Will Sonar Upgrades ever have things useful for a paying studio?

Hi all!-
After watching the new Webinar for X2- I'm stunned at how few of the improvements would be at all useful for my commercial recording studio! They seem to be more designed for individuals who want to edit virtual software instruments than live musicians who are recording real instruments. 

That's great for guys who want to tweak synth music- and there's nothing wrong with that, but most of the paying-by-the-hour work that I get in the studio is actual HUMANS trying to get good takes in front of microphones!

Here's some of the things that I'd REALLY like to see in an X3 update- that I don't see in X2-

Locates and better Transport control. 9 out of 10 button pushes that I do are: press record> guy stinks up the iso> stop! (sigh)> go to preroll locate for ANOTHER, ONE MORE punch> press play> record at punch-in> guy stinks up the iso> stop> (ask myself why I still do this)> go to preroll locate for ANOTHER, ONE MORE punch> press play> record at punch-in> guy stinks up the iso> stop> rinse and repeat... hours fly by... get a check from the guy... schedule the next time... 

That's studio life, it seems to me- has been for decades. What would help for the Bakers to improve are things that make this process better. For example, in addition to "Go to Now" (of the selection) or scroll through the Markers one at a time- would be having a current, one-button-updateable Locate point that can be gotten to with one button. It's easy to locate after setting a new "Now", but every time you change the Selection while you're working, that type of Locate point is lost. I "Locate, set Punch to Selection, do Punch, change Punch to Selection, change preroll Locate a 1000 times a day. Having a dedicated "Locate" or "Go To" (independent of the Selection) would GREATLY make studio life easier! Also being able to Recall a Marker by number and set that as the Locate! If you've ever worked on an analog machine's autolocater, you probably remember how much easier this was to do! Of course, you had to wait for the rewind...

Another thing that streamlined punching in the old days was Latching Auto-Play. Which did NOT require a button push for Stop when recording! So when the client smells up the iso booth AGAIN, you just pushed Locate and the machine understood to Stop- went to the Locate- and automatically dropped into play... that would save me 200 button-pushes per day. And latching Auto-Record. 200 more buttons a day. And a much more fluid, unintrusive, effortless vibe of the session. Sure, Loop Recording can come close to doing this, but it's not as under my control, with one button, like it used to be. I want to stop- immediately- the Take when the guy messes up, not re-do the whole thing over and over. For really recording a client, better Transport controls would be a huge improvement for my paying business. 

As would be the long requested addition of Vari-Speed! Man... if the guys accordian or 12-string is a little sharp- you used to be able to tune the whole song to the current overdubbing instrument with one button. It's an essential feature for a Recording Studio that records clients who play instruments! Incidentally- a far cheaper and less sophisticated app- Reaper- has both Vari-Speed AND one-button-by-number Locates. So it's not at all technically impossible. I'm BEGGING FOR VARI-SPEED!!!

Another thing that we used to have that was great too- Record-in-Reverse. Man, I miss seeing the band's eyes light up when they'd hear the rush of "Pre-Verb" leading into a vocal! Flip the tape, record it, and get PAID! I'd think it would be not impossible in a computer-based recording system... you can reverse a sample and scoot it I guess, but it's not as simple.

And the other thing that would really improve Sonar for the paying studio is GIVING US BACK OUR COLOR CHOICES! 50 shades of gray is cool for your woman to read- but for seeing tiny little buttons at 6 feet in the control room- gray sucks! Very hard to discern legibly- compared to high-contrast colors, blacks and whites. I have dual 26" monitors and the clients really appreciate being able to clearly see from THEIR chair what's going on. But that's because I have to stick with 8.5- where I can have the option to set up a clear, non-cloudy, non 50-shades-of-gray GUI!

OK... that's a couple of things that I think would help Sonar in the paying, commercial studio. More than a ton of tweakable software, which is good, sure... but an easier interface for recording CLIENTS would sure be worth some money to me. What do you guys think? Thanks for listening!-
Ev 

Great appeal for some added features. Feature request?

Locates and better Transport control. 9 out of 10 button pushes that I do are: press record> guy stinks up the iso> stop! (sigh)> go to preroll locate for ANOTHER, ONE MORE punch> press play> record at punch-in> guy stinks up the iso> stop> (ask myself why I still do this)> go to preroll locate for ANOTHER, ONE MORE punch> press play> record at punch-in> guy stinks up the iso> stop> rinse and repeat... hours fly by... get a check from the guy... schedule the next time... 

So... you press Record before your singer is even inside the booth? What are you recording - the sound of approaching feet?

You probably need to address your workflow/methodology

I'm all in for a varispeed.  I love the one in Vegas, although doesn't "stick".  Still useful, and not just on video.

@

Hey CJ and everyone! Thanks for your thoughts!
I HAVE a control surface, for sure... of course! Still auto-play latch doesn't exist in Sonar, nor does a dedicated Locate. Nor an Auto-Record Latch. (Does your controller let you do any of that? If so- I'm buying one! Thanks for the tip!) But I don't think Sonar has any of those functions in the app (as far as I know), so I'd be surprised if your controller could be mapped to do them?

Just "Go to Now" which I use all the time from my control surface, of course. But that's not what I'm talking about! "Go to Now" doubles the difficulty in editing by selection a precise area and being able to instantly go again and again to a preroll point before the selected area. You can always set a marker there, but I don't want a marker, just a temporary Locate point. Or I'd have hundreds of markers all over the place by the time I'm done mixing a song! I'll bet you've worked on a 24 track with a superb autolocater- they have all these basic functions. Including Vari-speed! 

The changes I'm requesting don't seem all that complex- easy for me to say! And beatzmidiot (sorry if I misspelled!)- you may be right about Record-in-Reverse, but there is something to be said for it. Used to be standard on the ol' $100,000 Sony 3324's and 3348's! Also, if we had a truly non-linear app- wouldn't it be awesome to have standard J-K-L functionality?!!! If you've ever worked in Avid Media Composer, you know how awesome J-K-L is! By various key touches and combos you get 2x speed playback, 4x speed playback- both in forward and reverse. And slow-mo and frame-by-frame. In forward and reverse. J-K-L rules!

And the feature of defining the colors of the GUI was of course REMOVED from Sonar... and I object!!! If you don't want clearer fonts than various grays, fine! Everyone around HERE likes to be able to see clearly and legibly. I find shades of grays less visually clear from a distance than navy and white- just MY preference. Please don't paint anything orange... that's MY exclusive trademark.

Bristol- I was apprenticed to always keep the machine in record, especially when there's a band meeting about the studio bill! No I DON'T! of course not... just talking about button pushes, not the entire process of getting ready to record!

Well, I appreciate your guys' thoughts. You really got "auto-play latch upon locate"- one button from record, and vari-speed on your controller, CJ? That'd be awesome.

Auto locate can be initiated with markers. This is what markers are for. i think your just looking for short cuts. for example instead of something taking 2 mouse clicks, you just want one mouse click. Well this can be said with every program ever made. Allot of the stuff can be done in sonar.

If you ask 10 different people what they want new in Sonar, you'll get 10 different answers. So its really impossible to make a program that has "Everything" that you want. 
If they ever made a program that has every single feature request, the program would be so damn CPU heave and the GUI would be so hectic, you couldn't even work in it.

The thing is to find the program the is the closest to what you need. I think i just went way off topic, but ....... ...... ......   ................

Cj

Timeline zoom and auto zoom look like big timer savers to me. But maybe you don't want to record CLIENTS any quicker than you have to. Keep them waiting and paying. Isn't that why guys prefer PTools with no fast bounce.

They seem to be more designed for individuals who want to edit virtual software instruments than live musicians who are recording real instruments. 

Cakewalk started as a sequencer with no audio editing ability whatsoever. I for one was pretty disappointed at how much effort was being put into making it a virtual recording studio over the years, but the current iteration looks like a reasonable compromise. A better multitrack digital recorder/editor could probably have been built if that were the entire focus of development no doubt. But it would be a lot less useful tool for making music.

I think the new "landmarks" feature might have some of wha you are asking for...

Having run this proggy in a real studio with huge console and several control surfaces I can appreciate your frustration, but it really is a matter of setting up the program to do what it is told to do...

Unfortunatly the process resolution you are looking for is probably contained in sitting down for a day and making templates to load up...

We did exactly what you suggested for years in Sonar...and have only used the vocal correction thing on occasion since our motto was "Do it over"...

I think the best feature we could ask for in any DAW is how to get the very best performance from our client...sort of a "Shine in the groove" button...if the bakers ever create that feature they will dominant the industry...

Until then we will have to use a non-digital approach...

We used to have a cattle-prod over the door that said "Do it right in one take or else"...

i have never had a problem navigating and recording. One hand on the mouse, one the keyboard and muscle memory. Colors I can get behind. Something as simple as the little tabs which appear when using a control surface should be implemented for all users.

I've gotten lazy and pretty much do all my recording as loop recording these days...screw up a take, no problem...miss the intro, no problem...much of the time I don't even select different sections, I just choose the best take and delete everything else.

bitflipper
 

I do try to keep it all in perspective, though. We no longer have to wait while the tape rewinds and then scrub to the punch-in point. We no longer have to take copious notes so the session can be set up again the next day. No patch bays to reconfigure, no dials to dial in. No razor-blades. No demagnetizers. Unlimited bounces, pristine signal-to-noise ratios. And the godsend that is Un-Do. All in all, I am very happy with the digital world.

+1,000,000

bitflipper


I've always gotten around the navigation issue by keeping the Marker View onscreen. Single-click on an entry to jump to that marker. Couldn't be quicker or easier, unless maybe you could assign keyboard shortcuts to each marker (like maybe the numeric keypad).

My biggest gripe is the arbitrary re-assignment of keyboard shortcuts in each new SONAR version. Sure, you can re-bind them but it's a pain. What's the first thing you do when you're organizing a project? Insert markers as it's playing by pressing F11 at critical points. In X2, F11 opens full-screen mode, whatever that means. If I put it back to Insert Marker, I then have to find a suitable replacement for the new function that doesn't conflict with some other existing or changed shortcut. 

I do try to keep it all in perspective, though. We no longer have to wait while the tape rewinds and then scrub to the punch-in point. We no longer have to take copious notes so the session can be set up again the next day. No patch bays to reconfigure, no dials to dial in. No razor-blades. No demagnetizers. Unlimited bounces, pristine signal-to-noise ratios. And the godsend that is Un-Do. All in all, I am very happy with the digital world.

+1, very well said!

Mackie MCU's allow you move back and forth to any markers with the touch of a button. And I learned very early on that punch in/out recording is archaic. I have no use for it.

+1 Bitflipper!

Keybindable markers would go a long way. Especially, if we have them mapped to a control-surface. That would give us a simple locator system. Just posted about this the other day.

In Sonar 8.5 there are 12 marker shortcuts right on the transport. For whatever reason this was removed in X1. Or maybe its just moved. I can't find it anywhere. Post up if you know where it is in X1.