same thing here from a Daw point of view bitflipper and jumping ship, although not the same approach to music and editing techniques I will presume or same wants overall.
But I jumped back and too from Sonar to studio one a few times, but the automation was the overall killer still, as from X1 I was expecting better.But with Studio one I will always miss the inline piano roll it does not have, I feel lost without despite Studio one being good and very too the point too use.
So with Sonar x2 and the inline piano roll I miss in Studio one,and now the new automation lanes are going to solve one problem so the thing I await on is the
New automation drawing that is mentioned, really looking forward to seeing if at last all areas of Sonar automation are fixed and improved on, but will it be enough to compete with what I guess will be introduced to Studio one sooner rather than later, as the majority of Studio one user have requested automation clips/block similar to Reason and fruity loops, that can be dragged to the browser and displayed fully in the browser and is universal automation that can be applied to any other vst parameter i might add, and a dam good guess will be that this is on its way over the next update or two.
Again like I say the main thing I miss is the inline piano roll the GUI/appearance In sonar is also a little better, taking poor resolution into account I think sonar needs to have a way to compress all used track lines into view /Fit to size.
In sonar x1 I was also finding doing my mix downs a doddle with pro channel, this I also miss. So its gotten quite exiting all round for me, I doubt I will sell out On studio one yet until I see if these automation clips/blocks will happen I have learned that lesson mainly with past instability I had with Sonar so it was unuasble that being another major issue along with poor all round automation , But for the small upgrade fee to sonar x2 definitely worth another look and I do like the way the GUI is now looking in X2 with the transparency of data clips, cakewalk may just be making one of the biggest comebacks, at least to the point they may actually be listening to people like myself so it may be worth sticking around just to see If over the next couple of years they get Sonar 100% Good for what I need, let the battle commence, its a good thing in my eyes, healthy competition, It may also warrant me actually putting in future request, knowing that Cakewalk sonar are not dead in the water, its taken a sharp shock if you ask me, and they may now actually listen to us the users who know what we want, sonar did used to be quite patronising of feature request, that never ever really seem to materialise or get improved on.
Not the ones that mattered as a game changer for a competitive market, us computer musicians as myself needed future proofing,but can cakewalk revolutionise new ideas that is the question ? and give us some new creative effects and instruments
so far they still lack here, its more about the generalised band and instrument player, not the twisted dance genre producers like myself, but a very big market is out their, Sonar has most generalised things that will supposedly work come X2 I guess, so I need less volkswagen beetle and more cutting edge formula 1 now for my genres.
bitflipper
Random thoughts after watching the video...with frequent pause-and-rewinds. (I know attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, but really?)
I'm glad to see that CW appears to be getting back on track after their (hopefully) brief obsession with looking like Studio One. Back to some ergonomic editing, organization, composition and workflow features. There is insufficient information to decide if it's enough to bring me back on board, though - marketing hype can raise your expectations unrealistically.
The main reason I stayed on 8.5 is because of what they did to automation editing in X1. Will automation lanes save the day? We'll see. But mention of automation editing enhancements makes me cautiously optimistic. This, for me anyway, is the primary potential deal maker/breaker.
The Replace Synth feature could be a useful enhancement, although what I'm always wishing for is a Replace Plugin feature.
Many other bullet points could turn out to be anything from uber-cool to ho-hum, given the lack of details. "Aim editing"? "PRV editing enhancements"? "Widget enhancement?" All of these could be wonderful improvements (maybe the widget enhancements are that you can put the interleave button back in the track header!!!)
Breverb, I'll take it but I don't need it. Is this a "lite" version? The Overloud version goes for $200. The UI looks the same, but I'm guessing there are fewer algorithms in the SONAR-bundled version. Ever since ValhallaRoom came along, I'm guessing it's pretty tough selling $200 reverbs anymore.
R-Mix, meh. When I first saw it I thought it might be akin to Adobe Audition's spectral editor. Alas, it is not. A toy for remixers, I think. This also appears to be a "lite" version of the (normally $200) full product, based on fewer UI elements.
Many new features fall under the category of "might be interesting but probably won't be". "Smart snap" for example. Only loopers and drag 'n drop "composers" snap to a grid. Real audio - the kind that comes out of a microphone - does not quantize. Matrix view enhancements are definitely irrelevant to conventional recordists. Auto track zoom? Enhanced time-ruler zoom? Unless they've done something really clever, nah. And don't get me started on "console emulation", the emperor's latest fad.
In the screenshots, it appears that clips now have title bars. That could be useful, but not useful enough to give up a quarter-inch of vertical screen real estate per track. Maybe they're optional.
MIDI timing and MIDI/audio sync enhancements, audio engine optimizations - now that's the old Cakewalk I've grown up with! Marketing doesn't know how to sell stuff like that, but it's key to long-term customer loyalty.