Before I upgrade to Sonar 3 I would like to know if this is still a problem:

I do a lot of complex time signatures and changes in my music. In earlier Cakewalk products I had a lot of trouble with my time stuff getting really whacked by Cakewalk, especially during cut/copy/paste style editing.

As a beta tester of several products up to and including Sonar 1, I reported these problems and even supplied sample files that demonstrated the problem. I could not believe it when nothing changed.

I was then forced to start using Cubase VST/32 which worked fine with respect to my time issues. I tried again with Sonar 2 and it still got whacked, so I stuck with VST/32.

Now I would like to either upgrade to Cubase SX 2 or to Sonar 3. I like Cakewalk as a company and don't really like Stenberg's attitude and lack of support. I like and dislike many things about the Steinberg product.

Sonar is looking very appealing if I can be assured that it will work for my time issues.

Can anybody shed some light on this?

Bob Hoke

I had a lot of trouble with my time stuff getting really whacked by Cakewalk, especially during cut/copy/paste style editing

Whacked how? I've done some odd/multi time signature stuff in Sonar 3, but I don't recall having problems with copy>paste operations.

I don't think I've had any problems with copy and paste other than making sure the clip will fit in the right place, but the problem I have with it is that I can't seem to add just one measure of 5/4 for example without the remaining measures changing to 5/4. Of course I go to the next measure and correct it, but it seems this is an unnecessary step.

Yeah, funny things happen when you insert measures using complex time sigs.

Thanks to all for your responses.

Here is an attempt to better explain the problem:

Set up and record a song with alternating A and B sections, make the A sections be in 7/4 and make the B sections be in 4/4. Copy the A section and insert it as a second copy before the B section, making sure all the appropriate options are selected during the copy and paste to copy all time information.

What used to happen was that the operation would hose (usually all) time changes after the insert point and I would have to MANUALLY figure out what happened and fix them. It was as if the time signature list lost synch with the MIDI and Audio. I would usually have to delete all the wrong changes and insert new changes at the correct places.

I used to really get frustrated with that, especially as songs got more complex. There are forms of music that actually change time signatures, I am not THAT wierd.

It was interesting to me that Cubase was able to handle this type thing, but there are other issues with Cubase...

Bob

This really bit me in the @ss on a project a while back. In front of clients.....very bad......I had no idea what was going on.
CAA

ORIGINAL: bhoke
I used to really get frustrated with that, especially as songs got more complex. There are forms of music that actually change time signatures, I am not THAT wierd.

Not weird at all. I do no original composition in Sonar, only in Finale, because Sonar is seriously broken in many ways. Sonar is absolutely incapable of handling these time signature changes without self-destructing. There are a number of areas that need to be improved before Sonar is truly professional -- this is one, beats per minute is another, and formula-based plugins is a third. There are lots more, including making its notation cross-platform compatible and exportable, etc., etc.

I only have Sonar 2.2, but I'll guess Cakewalk didn't bother with any of these (again).

Grey

Set up and record a song with alternating A and B sections, make the A sections be in 7/4 and make the B sections be in 4/4. Copy the A section and insert it as a second copy before the B section, making sure all the appropriate options are selected during the copy and paste to copy all time information.

I just tried exactly what you described in SONAR 3. I put a 7/4 time change at bar 1, 4/4 at bar 3, 7/4 at bar 5, and 4/4 at bar 7. I then created some notes for these 2 alternating sections. Then I copied the first 7/4 section and pasted it just before first 4/4 section. Everything pasted normally.

The SONAR 3 demo should be available for download any day now. You can confirm (hopefully!) the fix using that.

And I should have specified that my situation was in Sonar 2--not 3. Glad to hear there's no problem!
Thanks for the response,
CAA

I don't know about the copy/paste problem, but the insert measures prob certainly still exists in 3.0.

Using the file you've set up put the now marker at bar 5, and insert 2 measures (sliding all options). You'll see that funky stuff happens -- the time sig changes get slid by one measure less than they should. Using other time sig changes it gets slid one measure too much.

If you can't replicate this I'll send you a file that does.