Subjacent
My only concearn, is the missing info on this long awaited Automation, the drawing still looks the same to me, not looking good from what i can see, still looks a mess, okay we have the automation lanes which Iam looking forward too and I cant wait for that, but as of yet we have no clues about the new drawing modes, i just hope automation drawing works a lot better and coping and duplicating etc actually works as it should, this was the main area that has kept me from not overlly bothering with Sonar,It was not nice to use.
Cakewalk is their more to come ?, or is it just what we have seen in these 2 videos, just really need to know more about the automation, not that their are not some great improvemenst' yes!,
But does automation now do what it is suppose to ?
Thanks
If you were to enumerate specifics in more detail than "do what its supposed to" that means different things to different people, I'd be happy to comment.
There are massive changes to automation in several areas - engine, rendering, recording, editing, and drawing. Here are just a few highlights off the top of my head - I'll do a more detailed overview sometime later:
Drawing:
- Automation preview now looks exactly the same as the recorded result and draws shapes instead of just points.
- Envelope drawing s more polished with rounded nodes and is much easier to view.
- Drawing now adaptively thins dense automation data based on the zoom, making it much easier to see.
Rendering/Recording:
- Automation recording and freehand/line drawing shape smoothing algorithms have been rewritten to create simpler more accurate shapes that represent the fader movements accurately, without creating a mess of nodes. This makes later editing a lot simpler.
- Jump automation is now created and rendered more accurately
- Three automation record modes. Touch (default), Overwrite, Latch.
- Automation write obeys the record mode.
- Quickly automation write enable and record specific synth params by setting the param in the edit filter and then write enabling. No need to open the synth rack for this.
- Quickly record single synth params using automation lanes
Editing:
- Massive changes and usability improvements to all automation edit tools including the smart tool, draw tool and cut tool
- Edit filter organization has been improved with fxchains and prochannel automation within submenus.
- Submenus containing parameters that have envelopes are highlit and these params are listed at the top of the submenu for quick access
- Holding down shift while mousing over a ghosted envelope shows its parameter description
- New automation time base setting. Select between absolute(sample based) and musical time for envelopes.
- Nodes can be entered with a single click now
- Add nodes and move them in a single gesture without letting go of the mouse. Big workflow time saver.
- New smart snap searchback mode while editing automation nodes. Holding down the ctrl key while moving a node will snap its vertical position to prior horizantal sections on the envelope. Earlier nodes at the same vertical position highlight as you move the node allowing you to quickly match gain values. This is a great new feature that makes it easy to do quick accurate edits to an envelope, aligning one node with a prior horizontal section of the curve.
- Shelf tool is always accessible via smart tool and allows quick gain changes to a selected region of automation across multiple tracks or buses
- New automation line draw tool. Convenient for drawing in linear ramps
- Easy access to clip gain in the smart tool via click and drag
- Vastly improved selection mechanism throughout the application makes it much easier to select automation and other data types.
- Select and edit nodes across multiple tracks or buses simultaneously
- Bus selection improvements making it easier to select and edit automation on buses.
- Tooltips display improvements via a new control. Tooltips on envelopes no longer flicker while dragging.
- New overloaded gestures for smart tool for time based selection vs lasso selection. Horizontally drag selects time ranges and right click drag does lasso (data) selection.
- Automation nodes are now automatically selected while doing region selections allowing quick node deletion
- Advanced quickgrouping. Many new quick groupable gestures. Almost any operation can be quickgrouped allowing for quickly manipulating multiple related parameters across multiple tracks or buses. Quickgrouped operations are recorded when automation record is active.
- Cut copy and paste have been reworked for envelopes. You can freely copy paste automation between tracks, instruments and buses.
Lanes:
- Feature too big to detail here...
- Allows any automation param to display in a discrete lane.
- Has a slider for quick access to the parameter - great for quickly manipulating a synth parameter, write enabling and recording it.
A few misc non automation related features:
Full undo and redo support for bus deletion! Saves and restores the routing of all tracks to a bus.
Full undo redo support for prochannel module deletion
New bus module in inspector allows changing bus automation properties and create bus description
And a lot more...