let me present my hammer metaphor here, as well.
 
The new system is like a nail gun - it can do one task very well.  Pounding nails into wood is the core function of a hammer, and the nail gun takes that function and masters it.  The old system was like a hammer - pretty good at the one task, but a hammer can also be used as a weapon, as a bashing device, as a wedge, a chisel, for firewood, as a decorative wall hanging, as a toy, etc. 
 
The very fact that people used Layers for all sorts of unforeseen purposes is the reason why it shouldn't have been removed.  Whether all those purposes can be accomplished in another way is immaterial - this one tool was helping many people do many things quickly and intuitively.
 

brian brock
let me present my hammer metaphor here, as well.
 
The new system is like a nail gun - it can do one task very well.  Pounding nails into wood is the core function of a hammer, and the nail gun takes that function and masters it.  The old system was like a hammer - pretty good at the one task, but a hammer can also be used as a weapon, as a bashing device, as a wedge, a chisel, for firewood, as a decorative wall hanging, as a toy, etc. 
 
The very fact that people used Layers for all sorts of unforeseen purposes is the reason why it shouldn't have been removed.  Whether all those purposes can be accomplished in another way is immaterial - this one tool was helping many people do many things quickly and intuitively.
 

Yes, those are all good points. Unfortunately I don't have enough coding chops to know how easy it would be to implement parallel "within a track" structures. If it was easy, there would certainly be no harm in offering the alternative. I suspect it's not particularly easy, but I don't know.
 
Of your various specific features you'd like to see, FYI you can have multiple clips in Take Lanes all feeding the same effects - you don't have to use a bus. Also, unless I'm missing something, you could place a harmony on a different track and then just hide it if you want it out of the way from a visual standpoint.
 
I don't know of any workaround for the Track folder limitations you mention compared to layers. I guess the reason why that doesn't matter to me is by the time I've put something in a Track folder, it's been edited and I'm putting it in the folder to tidy up the workspace. Even if I could see the waveform, I probably wouldn't care because I'd have the track minimized anyway.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

Jlien X
 
Anyway, what I'd really like to know is if there's a way to record all takes (including overlapped clips) in just one lane WITHOUT enabling the Expand/Collapse Take Lanes button. Can X3 do this?
 
When I record MIDI, I want to use lanes as a place to keep alternative ideas (that's why I don't want muted clips in additional lanes to appear in the main track when the lanes are collapsed).
 

 
Just responding to this one point. The answer is no. A lane as it name implies cannot have overlapping data on it. It is like a lane on a highway - you can't have two cars at the same place in the lane without causing a crash :)
The whole point of lanes is to provide a way to "explode" a view of overlapping clips on a single track to multiple lanes, and provide a way of editing and managing this data through the comping tools and workflow.
You cannot use a single lane as a repository for multiple clips that overlap - its not designed for that.
 
If you haven't already watched the comping video's I highly recommend checking them out so you can understand some use cases for the comping workflow and tools.

 
Thank you for chiming in, Noel. The highway metaphor is good, I understand that. If you're still reading this, I hope you'll improve at least these two regarding Take Lanes:
 
1. The Expand/Collapse Take Lanes button in the lower left corner of the track strip isn't really helping, because it turns blue (a little too dark, though) ONLY when you record something in the track or drag a file from the Browser (the latter doesn't happen if it's a MIDI track, though), but NOT when you drag a clip from another track. Also, the color of the button remains the same even when there are overlapping clips in the track (i.e. when there are two or more lanes). IMO, the button shouldn't change color when there's only one lane (or no lane), and should turn blue (a bit brighter than the current blue but not as bright as that you see when the lanes are expanded) when there are overlapping clips (i.e. two or more lanes). This way, you can tell if there are overlapping clips in the track WITHOUT expanding the lanes.
 
Note: I sent in a feature request for this (not exactly the same, though), but I assumed the person in charge of FR would drop the idea and it would never get to you, so I mentioned the suggestion here. 
 
 
2. As I mentioned in the original post (and also some other threads on Take Lanes), muted MIDI clips and MIDI clips in a muted lane should NOT appear in the track when the lanes are collapsed.
 
 
Thank you

yeah there's other ways to get things done - it just seems that those workarounds are less efficient than the old habits which I developed over the years.
 
I get everything I need done in X3, more or less, but it could be better.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

Jlien X
 
Anyway, what I'd really like to know is if there's a way to record all takes (including overlapped clips) in just one lane WITHOUT enabling the Expand/Collapse Take Lanes button. Can X3 do this?
 
When I record MIDI, I want to use lanes as a place to keep alternative ideas (that's why I don't want muted clips in additional lanes to appear in the main track when the lanes are collapsed).
 

 
Just responding to this one point. The answer is no. A lane as it name implies cannot have overlapping data on it. It is like a lane on a highway - you can't have two cars at the same place in the lane without causing a crash :)
The whole point of lanes is to provide a way to "explode" a view of overlapping clips on a single track to multiple lanes, and provide a way of editing and managing this data through the comping tools and workflow.
You cannot use a single lane as a repository for multiple clips that overlap - its not designed for that.
 
If you haven't already watched the comping video's I highly recommend checking them out so you can understand some use cases for the comping workflow and tools.

Ahhh... yes Noel... I know that... But that's one of the problems... sometimes it is necessary to allow the sutain of one sound to continue beyond where the other Lane/clip starts... so comping doesn't handle this... Many of us NEED to allow some things to overlap even when dealing with takes of the same data but different performances...
 
It's a great tool but it needs to be able to be switched off!
 
Layers allowed this!
 
Keni
 

Keni
 
Ahhh... yes Noel... I know that... But that's one of the problems... sometimes it is necessary to allow the sutain of one sound to continue beyond where the other Lane/clip starts... so comping doesn't handle this... Many of us NEED to allow some things to overlap even when dealing with takes of the same data but different performances...

If they're different performances, what's wrong with having them in different Take Lanes? You can trim individual clips within take lanes if you want. Sounds can overlap all you want if they're in different lanes. They can also play back at the same time.

with the lanes concept, especially the comp-mode iteration, while it may be possible to do some of the things in question, there's a lot of different behaviors you have to account for - will clicking here mute this clip, or mute all the other clips?  If I accidentally move this clip on top of that one, with the old one completely disappear?  How do I get the little auto-crossfade handle to show between these two clips?  In some modes, splitting one clip splits all the other clips - have to keep track of that.  Make sure to only click on the top little bar or you'll be splitting or muting or whatever.  And so on.
 
Obviously there are answers to all of these issues - each of these little questions represents an intended behavior corresponding to an imagined ideal workflow.  Even if these tools are your bread and butter, though, there are still more little details to worry about if all you want is to move some clips around.  The fact alone that you can't sometimes crossfade between clips unless the track lanes are collapsed is a problem.

Anderton
 
If they're different performances, what's wrong with having them in different Take Lanes? You can trim individual clips within take lanes if you want. Sounds can overlap all you want if they're in different lanes. They can also play back at the same time.

Exactly, overlaps are permitted as long as they reside in different lanes. So you can certainly continue to work with cases where you want stacking of voices on a single track. The comping workflow favors isolation but you can certainly ctrl-click on a clip to make it sound simultaneously with another lane. 
 
Here is the thing. However users interpreted the old layers approach. it was originally intended for comping but fell short because the design was too simplistic and didn't handle the 90% case it was intended to solve, which is comping a single part out of many takes. Yes you could comp in a loose sense with layers, by using workarounds and by manually toggling the solos and mutes along with using the older isolate tool. I've worked with the old layers approach myself and frankly the experience wasn't good, requiring so many intermediate operations that it destroyed my focus on what I was trying to do.
 
Essentially all the old layers paradigm did internally was assigning an index to the clips withing tracks. Beyond that you were on your own to mute solo or isolate the individual clips after recording multiple passes. It was a cumbersome workflow requiring users to manually toggle the solo states after each record pass to hear it.
On the other hand with the take lanes design, we started with the use cases we wished to be effortless and worked from there on designing tools especially for that purpose. We considered all boundary use cases as well as we could, and alternate workflow decisions were also carefully considered. Take lanes also build upon similar infrastructure as layers (that's why its backwards compatible) but all the magic and logic lives in the new tools and commands. Essentially lanes *are* layers with tools that are optimized for the most requested comping operations.
 
For those asking why we couldn't retain the old layers UI functionality, the reasons are manifold. The tools paradigm there wasn't something that could be extended to do what we wanted. Also it would have been an utter mess to maintain and support two completely different user interfaces especially since the latter was a dead end.
We can pretty much do most of what the manual layers approach did better and faster with the lanes approach. If there are missing workflows we can consider them and expand lanes to accommodate it potentially but your cases need to be clearly articulated and described separately. Putting a million posts into a single thread makes it very difficult for anyone to decipher and ends up clouding the issue further. A good way to describe workflow related problems are by stating use cases or "stories". Make a thread or report explaining exactly what you are trying to do from start to finish and why you cannot achieve it with the given tools. That's by far the best way to communicate an idea to a product manager or someone involved with the feature.

So here is a simple question...
 
I'm working with a vocalist, a particularly bad one. I've done ten takes with him (he's sung all the way through the song 10 times) and I've decided in the end I like take 3, although I did pause and drop him in once during that take.
So I'm not really comping in the end.... well not much...
 
Will my "producers notes" (I wrote somewhere on a piece of paper "Take 3 is excellent"). Would this tally up with what happened in Sonar? Or has his vocal performance been spread across multiple takelanes, and with ten takes I'd just have to re-review the situation (as I won't be able to find that killer performance many hours later without reviewing every single take again)...
 
Thanks

Alex

Each discrete recording should end up in its own take lane. I normally write down the good take number T3/T4 etc. 
Also you can directly put your notes in the take lane itself. You do know there is a comment field right in the lane itself don't you? :)