to this:
 
1. Place playhead anywhere you want.
2. Hit "Record".
 
 
That's it.
 
 
Recording will start automatically at the point  where you placed playhead. No need to set loop points or anything else. It's a feature present in virtually every mainstream DAW out there - for a good reason. 

I can see the benefit of the OP's feature request. The only other option would be a manual punch in. Click on the time-line some bars before the punch-in and hit R to punch in (if set to do so in prefs). However, this isn't as accurate. Sometimes the punch-in place has minimal space to punch.

To me, the problem with setting punch-in is that it requires an -out point. Sometimes, I just want to punch-in and keep recording. To do this with auto punch-in is drag the selection past the end of the piece (if needed). With the OPs FR, you just set the cursor at the punch-in point and hit Record.

CA, is there a way to just enter a punch-in point alone? However, I still think this would require more clicks than what the OP is requesting. Hence, I too think it would be a nice feature to incorporate.

irvin, you can do a formal request here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Features-Ideas-f76.aspx

fwrend
To me, the problem with setting punch-in is that it requires an -out point. Sometimes, I just want to punch-in and keep recording. To do this with auto punch-in is drag the selection past the end of the piece (if needed). With the OPs FR, you just set the cursor at the punch-in point and hit Record.

That's exactly the benefit of this feature. I'll do a formal request - thanks for the link.