- Clip Gain - The way Pro Tools uses it.. a must have!  ; )

Scoot
Some have said a Chord Track, but I'm unsure what this is. I would love a Chord MFX with the capabilities and functionality of this.

It would just be more streamlined the the faff that this one takes and the extra track I don't need.
 
It's long been omission from the MidiFX, I've wanted this since Sonar 7, and added to previous wish lists. We have an arpeggiater  plug in, and a chord MFX would allow this to be far more useful to those not proficient with a keyboard. Would allow users to experiment with richer chord shapes. Strum allow you to control the strum and picking technique, from one hand, whilst the chords are produced from the other. Being able to just play one key rather than 4 or 5 from one hand, would allow a better focus on the strum/picking hand.
 
Seeing what this guy does with his Midi chords is mind blowing for me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ar_3nGx2w
 
Same video, but jumped to 16 mins where he focuses on the Plug in
http://www.youtube.com/wa...layer_detailpage#t=933
 
 
ARRRRRRGHHHH I WISH MY WX5 WASN'T 10,000 KM away!!!
 

 
WANT! Although I'm probably just intoxicated by how lovely the music sounds in that video. Let me loose on that setup and I very much doubt it would sound as harmonically sublime as that 
 
In fact I know this sounds rude but I just wanted him to shut up so's I could listen to the music. 

Spencer

Mod Bod
2) Add the ability to move the first measure (start) of a project to a later time to give you negative measures for count in and pre roll purposes.

Project > Insert Time/Measures; or you can set a count-in for recording or recording or both in the metronome options.

This is not the same.
 
There are many times things are done before the song actually starts, before Measure 1.
 
What is being asked for here (and since CWPA8) is the ability to move measure 1, and all following measures, to the right, to allow for a given amount of time for preroll/abstrat timing.
 
The end result I am looking for is when I decide that a song start on measure one, then I can move it to where I want and all other measures will still be the same.
 
IOW, I could start with a sloppy drum roll (because I like it)  and then when it starts on the one, first measure, I can play a 12 bar blues progression and have it end on the 12th measure, instead of the 13th, or 14th, or 15th, (depending where the sloppy roll started at.) But here is the best part, once i get further in the song, I know where it's gonna turn around, 24, 36, 48 and so on and so on.
 
No matter what progression you go with, it's just easier to do the math the further you get into the song when it starts on Measure 1! And not the 2 or 3 or 4 measures!

Oops my mistake

sharke
I would love to see a major overhaul to the whole controller/parameter/automation mapping process. Currently it's confusing, temperamental and doesn't work in every situation. You should be able to just map any parameter on any VST to a controller with a couple of clicks, and not have to mess around with separate MIDI tracks, ACT (which is problematic to say the least), configuring effects as synths etc. Whenever I've watched tutorials done in Abelton I've always been struck at how simple and painless it is to map a controller to an effect knob and record the performance. It's such a huge part of modern music production (especially in electronic genres) I always felt that Sonar is a little behind the times in this respect.

Yes!  This really is essential in 21st century music production.  The tragedy here is that the functionality to map a parameter in Sonar to a hardware controller knob/slider/button/etc. already exists.  What's more, it's fairly straightforward to set up.  However, these settings are *not* saved from session to session! 
 
It seems that with a relatively small investment, Cakewalk could reap a fairly large return by just saving these settings with the rest of the data that's saved with a project.  Maybe I'm missing something here...

abb
Yes!  This really is essential in 21st century music production.  The tragedy here is that the functionality to map a parameter in Sonar to a hardware controller knob/slider/button/etc. already exists.  What's more, it's fairly straightforward to set up.  However, these settings are *not* saved from session to session! 
 
It seems that with a relatively small investment, Cakewalk could reap a fairly large return by just saving these settings with the rest of the data that's saved with a project.  Maybe I'm missing something here...

Perhaps you've found a way to do this that I haven't, but I've been using the dialog where I can select a function, hit "Learn," then hit a button on my controller (forgive me- I'm at my day job and don't recall the name of this dialog).

It's all well and good, but I still find that this dialog is, disappointingly, missing a lot of options that I'd like to map to my controller. Also, it means I can ONLY map Sonar-level parameters, not VST-level or track-level parameters, other than those listed in the dialog.

However, I've not had to remap my controller once I open a new project, as long as my controller is connected and assigned as the control surface (MIDI input) when I open up Sonar.

1) A slider volume control for the Audition function. This has become much more important to me since the introduction of Comping as I never used audition before. Now I have to readjust my levels while speed comping because there isn't a 0db option. It would also be nice to set that level exactly how I want to as opposed to 3 seemingly arbitrary level options.
 
2) Overhaul of Audiosnap. I've seen how Reaper and some of the other competitors do this and it is WAY simpler to manipulate audio. Seems like AS was probably highly innovative at one point but is now lagging behind the rest of the pack.
 
3) I'm kind of pulling this one out of my ass but I think the Control Bar could be a little more flexible. Maybe make it so it has scrolling options on the side to reveal more modules. Like maybe you could scroll left to right or up/down throw active modules. Also make it so you can pin a module so they are not affected by the scrolling. It'd also be nice if you could maybe customize the buttons and displays on modules or at least have compact versions of some of the bigger ones that can be toggled so you can cram more modules into the Control Bar without sacrificing essential controls. For example the Now Time Display in the Transport Module takes up quite a bit of room and the Now Time is easily viewable in multiple other locations. There have been many times I would like to just get rid of that to make room for another smaller module. Another idea could be option hotkeys to immediately load modules into the Control Bar when you need them.
 
I'm sure I could come up with a few more but those are what immediately come to mind.

sharke

Subjacent
3- Better automation drawing those on the pen tool are also not so good and very constraining, better pre determined drawing that obeys the snap to grid/ time line settings or even better the adaptive grid.

I draw automation that snaps to the grid all the time. Maybe you need to enable Aim Assist?

should have worded it a bit better, sonar is good at snapping to the grid when you manually draw etc I actually like that a lot , but I refer to the shapes drawing tool in relation to the grid, its quite hit and miss at latching on so you can never really be guaranteed with the exception of whole ones and maybe a few others on times, although Personally I just don't get the sine wave Drawing its strange and I still think clumsy even if I can get some use out of it, I only say this after once being a user of that other second newest DAW   !!! (dare I mention any other lol ), anyhow they have it bang on the buck, okay they probably got the idea from sonar or Cubase but their system is much better and usable, so it would be nice to see what we have refined and improved a bit more, you would really have had to use the other to be able to compare, no harm in wanting sonar perfected and no shame in copying standard features even, they are all at these days. 
 
:)
 
 

Oh man... I totally forgot one that has been driving me NUTS since I first hopped on the Sonar train.
 
Incremental Scrolling. I cannot STAND the screen to screen jumping so I have to disable scrolling altogether. Also because it's controlled by the Scroll Lock every time I boot up it's activated and I tend to forget until I'm trying to do something. I'd like to see some flexibility with it too like being able to have options like: Always Centered to Now Time (no matter where you are on the screen as soon as you hit playback it centers itself), Start Scrolling at Center (If the Now Time is to the left of center, even offscreen, the screen stays the same until the Now Time reaches the center of the screen then scrolling begins). Keep Right/Keep Left (the Now Time will scroll from the far left or right of the screen so you can see as much data as is possible at that zoom level so you can either see what has just played or is about to be played), Keep Left/Keep Right By x (This would allow you to set it so the Now Time scrolls from a user controlled distance from the left or right of the screen so you can see more or less of what has or is about to be played... I guess the increments would have to be by measures or ticks or something).
 
My old DAW (which shall remain nameless and by old I mean REALLY old) had the centered incremental scrolling and the auto center or play then center options and it was AWESOME. Totally threw me for a loop (and still does) when I switched to Sonar. Someone in a thread a while back mentioned that it was a system resource issue (basically incremental scrolling sucked up too much juice in the old days before the high powered computers we have now) but my old P3 with under a gig of RAM handled it quite well.
 
PLEASE implement incremental scrolling. X3 is absolutely brilliant for how I work and I find it hyper modern but the lack of this simple feature makes the most common tasks seem clunky and awkward.
 
Also this isn't really a feature request but an option for an X4 Producer "Lite" upgrade version would be AWESOME. Basically drop the upgrade price on that version down to the old $100 price, do not include any new plugs but allow it to function as the Producer version and allow us to drag our old Sonar locked VSTs from previous into it. That way people who have been buying Sonar for a few versions can still upgrade and get all the Producer features (like Prochannel and the various other meat and potatoes stuff), still use their plugins that they may have bought previous versions for but save $50 and not get the newer plugs they may not need or want.
 
That said I was a little reluctant about the new tools that came with X3 Pro like AD and the Blue Tube stuff because I didn't feel that I needed them (because I have BFD and obviously there is already a plethora of tools that cover everything the Blue Tubes thingies do) BUT I must say I'm actually really liking AD and those new plugs. AD isn't as flexible as BFD Eco for routing but holy crap does it sound good and the Blue Tubes plugs include a ton of models I've seen in multiple tuts that I never would have been able to afford otherwise like the Pultec. Also the Brickwall that came with it is WAY better than Boost11 for what I need a limiter to do. Boost11 is alright and I see it being useful for certain things but I find it a little harsh on my stuff when I simply want to raise my levels. The BT BW just lets me turn it all up without that extra grit/pumping or whatever is going on there. Very useful.

Hi, CJay. Not as important to me as some of the other things I mentioned but I would like to see a little more strip by strip Show/Hide options and perhaps even rearrange (although that might confuse people about signal paths but if you rearrange you should be aware of it anyway) in the CV. I am not familiar with pre X series so I'm not sure what extra options were available before.
 
However, in regards to the sends, after I learned how to scroll through them I don't find the two visible minimum to be that big a deal but I don't usually have a ton of sends anyway.
 
Thing is, and kind of my point, is that if each strip were more customizable as far as showing/hiding what is needed on a strip by strip basis it could potentially free up room on strips for more sends being viewable. I've also considered maybe a Sends flyout or maybe even an Sends Inspector tab so you could just press I with a modifier and then you could have all sends on a channel with some extra options.
 
Anyway... again not something I get too concerned about personally but I have thought about some CV improvements. I'm working on a single monitor so it can get a little... well... annoying at times. I keep it docked so there's lots of scrolling around and what not which tends to waste a lot of time and can be confusing if I'm having a bad brain day.
 
Cheers.

Yes smooth scrolling on playback seems like a no brainer. At least make it an option for those of us who have the processing headroom.

I'm not sure how useful this would be, or if it's even feasible, but what about a dynamic routing diagram?  It would display the actual (specific) signal path of a given channel strip from input to output and all the bifurcations resulting from busses, signal processors, synths, etc.  It would be launched by clicking a specific point on the strip in the console view and displayed in the MultiDock.
 
What I'm describing is not a 'passive' schematic diagram (although that might also be valuable), but rather an 'active' diagram that indicates where non-zero signal is present (perhaps denoted by a red highlight).  It would show the current state of all faders, buttons, etc. that modulate signal flow.
 
If you really want to get fancy, it might include something akin to an oscilloscope probe that you would stick anywhere in the signal path to display the signal waveform.
 
Having a dynamic visual representation like this would be useful if:
 
1. you want to obtain an overall view of a channels' structure (to verify that your signal path is what you think it is)
2. you're troubleshooting a problem (you could display this diagram to see where your signal stops)
3. you want to compare the signal flow in different channel strips side-by-side
4. you want to share your signal path with someone for educational purposes or to get help diagnosing a problem (e.g., you could post a screenshot to this forum)
 
Cheers...