ORIGINAL: guitartrek

ORIGINAL: Vovchik

ORIGINAL: guitartrek

There was a feature that somehow disappeared that I would like to see added back in. On the PRV view, in the Velocity lane, you used to be able to select notes by drawing a rectangle around velocity stems. This was very handy for certain things. For example, consider a hit hat pattern that has accents and other notes with different velocities. When first creating the Hi Hat pattern, it sounded great. But in the final mix the accents should be louder - or the softer notes should be louder or softer. It was real easy (and intuitive) to select groups of similar velocities by drawing a rectangle around certain velocity ranges. Currently, the only way to do this is to use interpolation - which is a pain. If I'm wrong and this feature still exist somehow - let me know.

Thanks, guitartrek, I'm glad I'm not alone

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1211695&mpage=1&key=?

Thanks for the screen snapshot! Yeah, I've mentioned this issue a couple of times, but no one seemed to know it actually worked like this. OK - so its you and me so far!

And me. The selection tool works for CC values, so there's no reason that velocities shouldn't be lasoo selectable in the controller channel as well.

I think this was a genuine oversight when the MIDI drawing was updated, but it needs to come back.

It's that time again?

I would add...

75fps (CD frames) added the time/snap options - so I don't have to re-edit tracks in another app after mastering in Sonar. I'm not asking for redbook burning from Sonar (although it would be very welcome) because I have other apps that can do that (the track order, gaps, CD text and burning part), but if I'm using Sonar for it's dither options, I don't want to edit the audio again.

Clean up what is and what is not a global or project option. Personally, I think audio formats should be a per project option, which leads to the next request.

When creating a new and blank project - flag what the audio format will be right there with a dialog that will let me set it.

As already mentioned by others - more powerful marker support - Markers to Regions, Marker Playlist. Export region/s....

Again already mentioned, more transport controls (with simple keymapping, like we already have for the current transport - space, W and R). Add Pause, Play_until_next_marker controls. Also how about Pre and post roll settings?

It would be nice if the mouse wheel twiddled whatever parameter or knob was currently under the pointer and nothing else!

Ah yes. The Missing Archive Track Button, one of my favorite pet peeves.

ORIGINAL: Notecrusher
i've never understood why it's this way on folders but not on tracks.

Probably for the same reason that when you press 'G' in Track View it will center the display at the Now Time (even with Scroll Lock engaged), but only when the upper Track portion of the display has the focus, and not when you're working in the bus pane, where you would have no less need for such a useful, basic function.

It's just another one of the many incomplete or inconsistent implementations found throughout Sonar's aging interface and legacy code base.

I remember being able to do that in Sonar 4 (or was it also in 3?) but it sometimes seemed to happen by accident, and I couldn't always make it happen when I wanted to, so I was never sure if it was a feature that I didn't fully have a handle on, or a quirky bug. That never seems to happen anymore, now that you mention it.

I would like to see the options that are currently available under the Envelope Tool drop down menu available on a per-track and per-bus basis.

And I would also like to see the 'G' Center Now Time command in track view also be available when the buss pane has the focus.

I remember being able to do that in Sonar 4 (or was it also in 3?) but it sometimes seemed to happen by accident, and I couldn't always make it happen when I wanted to, so I was never sure if it was a feature that I didn't fully have a handle on, or a quirky bug. That never seems to happen anymore, now that you mention it.

Yeah, you just had to go to PRV and select the flute track say, and ctrl+drag a note from another track like "brass" without selecting the brass track itself. I could in other words borrow various note values or clusters of notes from other tracks for my flute track without having to manually change the note values between quater notes, 32nd notes, triplets, quintuplets. etc. This was invaluable to my orchestrations and made life easier as I could double flute canons with my string sections via a simple drag motion, double multiple snare drums on the fly, and a whole lot more.

I don't see what is so hard about simply putting a checkbox option for this feature for those who wish to use it so that the current setup (7.0) wouldn't get lost for those who worked without copying across tracks. I have to take unnecessary steps now as a result that wastes time for an orchestral composer like myself. I know I can use sibelius or finale, but the PRV is so much easier for me to compose on and the benefits far outweigh the alternatives.

I also think that this feature can make it easier for non-musicians to get their ideas out so that they can see that they too can compose music, especially for those who are not familiar to the staff view. This very possibility poses some profound philosophical questions about the mediums we use to communicate our artistic ideas, and whether or not non-musicians should capitalize from such tools and exploits even. Is cakewalk aware of this?

If I were a musician who trained to utterly hard to learn music for many years, only to see some young guy with little to no training write a symphonic piece with but 6 months worth of training, whilst it took me 5-10 years to struggle in front of a piece of paper to conceive of a chord, I'd probably be pissed and jealous. I happened to be that young guy ladies and gentlemen, but I want to share what I learned and discovered to make underprivileged youth feel special about themselves by giving them the tools to express themselves musically. I don't believe there is anything to be jealous about here. So consider this; Sonar can provide that tool, and they'd make it easier for me as a teacher of midi sequencing to illustrate that point if they'd consider my request. Please help a teacher out.

Better yet, Sonar should have car stereo simulation ;-)

Now THAT would be awesome!!

How did you guess? CW's secret car sound test-room:

There's been too many posts for me to read right now, so this might have been mentioned somewhere already- but an Audio Pool similar to Cubase. PLEASE! I want to manage, rename, delete, etc my audio files all by myself. I can do it- honest!

When hovering over an envelope node, it shows you the node's level. It should also show you its time.

When right clicking on a node, the context menu should include options for copying its level and time to the clipboard.

Speaking of envelope nodes: I need the ability to select multiple nodes across multiple tracks and move them simultaneously.

If you have a volume envelope, and you right click it and turn off Automation Read Enable, then the track or bus stops reading the automation and its volume can be controlled manually. OK.

But after doing that, if you hover your mouse at the disabled envelope or one of its nodes, the popup indicates the current level of the track -- which you might have manually changed -- rather than the level of the envelope itself.

That makes it difficult to do comparisons between envelopes when one of them is enabled and one of them is not.

If you open the properties dialog for a disabled node, it shows you the correct level. But it would be more useful and more convenient if hovering the mouse let you see the actual level as defined by the envelope, even when the envelope is disabled.

Exactly. I had two guitar tracks that ended up needing the same automation. I was doing them in parallel and moving the corresponding nodes on each track. Twice as much work, twice as much room for error.

In this case, I was able to send them to a bus, and I copied the env from one of the tracks to the bus. But that might not always be possible.

It was when I was making sure I had copied the envelopes correctly and that everything was working as expected that I discovered what I posted about in #234 above: that hovering over a disabled envelope shows you the manual level of the assigned control, and not the level of the envelope itself.

There are unncecessary differences between how different objects can be manipulated: If you can -- and would want to -- move clips across tracks without also moving envelopes, then you should be able to move envelope nodes across tracks without moving clips. Clips... nodes... they're not the same thing... but on another level they're not all THAT different.

Cakewalk; please take note of what the majority of your customers are asking for. I analyzed 125 unique requests for Version 8 of Sonar. The majority of your customers are asking for improvements to existing functionality or usability. More people are asking for Usability than Functionality. Only 20% of your customers are asking for new functionality although there are some very good ideas.
Within that group the top requests are for:
• Audio/Midi Pool or drop box/idea hub
• Chord Track
• Play Order Track
• Tape Style monitoring
• Wave form editing tools

Top improvements to existing base functionality include:
• Treat Busses like any other tracks. (Bounce, arrange etc)
• Transport Improvements ( record on/off automation on/off while playing, pause rewind )
• Improved GUI ( better 3D, more control over objects to reduce clutter, resizable everything, change font size, dock able windows, recall layouts)
• Audio Snap/Quantize/timing improvements ( visual quantize, grab and stretch areas to align to timing map, better time map to visual peaks calculate tempos over a definable region)
• Notation improvement ( integrate with PRV, Sibelius, Finale level of manipulation of notes in terms of pitch time and auditions)
• Key binding improvements ( bubble help, macros, now time, searchable)
• Track view/manipulation ( smarter resizing, better control of object sizes/fonts, more view hide controls
• Better integration of events between windows ( click on event and it is highlighted in all possible views of that event)
• Online training ( videos, animations, audio examples, charts, flows etc)
• Better Asset management ( clean files, objects used, where used etc)
• Easy access FX Preset racks (group of FX used together)
There was one Bug called out that I personally know has existed since v-vocal was introduced. It is still there. (Invalid V-Vocal Data Detected or can’t find Vocal data). This typically occurs when there has been some slip editing or cloning tracks that have a v-vocal enabled.
I have sent this data to Cakewalks official Feature Request page.

1. Track Grouping is a HUGE Feature Request for me. Anyone who has to edit/quantize lives drums knows how important this is. If I group tracks and cut one, they all should get cut. If I move one, they all should move.

2. Shift+Click and Ctrl+Click to select multiple mixer channels. If I want to be able to select ever channel in the mixer I should be able to shift+click or Ctrl+Click them. This should automatically create a "Quick Group" for the volume faders of each channel. This would be useful if I had a large project and wanted to bring all the channels down a couple of dbs to prevent clipping. See the BFD2 mixer for how this should work.

3. Alt+Click in the mixer view as an inverse-modifier. Another idea from the BFD2 mixer. If I have more than one channel selected, lets say bass and vocals, and I want to bring the bass down and the vocal up, I should simply be able to press and hold the Alt button while decreasing the bass volume. As the bass volume decreases, the vocal volume should increase.

4. Proper handling of mixed Mono/Stereo output VSTi's. If a VSTi uses both stereo AND mono ouputs (say BFD2), Sonar should automatically configure the outputs. Right now assigning the mono outs needs to be done manually.

5. Selectable "Drum Edit" PRV mode. When using BFD as a DXi I had a lovely drum edit PRV mode. Apparently I can't just see this view whenever I want. I want the option to (for use with BFD2).

6. Insert Synth dialog box remembers it's settings for each synth. Boy, do I hate having to tell Sonar how I want each synth loaded every time. The Insert Synth dialog should be specific to each plug-in. This way I can set it once and forget about it for each individual synth. Right now if I click "Don't Ask This Again" it treats it as a global control. That sucks.

7. Requested a lot, but a great one that's worth repeating IMO. Tracks as busses, busses as tracks.