I'll say it: Personally, I'm not interested in touch features for Sonar. For my money, I would prefer Cakewalk concentrate on making the software more stable, flexible, and reliable rather than bleeding edge. I'm not out to look "cool", I just want to record mix down great music, and I don't look cool having Sonar crash on me or do something unexpected because of bugs or features I don't use, anyway. After watching James Bond, "Quantum of Solace" I have an appreciation for giant touch screens that can make any upper echelon presentation a super-awesome experience, especially to the person showing off. But what I witnessed in the Cakewalk videos for touch-features, the users in the videos look awkward demonstrating them, which means the features would be doubly awkward for me. It wasn't very enticing, to say the least. Why is Cakewalk even going there?

From my observation, most users do not use touch screen, at least not immediately, unless perhaps till the day when all screens have touch support built in.

But it's important for Cake to have touch support now, especially when moving to Win 8 - where touch is an important part of it - and moving forward. And I don't think it took a long amount of time for Cake to implement it. 

I can imagine someone new to DAW having a look at X2 / X3..on Win 8 / 9.. and say..what ? ..this thing don't respond to touch ? ..never mind when they actually use it, touch won't be used. In fact, Cake needs to catch up a little.. Reaper already has touch support (well.. it just translate touch to mouse more accurately), as long as you have a touch screen - with any version of Windows.

But once implemented, little improvement can be fine tuned - even if majority of users are not using it.. Till one day, when touch really takes off (IF) ..then we are all glad Cake did it today.

IMO All companies concerned are running over the touch screen cliff because all the cool kids only use pads and phones. They are afraid even the I7 laptop with its old fashioned mouse as accurate as it is will go the way of the floppy.

I can't blame CW for at least covering their butts and implementing mulitouch but I cant see
holding my arm up that long to run a touch screen and pads are too small.

That's why MS did the metro for win8 - they're scared. And probably should be too btw.

brconflict

I'll say it: Personally, I'm not interested in touch features for Sonar. 

I am. Way to go Cake.

Because if the only feature in X2 was that it was more stable than X1 my guess it wouldn't sell very well.

as a mouse hater, ive been waiting for touch for years.

Why is Cakewalk even going there?

Because it's the future and it provides you with a choice - to embrace the technology or not.


the choice - as always - is up to you

win7 already came with touch capabilities and i was first very enthusiastic about it. so I got myself one of those all-in-one machines with a touch screen.

sonar x1 already did work alright with it. it was quite nice to just touch the screen to arm, mute, solo, push play etc and occasionally move a fader or rotary ... but when I tried to do a simple mix, I got sore arms soon and it just felt unnatural / weird. so instead of taking the screen of the wall and laying it in front of me, I ordered a proper control surface. Nothing beats real faders and knobs (if they work) ... call me old-fashioned, I can live with it ...

Touch is awesome and they are geniuses to be all over it. Well done, Noel.

http://www.noelborthwick.com/bio/index.php

Now, I'm don't have a touch screen yet either, but it will not be long. Come on, wouldn't you rather have a touch screen as a controller? how cool would that be? it could be a key board when you want one, a scratch turn table, a sound board, anything you can dream up. It's so awesome!

And btw, it will take many revisions to get this right, like x64. The sooner they start the better. I love that Cakewalk makes incremental upgrades each year. They bring me along with them. They field my feedback. My bug reports. I feel like I'm part of the team.

I smiled in the video when they talked about how they tried to choose what to tackle first in touch. First picks had to be intuitive. one day, touch will grow complicated. There will be a lot of complaining between now and then, but as we grow as touch users, we will be able to handle more.

In a way, I feel Cakewalk is inviting us along. And while I definitely want a touch screen, something that costs $400 has to go on my wish list (especially given the new RME Interface beside me).

http://www.newegg.com/Touchscreen-Monitors/SubCategory/ID-514?Tpk=touch%20monitor

Just curious if anyone out there owns any of Noel's CDs. They sound amazing! (maybe that should be on another thread).
 
So, controllers will never go away. Real amplifiers. Real instruments. Drummers.
 
But drum loops are cool. Session drummer is cool. Synths are cool. These things all have their place. They don't reduce the musical possibilities, they add to them. Same with touch.

Bristol_Jonesey

the choice - as always - is up to you

As long as the choice remains, anything that potently increases the Sonar user base is a good thing So I think its the right move.
 
But for me, I can't see any situation where I would rather use a touch screen than a mouse/keyboard/controller combination. I have a touch screen phone but can't say I like it, the only advantage I see, to me, in touch screens is minaturisation.