Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3

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hevanw
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2015/02/07 16:25:31 (permalink)

Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3

Inspired by the videos at www.surfaceproaudio.com, I am trying to use Sonar X1 on my Surface Pro 3 with a stylus. Apparently, X1 suffers from the same problem that Ableton Live has with control movements on high-DPI scaled displays : the movement is based on relative movement of the stylus, which results in big jumps on a high-DPI screen such as on the SP3. Now, as explained on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPLUivPDK0Q Live has a way around this with AbsoluteMouseMode.
I was wondering whether Sonar has something similar such that I can just use my stylus for e.g. moving faders.
 
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    hevanw
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    Re: Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3 2015/02/09 03:12:25 (permalink)
    Ok, I guess no one uses X1 any longer.
    Let me ask the question differently: can the new Sonar cope with high-DPI displays + stylus ? Do faders nicely follow your stylus on e.g. a Surface Pro or do they also jump back and forth ?
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    cruster
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    Re: Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3 2015/02/09 09:53:46 (permalink)
    I'm using Sonar Platinum on an SP2 (i5/8/256) with a Modbook Pro digitizer stylus (sheer awesomeness, but it won't work with the SP3, I believe). The faders follow the stylus nib closely with no jumping. There is a difference between the digitizer used in the SP2 (Wacom) and the one used in the SP3 (Ntrig), however, and resolution is much more fine on the Wacom. Perhaps that would account for the difference in our experiences.
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    hevanw
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    Re: Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3 2015/02/09 10:55:20 (permalink)
    Thanks for the feedback. I checked and the SP2 has a 1920x1080 display, so I can imagine that you don't have Windows 8 scale the display. You find it via rightclick on the desktop and choosing "Screen resolution". Then in the Screen Resolution window choose "Make text and other items larger or smaller". If you have 100% (and from I read even 125% would be fine) there, you probably won't notice anything. At least that's one workaround that Ableton suggested, and I saw something similar for a videogame that had the same issue.
     
    If you put scaling to 150% or higher, then the jumping occurs, because the software just sees a small move as being a move of quite a lot of pixels and thus moves the fader up/down way more than what your true movement is.
     
     EDIT: after typing this, I realized I could try the Ableton tip of using 100% scaling. But it turns out that it does not help at all, not even with Ableton Live. So the above explanation doesn't make sense either. Basically I have no idea why faders behave like that in both Ableton Live and Sonar X1.
    post edited by henk.vanwulpen - 2015/02/09 11:17:59
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    mudgel
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    Re: Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3 2015/02/09 10:58:50 (permalink)
    I don't know from personal experience but I would say that the most recent Sonar release would have significantly better touch experience than X1 did.

    Mike V. (MUDGEL)

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    hevanw
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    Re: Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3 2015/02/09 11:19:17 (permalink)
    Yep, I understand. For starters, X1 was never designed for touch. Second, the touch support for X2 and later is actually all about multi-touch, e.g. being able to change multiple parameters/faders at the same time.
    Nonetheless, still hoped that for now I could use X1 with the pen (which doesn't require multi-touch).
     
    Maybe I'll give Artist a 1-month shot at $9.99 to see if it behaves better with scaling.
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    cruster
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    Re: Sonar X1 with stylus on Surface Pro 3 2015/02/09 12:55:21 (permalink)
    henk.vanwulpen
    Thanks for the feedback. I checked and the SP2 has a 1920x1080 display, so I can imagine that you don't have Windows 8 scale the display. You find it via rightclick on the desktop and choosing "Screen resolution". Then in the Screen Resolution window choose "Make text and other items larger or smaller". If you have 100% (and from I read even 125% would be fine) there, you probably won't notice anything. At least that's one workaround that Ableton suggested, and I saw something similar for a videogame that had the same issue.
     
    If you put scaling to 150% or higher, then the jumping occurs, because the software just sees a small move as being a move of quite a lot of pixels and thus moves the fader up/down way more than what your true movement is.
     
     EDIT: after typing this, I realized I could try the Ableton tip of using 100% scaling. But it turns out that it does not help at all, not even with Ableton Live. So the above explanation doesn't make sense either. Basically I have no idea why faders behave like that in both Ableton Live and Sonar X1.




    My scaling is set to 125%. There are issues with High DPI screens and Chrome in Win8.1. Out of the box, I believe it was set for 150%, but that's just too much for me.
     
    Now if only I could figure out how to automate an HPF on the kick drum (only) in AD2 (using the AD2 drum map found in a thread here). Ugh.
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