new control surface for SONAR

Hi
I currently have the VS700C for sonar. As you may know the support for this pricey gear dropped just about 2 years after releasing the product which makes buying it the worst decision in my studio upgrade process. With Platinum and win10 it seems that the console is buggy and not functioning correctly,putting aside this fact that the device had a lot of issue even with win 7 and sonar 8.5 
As you see all the major DAWs can work with some dedicated or general console and most of them are big enough to be considered as professional setup for commercial studio. Just to name some:
Pro tools with C24
Nuendo and Cubase with Yamaha Nuage
logic, reason, reaper, ... with Icon Qcon Pro
................
it seems that SONAR is out of competition. WHY?? I asked Icon about compatibility between QCON PRO and SONAR and they said no due to some protocol restriction inside Sonar.
I want to know if there will be a professional console for Sonar or at least can Cakewalk implement  some other protocol regarding control surface so that we can use the new products in the market rather than old Mackie MCU and buggy VS700C ???!!!.
 

I've got the X-touch as well and it is very functional.  You will need an overlay to label the buttons correctly (but you would with any other software othan logic.)

There are several threads regarding the X-touch.  I bought mine about a month ago based on those.  The set up was very easy and the controls, while not labeled correctly for Sonar (or Reaper or StudioOne) on the unit, are very useful.  A template or overlay can easily remedy this.  I have had nothing but good results with it.

Thanks guys for your added input! There may be an X-Touch added to my setup in the not too distant future. 

Cakewalk bought the Roland hardware (vs700C & vs700R) in 2008(?) and integrated its Sonar software with that hardware.  The problem I see is with a proprietary serial link Roland instantiated between the control surface, vs700C and its separate IO interface, vs700R.  Am unsure of the protocol and never tried to instrument/analyze it.  Between the IO interface and the PC is a standard USB serial link.  In my case, I had PC Audio Labs build a dedicated PC with RAID drives and a lean OS (Win 8) which I will not upgrade because of compatibility issues with Sonar 8.5 and after reading about quirks like the OP and others have mentioned.
Have had lots of issues using vs700/Sonar, but mostly due to pilot error on my part: understanding input/output/side-chains of modules, configuration for tracking verses mixing, keeping track of sample rate (both hardware and software settings) from project to project, processor intensive apps versus taking advantage of built-in hardware synthesis, etc.  If I had to start over, now in hindsight, I would choose Pro Tools with a more generic control surface and IO interface, but as someone here mentioned, if you can make use of your vs700C, and it improves your mixing workflow, keep it. My 2 cents.

Looks like I'll be sticking with my fw1082...it works great with sonar, but I just came to see if anything has come along to make me consider upgrading/replacing it...
I see no need to upgrade to Windows 10 from 7...
Just seems to mean than when I finally am forced to, I'll be upgrading everything... At that point maybe I'll be willing to go full touch screen....

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
As regards the OP ... the vs700 is still the best you can get when using sonar. I was just as shocked when they dropped its support so quickly but mine still works fine here. It has far more control features than any other available CS and I even extended its functionality by assigning features to unused key combinations via MIDI translator

My advice - hold on to vs700 if you already own it. There is nothing better out there for sonar ... and cakewalk is totally ignoring any CS functionality requests. So nothing will change here.

My problem with VS700c is that half the controls on it no longer work. My jog wheel does nothing, Access panel does nothing... forget about surround and misc other buttons... the only thing it really does is basic transport and console functions.

dwardzala
There are several threads regarding the X-touch.  I bought mine about a month ago based on those.  The set up was very easy and the controls, while not labeled correctly for Sonar (or Reaper or StudioOne) on the unit, are very useful.  A template or overlay can easily remedy this.  I have had nothing but good results with it.

Note that the MCU Pro comes with Lexan overlays for a bunch of DAWs, including SONAR. Nice!

sarmad_dehnadi
In my opinion if Cakewalk wants SONAR to be more popular, they should do two things:
1: Make a nice professional looking control surface
2: MAC compatibility
 
And number 1 is more important because without it, the professionals don't take CakeWalk seriously.
Look at "Studio one", "nuendo", "protools", "logic" with their own hardware and then sonar with poor and limited hardware support. I love SONAR but .............

1. Have you seen what happened when someone has tried to make professional control surface for Sonar? Cakewalk was sold (and you can find corresponding financial status on Roland sites...)
2. They have tried with MAC version (what is modern MAC? it is a PC from one assembly company with a proprietary OS). There are many discussions about the topic.
 
If you love Sonar, why you wish it disappears?

TerraSin

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
Have you ever tried to intercept the MIDI messages which the vs700 sends to see if all the buttons are still working i.e. sending messages? That's the first things I'd try to determine if it is a hardware problem or not. Hook up the vs700C via USB to exclude any issues the VS700R could have. Then take any MIDI tool that can listen to the ports and print the messages it receives and see what the non-functioning vs70 buttons send ... report back or PM me if I can help!
 
As said above - mine works fine with latest Sonar Platinum (apart from the master fader often staying at -INF which is something it did not not do 2 years ago, but apart from that all is OK used in every session I do)

Yup, all MIDI is sending and everything is working. I only use the C as I've retired the R so it's all hooked up via USB. Not sure why a lot of it isn't mapped properly.

The software was not changed for years, so if MIDI is really sending, it should work.
 
In Sonar Preferences / MIDI / Playback and recording, check that all types of messages are enabled in the Record section. There is a logical bug (in all Sonar versions), if some message type is disabled for recording, it is also disabled for Control Surfaces.

Can you check what your Jogger is sending?
If I do not miss something, that should be "CC 60" messages.
Also note that Jogger has many different modes, may be it is working, but not the way you want it to work

That are expected shuttle messages. So it should work. The question is still the same, are you sure controls are not working? F.e. with shuttle, in "normal" mode they it should do fast forward/rewind, like corresponding transport keys but with position dependent speed (so when return to the initial position, transport stop moving). But there are other modes.
If hardware is sending the messages and Sonar receives them, VS700 plug-in should work.
 
Just to be sure all these messages are "delivered": install AZ Controller and set its input to VS700, now operate controls which are "not working", if you see changes in the "Last MIDI event", everything is fine.

Excuse me if that was confusing, AZ Controller was just to check a Control Surface Plug-in (any) really receive the information from your VS700. Just to be sure nothing is unintentionally filtered. There is no VS700 preset for AZ Controller, and it will take me many days to create one (AZ Controller is a GUI+Interpreter for its own programming language... creating preset with VS700 complexity is not "a mapping", it is programming... it is not easy to reproduce 1000+ lines of C++ code, the way original VS700 plug-in is written).
 
So I have the only idea left, please check which VS700 plug-in version you have. Re-install it. Even better manually replace DLL with one from Cakewalk GitHub: https://github.com/Cakewalk/Cakewalk-Control-Surface-SDK/tree/master/Bin/x64
 
There are some known problems with it, but nothing critical.

azslow3So I have the only idea left, please check which VS700 plug-in version you have. Re-install it. Even better manually replace DLL with one from Cakewalk GitHub: https://github.com/Cakewalk/Cakewalk-Control-Surface-SDK/tree/master/Bin/x64
 
There are some known problems with it, but nothing critical.

 
Will give that a try later on. Thanks for the help.