msorrels
SONAR/Cakewalk broke (or allowed to become broken) gui-less VST support.  It used to work back in the X1-X3 days...

I had the same problem with Airwindows plug-ins in X3. 
 
I'm not sure about other GUI-less plug-ins, or X1 or X2.

I use an other GUI-less plug-in - Dynamic Audio Normalizer.
The plugin works perfect - but the GUI that is generated via SONAR is just very very bad.
It's almost impossible to change any values.
 

That's the problem we're talking about, so stick it in an FX Chain. 

@Wibbles
I don't like FX Chains. The problem is that all values in FX Chain are >0% to max. 100%.
However the real value is time (for example a delay) and must be 400 ms to 2500 ms.
Other example: I want to set a gain value (dynamic normalize) to -6dB, 
then I cannot do this with only percent-values in a FX-Chain.
The values from the GUI-less plugin are not readable and I cannot say which percent-value from the FX-Chain corresponds to the real values of the plugin.
 
 
 

We'll look into this, thanks and sorry for the issues.
 
Keith

THambrecht
@Wibbles
I don't like FX Chains. The problem is that all values in FX Chain are >0% to max. 100%.
However the real value is time (for example a delay) and must be 400 ms to 2500 ms.
Other example: I want to set a gain value (dynamic normalize) to -6dB, 
 

This is possible, but it takes more work. For example if a delay goes from 0 to 2500 ms, and you want the FX Chain to cover from 400 to 900 ms, then you have to do the math and find that the FX Chain control needs to go from 16% to 36%. IF the curve is non-linear you may need to tweak the percentages somewhat, but you can see if the plug-in dial goes to the correct settings when you turn the FX Chain knob.
 
It can take some trial-and-error when trying to do something really precise, like having an LFO cover the exact same range as a Leslie speaker, but it's doable.
 
 

Assignable Controls (in the Track Inspector) might work in this case. However they would only display the values as a percentage, so it would not be much of an improvement over FX Chains.

I'd like to try a PizMidi plugin, but being an instrument VST (VSTi), it can't wrapped into an FX Chain, or can it? "Convert FX Rack to FX Chain" seems to be grayed out...
 
Please really look into this; it's working with 32-bit plugins hosted by BitBridge and I sort of remember it working with 64-bit plugins as well. The current view is a mess, although you sort of can control the settings, if you care to make Sonar to repaint the UI often enough by resizing the VST window. 
 
Thanks,
     Pete