Hi Everybody!
 
I'd like to pull your brains as regards hands-on experience of Sonar play lists for live use (to provide aux backing tracks @ live shows). I'd appreciate if you could give me some hints on potential pitfalls regarding set-up, stories what happened to you ... so that I get a feel for pros and cons ...
 
As background info: We are currently using a hands-free set-up which needs some work but before we embark on this I'd like to know whether play lists are the way to go .... well, here's what we have in use at the moment:

1. single Sonar project containing all songs with markers at songs starts to be able to jump
2. next/prev marker, stop and play executed from a floorboard MIDI controller, so set-up is hands and mouse-free on stage
3. each songs contains a MIDI prg chg message at the start to call the specific scene set-up on the digital mixer

This set-up works very well, but has a major drawback when adding songs or changing song order (huge effort in Sonar or alternatively requires stepping through markers in order to find the right place to continue which disrupts the flow of the show) ...
 
A first quick test of play lists looked promising, yet documentation is so limited. There are a number of questions already (Can I use key bindings for start/stop/next in play lists? Can I use it to record tracks to each song? How to disable the silent bus warning?) ...
 
Thanks in advance to anyone sharing more insight.
Rob
 

no one using this feature??? let's hope the bakers don't drop it because my tests over here look very promising for what I intend to do with it :-)

FreeFlyBertl
no one using this feature??? let's hope the bakers don't drop it because my tests over here look very promising for what I intend to do with it :-)

When playlists were broken, users of same were VERY vocal about a fix, which Cakewalk implemented. Hopefully those people will show up and tell you how they use playlists. I haven't used that feature myself...hmmm...another thing to check out.

I have tried using playlists to play individual projects one after another. It works fine except that you have to leave a few more blank measures after the playback starts for the samples to load in to the vstis. As I'm sure you are aware, long load times mean dead air! That extra 10 seconds could mean the difference between a packed dance floor and the Sahara Desert. Once you've lost them, you have to start winning them back over again. That scenario can be plain exhausting and frustrating. Over the years of playing a lot of the venues over again, I have made lists that are assembled from files that are custom EQed and tweaked for certain rooms.
It is so much easier to convert mixes to mp3s and make playlists in Media Player than being bothered with Sonar. It's a lot easier to locate that one requested song in the middle of a set and insert it in there. I still prefer using the original project files but sometimes the show needs to move faster and more flexible than Sonar will let you. 

Being someone who used to drag an Atari around I have been a live sequence user for 3 decades. 
Sonar is just plain too slow as Sidroe has just mentioned. I need to keep the focus on the dance floor and I also need the flexibility to change the set lists on the fly. 
I use a USB foot controller and tracks are Wave files played from Win Amp. 
 
http://www.cactusmusic.ca/johns_rig.htm
 
 

I did a gig with a guy that used it just a little while back and it worked flawlessly. There was no appreciable lag time for loading files or instruments that I could tell. And he was using X2.
I was so impressed with it I've started experimenting with it myself. I've noticed that as one file is playing the next file starts to load so there's no lag. But I'm only loading projects that have maybe 10 or 12 tracks maximum. If you were loading projects with huge track or vsti counts then YMMV.

This may appear to be my first post; however, I was unable to migrate my former account. Anyway...
I used to employ the play list feature on many occasions with few problems. The main downside occurs if you have to pause a song during playback: the song pauses but automatically resets itself to the beginning of the song. Usually when you pause, you want to continue playing from that point. Until I can resolve this issue, I've stopped using play lists.
Maybe I'm missing some toggle that would correct this, but I haven't found it yet.

Anderton
When playlists were broken,

... which leads to the first step when using them. You must be on X3E (OP's sig says X3c).

Doesn't anyone use live musicians anymore?

... well dead ones could be a logistical nightmare... (mind you they won't be going anywhere).