Thanks guys. Yeah I'm not trying to do anything too fancy here, just thought I'd try to "tighten the belt" on some rhythm guitar tracks recorded at a studio. I swear it just seems so riddled with bugs, and it's not just isolated to one clip or one file.  Invariably, one of these bugs enters a clip, and I find myself starting over on the transient adjustments (very tedious stuff... you'd like to just do once in 15 minutes, and be done with it... but invariably, I find myself starting over, and over again...)

There is a philosophy that "this is how the guitar was played, if you want it tighter you should practice more," yadda yadda. I get that, but that seems off point. I agree with Vicsant... if a company is going to market a given tool, that tool should be reasonably expected to work, reliably.
FYI, back in August I submitted several files to Cakewalk after contacting their technical support on this issue. I received an automated email in response:

"Thank-you for submitting your problem report, you are receiving this message because the status of your report has been changed to CLOSED - FEATURE REQUEST.  With the following notes: Thank you for your suggestions. We have submitted this for review to be considered in future Cakewalk products."
 

I discovered more Sonar bugs today while working with audiosnap in a new project.
 
It's worth noting that in the 4 projects I've worked on since buying Version 8.5, these bugs (or similar ones) have arisen in every project. So it's not been "project specific." I am now under the impression that it's virtually impossible to use audiosnap across a whole track without coming across these bugs, which makes it almost unworkable.  I am seriously considering moving over to another DAW right now, which is frustrating because I feel like I have wasted my money. I walked through these bugs with someone over the phone at Sonar, and I've sent the files over to them. In response I just received a generic formletter over email. 

It's so crazy to me that the new Sonar X1 info mentions nothing about whether these bugs have been worked out.

If anyone is reading this because they are considering buying Sonar, I would seriously suggest trying something else. The bugs are just too numerous.
 
1) Once again, it seems that painstaking edits made previously to transient markers have been lost and need to be redone. It's hard to say what caused it this time, but I explained some ways this can happen in the first posts (above). This may actually just be attributable to bad software design, rather than a bug per se. But I have yet to be able to edit transients across a whole track without losing some part of my work.
 
2) Certain transient markers are visible, but cannot be deleted/ reset/ disabled.
 
3) Tempo map- beat markers randomly slide forward, and out of order, 1 to 2 measures ahead of where they should be. They slide forward and out of order, unless arbitrarily locked down in the correct place to a transient. In most cases, this forces me to place a transient where there was no actual beat, ie, where I don't want one.
 
4) Some beat markers refuse to lock to a transient, even if the transient is in the right place. The beat marker just insists on moving unnaturally forward to a wrong location.
 
5) Some beat markers appear in random locations, and without any beat number assigned to them (all you see is the triangle symbol). There are a lot of them.
 
6) When some beat markers are unlocked, they zip off the screen in one direction or another, in a random location, out of sequence. This even happens when all other surrounding beat markers have been locked into the correct locations.
 
7) While working in audiosnap, several measures of the visual wave display seem to have been replaced with waveform that bears no relationship to what is actually being heard on the soloed track.  You *hear* the correct audio when you solo the track, but what you see represented on screen is something else entirely. For example, where a note is heard being sustained, then followed by a rest,  the visual wave form looks like all kinds of notes are being played. This discrepency lasts for about 4 measures for no apparent reason. This makes it impossible to set transients in the right place, when what you see is not what you are hearing.
 
8) Again, this may not be a bug per se... But has anyone noticed that when you select a certain level of resolution in Audiosnap, ie "quarter notes" or "half notes," it doesn't actually work?? If I select "quarter notes," I get loads of transients on 8th notes. If I select "half notes," I have distinct whole notes that are missing transients. This setting is almost useless...

 

AS has some serious bugs which makes it very difficult, if not impossible to work with....and it's a shame that these bugs will continue to be there in X1!

By the way youtube explains auidosnap it sounded like a great tool which I would undoubtedly use at some stage.

But after reading this....I have a bit of concern.
I'd give it a shot though to see if what I would use it for will end up causing grief or not.

As for someone saying it's like a maze getting through Sonar, indeed it has been.
I have had to read up a lot and at times think there must be a more straight forward explanation which is where youtube has come in handy along with the users in this forum.

If you ask me, the fixes they made in Audiosnap 2.0 are great for simple things. Clip quantizing and simple bits for short pieces of audio.

 
Amen to that.  The examples in the videos are done with short bits that have conveniently clear transients. 
 
This post is amazing.  Today I sat down for the 100th time to develop a cast iron workflow that would work with Audiosnap.  I just took a break to check out the forum and here is this dissertation on Audiosnap that exposes and documents the results I haven't been able to quantify.  I have been completely lost in the jungle.  All I can say to Big Lion is "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"
 
Why doesn't Cakewalk address this post and the issue of how Audiosnap is supposed to work?   The help file is a circle jerk.  The unexpected behavior of disappearing and moving transients has cost me and others boku hours and frustration.   I expect I will read this post over a few times and see if can understand it.  I don't see why Cakewalk can't provide usable instructions on Audiosnap. 
 
 

Why doesn't Cakewalk address this post and the issue of how Audiosnap is supposed to work?

Yeah....Cakewalk puts in a great new feature, then leaves the bugs to fester and irritate us for several versions.     

And yes, the videos can be very misleading as they usually demo AS with 4 to 8 bar clips. They should try working with AS on a full 3 to 4 minute song with multiple audio and midi tracks!!!!

....where's the "truth in advertising" paradigm?

Very interesting post BL.

Thanks for sharing your insight with the rest of the forum.

I've had limited success with AS recently, but I've now printed out your first few posts to study at home.

Great stuff.

Hah I just had to add to the heap...  After writing that last post, I struggled with this tempo mapping until I finally got all the beat markers "locked down" onto a transient. (I had to locked them ALL down, because if I didn't, some of them would slide 1 or 2 measures ahead, all haywire.)   So then I saved my file and called it a night.

The next day, I re-opened the file, and all the beat markers were complete chaos!!  All that work lost. Hundreds of little triangle symbols, most without the numerical beat label, were scattered about wildly- no rhythmic sense whatsoever.

Anyway, so, I sent the corrupted file to Cakewalk to see if I get a response.  (Again, the last time I did this, I just got a "feature request" form email. I'm not sure why they called it a "Feature Request-" AudioSnap already exists. Maybe they should have called it a "Feature working request." )

Ok, so maybe I should just hire a pro bassist to play this track tighter;)

Otherwise, Pro Tools, here I come...!!! For the first time, the new Version 9 works with any ASIO compatible interface, and from what I read on Sound On Sound, the new Elastic Audio feature works even better than Beat Detective.
http://www.soundonsound.c...0/articles/pt_0110.htm

What I really wish is there was some audio quantizing plug-in that I could just buy for $150 and use it within Sonar, because otherwise, I like Sonar. But I haven't found anything current... Any ideas on that??


 

Well, this has become almost like a blog of AudioSnap bugs.
 
I was about ready to throw in the towel and get ProTools 9, but this will cost some real money so I thought I'd tackle this bass track one more time with a fresh head this morning.
 
Picking up where I left off in the last post:
 
1) All transient markers positioned the night before and saved, were lost this morning when re-opening the file. The quantizing was also lost. Tons of new transient markers appeared in new places, where there clearly are no transients. So I began starting over, manually adjusting each transient and time-adjusting one-by-one.
 
2) Alt+ clicking once (to add a new transient marker) adds 4 transient markers in random places on the screen. I undo. I zoom out 3 times.  Suddenly the additional transient markers re-appear. I zoom in 3 times. Suddenly the markers disappear. I zoom back out to make them re-appear.
 
3) These same  markers cannot be disabled, deleted, or moved. There are many of these concentrated over 3 or 4 measures.
 
4) Why is it that when I leave the Transient Tool mode, and go to the Select Tool, I still see transient markers on all the tracks? Aren't these only supposed to be visible when working in the Transient Tool mode?  The only way to make them all disappear is to bounce every clip to a clip. (Of course, if you do this, all transient marker editing is lost, as documented previously.)
 
5) I am working methodically through the track, when suddenly, Alt + click (to add a new transient) makes ALL transient markers on the screen disappear, and all timing adjustments are lost.  The wave form reverts back to its unedited position.  I undo.  This condition applies over the whole remainder of the song. The workaround is to find other transients that were disabled, and slide them all down/ re-arrange them, to get the needed one into position. (Because you can't "leap" one transient over another, this often requires sliding several transients down one at a time, like a train... and respositioning them all, one by one...)
 
6) Using the crop clip tool makes a transient marker appear where previously there was none.
 
AND NOW, FOR THE BOMB.....

7) FINALLY, working patiently through these problems,  I finshed adjusting every transient marker manually.
To preserve my work, I immediately render the time-edited track by bouncing to a new track. In the bounced track, the timing is completely screwed up. Worse than the original performance, by far. For example, a transient is rendered 300 milliseconds ahead of where the corresponding transient marker was.  This happens randomly to beats throughout the file.
 
The same corrupted timing happens if I bounce to clips, or export.
 
In other words, there is no way to get the time-corrected track out of the computer.
 
I think that pretty much fries Sonar for me.  ProTools 9 is on sale at Sweetwater.com for $448. For the first time, it works with any ASIO compatible interface.

I am still waiting to hear back from Cakewalk regarding the file that I sent them.

The next day, I re-opened the file, and all the beat markers were complete chaos!! All that work lost. Hundreds of little triangle symbols, most without the numerical beat label, were scattered about wildly- no rhythmic sense whatsoever.

 
WTF?  You just wrote the book on Audiosnap and you're still discovering bugs and losing shiz everywhere.  Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!  I give up.  I notice making Audiosnap make sense wasn't on the just published mind map. 
 
Thanks for at least letting me know I'm not F'd up alone.  I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!!