smallstonefan
Say what you want about freezing - the point is this is a NEEDED feature for those of us that want to capture that creative performance by "playing" the randomness of a synth.

I mentioned freezing only in the context of being able to overlay randomness on an already played part so you could capture a random sequence of events you liked. If you want to play the synth, you can follow the other loopback techniques mentioned in my previous post. There are other DAWs that implement real-time recording more elegantly, but SONAR doesn't lack this feature. What it lacks is a more streamlined implementation of this feature. As a result, I'd much rather see development effort spent on functions that SONAR actually doesn't do, like a "drum machine mode" for the PRV.

This is a situation too where I am not dealing with any existing performances either.  I was not referring to that. There are times I am recording live for the first time direct into a midi track.  I record the midi but then manipulate the random VST at the same time.  The midi data may or may not be useful but it is still nice to record the audio performance that comes out of a VST then and there live.
 
Feedback loops can be avoided with clever programming.
 
Another place I do it is in mixdowns sometimes.  Sometimes the human touch in a mix is nice.  (I use a digital mixer) I don't bother recording automation in some situations just the mix straight onto a track.
 
It is good feature.  Not a deal breaker I agree but handy at times.  It is nice to be able to impliment it totally within the DAW without any outside patching or setting up.
 
 

The only thing required to safeguard loopback is that the armed/recorded track be muted. Internally this could be interlocked to the track input being a "loopback" and could also allow for tactical loopback (one track, buss, etc.). With other methods the safeguard is user awareness, and the loopback method requires a lot of work (and not all options are feasible). There are already options to achieve loopback, but a method internal to SONAR would be highly preferred.

mettelus
The only thing required to safeguard loopback is that the armed/recorded track be muted. Internally this could be interlocked to the track input being a "loopback" and could also allow for tactical loopback (one track, buss, etc.). With other methods the safeguard is user awareness, and the loopback method requires a lot of work (and not all options are feasible). There are already options to achieve loopback, but a method internal to SONAR would be highly preferred.

Not correct.  Studio One get around it in a much better way.  They restrict the output assignment in a very clever way. Tracks can be not muted and even input monitoring selected.  What changes in their approach is where you can route the tracks while you are recording.  Basically you can never get feedback no matter what you do or try.  Excellent approach as any other method could lead to some serious feedback issues.

There is nothing special or particularly clever about feedback detection :)
All it requires is checking a circuit to see if it loops back on itself. SONAR does feedback detection in the output routing UI today - you cannot route an output to a bus or sidechain input if that would result in feedback.
Recording virtual inputs (or rather synth outputs) is trickier than it might seem although the OP looks at this as a "basic" feature. Recording is quite deeply integrated with hardware inputs in SONAR since its the way it was implemented decades ago. It has to support all the recording workflows, punch, looping etc but with virtual inputs. Not that we can't or won't do this but it requires effort and planning. Its not something we can just pull out of our hats in a couple of days :)

Aw come on, be brave. :-)

I still question the wisdom of spending time solving a problem for which solutions already exist.

Anderton
I still question the wisdom of spending time solving a problem for which solutions already exist.

Ableton?
There are definitely a lot of meat and potatoes issues and features I'd like to see fixed and improved first anyway... Drum maps UI, Takelanes, audiosnap, piano roll.
 
There are of course other solutions that already exist here as well 

sharke
There is also the Vonexgo Recorder and Tape It, but we really shouldn't have to use cables or 3rd party plugins for this.

What's wrong with these plugins? Voxengo stuff is top notch... FL Studio a built-in plugin to record any output same thing as Voxengo but they provide the plugin.
Agreed a live mode would be nice but a plugin on the master should capture a perfect digital stream.

CadErik

sharke
There is also the Vonexgo Recorder and Tape It, but we really shouldn't have to use cables or 3rd party plugins for this.

What's wrong with these plugins? Voxengo stuff is top notch... 

I know this sounds like crazy talk, but wasn't the idea behind plug-ins to add features to DAWs so you could customize them to do functions not included in the DAW?