Coming from Sonar 8.5 to X2, one of my biggest pet peeves is a new issue that was introduced. If I try to save a preset in a U-he synth in Sonar X2 (or X1), I can't type in the full preset name because the "Give All Keystrokes To Plugin" setting doesn't work with U-he synths. Note this used to work in Sonar 8.5.


I've reported this to Cakewalk via the Problem Reporter and never heard back.

I've sent Cakewalk a tech support email, and never heard back.

I contacted U-he tech support, and they responded the next day to say the issue is exclusive to newer versions of Sonar and is on Cakewalk to fix. They can't update their plugin for something that happens in a single DAW, which I don't blame them, especially since this is something that worked fine prior to X1.
So I'm curious, will this get fixed or will it be one of those bugs that carries on from version to version of Sonar?

The same thing happened to me with another plug or synth a couple of weeks ago, but I can't for the life of me remember which one it was. Was trying to type a preset name but was activating some Sonar keyboard shortcut instead. Gave up eventually. 

Just to be thorough...

To Reproduce:

1. Load a U-he synth like DIVA
2. Open the GUI, move some knobs until you have a preset you're happy with
3. In the plugin menu, click the "Give All Keystrokes To Plugin" icon to turn that on
4. Try to save the preset using the internal preset browser - give it a name like "Pad - Big Cheesey Pad"

Result: The "Give All Keystrokes To Plugin" feature has no effect. The second you get to the "a" in the word "pad" the AudioSnap palette opens.

CWBRN-11527

sharke


The same thing happened to me with another plug or synth a couple of weeks ago, but I can't for the life of me remember which one it was. Was trying to type a preset name but was activating some Sonar keyboard shortcut instead. Gave up eventually. 

This one ends up being a workflow killer for me. I'll end up giving it a name like "P," then have to leave Sonar, go to Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder with the preset, and rename it from "p" to whatever I wanted to call it in the first place. Very annoying. I'm hoping this gets fixed in an upcoming update, and maybe bringing some attention to the issue here will help...

I type the text into notepad then copy and paste it to Zebra2.

I have similar issues with East West plugins, there are doubtless other synths that 'give all keystrokes' does not work on either.

Seems to work with CamlAudio's Alchemy just fine though.

Shambler


I type the text into notepad then copy and paste it to Zebra2.

I have similar issues with East West plugins, there are doubtless other synths that 'give all keystrokes' does not work on either.

Seems to work with CamlAudio's Alchemy just fine though.

That's a great workaround. Annoyed I didn't I think of it first. Thanks for the tip!


That said...this is really something Cakewalk should address. Especially since it's not limited to U-he synths. The only reason I brought those up in particular was because I know "Give All Keystrokes To Plugin" works with them in Sonar 8.5, so Cakewalk clearly did something in between 8.5 and X1 (which is where the problem started) to break this feature on some plugins.

 
Has there been any improvement with this key-binding situation?  Any trick to let a user have a decent workflow using U-He (and other) plugins and X3???
 
I just bought U-He Zebra2 and I'm crestfallen that Sonar X3 does not work well with it!  I'm fairly new to X3 also, and finding the transition from v6 to be a good deal more annoying than I had imagined, but this inability to turn all key-binding off AND X3 not working correctly with U-He plugins to be a real deal-breaker for me!  Never had these issues (or even the need to hit the 'give keystrokes to plugin' button) with past versions of Sonar, even using the Zebra2 demo and other U-he plugins!
 
Upon finding the keystroke to plugin issue, I immediately contacted U-He for some insight and Rob explained this is a long-running and well documented (and bug submitted) issue with the Sonar X series.  And I gather this is true as I see users of plugins from other developers having these same issues as well.
 
A quick Google of "sonar x3 give all keystrokes to plugin" shows dozens of complaints of these issues spanning many years, mostly from the CW forums.  Surely these 2 issues have been addressed somewhere along the line of the past 3-4 years!?
 
And for those keeper score at home, the 2 issues are (if either worked, we could get there from here!):
 
1) Selecting the 'Give All Keystrokes to Plugin" button on the plugin doesn't work correctly, so you can't type in the plugin info windows, like when adding performance notes to patch or even renaming the patch. When you do try to type in the plugin, you simply activate the underlying Sonar key-binding.
 
2) There is no way to disable the Sonar key-binding.  There's a place that says it will, but it doesn't - not even if you set all keys to "Do Nothing". I understand the CMD combo bindings will remain, but at least let us adjust the simple upper and lower case letters (and numbers) at our will!
 
Any and all help or insight would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks!
 

Anyone know if using the 32 bit or VST3 versions of these offending plugins help with at least the Give All Keystrokes To Plugin issue?  As U-He plugins would appear to be quite popular, I can't imagine why more people aren't complaining of similar issues with X3!?  Maybe it's just that not many people that use U-He plugins also use Sonar X3.  Maybe the Sonar X series is just on its last legs as far as popularity goes.  The once mighty must eventually fall, I suppose. Hard to say.
 
 

This should be in the problem reports forum

lawp
This should be in the problem reports forum

Some say it works with some plugins but not others.
Also only some people here are using X3E. Others are not.
I'm not seeing a real smoking gun right now, I'm not saying there's no issue, but it would extremely be hard to pass this over to Cakewalk developers as a reproducible issue with Cakewalk code at this stage.
So keeping the thread here in the Sonar forums for further troubleshooting, this thread seems rather a mixed bag of issues in different environments/plugins, it's hard to say there is a specific issue happening.
 
Ta.