RehabRob

ricoskyl
I apologize if this would be unworkable, but what about a "save selection as part" feature?  
 
Here's how it might work: Save portions of the song as parts, name them (e.g. Chorus, Verse, Bridge) and make them available in the library, browser or a "song playlist."  Similar to the idea that Snehankur suggested.  
 

Thanks for the idea, but I don't think that's a workable solution as it more or less assumes that you already know your chorus, verse, etc upfront ... and save/load gets way too messy with several revisions of the song
 
I'm probably the only here who has never seen Studio One, but Sonar I think would need to get a list of song sections (assigned graphically, intuitively, easily) so that it knows reference points of each section (start, end) so that it can jump to in playback and recording ... in terms programming it's all just a matter of a few reference pointers and buffering ;-) <<ohh I'm going to get hit for oversimplifying here>>  and then do seamless playback using proper x-fades etc (of course all working with tempo variations and odd meters and so on) ...  once you are happy with the "dynamic" arrangement where songs section float about arbitrarily, click a button to rearrange your song into what we currently have i.e. a linear structure from start to finish

Hi Rob,
ricoskyl has given as an example.
My idea is just a list of markers/regions to be played as a sequence:
**
Marker01   01:01:01   12:08:04
Marker02   13:01:01   16:08:04
Marker03   21:01:01   24:08:04
Marker04   31:01:01   40:02:04
Marker05   54:03:01   58:08:04
Marker03   21:01:01   24:08:04
Marker04   31:01:01   40:02:04
Marker01   01:01:01   12:08:04
Marker02   13:01:01   16:08:04
Marker01   01:01:01   12:08:04
We can save this only as an arrangement thought. May be some sections are not marked even if we intend to.
We can make other sequence as well.
 
Regards
Snehankur
 ** Edit: I tried to put that as a table but it got changed.

Thanks again to all voters and further suggestions - even though my thread was merged.
 
One important thing for maximum usability is to also have enough options to select which clips go with a marker selection range. I think Cubase lack that a bit.
 
Example
For me at chorus or after a break and similar, drums often have a few hits just before - a tom and a crash and things like that. This mean for max flexibility - ability to select which clips that may go beyond the marker selections would be good - since these hits for drums in my case belong to the following section.
 
I was really hoping beginning this year - one year anniversary of rolling updates - that something major would be announced like arranger tracks or something really major. To my disappointment nothing showed on the major scale - but is still hoping to see Cakewalk determination continue and I can renew my membership.

I would love to see a comment from the Bakers on this subject. This thread is over 2 years old. While I might speculate that if this were easy in SONAR, it would have been done already. Or I might speculate that there is some core redevelopment work still to do before attacking this feature. Or I might expectorate. I dunno.
 
Conceptually, the ability to work in song sections (vertically) AND in instruments (horizontally), makes obvious sense. It's taken some time for me (an amateur) to separate live looping (Ableton Live, Bitwig, etc.) from the concept of the Arrange View. I was fortunate be see a Nektar post that linked to a free copy of Bitwig 8-Track for Panorama owners. I played around with it for a bit and realized that live looping ain't my gig. And I got to do that for free. Bitwig uninstalled.
 
+1 for an Arrange View.

TheMaartian
I would love to see a comment from the Bakers on this subject. This thread is over 2 years old. 
 
+1 for an Arrange View.

In a very competitive market it's probably better to bake first and then talk :-)
 
While many suggestions here are viable (like Snehankur's above), many come from a technical point as what is easily possible by extending existing options. I consider that approach too limited ... so I really hope that when Cake gets onto an arranger option, they approach it from a songwriters/arrangers perspective rather than from a too technical one ...
 
It needs to be intuitive, you need to be able to move building blocks around, be able to duplicate them, crop them, keep them linked (so all update if you e.g. change the bass line in the chorus), break the link (if you deliberately want to change the chord progression e.g. for the last chorus) [which is functionality that we have for individual MIDI clips, but that would have to apply also to audio], blend/x-fade the blocks (e.g. allow the drums/bass to come in half a measure earlier to always lead up to the chorus independent of if you are coming from the bridge or some solo section) ... and tempo flexibility would also be great (so that you don't have to manually stretch all audio clips after a tempo change) ... these are just a few things that come to my mind ...
 
let's just keep feeding this thread so that it keeps getting Cakewalk's attention. personally I'm very happy with Sonar as the tool to produce, engineer and mix ... on the creative end it lacks and often slows down the creative flow.  with a proper arranger option it could eventually beat the still preferred 3P approach (paper+pencil+piano)
 
 

TheMaartian
I would love to see a comment from the Bakers on this subject...

 
See posts #34 & #40 earlier in this thread.

RehabRob

TheMaartian
I would love to see a comment from the Bakers on this subject. This thread is over 2 years old. 
+1 for an Arrange View.

In a very competitive market it's probably better to bake first and then talk :-)
While many suggestions here are viable (like Snehankur's above), many come from a technical point as what is easily possible by extending existing options. I consider that approach too limited ... so I really hope that when Cake gets onto an arranger option, they approach it from a songwriters/arrangers perspective rather than from a too technical one ...
 
It needs to be intuitive, you need to be able to move building blocks around, be able to duplicate them, crop them, keep them linked (so all update if you e.g. change the bass line in the chorus), break the link (if you deliberately want to change the chord progression e.g. for the last chorus) [which is functionality that we have for individual MIDI clips, but that would have to apply also to audio], blend/x-fade the blocks (e.g. allow the drums/bass to come in half a measure earlier to always lead up to the chorus independent of if you are coming from the bridge or some solo section) ... and tempo flexibility would also be great (so that you don't have to manually stretch all audio clips after a tempo change) ... these are just a few things that come to my mind ...
 
let's just keep feeding this thread so that it keeps getting Cakewalk's attention. personally I'm very happy with Sonar as the tool to produce, engineer and mix ... on the creative end it lacks and often slows down the creative flow.  with a proper arranger option it could eventually beat the still preferred 3P approach (paper+pencil+piano)
 

What I felt is Cakewalk never ignored this thread but tried to create this feature but realized that this will lack the seamless playback due to the technical limitation of disk access / buffering etc, which will lead to large number of posts of criticism.
 
My question is do we need that level of seamless playback? Or we can sacrifice a bit. I tried to have markers and have two key to jump to next and previous marker. During play back going back and forth to a marker I didn't find much of glitches in the playback, though I have lesser number of active tracks. With those two keys I have limited option to jump to markers and its manual. Wish I could automate this. This is what I mentioned in the post.
 
If we don't need highly seamless playback during trial we can get the idea of the sequences which we can shuffle and test.
 
If we want to keep any or some of them as finals I believe Cakewalk can very well provide us a render button which will create seamless version.
 
But jumping to specific marker (not prev or next) I am not aware about or may be CAL Scripts play a role here.
 
Regards
Snehankur
 

Snehankur
What I felt is Cakewalk never ignored this thread but tried to create this feature but realized that this will lack the seamless playback due to the technical limitation of disk access / buffering etc, which will lead to large number of posts of criticism.
 
My question is do we need that level of seamless playback? Or we can sacrifice a bit. I tried to have markers and have two key to jump to next and previous marker. During play back going back and forth to a marker I didn't find much of glitches in the playback, though I have lesser number of active tracks. With those two keys I have limited option to jump to markers and its manual. Wish I could automate this. This is what I mentioned in the post.
 
If we don't need highly seamless playback during trial we can get the idea of the sequences which we can shuffle and test.
 
If we want to keep any or some of them as finals I believe Cakewalk can very well provide us a render button which will create seamless version.
 
But jumping to specific marker (not prev or next) I am not aware about or may be CAL Scripts play a role here.
 
Regards
Snehankur
 

The ten markers can be jumped to in a flash of course - was it number key 0-9 or from control bar markers keypad.
 
As a songwriting tool even if not seamless playback it's really good tool to finalize a flow of events in a piece of music.
To see it as a scratchpad, kind of, seamless is not needed as I see it.
 
You already realize something more is needed to make a song or piece of music better.
So what are your options?
a) Somewhat cumbersome insert time/silence and do copy paste.
b) or drag a thumbnail in a playlist
 
I can certainly live with small cracks or pops before deciding the flow. And if need a new part, you just do that last after everything else and add it to arrange list.
 
If having the Cubase features of generating new projects from arranger playlist preset - we can make the project or projects where we do the final mixing on - once seing all needed parts are in place and in the right order on the Arranger Recall(to compare a bit to Mix Recall).
 
And if rendering from an arranger playlist you have no realtime issues at all.
 
I also read what Noel was kind enough to comment on - and for me it's arranging that is useful, not live anything. Cakewalk so often made better implementation on things that Cubase introduced - like freeze, track templates etc.
 
Further wild ideas.....
 
Maybe do it in three steps:
 
Full project tracks copy paste insert
---------------------------------
But a step in the right direction could be to have seamless copy paste - that really takes all automation, tempotrack and the lot over full range of tracks. Maybe like Paste Special where you select which parts are to be pasted.
 
Full project range save as
-----------------------------
Yet another approach could be to allow saving of a range of a project at a time in several sections - and an ability to reassemble those in any order later. Maybe embedded in project like Mix Recall. Then the dividing part need not be realtime at all - and easier to implement for devs. So Append Project feature - where same named tracks let original track header with plugin bays etc remain - and just append track content. If a new track, then just create that as is.
 
Arranger tracks
-----------------
Maybe the mystery of it all is clear how to do it within a project and then save new complete projects from that once set. And this could be two years from now.

Snehankur
 
My question is do we need that level of seamless playback? Or we can sacrifice a bit. I tried to have markers and have two key to jump to next and previous marker. During play back going back and forth to a marker I didn't find much of glitches in the playback, though I have lesser number of active tracks. With those two keys I have limited option to jump to markers and its manual. Wish I could automate this. This is what I mentioned in the post.

IMHO we do need it.  Seamless playback is very relevant because not everybody can "forward imagine" the finished product in the same manner, to give you an example: while it may be fine for you to test your ideas while jumping back and forth between markers, this will not work very well when you arrange and build on somebody else's ideas, especially if done in real-time with several people all contributing. You may have a certain idea in your head about what it will sound like, but the guy next to you envisions something totally different. so you can say "i'll put the section here, then jump to here, between those two we need a drum fill, and here we need the bass to walk down to the first chord of the verse, ..." that will leave your writing partners totally puzzled ... 
 
Or when you get into more advanced phases where tempo variations come into play, I cannot judge if a ritardando is good if it is followed by a 20 ms gap where I jump between markers ...
 
Personally I'm only interested in a full blown arranger feature that incorporates a lot of new features (i.e. some major new feature like mix recall, patch points, drum replacer were) - a real game changer is what I vote for.

Good luck with that. As arrangement with the transport stopped hasn't hit the radar yet, the "whole shebang" is most likely pretty far out there.
 
The "game changer" concept is sort of ironic, since SONAR is already in a tail chase on this one.