user requested list of enhancements: thanks Cakewalk!!!

SONAR 6 Fine Points

Beyond the big, newsworthy features in SONAR 6 there are many, many new refinements which address everything from workflow to customization and sound quality. Many of these "featurettes" have been introduced as a direct result of feedback from our users and include the following:
Track View

* Vertical meters in the track view are no longer constrained by the track header. See meter activity even when tracks are minimized.

* Track strip controls can be re-ordered or hidden. You can even organize multiple custom views in tabs for easy recall. You can customize the size and spacing of most controls, and track names can be in bold or regular font style.

* Multiple time rulers in different time formats can be simultaneously displayed. Choose from Measures/Beats/Ticks, Hours/Minutes/Seconds/Frames, Samples, and Milliseconds.

* The Track view toolbar now includes all Inline Piano Roll tools, as well as new buttons for Fit Tracks to Window, Fit Project to Window, Hide Tracks, Track Manager, Undo Zoom, and more. As with all other toolbars, you can show/hide and re-arrange buttons as desired.

* Semi transparent Markers - markers are transparent and always visible even if multiple markers overlap.

* Loop and Punch markers are now connected by a bar, which makes it easy to confirm if looping or punch recording is enabled even if the markers are off-screen. The connecting bars can also be dragged to move the loop and punch regions.


Staff View

* Staff View Track List Pane - lets you view any number of tracks and set an active track and mute, solo, or record enable tracks.

* Select tracks easily using the Pick Tracks button in the Staff View toolbar.


Mixing

* Friendly driver names - rename the audio inputs and outputs of your soundcard.

* "Where Am I?" Display (WAI) - Color-coded markers show you which tracks and buses are being used by each of your MIDI controllers or control surfaces. Drag the WAI markers to different groups to change the control focus or double click to open the controller's property page.

* Automation icons - Automatable parameters in the Track view and Console view show a small "Automation" icon if automation exists in the track for a parameter.

* Relative Gain - When controlling a parameter of grouped members, the relative gain between parameters in a group will be maintained by default. Can be toggled on/off from the Group Properties dialog.

* Finer resolution when adjusting controls - Hold down the Shift key for precise control when adjusting sliders and knobs in the Track View, Console View, and Synth Rack.

* Controllers/Surfaces dialog - You can assign the MIDI in and out ports directly in this dialog, without having to open a seperate Control Surface Properties dialog. You can also access
the MIDI Devices dialog directly from the Controllers/Surface dialog, to quickly enable/disable MIDI drivers, if necessary.

Editing

* Clip Time Lock - Lock a clip to SMPTE time, clip data, clip start position, duration (disable cropping or splitting). Lock to Position, Data, or both.

* Snap To Time enhancements:
o Any changes you make are active immediately even with Snap To Time menu open.
o Time formats are now non-exclusive. Musical, absolute or landmark based snap can be active at the same time.
o Control the "magnetic strength" of the snap operation (low, medium, high) or turn off magnetic snap completely.

* Selection Behavior - The Lasso Tool now selects anything it touches, without having to lasso entire clips.

* Fast Zoom -
o Zoom in to wherever you place your mouse pointer.
o Adjusts both horizontal and vertical zooms at the same time.
o Updates the scroll position so the zoom point stays at the cursor.
o Available in both the Track View and the Piano Roll View.
o Accessable through key bindings.

Effects and Plug-ins

* Insertion and deletion of plugins from track and bus effects bins can be undone. Plugins are unloaded from memory when deleted and restored on undo.

* Unified plug-in presets - VST presets and Cakewalk presets are now displayed in a single menu at the top of the plug-in window.

* Use Next/Prev buttons or keyboard shortcuts to toggle through plug-in presets.

* Synth Track Folder - When inserting a new synth, SONAR automatically groups its audio and MIDI tracks into a Track Folder for easy editing and control.

* Synth rack Icons: Load and display icons in the synth rack to more easily differentiate one synth from another when a rack is fully populated with synths.


Audio and Rendering

* SONAR 6 now queries hardware ASIO drivers for latency and compensates for this when you record. For sound cards that incorrectly report latency, a manual offset can be specified for all driver types (in samples).

* Choose the dither algorithm and/or enable 64-bit mix engine in the bounce and export menus. This allows you to render at double precision without changing your playback settings.

* iZotope Radius pitch-shifting algorithm can be used when transposing audio ( in addition to MPEX time/pitch scaling which is still available).


Colors

* Select multiple screen elements to change their colors simultaneously

* Offset hue, brightness and contrast of groups of interface elements to create a unified look (i.e. - make all colors slightly darker, shift the color spectrum of entire interface at once, etc.).

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=866778

If any are still on this thread, I was unable to determine
whether customizing of the Console view would include
being able to choose whether the volume control for a SEND
could be displayed as either a rotary or as a slider-fader graphically?

I think that slider-faders would save me a lot of time
to be able to tell quickly the relative levels of sends.

Planist; Thank you for all the work you have put into this. It is forum members like you that keep Sonar on the cutting edge.

Best
John

ORIGINAL: wittenberg_nl

Something I like to call a marker playlist. You just insert markers like usual. Then you have a new screen where you can simply call up any marker that is in your project, and put them in chronological play-order. Per marker you may also specificy the numer of times this section must play, (a ' section' ends at the first new marker in the project). And then press ' marker play' , and SONAR will play only the markers you have specified, in the order you have specified. It could look something like this:

intro 1x
chorus 1x
verse 2x
chorus 1x
bridge 1x
chorus 2x

Note that this only requires 4 actual sections (intro, verse, chorus and bridge), yet I can build and play an entire song with it.

Sounds simple? Imagine the sheer possibilities. You could construct entire songs without having to actually copy and paste the clips in that order. Many songs are based upon repititions.. why should I have to actually have identical parts in my project twice? This also would allow me to experiment with different sections following others (how well they fit together), without having to go through the drag of copying and ' sliding over', since that doesn't work quite reliably to me.

Icing on the cake(walk) would perhaps be an 'apply' button that would actually build the song according to my marker playlist for final mixdown. Or after applying, you canmake some variations on the sections I repeated earlier, just to keep them interesting.

Please please implement this feature! I work with songs containing many many different pieces, but I usually just try just a fraction of the possibilities since it is much too cumbercome to actually move them around manually.

In other applications such as "Sound Forge", I believe this is called "Regions" Whereby you can take any region and put it into your "Regions List" in any order you like and have the list play in exactly that order. I like how your idea expands on this basic principle.

Thank you, John. Though, i havent been updating the main List in a long time. ;-)

1 DANGEROUS "FEATURE" - changing control values with the mouse wheel is fantastic. IF and ONLY IF that's what you want to do. I've unwillingly changed more panners and faders than I can count when all I wanted to do was scroll up the screen. THIS MUST BE CHANGED - it's a potentially devastating flaw. It could be as simple as changing this behavior from just the mouse wheel to CTRL+MOUSE WHEEL.
or clicking in the control parameter

- I keep accidentally changing parameters
This is not a feature as much as a foul-up IMHO

+ 1 for me too this feature needs a better 'safety net' around it

Child

Someone should rename this topic to Sonar 7 feature request list. Since S6 has been released your not going to see new features everything is this topic is now really Sonar 7 requests.

i'll try revise the list and update the already implemented features.
it takes some time but i am going to do that.

first off, i'll rename the thread "Sonar FR " without version number ;)

Ok, here is the deal: for some unknown reason, Sonar requires you to arm mutes for automation separately from arming the Write Command for a given track. This sucks and needs to be addressed. When the Write Command on a track is enabled, it should do just that - allow you to fully automate all parameters on that track, solos and mutes included.

oh man,

thats whta i always think of when i'm working in sonar - but never here in the forum.

cake, please in Sonar 6.1 smooth scrolling in track view and all other views (PRV, AudioView, etc.)

Don't know if planist has any more time to maintain such a thing though...

In other forums there is a special Feature Request Forum (e.g. Ableton Live, Podium, Cubase (?).

Instead, this thread could be made a sticky and maintained by us and by a Cakewalk Admin.

i updated and revised the list today, 23.11.2006.

still some work to do updating what has already been introduced in the new version 6.1, but the main implemented features are addressed.

ORIGINAL: planist
i updated and revised the list today, 23.11.2006.

still some work to do updating what has already been introduced in the new version 6.1, but the main implemented features are addressed.

Cool, planist! It was awesome before, and now it's still awesome.

User "tombuur":

To compare Sonar 6 and Cubase 4 features:

Moveable busses Yes No
Customizable colors Yes No
Audio quantize Yes No
64 bit Yes No
DX support Yes No
Mouse wheel support Yes Yes
Crash recovery Yes No
Hardware controllers easy/auto Yes Yes?
Customize workspace/inspector Yes Yes
Track templates Yes Yes
Inflated with plugins I don't need Yes Yes
Moveable inserts Yes Yes
Audition loops at current tempo Yes Yes
Renaming hardware ports Yes Yes
Stretch/pitch audio Yes Yes
Auto compensation hardware fx No Yes
Built in (simple) wave editor No Yes
Song reorganizer No Yes
Full VST with loopback No Yes
Mono tracks from synths No Yes
Librarian for presets, patches No Yes
Studio console No Yes
Audio Pool with functions No Yes
Works with sidechaining VSTs No Yes
Dongle No Yes