Hi Noel- and thanks for being part of the most customer-thoughtful company I've ever done business with in 28 years of running a Studio! I very much appreciate Cakewalk- your customer service ethos is by far the best in the industry. As an owner of Avid Media Composer, the contrast between Cake and Avid's company policies are stunning! It's one of the reasons I stick with Sonar for commercial work, instead of ProTools- even in an industry that tends to be pretty ProTools snobby. 

I certainly already use most of your suggestions, (like one button keybound locate of "Go to Now"- use it a thousand times a day too!) but they don't really DO what I'm asking for, The point is, when you have to push 3 buttons to do what could easily be done with one- A THOUSAND TIMES a day... every day... an Upgrade that addresses it would be a no-brainer business investment. 

We much appreciate the work you guys do, trying to improve Sonar and making it THE superior tool to buy! But let me please just ask for some maybe seemingly small improvements that are oriented toward the commercial recording studio, instead of MOSTLY the midi-and-home-one-man-tweakers. (I'm not denigrating THAT, though!) And thanks for your thoughtful reply! Sonar is still the finest recording tool I've ever had. I appreciate it very much!

So here's my suggestions-


!. Create a "Locate". This would NOT change when your selection changes. And it would not require a "Stop" command in Record, but would immediately return to the Locate. 


2. Create a "Latch" for both "Auto-Play" and "Auto-Record". So when you're tracking, you can just press "Locate" and the machine will automatically "Stop", "Go to Locate", and "Play", dropping into Record at the Record In point (if Record Latch is enabled). 


3. Please develop Vari-Speed! It's ESSENTIAL for recording live instruments! 


4. I'd personally love to have our color choices back. Gray's ugly to me and shades of gray aren't the most clear, contrasting , easy to see GUI from a distance in the Control Room, I think.

Having a Locate and the Latches would make it so much easier to do basic tracking! Imagine every time you want to take something again, just one button!!! A million times in your life. Also, having the Locate separate from the selection would help so many ways... select an area for Recording or Envelope tweaks, etc, and be able to adjust your selection or Record- and instantly Locate (and Auto-Play if ya want) right before what you've done so you can hear it in context. Or say you're slip editing, your "Go to Locate" is not changed every time you change your Selection (which always changes your Now Time). 

Just having Locate (without needing Stop while in Record)- and Auto-Play/Auto-Record would save me HUNDREDS of keystrokes a day. 


Imagine EVERY time there's a mistake, just hitting ONE button and ya get a complete do-over! Over and over! (Especially since I'm usually holding a cello in my left hand, a cello bow in my right, while juggling a glass of wine and the bong! All while my clients watch, sweating on the clock...)

I think these little touches would really improve the ease of recording music in Sonar. Thanks, all of you, for your thoughts!

I'd have to walk over and ask the pianist to move off the bench to do that. That doesn't appeal to me, nor the pianist. That might work ok for a one-person-band operation but it looks a little silly elsewhere.

Hi Mike,


I get your underlying point... but you can use small MIDI controllers for the types of things Noel is talking about.  Eric Persing does this when doing demos for Spectrasonics products (Omnisphere, etc).
I believe Eric uses a Korg NanoKey2 (25 mini keys)...

http://www.korg.com/nanoseries2

Hi Jim,

 Thanks for the tip.

 I'm already satisfied with the hundreds of options for custom mapping I have sitting right on my QWERTY keyboard.

 In any event, we need a function to exist before spending much time trying to figure out how to trigger it.


 All the best,
mike

Evan, have you considered a programmable keyboard?

sounds interesting, Bit... would it let me do the series of commands in Sonar that would yield: stop record>locate now time> auto-play> then auto-record with one button? The old analog autolocater way of "one button, one retry" over and over- is something I really miss! Still wouldn't help with Vari-Speed but- would be a step towards studio bliss!

tbh i think there is more power in the setting up of the user environment of sonar than most, even those getting paid to use the program, realise.

a macro keyboard, or gaming controller or keyboard is perfect for sonar..  in my case have a nt52 gaming controller with 52 macro/key assignable keys, scolling wheel, and 4 way pad..so effectively anything that can be a keybind can be strung together in endless macros... even with variable delay between each macro step..so that you can see the macro in action

I think my issue is more with the V-Studio (control surface).  It allows a button to be programmed as Next Marker but not as Previous Marker and there is nothing like the locate buttons on an MCI transport.

Singers are very sensitive.  Go back a few beats too far and they lose their note or feel.  Get too close to the punch point and they aren't ready.  A button that jumps back to the same point everytime would be good.  When working on a console it is less convenient to mouse click around.

All that said, this is not a huge deal.

I get around just fine with custom key bindings and my setup is fairly straightforward. I use two monitors-one has track view and the other is console view. I can do 90% of my work this way.

Vari-speed is an absolute must! I record a lot of ethnic instruments for clients and myself. Recording bagpipes or bombard is almost impossible without being able to adjust the other tracks to the pitch of the instrument. In the old analog days most tape machines had a tape speed knob. I miss it.

southpaw3473


I get around just fine with custom key bindings and my setup is fairly straightforward. I use two monitors-one has track view and the other is console view. I can do 90% of my work this way.

Vari-speed is an absolute must! I record a lot of ethnic instruments for clients and myself. Recording bagpipes or bombard is almost impossible without being able to adjust the other tracks to the pitch of the instrument. In the old analog days most tape machines had a tape speed knob. I miss it.

You do understand this would impact the track's tempo and pitch, not just the pitch, correct?
 
You'd have to re-record everything if you needed to re-pitch one instrument.

https://www.youtube.com/w...RD71S2AaQ&feature=plcp


I made a little test with my toolbar. it seems to be possible to do jumps to wanted markers...:-)