More take lane frustration

I am recording vocals for my project in a separate file. I have 3-4 takes of each vocal part I'm recording. Man, there's a lot of frustration with this process.
 
1. I record multiple takes, then when I do processing on them (transposing and/or changing length) they appear to still be separate takes, but they have apparently merged into one take that can no longer be handled separately. So I have to edit one by one.
2. I am having terrible trouble copy-pasting them into the real project. I will grab my takes, Ctrl-C, move to the target project, then try to paste. It will overwrite existing takes, even if I have added enough empty lanes to paste them into and selected the first empty lane. 
3. So, I create a new track to paste them into and create a bunch of extra lanes (all this, incidentally, should be unnecessary - if Cakewalk wants us to use take lanes, they should make it easy on us and figure out what's in the clipboard is takes and create lanes etc for us) but when I paste into the empty track, it again merges all takes into a single clip.
 
As far as I can tell, the only way to do this is to edit, copy and paste each take separately. Extremely time-consuming. Am I doing something wrong??
 
Also, as a side note, SONAR SHOULD NEVER EVER EVER OVERWRITE EXISTING CONTENT WITHOUT WARNING THE USER. This seems like Rule #1  to me. 
 
I've been a Cakewalk user exclusively since 1989, and the take lane concept has been the most poorly executed blunder in their history. Anymore, I just assume that it's going to work in whatever the most inconvenient way possible, and I'm usually right.

bapu

jamesg1213

jkoseattle
 
I am recording vocals for my project in a separate file

 
Just curious - why are you doing that?

When I have a music bed that is rich with FXs etc. I sometimes export a mix to separate project just for tracking vocals at low latency vs. freezing everything. And you can't freeze buses, so there is that too.
 

I wouldn't go that far with mixing if I didn't have the vocals in the project, but that's just me.

Sylvan
Could it be that your are trying to use Take Lanes in a non-intended way? They work just fine for their intended use. That is not to say that your cannot get creative with their use, but if it is causing frustration, then I would explore what exactly are you trying to accomplish and look for all the different tools you could use to best accomplish that rather than try and force Take Lanes to do something they were not intended to do. In the end, this will bring much less frustration.

 
+1!
Take Lanes are great for comping and Speed Comping is still one of my absolute favourite features in SONAR, really a huge time saver.
BUT: I only use Take Lanes for this specific task.
When I got my preferred takes together, I use "Flatten Comp", copy the Comp Track to a new track, archive and hide the old one (including all Take Lanes).
Then I start editing, processing, whatever with a solid new track.
 
I had to change my workflow a bit when Take Lanes were introduced but I'm glad I did.
 
It's way easier for me to change my workflow than the program I use... 
Especially when the outcome is far better than the previous flow.
 
Give it a try!
 
Best,
Klaus

Those who are happy with Take lanes don't do these:
 
- record to more than several lanes per track,
- record more than several clips per lane,
- use clip automation,
- adjust split points, and
- copy/cut and past clips across lanes.
 
And I've been very unhappy with the feature (I submitted a couple of FRs but they've been unimplemented...)

tenfoot
It's a bit like saying this car is rubbish because it sank when I tried to drive it across the lake.

 
I respectfully disagree. If recording to more than several lanes is NOT an "intended" use of the feature, then SONAR should limit the number of lanes each track can create. For those who don't understand what I mean, please record to 30-40 lanes in the track, comp the takes, and try to adjust the split points (inconvenience explained in this thread), or create clip automation envelopes in each lane and then click the expand/collapse Take lanes button (it will take several seconds to just expand/close them).
 
Also, the fifth issue in this thread is an officially confirmed bug. And that's what the OP is talking about.

icontakt

tenfoot
It's a bit like saying this car is rubbish because it sank when I tried to drive it across the lake.

 
I respectfully disagree. If recording to more than several lanes is NOT an "intended" use of the feature, then SONAR should limit the number of lanes each track can create. For those who don't understand what I mean, please record to 30-40 lanes in the track, comp the takes, and try to adjust the split points (inconvenience explained in this thread), or create clip automation envelopes in each lane and then click the expand/collapse Take lanes button (it will take several seconds to just expand/close them).
 
Also, the fifth issue in this thread is an officially confirmed bug. And that's what the OP is talking about.

I respectfully agree with your respectful disagreement. If we're not supposed to do something, the software shouldn't let us do it. "You should just know" is not a software design philosophy.
 
Thanks for linking to the other threads. That list of bugs contains either things that constantly bother me, or things I didn't know I could do, and then watching you do them, know now I'm glad I never tried to do them.
 
I'm continually dismayed when new versions are released, and at the top of them is "Look at all these new bells and whistles", and you scroll wayyyyy down to the lesser improvements, and they say something like "Various bug fixes". It should be the other way around. Or better yet. Release a version where they say "Introducing Sonar Titanium! With NO new features at all, but 1,218 bugs fixed!"
 
THAT I would buy. It's not laziness or lack of money that I'm still on X3.

jkoseattle
 
I'm continually dismayed when new versions are released, and at the top of them is "Look at all these new bells and whistles", and you scroll wayyyyy down to the lesser improvements, and they say something like "Various bug fixes". It should be the other way around. Or better yet. Release a version where they say "Introducing Sonar Titanium! With NO new features at all, but 1,218 bugs fixed!"
 
THAT I would buy. It's not laziness or lack of money that I'm still on X3.

 
I get your frustration, but there have been quite a few fixes in Sonar to take lanes this last year over several of the monthly updates. You can find them by searching the Sonar knowledge base with "sonar 2015 update fixes take lane". The ones you want fixed may not be there, but they are fixing the issues and they are documenting them in the knowledge base (along with all the other fixes) when they do.
 
 

Just chiming in here, I actually constantly edit clips in take lanes. Melodyne and clip gain automation mostly. I haven't really had any issues with it. I tend to just forget to flatten the comp as most of the time, it's an unnecessary step for my workflow.

Your project sounds like a creative use of Sonar's capabilities.
 
I use Track Folders to focus on specific sections within the existing project to work out LV takes and comp/flatten the preferred phrasing into a keeper LV track. Section Folders are archived or deleted once a performance is worked out. Can't say if this is intended behavior or not but have used multiple takes in a single track as a convenient doubling performance. 
 
I run into problems with free style vocal phrasing (e.g. gospel) where takes do not line up neatly and Speed Comped clip boundaries quickly degrade the editing process by "splintering", blocking clip start/end drags within take lanes and eventually crashing Sonar if you pile up too may consecutive edits. I expect this is a pretty demanding use case and plan to document a clear set of steps for submission when I have time. 
 
The current implementation of Take Lanes / Speed Comping is still very useful despite the issues. 

Thanks again everyone. Seems that a good solution for me for now might be to have a separate track for every phrase I'm singing, which will reduce the number of lanes in a single track. I have to be open to changing my work pattern, because probably one or two changes will take care of 72% of my frustration.

Hi, J...
 
So in the first scenario I can see what you are talking about but it never affects/bothers me. When I'm adjusting split points/X-Fades I pick one of the clips that will be faded together and just adjust that one. If I need a visual I'll look at them individually to get an idea of where the transients are/where I THINK the best spot for the split is then choose the best of the two (like maybe one has a more pronounced waveform transient I can use as a landmark). Then I move the split to that spot, listen back and re-adjust/set the X-Fade as needed.
 
So really I use my ears more than my eyes. I just use the waveforms at first to get an idea of where the split/fade will likely work best. Never fails. Maybe I'm missing the point but yeah... even though you can't see both clips it doesn't matter (at least me). However I would like to see the Auto Track Zoom style action be an option instead of the default. That's always bugged be as does the min/mas Lane height.
 
In the second scenario I would never create automation on unflattened comps like that. I'd get the comp together, flatten then add the clip automation to the comped Lane/Clip. I could see maybe how one may not want that if you want to hear the effect of the automation on the comp before flattening but I simply would not do it that way and I don't really think that's intended usage.
 
That said, to me automation in general is one of the most cumbersome, unintuitive and infuriating aspects of Sonar. Any time I try to create anything aside from the most basic envelopes inevitable SOMETHING gets in my way. This looks like another example of that type of silliness and I'd count that as a poorly thought out automation issue.
 
For me clip automation should completely confined to that clip. Not to the entire lane. Take Lane automation could (and should) be just another extra option/technique but Clip Envelopes should be self contained and move with the clip wherever it goes.
 
For the last thing you showed... I have seen you post that before and yup, some of the way things populate lanes is wacky/nonsensical but I've learned to get around stuff like that. It should be fixed. In that scenario though I'd probably move each part one at time (PITA) or if it were going into an empty track I'd clone the source track instead then delete any lanes I did not want in the selection. I'd have to play with that specific move to see if there are better ways.
 
That to me might be moving more into "Problems with Cut/Copy/Paste" stuff as opposed to purely a Lanes issue but definitely exasperated by Lanes.
 
I still haven't had a chance to finish my vid on Lanes but might have time again soon (hopefully). I've gotten really comfortable with them and never really run into issues anymore.
 
Cheeers!
 
 

I don't know if it makes sense for your workflow, but there is an option in preferences to have each take go to a new track rather than have the takes stacked within an existing track.

kevinwal
I don't know if it makes sense for your workflow, but there is an option in preferences to have each take go to a new track rather than have the takes stacked within an existing track.

Thought of that. My thinking was I'd have a track called "Three blind mice" which contains all the takes for that phrase, then make a new track called "See how they run" etc. If I were to use the separate track for each take, I could have a "Take 1" track, and a "Take 2" track, etc., but then AFAIK I couldn't go back for the second phrase and start recording on the Take 1 track again and have it do it's second take on the existing Take 2 track - it would create brand new tracks.
 
@icontakt: Looking at your screen shots reminds me that I'd love to have the ability to collapse Take Lanes the way I used to be able to with layers. Basically to say ""Remove unused space and compact the clips as much as possible" without actually combining anything. The laughable Remove Empty Take Lanes feature sort of does this, but it can only be called from the track lane itself, and you have to be selecting on a clip.  And if I'm at bar 438 and there's a one second clip at bar 12, that lane won't be removed but I won't know why without scrolling back to hunt it down myself and then dragging it by hand. Ridiculous.
 
The more we talk about this, the more I think my best solution is to development workflows that get away from take lanes as much as possible. 
 
Lastly, is it anyone's job at Cakewalk to monitor these forums for areas of concern? If not, where do they look for taking user temperatures on features? If not here, where are people actually heard? Who has real influence?