Sonar 8 Wish List

i saw a LOT of mentions of groove matrix type functionality or as craig anderton put it in his sonar 7 list of missing features "alternative algorithms for composition".

cakewalk brought out p5 in the early days of ableton when ableton was missing functionality that would allow it to compete directly w/ sonar/cubase/logic as a full-featured host. now ableton is a bona fide alternative in the sequencer sweepstakes. i guess for people doing soundtrack work or recording bands this isn't important but for electronic music makers in 2008 it is essential. AND THE CODE IS JUST SITTING THERE IN P5!

ORIGINAL: Notecrusher

i saw a LOT of mentions of groove matrix type functionality or as craig anderton put it in his sonar 7 list of missing features "alternative algorithms for composition".

cakewalk brought out p5 in the early days of ableton when ableton was missing functionality that would allow it to compete directly w/ sonar/cubase/logic as a full-featured host. now ableton is a bona fide alternative in the sequencer sweepstakes. i guess for people doing soundtrack work or recording bands this isn't important but for electronic music makers in 2008 it is essential. AND THE CODE IS JUST SITTING THERE IN P5!

+1

I want a piano view that is adjustable so the keys could be botom ,top or either sideinstead of only on the left

a) Regions that can be linked, moved, rippled, cut, reversed etc.

and

b) a smoother, brighter GUI,


would make me happy.

Sonar is Great! Although I can always think of things that I would like to see added to Sonar, there is only one that I will continue to beg for.

#1. Better Grouping including group editing.

would be great if the pattern brush were available from the inline PRV. it's the only thing i have to go to the PRV to use.

the "idea pool" is a great idea, but it should live on the hard drive -- don't make us import all the potential ideas into the current project. maybe it's as simple as defining some new file types we can save and audition in-context.

Yup....the GROUPING thing is a big one. I know they're working on it. Let's see what they come up with. :)

Imrovements on existing features, such as...

1. Have an feature in track console to A/B settings, where users can group all of the track settings (such as volumes and pans of all tracks) into 2(or more sets) and compare how the mix sounds in different settings (probably in real time). Right now, I have to save the project as a copy everytime I have to make drastic changes to the mix faders etc.

2. Have a "copy properties button", where you can copy certain properties from one note such as velocity from one note to another in the piano roll.

3. Ability to Maximise just the tracks part of the track view -- where all other info/buttons gets hidden. And the ability to toggle it back.

4. Restore the line draw tool, while managing control data in the piano roll.

5. Extend the +/- button functionality to ALL dropdowns in Sonar.

6. (Not sure if this is already there but it would be great to ) Have a magnifier glass in track view just like piano view.

7. (Not sure if this is feasible but it would be great to - ) Have the ability to Save changes to Optm Views within a sonar project, so that I dont have to go modify OPTM views independently every time I load a project.

8. Easier way to make pattern brush patterns.

9. Undo should also undo things within track management, such as hiding a track or changing the volume of a track.

10.Implement bussing within the FX bin for a track, so that we can individually set the signal level from one fx to another
(In this way, I can have different settings for different track, and I dont need to clutter my project with a load of busses)

my $0.02 in this discussion...
(apologies if any of the above was already mentioned earlier)

rhythmeus

I think it would be really good if the Undo History list indicated at which point the project was last saved. Obviously saving is not subject to being undone, but it would be helpful to see it in the list.

It would also be good if the Undo History list had more detail about the events listed, such as some indication of what object they applied to. That would probably require that the dialog be made larger, but it's pretty small as it is.

ALLOW 70 TRACKS TO BE VISIBLE AT ONCE, and without zooming in BE ABLE TO MUTE/SOLO/ARM, ADJUST FADER, CHANGE INPUTS/OUTPUTS + ACCESS FX/EQ, etc.

ORIGINAL: HotCoollMusicGirl
It would also be good if the Undo History list had more detail about the events listed, such as some indication of what object they applied to. That would probably require that the dialog be made larger, but it's pretty small as it is.

large dialogs don't seem to be a problem for cakewalk, the export dialog doesn't even fit on my 21" monitor.

If Sonar did what Logic Pro basically did from 7 to 8.... that would be pretty amazing. As of right now what truly separates the different programs is just the interface. It's a matter of what you like using, and Logic totally blew everything else out of the water with the jump from 7 to 8. I'd like to see Sonar catch up.

I´d like to have Sonars Instrument Definitions sort of assignable to soft synth tracks. I really like them. That way it would be possible, to have the PRV show note names as you like them, without struggling with the drummap-editor or having to tell Sonar each time, which note names you prefer for that track.

This is not only usefull with drums, but also with instruments that contain keyswitches or FX-sounds.

Perhaps it would be easier to just make the note name decision (per rightclicking on the keys in PRV) stick, but i am also dreaming of instrument specific controllernames for soft synths...

Sorry, if this was already mentioned


Frank

If Sonar did what Logic Pro basically did from 7 to 8.... that would be pretty amazing. As of right now what truly separates the different programs is just the interface. It's a matter of what you like using, and Logic totally blew everything else out of the water with the jump from 7 to 8. I'd like to see Sonar catch up.

they could blow them away if they did what I'm saying. Logic has a serious problem, the same one Sonar has. The pro's are still knocking these systems hard, and its stems from the fact that you can never see everything you are mixing all at once. When pro's go into the studio, they want trouble free environment to work. WHen you've got 40 tracks and the vocalist says 'turn up the lead guitar' and you have to change views, scroll, locate the track, the vocalist is already repeating "turn up the guitar' before you've even got the screen to respond. THe vocalist thinks you are ignoring him or deaf, then you have to say "give me a second' every time a request is put in, which in the analog world is as simple as turning a knob/fader. The customer then thinks the software has issues if everytime they request something simple, time is wasted, time they are paying for. Once is no big deal, but every hour of every day this happens in the studio environment. ProTools HD systems have done their best to conquer this problem by offering external mixer. Sonar could destroy the problem if they offered a way smaller GUI.

ORIGINAL: rhythmeus

1. Have an feature in track console to A/B settings, where users can group all of the track settings (such as volumes and pans of all tracks) into 2(or more sets) and compare how the mix sounds in different settings (probably in real time). Right now, I have to save the project as a copy everytime I have to make drastic changes to the mix faders etc.

I agree this would be very useful. That's what I originally thought the automation "snapshot" was. There should be a total "mix snapshot" that includes envelopes on clips, tracks, and busses, and other automation. You could save different mixes, and then selectively overlay them on the same set of tracks. Complications: what if you change track order, or delete tracks or clips or busses? Still, there should be some way of dealing with that.

9. Undo should also undo things within track management, such as hiding a track or changing the volume of a track.

Totally. Better yet, make every change to a project subject to undo, and then let the user decide which changes actually get fed into the undo buffer.

Also... there should be an option for each track/buss to have it's own undo buffer, so if I make a change to track 2 and then make a change to track 3, I can go back and undo the track 2 change while keeping track 3 intact.

Also... save each project's undo history to disk, so that you can undo across sessions. This would not only give you unlimited "undo levels" but also have the side benefit of not having to carry undos in memory.

ORIGINAL: 21doors

If Sonar did what Logic Pro basically did from 7 to 8.... that would be pretty amazing. As of right now what truly separates the different programs is just the interface. It's a matter of what you like using, and Logic totally blew everything else out of the water with the jump from 7 to 8. I'd like to see Sonar catch up.

they could blow them away if they did what I'm saying. Logic has a serious problem, the same one Sonar has. The pro's are still knocking these systems hard, and its stems from the fact that you can never see everything you are mixing all at once. When pro's go into the studio, they want trouble free environment to work. WHen you've got 40 tracks and the vocalist says 'turn up the lead guitar' and you have to change views, scroll, locate the track, the vocalist is already repeating "turn up the guitar' before you've even got the screen to respond. THe vocalist thinks you are ignoring him or deaf, then you have to say "give me a second' every time a request is put in, which in the analog world is as simple as turning a knob/fader. The customer then thinks the software has issues if everytime they request something simple, time is wasted, time they are paying for. Once is no big deal, but every hour of every day this happens in the studio environment. ProTools HD systems have done their best to conquer this problem by offering external mixer. Sonar could destroy the problem if they offered a way smaller GUI.

Does HD system hardware mixer have 40 faders?

A search box on the vst plugin menu that works dynamically. As you type it narrows the search much like the search feature in iTunes.

Definitely a human playback function for midi files. Finale Notation Software has human playback related to different genre which can be imported into Sonar but I prefer to work in Sonar than switch between programs.

1
This may be possible but I've only seen it in Live 6/7: Ability to batch export a project as mutiple wavs, mp3's etc (so one .wav per track, for example). It's very tedious having to solo track 1, export it, then mute it and solo track 2, export it, then mute it and solo track 3, then well you get the idea. Is there a way of doing this in Sonar 7? I would've thought there must be, but no DAW seems to do it other than Live.

2
Also, as said by others, a play order track a la Nuendo/Cubase(?) would be great, although I would prefer it if, once committed, the affected tracks were not flattened.

3
Also, as said before, easy and intuitive grab-the-edge-of-the-clip-to-stretch-or-shrink-it time editing for audio and midi clips.

4
Very simple the next ones, a real 'quick win' in the Console View.
More room for fx in the fx bin - at the moment you're limited to seeing just 4 at a time, and if you want to see more you need to scroll up and down in that fiddly little window.
Next, be able to replace one fx with another without having to delete the first one first.
Next, seeing as we're on a roll, introduce a button on the left hand side for toggling MIDI channels/synth channels etc on and off so you can unclutter things a bit

I'm quite new to Sonar so this is all I can come up with for now.

Oh one more thing, I'd like the same kind of functionality that FL 7 gives you with pattern clips, where you have a screen (the pattern view if I'm correct) built of mutliple rows in which you can place your midi/audio patterns at will. The rows are not tied to midi tracks in any way and you can therefore cut and chop the clips as much as you like, for example row 1 could be a basic drum pattern (clip 1), you could copy a single instance of the clip onto row 2 and then slice it so just a beat with a snare is playing, then liberally pepper that short clip at various places across row 2 so you get a bit of variation without affecting or otherwise having to change the midi clip it came from, and so on.

This is a strange concept to get your head around if you haven't seen it in action, so I'll try and get a screengrab of what it looks like in practice to give you an idea. It does make improvisations (for any intrument or audio) a lot easier, quicker and fun.


One final thing - a program that writes songs for you, mixes for you, publishes for you, and then buys the stuff from you.

ORIGINAL: wils

1
This may be possible but I've only seen it in Live 6/7: Ability to batch export a project as mutiple wavs, mp3's etc (so one .wav per track, for example). It's very tedious having to solo track 1, export it, then mute it and solo track 2, export it, then mute it and solo track 3, then well you get the idea. Is there a way of doing this in Sonar 7? I would've thought there must be, but no DAW seems to do it other than Live.

i think live was the LAST daw to implement this. in sonar, ctrl+A to select all tracks. File - Export Audio. in the dlg's Source Category dropdown, select Tracks.

I'd like the same kind of functionality that FL 7 gives you with pattern clips, where you have a screen (the pattern view if I'm correct) built of mutliple rows in which you can place your midi/audio patterns at will. The rows are not tied to midi tracks in any way and you can therefore cut and chop the clips as much as you like, for example row 1 could be a basic drum pattern (clip 1), you could copy a single instance of the clip onto row 2 and then slice it so just a beat with a snare is playing, then liberally pepper that short clip at various places across row 2 so you get a bit of variation without affecting or otherwise having to change the midi clip it came from, and so on.

This is a strange concept to get your head around if you haven't seen it in action, so I'll try and get a screengrab of what it looks like in practice to give you an idea. It does make improvisations (for any intrument or audio) a lot easier, quicker and fun.

that sounds wicked. the sonar team should def look at fruity as well as live for pattern composition ideas, and of course P5.

One final thing - a program that writes songs for you, mixes for you, publishes for you, and then buys the stuff from you.

bro, this joke has been made approximately 7,000,000,000 times..

Fair play. I've tried that export thing now and it's just as you say. Like I said, I was certain it could be done, I just didn't know how.

Yep, the FL clips thing would be great but would be quite possibly a nightmare to manage.

Re the old joke - that's nothing. You should hear the one about the Chicken Tarka.

1. a better suite of plugins, cubase and logic are streeets ahead on this! these do not have to be fancy,but workhorses,with simple layouts.
2. a basic timestretch, like cubase. you move the left and right loop markers to desired length and select timestretch.
3. a sampler with key zones and multiple outs.
4. selectable grid lines on sequencer down to 64ths.
5. preview buttons on dropzone,so you can hear the sound your loading!
6. a slice to{8,16,32,64ths} function, when in grooveclips.

scince moving from cubase,ive loved sonar,but really miss the cubase plugins.

Can we select envelope nodes and and perform group functions on the selected nodes in S7.

I use s7 on a daily basis, but cannot seem to do it..I am not sure how you guys manage envelope nodes?

If there isnt a way, then the ability to "select envelope nodes and and perform group functions on the selected nodes" gets added to my list.

Also, Xray functionlity should be made applicable to application windows too...

rhythmeus

Apologies in advance for not having read all 265 posts ahead of this.

(1) A surefire way to assure that no time segments or tracks remain "selected" prior to bouncing. E.g., a "clear all selections" button in the bounce options. I'd like to be able to have my mix set up just as I want, then bounce it, without any "you haven't selected any audio" messages, or discovering that even though I was trying to bounce the whole mix, I only got the one clip that SONAR considered "selected."

(2) Something like Sound Forge's .frg files, that keep track of all changes even past closing out the program.

(3) An auto-save older versions that could automatically create a backup of each project as it exists at session close. Creating backup versions every x number of "saves" doesn't work for me, since I regularly do the Control+s tic every few moments, as protection against occasional random crashes.

(4) Nondestructive "nudging" of audio files (i.e., the original placement would be remembered).

(5) Direct recording of audio tracks from the output of any other track (esp. buses, softsynths).

(6) Right-click MIDI learn for any fader or knob anywhere in the program, with MIDI-unlearn also available from a right click.

At least 4 of your requests in Sonar 7:

(1) Ctrl+Shift+A
(4) Rihgt click > Revert to original timestamp
(5) Clip or Track bounce
(6) Right click > Remote > MIDI Learn.

ORIGINAL: kaylen
I want a piano view that is adjustable so the keys could be botom ,top or either sideinstead of only on the left

Wow, you know I never thought of this, but it would be very convenient. For editing it seems correct to me because you read it time-based. But often I go to the PRV to teach myself what's being played in a part. For that, having the keys at the top and the PRV scroll bottom to top would make it much easier to pick out notes and chords, instead of leaning my head to the side trying to read what those dang keys are!

At least 4 of your requests in Sonar 7:

(1) Ctrl+Shift+A
(4) Rihgt click > Revert to original timestamp
(5) Clip or Track bounce
(6) Right click > Remote > MIDI Learn.

Well, 3 at least! These are very useful to know -- thanks! I'll be trying these out right away.

I've harped on (5) in several other threads, at length. Bouncing is not the same as recording. E.g., any parameter of a softsynth that doesn't generate MIDI data (e.g., any feature with any element of randomization) won't generate the same output on a bounce as it did when initially played. Also, MIDI necessarily quantizes rhythms, and even with quantization set as finely as possible, what you play isn't always EXACTLY what MIDI transcribes. E.g., getting MIDI to transcribe a swung rhythm exactly right is fairly hard, or more precisely, hit and miss. I solve this for now with stereo patchcords between a pair of ins and a pair of outs on my interface, but would love to be able to just select the output of one track as the input of an audio track.

Try recording a performance of a Reaktor synth like Skrewell using only MIDI data and you'll see what I mean!

ORIGINAL: aaronk
A surefire way to assure that no time segments or tracks remain "selected" prior to bouncing. E.g., a "clear all selections" button in the bounce options.

better yet -- clean up all the weird selection anomalies that have been in the product since the Pro Audio days:
-you click the track number on the track strip you get one kind of selection, you click another part of the track strip you get another kind of selection,
-you can't tell what's selected in the clips pane when PRV is on,
-selecting all the clips in a track is a myserious zen operation,
-if you shift click the time ruler does it add to the left or the right of the selection?
-good luck selecting portions of clips in a layer
-AND MANY MORE

$35 ??

Just 3 things:


1- Better audio engine (no Motorboating).

2- Better thread distribution (no more one-core spikes).

3- Workflow enhancements (plenty have been mentioned already).



Thanks!

ORIGINAL: mixmkr

$35 ??

LOL You wish .

I think a midi strumming tool would be efficient, for use with guitar samplers. Rather than having to manually set beginning and ending times in chords.

Does anyone know of a plug-in for creating chords (that strum)?

Does anyone know of a plug-in for creating chords (that strum)?

The best I've seen for simulating real guitar strumming is MusicLab's RealGuitar and RealStrat. You can watch some videos and download demos from their home page.

For actually "creating" chords, that would be up to you! For automatic backing chords, you might want to check out BIAB or Jammer.

But I doubt that's on your S8 wishlist, so I've gone off-topic!

-Susan

Cool. Thanks, I'll check those products out.

Better scrolling and zooming.

When you're in track view, and you want to zoom in or out horizontally, you can do that by holding the Alt key and rolling the mouse wheel. But you can't do that in PRV. In PRV when you do an Alt-wheel... nothing happens at all; the function is apparently unassigned. It should work the same way as in TV. (Ctrl-Left/Right will horzontal zoom in PRV, but mouse wheeling should too.)

In Track View, if you want to scroll horizontally you can hold the Ctrl key and roll the mouse wheel (even when the scroll lock key is on, which is super useful.) In PRV, if you want to scroll horizontally, you can do it the same way -- but not all the time (which is super unuseful.) It doesn't work when the main grid part of the display somehow loses the focus, like when you click on the track selectors pane. (It's possible other things cause the grid pane to lose focus... I'm not sure.) At those times, when you Ctrl-wheel the mouse, it doesn't scroll, and instead nothing happens at all -- again the function is unassigned. In order to get the focus back to the grid, you have to click in the grid, which can cause different things to happen, none of them good, depending on the currently selected tool, e.g., drawing a new note, or deselecting selected notes. Since Ctrl-wheeling doesn't cause anything else to happen when the grid doesn't have the focus, then it should scroll the grid scroll, even if it has to first return focus to the grid (all other PRV panes require direct clicking in order to do anything, so there is no reason for them to retain focus; they get it automatically upon use. The grid does too, but clicking the grid is a much bigger deal, as it can actually change data.)

I'm aware that it's possible to use the scroll and zoom controls around the pane borders to do the same thing that Ctrl- and Alt-wheeling do. But those controls are just so 20th century (and wheel-lessly Macintoshy.) Ctrl-wheeling is much more convenient and doesn't require a precise repositioning of the mouse on little buttons and arrows, which breaks the work flow and your visual focus.

What works in one view should work in other views, unless there's some really good reason. These just seem like oversights. (And easily correctable ones, I imagine.)

Fast zoom settings are very important. This is how I set fast zoom:



It works in Track and PR views identicaly, though for horizontal zoom only.

Hmmm.... mouse-wheel zooming in PRV seems to work differently when there is a drum map in the grid... and when there are two tracks being displayed, one with a DM and one without, and the grid area is split, how mouse zoom works depends on which pane the mouse is over. At leas that's what it seems like at the moment.

The Fast Zoom settings don't seem to be a factor in how you actually perform the zoom, only on where the zoomed display is centered.

(6) Right click > Remote > MIDI Learn.

This works for many knobs and faders. But what I'd like is for it to work universally, for anything within SONAR (the core program plus any packaged plugs). E.g., this doesn't work for the knobs in PerfectSpace (as far as I could tell).

I think a midi strumming tool would be efficient, for use with guitar samplers. Rather than having to manually set beginning and ending times in chords.

Does anyone know of a plug-in for creating chords (that strum)?

AAS (Applied Acoustics) is about to release or has just released a softsynth called "Strum" that sounds like it's designed to do just what you're asking.

i'd like the tempo to change in real time smoothly (when trying out different tempos and such)....

ORIGINAL: Chuck E. Jesus

i'd like the tempo to change in real time smoothly (when trying out different tempos and such)....

How exactly? You can do that wit Audio Snap very smoothly.

ORIGINAL: Jose7822

ORIGINAL: Chuck E. Jesus

i'd like the tempo to change in real time smoothly (when trying out different tempos and such)....

How exactly? You can do that wit Audio Snap very smoothly.

sometimes when just doing a simple midi sequence or drum pattern, i like to try out different tempos...instead of having to type in a tempo and hitting enter, i'd like to smoothly increase or decrease the tempo...i've seen this in other apps...i'm not talking about doing tempo maps or Audio Snap or anything like that, just the tempo selector is all...not a big deal, more of a minor pita really....

that sounds great - a tempo slider. that won't work until they code the new audio engine tho, even typing a a tempo and hitting enter while running buggers the program half the time.

FROMSONAR6PE:
Beef up teh audio engine ....
Fix the metronome
Mute tool bug
Automation envelope improvement
Sometimes I don't see an audio/record playback meter in a newly inserted track

Better default AUD INI parameters

I could go on ......

A suggestion for improved view and plug in window control...

Currently, by pressing Ctrl-F6, you can rotate through all the open windows of a project, including all open views as well as instrument and fx plugins.

It would be good if you could specify that some windows are to be excluded from this rotation. This option can be added to each window's system menu, along with the Enable Floating, Enable Tabbed, and Lock Contents options.

This would let you keep plugins opened without having to rotate past them when you want simply switch back and forth between, say, TV and PRV.

Using Ctrl-Shift-F6 lets you reverse the order of the rotation, which can prevent landing on a window you don't want. But it means you need to know which key combination to press, and that requires too much thought.

This option to exclude windows/views from the rotation should apply whether they are maximized or resized or floating. And should apply even when a project as no additional open windows, which would accommodate having multiple projects open, which is when the ability to exclude windows can be especially important.

Also.... related to that....

When two projects are open at once, and one of them has plugin and other view windows open (e.g., the console view), there should be an option to auto-hide those windows when switching to the other project. It's very annoying to be in Project B and to click on a view or plugin window for Project A (often thinking it might actually belong to Project B), which switches you Project A. Really distracting.

Oh one more thing... also related... the same key combos that open a view when it's closed should close a view when it's opened... same goes for dialog boxes, eg Snap To Grid.

Would also be good if you could turn off the "always on top" satutus of plug ins.

Here is a take at a possibly "revolutionary" feature (atleast because I the one saying it ) <EDIT>: Ofcouse, this would not be expected in Version 8. Version 10 Maybe. </EDIT>

What if the console view could be the primary control screen instead of the track view?

Lets say, we have the project navigator on top of the console view. And we can show (highly zoomed out (with zoom being parameterizable)) track view events in the console track bars. We can then use the magnifying glass to see events that we want to see.. Double clicking the track event will open that track either as a paino roll if its midi or as an audio editor in case of an audio track.

What would this buy us? -- I personally get diverted a lot during mixing -- while looking at the tracks, and spend a lot of brain bandwidth in processing visual cues of the track view (of course I could switch to console view during mixing) but this amalgamation could help a lot in avoiding the extra visual processing. I say this because there are times where I actually have to turn off the computer monitor and just mix with my MCU, which is doable, but not entirely convenient.

That said, there are such great ideas in threads such as this...hope CW is monitoring these threads..

rhythmeus

New idea --

I often bounce and/or freeze tracks to keep my workspace uncluttered and conserve CPU power. However, it often happens that, later on in a project, I want to revisit or reuse or redo something that was frozen or bounced, but can't restore all the settings (e.g., the exact pan, level, reverb, etc.)

Yes, I know about cloning and archiving, leaving FX in the bin even after applying FX, etc.

But I'd like an alternative.

Here's the idea:

When freezing or bouncing, have the option to "save settings." All the settings applicable to the freeze or bounce would be stored somewhere, where they could be re-accessed if wanted at some later time. A similar concept to clone+archive except that ALL settings would be preserved (e.g. track levels, tempos and other things that can be altered on a track- or project- level) and the info would be stored in deeper background than archiving (so, e.g., a frozen synth whose audio is later bounced into a mix could be removed entirely from a project so it wouldn't even need to load anymore, but all the info about it would still reside on a back-up type file). Ideally, these saved setting files could be accessed in new projects, so they could be used without fear of disturbing any existing project or track settings.

i saw a LOT of mentions of groove matrix type functionality or as craig anderton put it in his sonar 7 list of missing features "alternative algorithms for composition".

cakewalk brought out p5 in the early days of ableton when ableton was missing functionality that would allow it to compete directly w/ sonar/cubase/logic as a full-featured host. now ableton is a bona fide alternative in the sequencer sweepstakes. i guess for people doing soundtrack work or recording bands this isn't important but for electronic music makers in 2008 it is essential. AND THE CODE IS JUST SITTING THERE IN P5!

A HUGE + 1 here!! Cakewalk made an enormous step toward making Sonar competitve with electronic music focused apps with the new Step Sequencer, which is great. Id love to see more groove management functionality like a groove matrix, or something similar to Reason's 'Regroove Mixer'.

It would also be nice to apply different groove templates to the step seqencer and be able to make adjustments in real time.

Also, this is only a minor annoyance - but when you're looping a section if you add a new note in the piano roll or step in the step sequencer, you have to wait until the loop starts over before you can hear your edit, even if the position maker hasnt passed that spot yet.

Another cool idea would be to bundle Project 5 with Sonar, and allow it to be loaded as a VST...:D

don't know if mentioned but it would be nice to be able to select a section of a clip or track and delete numerous envelope nodes at once.

ORIGINAL: timidi

don't know if mentioned but it would be nice to be able to select a section of a clip or track and delete numerous envelope nodes at once.

+1 to this again!

A waveform pen.

True stereo panning. Purdy please. I do it with plugins, but it would be nice to do it without plugins.. It could be a lever that would change both sides of the stereo track and not just lowering one side like it does now. I did say please..
Cj

quote:

ORIGINAL: timidi

don't know if mentioned but it would be nice to be able to select a section of a clip or track and delete numerous envelope nodes at once.


+1 to this again!

Once an envelope is created, it would be nice to be able to do all sorts of things with it more easily. Delete a bunch of nodes at once, per above. Copy a segment of it and paste it into a new track, either following a new tempo or holding its original tempo. Flip it upside down. Play it backwards.

ORIGINAL: CJaysMusic

True stereo panning. Purdy please. I do it with plugins, but it would be nice to do it without plugins.. It could be a lever that would change both sides of the stereo track and not just lowering one side like it does now. I did say please..
Cj

+ 1

Yes! Please! Purdy please!!

Having pseudo stereo and work-around (using a 3rd party plugin) is not acceptable!! It's about freaking time the Bakers developed Sonar with 'True Stereo'

ORIGINAL: rhythmeus

Here is a take at a possibly "revolutionary" feature (atleast because I the one saying it ) <EDIT>: Ofcouse, this would not be expected in Version 8. Version 10 Maybe. </EDIT>

What if the console view could be the primary control screen instead of the track view?
rhythmeus

Not to "start a fight" but why go back towards an old "analog-mixer-based" paradigm? Personally I think the console view is a hold-over...something to bridge the gap for those of us who came from the analog mixer world(and yes, I did also). I now never use it. I think the track view is much better suited to the computer-based-daw paradigm....much more information available in a format all computer users are used to. But I would never oppose getting rid of the console view because I know many people like it.

LARGER MUTE AND SOLO BUTTONS IN THE MULTI-TRACK VIEW.

Would make it easier during muting vocal takes and bouncing to track.

A few things I'd like to see:

1 - Quick & Easy Project (Audio) Sample Rate Conversion.
I have a bunch of projects that are nothing but MIDI, but, as part of my normal template, I have a few audio tracks that allow me to easily record my music into the project. Not being able to convert a project [just the project - not the audio even!] is just stupid! I don't mind having to re-record audio music from MIDI or having to re-freeze soft-synths after a conversion, just LET ME BE ABLE TO DO IT! :)
2 - A dual-input vocoder. This way, I could sample my cat meowing, and talk over it, so I could have the meows talk. (Stupid example, I know, but wouldn't it be cool to be able to use **ANY** instument [especially a REAL LIFE INSTRUMENT] as the sound, vocoded with your REAL LIFE VOICE? None of this "Soft-synth pad" stuff - just the real deal!)
3 - RE: Soft Synths: Deleting Soft Synths from the Synth Rack will also delete empty soft synth folders from the project. (Sounds logical, right?)

That's all for now... Carry on! :)

- Z

ORIGINAL: MZmuda
Deleting Soft Synths from the Synth Rack will also delete empty soft synth folders from the project. (Sounds logical, right?)

good idea. better yet: when you delete a synth from the synth rack pop up a dialog w/ options to also delete associated, soft synth folders, midi, and audio tracks.