vintagevibe
Sonar is years behind in MIDI.  

Well, except for NRPN and RPN implementation for vsts or external hardware which are a MFPITA in cubase to implement.
The only thing I find lacking in Sonar is the dubious omission of release velocity...

vintagevibe
Sonar was ahead in dockable windows and is still ahead in it's Melodyne integration.  Cubase 8 catches up with windowing and bounce in place ...
 
Cubase, however, is in another league altogether in MIDI and Notation.  Sonar is years behind in MIDI.  Just one of many examples:  MIDI Sends.. brilliant!

Right about bounce in place and MIDI sends, but not entirely - and both of these are very sore points with me.
 
Render in place is available for instrument tracks but not MIDI tracks.
 
MIDI sends are indeed brilliant, but they are available only in MIDI tracks, not instrument tracks.
 
You get short-changed either way.
 
One other way in which Cubase has closed a SONAR gap - Cubase *finally* has a plug-in manager in which you can group your go-to plug-ins in easy-to-access folders.

dmbaer

vintagevibe
Sonar was ahead in dockable windows and is still ahead in it's Melodyne integration.  Cubase 8 catches up with windowing and bounce in place ...
 
Cubase, however, is in another league altogether in MIDI and Notation.  Sonar is years behind in MIDI.  Just one of many examples:  MIDI Sends.. brilliant!

Right about bounce in place and MIDI sends, but not entirely - and both of these are very sore points with me.
 
Render in place is available for instrument tracks but not MIDI tracks.
 
MIDI sends are indeed brilliant, but they are available only in MIDI tracks, not instrument tracks.
 
You get short-changed either way.
 
One other way in which Cubase has closed a SONAR gap - Cubase *finally* has a plug-in manager in which you can group your go-to plug-ins in easy-to-access folders.

Are you sure?  In the Bounce-In-Place video it looks like you can mix and match Instrument and MIDI tracks in bounces.

vintagevibe
Are you sure?  In the Bounce-In-Place video it looks like you can mix and match Instrument and MIDI tracks in bounces.

I was basing this "fact" on what I read in something written by Steinberg.  I have not had the opportunity to try it.  What I read explicitly said  that render in place could be used on audio and the MIDI parts of instrument tracks.  In looking through the documentation, I'm not seeing the "of instrument tracks" qualification.  Also, I can't track down the source of the original information.
 
This would be a pleasant surprise, even if it makes me look a bit foolish. 
 
EDIT:
 
OK, found it - this is verbatim from the Cubase 8 manual:
 
•Range selections on multiple audio or instrument tracks
 
Still, I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this point, but it doesn't look that way according to the doc.

dmbaer

vintagevibe
Are you sure?  In the Bounce-In-Place video it looks like you can mix and match Instrument and MIDI tracks in bounces.

I was basing this "fact" on what I read in something written by Steinberg.  I have not had the opportunity to try it.  What I read explicitly said  that render in place could be used on audio and the MIDI parts of instrument tracks.  In looking through the documentation, I'm not seeing the "of instrument tracks" qualification.  Also, I can't track down the source of the original information.
 
This would be a pleasant surprise, even if it makes me look a bit foolish. 
 
EDIT:
 
OK, found it - this is verbatim from the Cubase 8 manual:
 

　

　

Render in Place allows you to render source material to output files that you can use in other projects or outside Cubase.

 

You can render the following:

 

•Audio tracks

•Instrument tracks

•Audio events or parts on audio tracks

•MIDI parts on instrument tracks

•Range selections on audio or instrument tracks

•Range selections on multiple audio or instrument tracks
 
Still, I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this point, but it doesn't look that way according to the doc.

I just found this in the Steinberg forum:

I've been experimenting with RIP and have found a couple of things i wanted to pass on. If you render an "Instrument Track" and set the RIP settings to Disable Source Track it also removes the VSTi instrument from memory as well which is great. 

If the VSTi is a "Rack Instrument" fed by a separate midi track/s you can have the settings mute the midi track but the instruments stays in memory, not so good.!

Also if you want to go back and re edit your source midi track and then re render it, the process is less convenient/more complex to me compared to the old un-Freeze, do your midi edits then re-freeze method, so good to have multiple options i guess.

 
So it looks like you can do it.  That would be an odd oversight.

vintagevibe
I just found this in the Steinberg forum:

I've been experimenting with RIP and have found a couple of things i wanted to pass on. If you render an "Instrument Track" and set the RIP settings to Disable Source Track it also removes the VSTi instrument from memory as well which is great. 

If the VSTi is a "Rack Instrument" fed by a separate midi track/s you can have the settings mute the midi track but the instruments stays in memory, not so good.!

Also if you want to go back and re edit your source midi track and then re render it, the process is less convenient/more complex to me compared to the old un-Freeze, do your midi edits then re-freeze method, so good to have multiple options i guess.

 
So it looks like you can do it.  That would be an odd oversight.

Yep, just saw that as well and posted a follow-up question.  But thanks for pointing it out.

swamptooth

Rain
What I couldn't figure out is what purpose they really serve. Judging form that Cubase video, all that they do is make up for the fact that apparently, you cannot apply operations to a bunch of faders by simply selecting those faders and moving one up or down - like one would do in Sonar or Logic.

 
You actually can in cubase 7x - select faders and quick group them.  The difference is vca faders move in a logarithmic  fashion based on db spread as opposed to linearly as in cubase quick groups or sonar grouping.
It's relative balance vs. absolute balance.

In SONAR Quick Grouping is linear, but regular grouping can be relative, linear, or custom. Custom is interesting because you can do things like have non-zero start points for some group members, but preserve the mix between gain members. You specify all this in the Group Manager.
 
What would be ideal for me is if you could assign a SONAR fader to a group, set its characteristics in Group Manager, and then quick grouping would obey the same characteristics. 
 

Anderton
 
 
What would be ideal for me is if you could assign a SONAR fader to a group, set its characteristics in Group Manager, and then quick grouping would obey the same characteristics. 
 

Interesting...

vintagevibe
 
So it looks like you can do it.  That would be an odd oversight.

Looks like you can indeed.  I'm very happy to have been wrong on this point.

dmbaer

Milton
So why would someone need a VCA channel in the first place?

What we may be overlooking here (I really don't know one way or the other) is that the VCA feature may really come into its own when automation comes into the picture.  If you can automate the fader on individual channels and also automate the fader on the combined channel in a way that one automation doesn't step on the toes of the other, then maybe that's what all the excitement is about?

^^ This
 
It looks like a big improvement on the Offset mode in Sonar which seems almost like an afterthought.     
 
Render in Place also looks more advanced than Sonar's Bounce function - just click any soft synth midi track (or clip) and then Render.  It makes a new audio track directly benath, and will even mute your original synth or various other things.   Can even combine multiple tracks from multiple instruments - I guess the main differences being you don't need to mark the instrument track itself aswell, and it doesn't by defautl send the rendered audio to the bottom of the project.   Small things, but would be good workflow enhancements for Sonar users.