bladetragic
As for what doesn't work as well as layers, they definitely should have incorporated the "remove empty layers" type of feature for lanes.  Also there's the issue of the excessive amount of screen real estate lanes can take up b/c of the arbitrary lane heights.  Even though I'm not part of the "I want layers back" crowd, those are a couple of things that came to mind right away.

Thank you for those specifics.  As I said, I never used layers, so I don't have a basis for comparison. But if one expects a software engineer to address a concern, one has to be specific.
 
I am curious how others are using (or trying to use) the feature.  It never occurred to me to have a button to clear empty take lanes because I never have 4 of them.  Are other folks using many more take lanes?  How long do you keep those multiple takes in your projects?  In my case, I always bounce "the winners" down to a single clip so I only have multiple takes for a short time.  I surmise my use is a lot different from others'.
 
And if I am just doing a simple punch or two I just punch, I don't go to a take lane.

SteveStrummerUK

KeniI love many things we've received since X1 was released... as well as found things that I don't like and learn to live with. But that's because I never had better (for me) and I did with Sonar.... so I simply want that back....

This ^^^^^ absolutely Keni. I just don't understand why some folk can't grasp (or won't grasp) this extremely simple concept. To these people - just imagine for a minute that there's a feature of SONAR you really like. It works perfectly the way it has for many versions and fits in with your workflow perfectly. And then it's changed, in one fell swoop, so you don't have that feature any more. And the 'new' way is more cumbersome and fiddly, and you can't work the same way or as quickly as you did with the previous feature. I'll bet you would really love it when others tell you how much they like the new feature.    

Ain't that the truth!

Keni

...and there at least a third group who really don't care which it is as long as I can work the way I need to... Tho I am currently managing to work this way using Lanes, it was far easier/faster and less frustrating for me than Lanes are...
 
I'm a third grouper.  It just seems easier to learn how to make the current incarnation of the program work for you than it is to wait (for a very long time usually) for the Bakers to miraculously change the program to fit your exact work flow.  
 
But delete unused layers?  Yes please!

sven450
But delete unused layers?  Yes please!

I still don't understand why people feel this is such a high priority.  How many lanes do you typically have open at a time?
 
Don't get me wrong, I would use that command if I had it, so I'm not saying it is a bad thing.  This would protect me against accidentally deleting a lane that still had some material in it.  But I generally know where my babies are, so to speak, because I only have 3 or 4 lanes open at a time.  Do some people keep many more lanes open?

I've had many projects with 20 or more lanes from a single track that needed editing with the excess trimmed & deleted.
With Layers & a single click they would all be removed & collapse into a single track. 

cparmerlee

sven450But delete unused layers?  Yes please!

I still don't understand why people feel this is such a high priority.  How many lanes do you typically have open at a time? Don't get me wrong, I would use that command if I had it, so I'm not saying it is a bad thing.  This would protect me against accidentally deleting a lane that still had some material in it.  But I generally know where my babies are, so to speak, because I only have 3 or 4 lanes open at a time.  Do some people keep many more lanes open?

I'm sure this is part of the issue. I'm not always recording rehearsed performances and often using looping to assist in the creative process where I might do 12-30 passes at a given part... Not unusual here at all... I'm searching and creating and rehearsing all at once! ;-)

Why make such an issue of it? As said in many earlier posts about this... The work efficiency and flow I was able to achieve in 8.5.3 is now gone and I'm forced to deal more with the UI than the music... Constantly!

I also save many such tracks after cloning and compositing in case I feel I wishi to go back to the takes later on... Hard drive is plentiful and cheap!

Keni

Keni
I'm not always recording rehearsed performances and often using looping to assist in the creative process where I might do 12-30 passes at a given part... Not unusual here at all... I'm searching and creating and rehearsing all at once! ;-)

I also save many such tracks after cloning and compositing in case I feel I wish to go back to the takes later on... Hard drive is plentiful and cheap!

It makes sense to me, even though that's different from what I have been doing.  (I'm not trying to be creative.  I'm trying to get the best recording playing from sheet music. That's a different thing altogether, so different methods / work flows are to be expected.) With software development and testing, often the biggest problems arise when the testers don't really understand how people are using the software.  Of course, the ideal is for the software to be bug-free, but programmers generally fix what they see to be broken, and if the test plan doesn't break things, they may never get fixed.

Usually what I do (when I dare to use Lanes) is Ctrl+Left Arrow until I see the entire song (or zoom out). Then I can see if any lanes have anything in them, and I simply click the [x] on each one, but I can see where a global remove of unused Lanes could be useful.

In Sonar X1, I would often record multiple takes of 8 or more tracks of drums (kick, snare, toms, overheads, under-snare, etc).  You could then select take 1, take 2, etc on all tracks and then edit using audiosnap.  X1 was very good at knowing the take relationships across multiple tracks, selecting the correct layers on each track, and allowing you to edit everything from a given take using audiosnap.  No matter how much I try, I can't get Sonar X2 to behave the same way.  Either the take relationship across tracks gets lost, or the audiosnap markers suddenly disappear or change position all by themselves on the layer I am working on.  Sometimes audiosnap in layers just stops working altogether.
 
I don't know how users who are happy with take lanes are using them, but start doing some complex multi-track drum editing work, have Sonar muck up hours of work, and you are ready to scream.  I suspect some here are doing simple edits on single multi-layer tracks.  How many here record and edit live drums?  If your drummer lays down 4 or 5 takes, how are layers working out for you?
 
I want the functionality I had with X1 - I actually don't care if it's layers or lanes, but I don't want to upgrade and LOSE functionality.  For me personally, layers weren't perfect, but they were easier to use for complex multi-track, multi-take editing.
 
I love the cool things I can do in X2 with the new tools, but multi-track-multi-take editing went backwards in a big way.  Maybe I'm doing something completely wrong?  I dunno, I've been using Sonar/Pro Audio/Cakewalk since it was delivered on a single floppy disk and this is one of the biggest backward moves to date for the way I work.  Obviously it doesn't hurt the way others work.

cparmerlee
I am curious how others are using (or trying to use) the feature.  It never occurred to me to have a button to clear empty take lanes because I never have 4 of them.  Are other folks using many more take lanes?  How long do you keep those multiple takes in your projects?  In my case, I always bounce "the winners" down to a single clip so I only have multiple takes for a short time.  I surmise my use is a lot different from others'.

I use layers (and would use lanes) for 10 takes of most guitar parts (sometimes 30 takes!).  Then I go back and choose or comp the best takes, often copying and pasting.  In addition, I record two mics on a guitar cab on separate tracks plus a DI track.  So now I'm talking 30 lanes per guitar part (or up to 90) to audition and comp.  I'm a uber-perfectionist, but that's how I was able to work with layers, and that's why I want a well-functioning lanes system that can be adjusted to a smaller height and won't flip out when I copy/paste into three lanes at once.