Refresh and bring back Project 5

Man that would be some serious work - P5 code hasn't seen the light of day in years. Sorry : /
 
Is there something or a part of P5's workflow that you are missing in SONAR?
 
 

Why?
 
I mean, I wasn't familiar with P5. Did it have modern automation facilities? If so, they should just add them to sonar, really. Otherwise, just can't see why.

Me too. Things like matrix and step sequencer in sonar are no replacement.

Willy Jones [Cakewalk]
Man that would be some serious work - P5 code hasn't seen the light of day in years. Sorry : /
 
Is there something or a part of P5's workflow that you are missing in SONAR?
 
 

For the things that P5 does, Sonar has no true equivalent.  It's a different, but complimentary animal.
 
I realize I haven't seen under the hood, but P5 almost runs well in Windows 8.1x64.  I can't imagine it would be anything humongous like a rewrite to get it spiffed up.
 
I'm of the opinion that P5 was introduced a bit ahead of its time.  Could be broader adoption now.

Spencer
well yeah the matrix view, piano roll and step sequencer in sonar just need to be finished. correct me if I'm wrong but the only advantage P5 had over sonar is that pattern based sequencing doesn't suck. routing is just as bad, act, automation etc same crap as sonar. therefore I'm still wondering why dig up that corpse and not give sonar the love it needs on the electronic music side instead, seems much more sensible to me. we're already paying a lot for this software, no reason we'd have to cough up more for what should be trivialities

I think the OP was talking about another, separate product. No reason to buy if it doesn't meet the need. BTW, Trivialities are in the eye of the beholder. I don't need drum replacer, CCC, start page enhancements, I already own AAS Strum (full version), etc.
When you say "well yeah, the matrix view, piano roll ......just need to be finished" - that's also a big key. Just need to be finished.... Simple....they've been around a long time and don't come close to matching the functionality of their P5 counterparts.

As much as I'd love to see P5v3 rise from the ashes, I know it's just wishful thinking.  The coolest "feature" of P5 wasn't even part of the software IMO - it was the user community.  That forum had some of the coolest people I've ever known online and was THE place to find really cool new music.  Ahhhhhh.....memories.  I need a beer. 

mudgel
I don't understand. I thought you weren't familiar with P5.

That's right, and I went and informed myself. I came to the conclusion - again correct me if I'm wrong - that if you add the P-Seq, Synchron, and some matrix view enhancements to Sonar, then there's no reason to hope for a re-release of P5 anymore.
 
Personally, in this era of Nerve, MUX and such, I think modern automation facilities would help me make my electronic music a lot more than better sequencing. I can cope with it fine, whereas with the envelopes, I'm screwed, that's not something I can add-on to sonar like nerve and MUX.

You're probably right, but with cakewalk's habit of making very strange decisions, you never know.

cryophonik

Willy Jones [Cakewalk]
Man that would be some serious work

Yup. Now, get on it.

 
Didn't some guys from Sweden already do that?

BobF

Willy Jones [Cakewalk]
Man that would be some serious work - P5 code hasn't seen the light of day in years. Sorry : /
 
Is there something or a part of P5's workflow that you are missing in SONAR?
 
 

For the things that P5 does, Sonar has no true equivalent.  It's a different, but complimentary animal.
 
I realize I haven't seen under the hood, but P5 almost runs well in Windows 8.1x64.  I can't imagine it would be anything humongous like a rewrite to get it spiffed up.
 
I'm of the opinion that P5 was introduced a bit ahead of its time.  Could be broader adoption now.

 
And if you really wanted to narrow your workflow to getting bits of a groove down perfectly, it's little brother Kinetic was  even a little better.
 
I definitely agree that P5 was ahead of its time.  I'd like to see it released with a more "Skylight" type windowing system and enjoy the delicious irony of the Bitwig fanboys whining about Cakewalk copying them.

i'd also love to see this, but we won't, for the same reasons it was dropped: migrating the codebase to multi-core and x64 was deemed too big an effort, oh well... live's a pretty good replacement hough

Since I bought a large tablet at the start of the year I've become more and more irritated at the nonsensical implementation of touch in Sonar.
They made such a show about Sonars touch interface, but its development seems completely locked into the idea that to do anything useful in Sonar you will still need to use a mouse.
The annoying part is that application that have made no effort on implementing touch features are now far more usable in this context, because the windows native touch mouse emulation is pretty much spot on.
 
Okay So if I have to start looking around at alternatives I might as well go back to my all time favourite interface. Project5. Ive dug out my old disc and service packs, and brought it back to life.
 
Wow. This thing still works fine! In fact running it on a modern tablet is a pleasure. The only catch is getting some of the plugins to run in a 64bit environment, which is probably just a matter of tinkering.
 
Anyway. Id forgotten how much deeper the editor was for automation. Any vst perameter is reachable. The ability to to directly edit clips from the groove matrix is also a huge speed boost. Exposing extra parameters in the inspector is also such a cool feature. 
Of course everything just works fine in terms of touch. The only part of the interface that doesnt respond well are the volume bars. I dont think mixing would work well, but thats what my controller keyboard is for. And in this regard P5 was never really a mixing environment, more a creative synth environment.
 
Anyway I always felt that abandoning P5 and the half hearted folding of some of its features into Sonar was a mistake. I would have folded Sonar into P5.
Its not too late you know.....
 
J
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
I'm curious why you think SONAR's touch impl is nonsensical. To handle multitouch we cannot rely on the base windows fallback since that doesn't support multitouch. What specifically are you missing that the default touch implementation does?
 

Nonsensical wasn't my choice of words (I would say partially implemented), but I'll chime in that the biggest single deficiency is for a Right Click equivalent (Windows touch/hold) - If I am working in console view - and want to (say) add an effect to an effect bin - There is no way to do that without grabbing the mouse. (Please tell me if I am wrong, because I haven't figured out a way to do it). No way to group faders, etc, etc - without grabbing a mouse (I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this).
After a bit of time of limited touch capability, I gave up and now use my Touch screen monitor as a regular monitor with a mouse. I don't understand your comment about the base windows fallback. I do know that I have capability to do a right-click equivalent (touch/hold) outside of SONAR using windows 8.1, which I don't have in SONAR.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
At this time with the matrix, SONAR pretty much does almost everything that P5 could do (and tons more). If there are specific features from there that you miss you can submit FR's...

This is the problem (in my view - I am not trying to speak for the OP or for the other posters pining for a reincarnation of P5) -  the matrix doesn't match Project 5's workflow. Capability doesn't necessarily equate to an easy, logical workflow that is pleasurable to work in. I don't know how to distill this fact into individual FR's for each aspect of desired improvement. (And I haven't had P5 installed in eons to be able to do this even if I had the time). I confess to not using either Matrix or the Step Sequencer extensively in SONAR because the tools as provided in early (Post P5) versions of SONAR were inferior (I can't honestly say whether that is still the case) and the SONAR environment encouraged linear/"traditional" project sequencing.
  

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
I'm curious why you think SONAR's touch impl is nonsensical. To handle multitouch we cannot rely on the base windows fallback since that doesn't support multitouch. What specifically are you missing that the default touch implementation does?
 
Regarding P5 the main reason it was dropped was the engine was too limited even at that time - it didn't handle bussing, multi-processing or multiple hardware devices well. Upgrading it would essentially mean transplanting SONAR's engine into it. Since P5 was built on an earlier architecture that would have been a large undertaking and couldn't be cost justified. At this time with the matrix, SONAR pretty much does almost everything that P5 could do (and tons more). If there are specific features from there that you miss you can submit FR's...

Thanks for the update, Noel.  I had no idea P5 was such a turd when you sold it to me    I get it.  Totally outdated, incapable beast.  I won't hold my breath on this one.
 
Sorry, Noel, but Matrix and Step Sequencer (as Mike pointed out above) are no replacement for P5's functions.  As a start, how 'bout making a pattern editor in Sonar that is equal in elegance to the pattern editor in P5?  Once that's done, we'll move on to the next item. 
 
Seriously, open up P5 sxs with Sonar.  Do the same things in each.  Now match the form & function from P5 in Sonar.

Hi Noel,
Thanks for chiming in. Prehaps you could clarify the direction of Sonars touch features.
I recall when X2 came out. James Oliver demonstrated the touch features on a Sonicstate video.
He said something along the lines of "To do any editing in Sonar you will always need to use a mouse and keyboard"
Is that how you see the development of Sonar touch?
 
That would be the nub of why I feel the development of touch as being a bit odd. Wouldn't the logical goal of a touch interface be the full use of the program, rather than relying on a external item of hardware to edit anything?
 
However there is something you said that I dont fully understand, but might be at the root of my frustration.
"To handle multitouch we cannot rely on the base windows fallback since that doesn't support multitouch"
 
Does this mean that implementation of multitouch is mutually exclusive with windows touch right click emulation?
So you can add multitouch features like the on screen keyboard, but at the expense of having a right click touch menu in the arrangement window?
 
That means that the things that I had assumed to have been crippled deliberately, are actually just the result of implementing multitouch. And I'm just woefully underestimating how long it will take to make Sonar a complete multitouch program. Many many years.
Sonar Unobtainium edition?
Is this the case?
 
Back on topic. If Sonars step sequencer allowed automation of vst parameters rather than being limited to midi spec messages only, or the matrix allowed for direct editing of cell contents, it really would be an improvement on P5. These are still superior in P5, especially if you are using a touchscreen.
 
Cheers J