Platinum upgrade? Would I just be buying the same bugs once again?

Hi Tim-
 
There's a thread about Noel's blog re fixes & enhancements with a link here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3169938
 
HTH-
 
-Susan

I've been using Sonar for 10 years and never been too vocal, and it hasn't bothered me for the past few years to pay what amounts to a $99 annual subscription, but when the price was jacked to $149 it changed my whole perspective. Sonar crashes sure, but it's been relatively stable for a few versions (my fingers hit ctrl-s every few seconds anyway). But what is killing me is multi-track editing which has gotten particularly difficult since fast-comp was added. I thought I'd be in heaven with fast-comp but it's turned out to be a kind of purgatory.
 
I *really, really* wish that fast-comp could be a "mode" that I could turn on and off. Has anyone else experienced the frustration of having manually comped a bunch of clips but then suddenly they all mute because you accidentally click in the bottom half of a clip instead of the top half? Ugh, this has forced me to stop using the smart tool which has seriously hurt my productivity. As a user, I'm either in fast-comp or good-old-comp mode depending on what's going on, never both, and I can't survive software that reverses my work because of an accidental click (no ctrl-z adds insult to injury on this one).
 
The other frustrating one, and this goes back a few years, is when you're comping a multi-track that is (supposedly) clip-grouped. Ever finish comping a track and then you open up the multis and find them in shreds? IMHO, if a clip is grouped then operations on that clip should *always* be replicated on grouped clips in other tracks - don't force me to highlight the clip! As a result, editing clip groups is weirdly a two click process, and it's too easy to accidentally edit without highlighting. Also, clips don't register boundary changes until you resize past the maximum of all grouped clips. This is just all silly. If clipped groups were simply locked and identical there's be no problems.
 
Then there are two perennial issues with audio-snap. The first is when a transient gets stuck. I don't understand this one, but sometimes you simply can't drag a transient. It refuses to move. I end up having to bounce and then re-engage audiosnap, usually splitting a track into multiple clips.
 
The other one which is a mind blower is when you've locked transients between grouped tracks and for some reason, one of the transients isn't actually locked! It's real easy not to notice this has happened and then a few days down the line you realize that your kick is no longer aligned with the overheads. This one gets the primal screams. More than once I've had to dig out the originals and start over.
 
I don't know if the grass is greener with other DAWs. What really hurts is that (in one of those surveys) I had submitted a long feature wish list after X1 and was incredibly pleased when several of those wish features showed up in X3 (speed comping was one of them). I really *get* Sonar and I love the product direction, but this is foundational stuff. 

If clips are properly grouped, you don't have to select them to edit them. At least I don't, or I'm not understanding you correctly.

It's possible to lock transients, you could try unlocking it first?

I agree about CTRL+Z needing to take into account comping selection. Although if it's a single clip I misclicked, it's not that much of an issue.

timg11
I've posted several threads about bugs in Sonar (and submitted them to support).
 

 
If you entered formal Problem Reports for these, the status of the report will tell you whether it's fixed. Here's my take:
 
MIDI Sync problems:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Syncing-Sonar-tempo-to-match-external-MIDI-clock-m2976288.aspx#3136338
 
I haven't use MIDI Sync in ages. I have successfully in the distant past (slaving to a Roland MC-50 and PMA-5). But it was always at a fixed and matching tempo. There have been some threads about SONAR not slaving to changing tempo from the Master.  I would guess this has not changed.
 
Moving clips with "Slide Over Old to Make Room" badly broken:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Why-does-moving-one-clip-change-the-others-on-the-same-track-m3099534.aspx#3099880
 
This is still broken. I believe it' still in the ReadMe as such.
 
Tempo match / "fit improvisation"
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Matching-tempo-to-imported-audio-clip-m2896463.aspx#2899864
 
I haven't gone through this thread in detail, but I would say that both Fit Improvisation and Set Project from Clip work mostly as advertised, but the latter can require a lot of work on the part of user to get good results. I tend to prefer doing it all manually using Set Measure/Beat At Now. It's ultimately not that much slower, and gives the most precise results. My main complaint about Set Project is that the tempo changes that SONAR inserts don't fall exactly on the measure/beat you set; they're inserted at the M:B:T time that was at the absolute Now time before the new tempo was calculated. Dumb bug introduced around X1, I believe; it worked right in 8.5.3 IIRC. usually, the resulting timing errors are negligible, but it makes the tempo map really ugly.
 
ASIO configuration:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Record-Latency-Adjustment-for-wrong-audio-device-m3117932.aspx
 
You never answered scook's question in that thread, which would be my first guess, too: Are the timing masters in Preferences > Driver Settings correct?
 
 

orhanproject

thorsent
 I *really, really* wish that fast-comp could be a "mode" that I could turn on and off. Has anyone else experienced the frustration of having manually comped a bunch of clips but then suddenly they all mute because you accidentally click in the bottom half of a clip instead of the top half? Ugh, this has forced me to stop using the smart tool which has seriously hurt my productivity.

I feel your pain, Im frustrated since day one that this "always on" comp mode got in sonar...
I too wish that comping mode should be on/off with a shortcut, I wined about this before but nothing will really happen Im afraid, you'll have to get used to bad workflow :( because cake is soo proud of it and everybody seems to love it....

Please don't assume that Cakewalk won't listen. Yes, people generally love the comping and yes, Cakewalk is proud of it for the context in which its optimized (and I believe rightfully so). But several people have mentioned limitations with multi-tracked group tracks and such. I don't know how deep the coding is where a simple on/off switch could be added, or whether CW would need to tear it down and start over from scratch. But if you can provide a clear picture of what it is you want in in the requests forum, you never know...someone at CW might say "Well it would be easy to do that."
 
Meanwhile, regarding the accidental clicking on position-sensitive areas, I expand the vertical height of Take Lanes to make the process easier. Which made me wonder...would a portrait display be better for DAWs than landscape? Hmmm...

If you want cakewalk to listen to your feature requests - post them in the feature request forum.  The bakers have said they monitor that forum and based on the feedback (read post ratings) of each request, they can try to prioritize (probably based on other factors too).

orhanproject

thorsent
 I *really, really* wish that fast-comp could be a "mode" that I could turn on and off. Has anyone else experienced the frustration of having manually comped a bunch of clips but then suddenly they all mute because you accidentally click in the bottom half of a clip instead of the top half? Ugh, this has forced me to stop using the smart tool which has seriously hurt my productivity.

I feel your pain, Im frustrated since day one that this "always on" comp mode got in sonar...
I too wish that comping mode should be on/off with a shortcut, I wined about this before but nothing will really happen Im afraid, you'll have to get used to bad workflow :( because cake is soo proud of it and everybody seems to love it....

A long time 8.5 user here and recently jumped on the X.  I must say that this TakeLane/Comp really frustrated me for all the reasons mentioned here and then some.  I've never spent this much effort in one functional area and still don't completely get it (the logic not what it does). 

We have fixes to look up to, but we have don't have CWBRN numbers either from the OP or Cakewalk.
Only one of the issues the OP quotes appears to have been validated.
Cakewalk used to quote CWBRN numbers when things got fixed but this has disappeared with Platinum.
 
It makes life very difficult when you are comparing eggs with eggs.
 
The OP should wait for the trial to come out. Has it been released??