Jlien X
 
I've read some of your posts here and in the other thread, and you seem to make good points. It's a shame you decided to put all these together to make two (or more) long threads.

I have done this also. But we must (please) remember, he told us from the beginning that English is not his native language. So let us give him the benefit of the doubt here, and allow him to go into detail so that he knows he's getting his point across.
 
Now here is the kicker, we all know who frequent these threads. I am willing to bet they have read it too. And they may have come to the same conclusions as Jlien and I have. Jekyll has some good points, ideas, suggestions.
 
As to the long threads, I'm ok with it. He's giving a lot of info in them. And I am interested to hear what he has to say. He's has evidently spent a lot of time to try and explain his position.
 
@ Jekyll: Good info your giving here. I'm listening!!

 Grem, thank you for your support, you’re encouraging me to keep going on.)

 Come on people, I’m not working for Cakewalk as beta-tester, and I'm not getting paid for it, but I put a lot of my time and effort into this review just to make things better. This is just a first part, a lot more is coming.

If it’s not fully clear to you what I mean in some cases, please ask me and I’ll try to explain it better. Some points may be hard to explain especially if you don’t use corresponding feature often, so sometimes you should just try it yourself and see what I’m talking about.  I’m not trying to solve my personal problems here, and I arranged things in this way because I thought that it will be more comfortable to follow for Cakewalk guys or anyone who’s interested in improving Sonar as a whole. In this case, I believe, it’s easier to read one thread then jump between dozens of topics. I haven’t prevised though that it will be so boring for most of you to read less than one page of text.
So, I’ll try to follow Jlien X’s advice and divide this thread.  We’ll keep the discussion of MIDI groove clips behavior here and I’ll take other points from here to new threads, will it be OK?

Again about Groove MIDI Clips in other words, John made me a little desperate that noone understands what I'm talking about. Now with steps to follow.
My goal (quite simple and usual in my workflow): to make a short synth bass sequence, repeated eight times. Repeats must be linked with each other, in the way that if I change my mind later and decide that second note in sequence must be G, and not D, I will only have to change it in first repeat and other will follow automatically.
 
The best way to do it (like it works in Reaper):
1. I make up some note sequence.
2. I stretch the end of midi-clip to the point I want the sequence to last. Linked repeats are automatically produced up to this point. That's all. There's also loop repeat line indicator in piano roll view that determines repeats' length, that can be adjusted this way even after the stretching is done.

 
Step-sequencer clips in Sonar work similar to Reaper. But piano-roll midi clips behave different.
 
The way I have to do it in Sonar with piano-roll clips:
1. I make up some note sequence in piano roll
2. I stretch the end of midi clip to the desired length.
3. I copy my clip.
4. I paste my clip eight times in a row, each time confirming "create linked clips" option. I have to be careful  when pasting to align everything properly with grid.
5. I create a selection group for them to behave as a whole.
As a result, I have eight linked clips at last. That's the only way to do it and far more tedious than it could be.
 
It seems like groove clips were invented exactly for that purpose, but I cannot do it with groove midi clips in Sonar, let's see what happens if I try:
1. I make up some note sequence in piano roll,
2. I right-click my clip and enable groove-clip looping.
3. I stretch the end of midi clip to the point I want the sequence to last...
4. I end up with several repeats of my sequence, but they are not linked, i.e. when I change note in repeat 1, repeat 2 and others remain unchanged.  In this sense, groove midi clips make no difference with simple midi clips. And that's just illogical, because both step sequencer and audio groove clips show linked repeats behaviour (try to stretch audio groove clip, then apply some audio FX only to one region of it and see for yourself - every repeat will change accordingly).
 
So, in my opinion groove midi clips should be enabled by default on midi clips and must produce linked repeats.
I hope I made myself clear this time.
Peace!
 

How to do this more quickly (shortcut keys and "cheating") with groove clips:
 
1. I make up some note sequence in piano roll,
2. Ctrl-L to groove clip the clip
3. I stretch the end of midi clip to the point I want the sequence to last...
4. I decide I want to change a note
5. Ctrl-L
6. I make the change
7. Ctrl-L
8. Re-roll out the clip
 
I personally love how groove clips behave now, as it allows me to roll out a basic sequence and then tweak the odd note without having to copy and paste.  Horses for courses.

I too have rolled out a groove clip and wanted to change the odd note here and there. I thought that there must be an easy way of doing this and I just hadn't found help files on how to do it. If this really is the case, that you cannot edit a single note within rolled out groove clips without affecting the other clips, then I think it might be a good feature to have and I'm surprised it's not there.
Could someone please post if this is possible, this is not my strong point and I would like to know (now that someone else has raised the issue).
KPerry, does this workaround not affect all the notes you have rolled out, or can you just alter one note within the x number of bars you have created?
 
I do agree with Jlien, please just post one issue at a time. For someone who has to really concentrate in order to understand and work through what you are trying to accomplish, it just makes it easier to work with you on these issues.

The note you edit is literally just that note changed - it's not replicated to all clips in the rolled out groove.

Ok, thanks Kevin. I thought it must be available I just hadn't worked it out yet.

KPerry
How to do this more quickly (shortcut keys and "cheating") with groove clips:
 
1. I make up some note sequence in piano roll,
2. Ctrl-L to groove clip the clip
3. I stretch the end of midi clip to the point I want the sequence to last...
4. I decide I want to change a note
5. Ctrl-L
6. I make the change
7. Ctrl-L
8. Re-roll out the clip
 
I personally love how groove clips behave now, as it allows me to roll out a basic sequence and then tweak the odd note without having to copy and paste.  Horses for courses.

Of course you can do it like that, but constant ungrooving and re-rolling is not what I dream about.
 
I think we can look on it like this: there's 2 types of grooves behaviour one could possibly want:
1 rolling out groove creates linked repeats so you can edit them all in sync (this is how step sequencer clips behave)
2 rolling out groove creates unlinked repeats so you can edit single notes without affecting other repeats within the roled out groove (now this is the case with piano roll clips)
 
The problem is, the second type of behaviour makes it very tedious to workaround it, if the first type is what you need. The only way is multiple copy/pasting or re-rolling (as described by KPerry).
On the other hand, the first type of behaviour has an easy workaround: if you want to quickly roll out sequence and then make it available for free editing (dismiss repeats linking) you can just bounce groove sequence to simple midi clip in one mouse click or key combination press.
That's why I think that the first type of behaviour is preferrable. Moreover, it's logically consistent with audio- and SS-grooves behaviour.
 
In a perfect case, we can combine both, for that purpose we should have a key modifier that will affect linking within the groove: for example, if you drag the note as usual, corresponding notes will be moved in each repeat of the groove, if you drag the note while holding Alt, only the selected note will be moved within the groove clip.
 

Jekyll Vance
4. I end up with several repeats of my sequence, but they are not linked,i.e. when I change note in repeat 1, repeat 2 and others remain unchanged.  In this sense, groove midi clips make no difference with simple midi clips. And that's just illogical, because both step sequencer and audio groove clips show linked repeats behaviour

 
Ah, now I remember why I stopped using groove-clip looping. You're right, the repeat portions should be linked to the original (but I wouldn't say groove-clip looping should be enabled by default). Maybe it's a bug. Report to CW and if they say it's an intended behavior, they normally forward it to the feature request department on your behalf.
 

Jekyll Vance
I have to be careful  when pasting to align everything properly with grid.

 
I suggest you set "Measure" for secondary Snap to Grid resolution and hold down the N key when you copy the clip (I, in contrast, use "Measure" for grobal snap resolution and "1/16" for secondary snap resolution).
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation/default.aspx?Doc=SONAR+X2&Lang=EN&Req=Arranging.28.html
 

Great detail - I concur that separate threads would make it easier for any discussion to be followed, as only one issue would be present in each thread.
 
Also, I agree that some of these ideas would be good candidates for submission as feature requests, and I think you might as well go ahead and submit your ideas.
 
Bob Bone