I've gotten used to Sonar, and it's becoming a bit more useful every day. There was (and still is) a learning curve, definitely, but this is true with almost all of the DAW's on the market. Probably the only things I think still need work are Take Lanes (which are far better now than in X2), and I'm liking ProChannel less and less, and I'm moving back to using the standard FX bin for plug-ins. I would like to see those FX bins expanded to show up to 8 -10 plug-ins.

Yeah - I have seen a bunch of posts where once folks learned the new methods of doing things they seem to have discovered they like it.
 
Bob Bone
 

CakeAlexS
> I think the biggest hurdle for me is zooming and navigating to what I'm interested in editing quickly
 
Zoom shortcuts
SHIFT click on Zoom buttons = Make largest/smallest zoom.
CTRL + Arrow keys = Best way to Zoom!
Hold down Z, Select area = Zoom in on that area! Alt-Z undos this!
F = Fit tracks to the window
SHIFT + F = Fit project to window
AlT-Z = Undoes a screen action.
SHIFT Double click a clip = Maximizes it.
F11 = Full screen mode
SHIFT-Z = Enable/disable auto Zoom on tracks.

I'm printing this out and tacking it to my monitor, thanks!
 
Alt-Z doesn't seem to work for me. It undoes a zoom in Track View, but not in PRV. Even if I'm sitting in PRV working, and zoom by holding down Z and selecting, subsequently hitting Alt-Z changes the zoom in the Track View window, but the PRV remains unchanged. Er??
 
Pretty unrelated question, but typing that last paragraph reminded me. I use Ctrl-Space and Space both a great deal, depending on whether I want the Now time to stay or to rewind. However, sometimes I get it wrong, and hit Space when I meant to hit Ctrl-Space. What this does of course is rewind me to perhaps somewhere quite far afield from where I was last listening. Then it's a long process of finding where I was. Is there, by any chance, a key I can hit that essentially tells Sonar "I meant to hit Ctrl-Space, so take me to where I  would be if I'd remembered to use the Ctrl button."?

jkoseattle
 
Yes, I meant if you select notes and slide them over in PRV. You can't, that I know, select notes and move them AND have the tempo and pedal markings move along with it.

Check Select Controllers with Notes in the Controller menu of the PRV to have pedal controllers move with notes.
 
But it makes sense to me that you can't select and move tempos in the PRV because you could potentially not have all tracks selected when you move notes in the PRV which would screw things up. The way I look at it is that Tempo is a project-level parameter that needs to be managed at a higher level than the PRV.

jkoseattle
Is there, by any chance, a key I can hit that essentially tells Sonar "I meant to hit Ctrl-Space, so take me to where I would be if I'd remembered to use the Ctrl button."?

There are a few things you can do. In the track view, select "Options->On stop, rewind to Now marker" and then you can use the now marker at the top of the track view to work on smaller passages (just move it around with your mouse).
 
When rewinding an entire clip, I will often use Shft-G (also handy when you are working on smaller passages so you do not rewind the entire project by accident).
 
CTRL-Enter and Shft-G both move the now marker with them when activated, so bear this in mind.

jkoseattle
 
Lastly, I can't find where to change the keystrokes for these tools. I've had keyboard shortcuts for them for many years, but now I have to use the F-keys apparently.
 

 
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation/default.aspx?Doc=SONAR%20X3&Lang=EN&Req=Menus1.181.html
 
Many answered your other questions, but thought this might help 
 
-Rob
 

CakeAlexS
> I think the biggest hurdle for me is zooming and navigating to what I'm interested in editing quickly
 
Zoom shortcuts
SHIFT click on Zoom buttons = Make largest/smallest zoom.
CTRL + Arrow keys = Best way to Zoom!
Hold down Z, Select area = Zoom in on that area! Alt-Z undos this!
F = Fit tracks to the window
SHIFT + F = Fit project to window
AlT-Z = Undoes a screen action.
SHIFT Double click a clip = Maximizes it.
F11 = Full screen mode
SHIFT-Z = Enable/disable auto Zoom on tracks.

OK, so I have some issues with these. First off, it seems the Z + Drag select option only works when I'm viewing clips, not notes in Track View. Also, the Alt-Z undo option only appear to work in Track View, not PRV. That's annoying. Is there a keyboard shortcut for switch between Notes and Clips? I know I could look it up, and I even have the keyboard shortcuts page favorited now thanks to someone's helpful post, but hell, it's easier to just type and ask :-)
 
Ctrl-Arrow keys has been in use by me for years, but it only zooms vertically. I am getting used to the pretty slick magnifying glass thing at the top of screens for horizontal zooming. But it feels like they haven't quite gotten to a Holy Grail moment with all this yet.
 
Lastly, in Track View, I can drag up and down in the little keyboard strip to vertically zoom, but how can I adjust the view up or down without zooming? I will often want to zoom in, so I drag up on the keyboard strip, but then my zoomed in notes fly above or below the track!

Thanks, I'm watching it and learning a lot. Very cool stuff. I feel both a little sheepish that I came on here initially to rant, and glad I did, because I've gotten so much genuinely valuable assistance from everyone. 
 
While I'm on the podium here, is it possible to mute individual notes in PRV? I so often want to take out a little passage and try something else, but I might want to go back to what I had originally. I want to select some notes in PRV, hit Mute Selected Notes, see some visual representation of the muted-ness of them, mess around a while, then later go back and easily un-mute them. Since I'm doing so well here, I'm now reasonably confident someone will come on here within 90 minutes and say "Oh yeah, it's Ctrl-Shift-Alt-F6+M=Alt+F22" and I'll be thrilled I can do that.

Anderton
So...don't you think it's time to change the thread title so people will know this has actually becone a helpful thread?

Done.

Well played. This has been a great thread to watch.

wruess
Didn't see it mentioned in a quick read-thru of this thread, so... if you haven't discovered them already - Screensets are your friend.  (You may even get rid of your dual monitor setup.)  This for me was seriously one of the greatest enhancements to the UI over 8.5  Get one of FastBikerBoy's videos on this subject.

Thanks wruess.
 
I can't believe I replied in this thread earlier and didn't mention them. They are up there in as one of the top improvements from pre-X series to now.
 
I also agree about the no need for dual monitors. Although I still have multi monitors I use them as one big full width view now. I find the multidock combined with screensets has done away for the necessity of two monitors, they are now more of a nice luxury.

jkoseattle
I use Ctrl-Space and Space both a great deal, depending on whether I want the Now time to stay or to rewind.

 
I use the W key (hit just once) instead of Ctrl-Space. It's just easier for me.

jkoseattle
I want to select some notes in PRV, hit Mute Selected Notes, see some visual representation of the muted-ness of them, mess around a while, then later go back and easily un-mute them.

 
If you find the color (outline) of muted note events too weak, which I do, you can change it in Edit -> Preferences -> Customization -> Color.

Ha, you're thanking me? You guys are doing all the good work here, I'm just soaking it in.
 
But indeed, you all really have turned me around. My daughter is an artist, and uses Picasa to store all her images, but has never really sat down to learn it, and claimed this evening how much she hates it, and I heard myself telling her "You just need to spend some time with it to learn how it is designed for you to do things and you'll like it a lot better" and that advice came to me straight out of my recent experience with this thread.
 
And now I know how to mute notes!! Although, brundlefly, I don't understand the clip sweeping gestures, I couldn't figure that one out. No matter, I'm usually much more note-centric than clip-centric anyway. As I mentioned earlier, I'd prefer to not have to use the concept of clips at all. But in playing around I discovered that Alt-clicking on a clip will split it. Yet another huzzah for that little discovery. (Alt-clicking in PRV will split an individual note in two. I can't think of a reason I'd ever want to do that, though.)
 
So, any way to not see the velocity skyscrapers in the inline PRV View? It used to be that hitting C in PRV (done accidentally 90% of the time, btw) would move them from their own pane right onto the piano roll and back, but not only does that not do that in the inline PRV, it also no longer works in the real PRV.
 
Ctrl-Left and Right Arrows were not zooming horizontally for me, then I looked in my shortcuts and saw that they were assigned to Go To Previous and Next Marker, probably a customization I made in like 1997 and have kept ever since. So I switched that to Alt-Left and Right, which works. However, Ctrl-Left and Right still retained their old function as well. Even though the dialog indicates in the text below the list of keys that those keys are bound to zooming, I went in and re-bound the keys to zoom in and out horizontally, but even after explicitly setting that, they still go to previous and next marker, like they have for years. So I closed Sonar entirely and re-opened it, and the keyboard shortcuts say Ctrl-Left and Right are bound to horizontal zooming, yet they still move to previoud and next marker. I also bound the V key to show/hide velocity tails, but that didn't "stick" either, and still displays the video pane. What am I doing wrong?

jkoseattle
 
So, any way to not see the velocity skyscrapers in the inline PRV View? It used to be that hitting C in PRV (done accidentally 90% of the time, btw) would move them from their own pane right onto the piano roll and back, but not only does that not do that in the inline PRV, it also no longer works in the real PRV.
 

Shift+C

 
 

robert_e_bone
I have a confession to make - I still use Step Sequencer for drums.  I keep meaning to get to PRV, just never quite have enough coffee in me to invest the needed learning time.
 
I WILL get around to it, it's the 'when' that eludes me...
 
Bob Bone
 

I am guilty of the same thing.  However, I did buy a bag of Starbucks new blend, so will try to do it this weekend between games.
 
 GO SEAHAWKS from a 12th man in Nevada.