OK big group hug and let's move on. I think we are all discussing workflow and the console, it's scalability in it's current form and future requests....right?

AndyW

a large terminator-looking robot...

It's a Cylon! GEEZ! 

Work flow. I have very little to complain about in Sonar's work flow. If I did I would choose some other DAW. As a matter of fact I like its work flow better then any other DAW's work flow.

Brando

Those you call "A few vocal supporters that tend to put down feature requests or criticisms".... are, sometimes, in my view, simply people who are offering a countering viewpoint to the issue being raised - sometimes just looking for clarification on what is being requested - (although quite possibly in some cases their point is argued more vehemently than necessary). I think this is sometimes out of a concern that the person raising the issue might request something that may possibly impede or interfere with a workflow that they are accustomed to, or might find productive. This is in fact, as I see it - the biggest reason why the "fan boys" align themselves as they do: concern that a change may alter, hinder or in some way obstruct a workflow that, while not necessarily perfect, has been productive and effective for them, as SONAR users.

Ah well this is one point for which I am very confident  n Cakewalk. With the very rare exception (split clip behavior comes to mind), Cakewalk are very good in backwards compatibility and maintaining existing work flow options. But yes I see this kind of fear show up from time to time. Recently in the varispeed request thread. (Someone was afraid it would affect clock accuracy in normal playback modes and thus found it a bad idea. That is a very strange way of thinking but whatever).

I think that most new features should be added as new options rather than replacements to current features. Judging by track record, Cakewalk think the same.

UnderTow

AndyW

candlesayshi

AndyW

a large terminator-looking robot...

It's a Cylon! GEEZ! 

Sorry...is that what they look like in the new series?  Never watched it.  It makes sense now tho'...and my comment still stands!

This is a Cylon...
 

 
As a general rule: if it ain't really shiny, it ain't a Cylon.
 
I don't know what that sorry looking thing is that Robin is using as his avatar...
 

 

>This is a cylon

ThanX, keith...I agree...THOSE are cylons.

Robin Kelly [Cakewalk
]

LOL. I will compromise and put both in. How's that?

Love it. What your avatar reminds me of Robin is a commercial for a job search site called The Ladders. It's for what they call 100K people looking for 100K jobs, and the TV commercial shows a bunch of what look like mini-Godzillas 'terrorizing' the population and then a HUGE one shows up to reek mayhem upon all. Funny as the dickens.

Hi Jack-

Yes, it was definitely her adopting me! She literally ran in my door Halloween night four years ago and set up shop. I did some research, since tortoiseshells are apparently quite different from calicos in both appearance and temperament:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoiseshell_cat

Josie has what's popularly called "tortietude", which means one minute she loves you to bits, the next second she does everything she can to tear you to shreds! She's the strangest, but most entertaining cat I've ever shared space with! We've come to an understanding...

Thanks-

-Susan

Well, you're still off topic as far as workflow ideas go, but at least we've back towards fun and funny. Ah, the power of Cylons....

Could it be that most people don't have problems with Sonar's work flow?

Hi John-

I certainly hope so. Otherwise one of you would have to move out.

It really boils down to who pays the rent and who has opposable thumbs.

I win on both counts!

-Susan

Susan G



To be honest, I don't think you really do wish Cakewalk well at this point. I just don't see that sentiment reflected in any of your recent posts.

Hi Susan.
 
I realize that I've often been harsh in my comments about Cakewalk and Sonar, so I understand why you would see my posts as running down CW, as well as its customers, and also why you'd be skeptical that I wish CW well, especially in recent posts.
 
I feel bad about that because the truth is, for all my criticism, and my current lack of confidence in them, I DO in fact wish CW well.
 
Sonar 2 XL was my first digital audio app, and my first entirely ITB platform. Sonar gave me my first 'Oh Wow' DAW experience. I raved about it to everyone who'd listen and also put some people on to it. I loved what Sonar let me do, how complete the package was with fx and instrument plugins, and I appreciated how CW did business. IOW, I felt and spoke about it just like any other satisfied and enthusiastic user. I upgraded through 7. And I continue to have real affection for CW and Sonar, and also this forum (excluding the current software) and its members (including those I'm sometimes at odds with.)
 
Obviously, my satisfaction with Sonar has changed in the years and upgrades since then and I've made no secret about that. I've also made no secret that over the last year or so I've been using another sw, and using Sonar increasingly less. The question of why I still post here isn't an unfair one. I will try to answer it.
 
By the time Sonar 8 came out (about a year ago), I had a list of issues, that were significant to me, that I hoped would be addressed. Sonar 8 did not address those issues, and the new things it offered weren't enough to compensate for those. So I sat out the initial release of 8, and waited for the 8.1 release last February.
 
I didn't expect a point upgrade to address those issues, but I remained open to upgrading to what I considered to be (fairly, I think) the "real" release of 8. In the meantime, I acclimated to another DAW while keeping my eye on Sonar. It was a nicely productive spring.
 
I continued participating in the Sonar forum because even though I wasn't actively using Sonar, I also hadn't "officially" switched (whatever that means.) I felt that I still had a stake in Sonar and its development, and I believe that I contributed meaningfully to forum discussions about that, no matter how much snark accompanied those contributions. I decided to sit out Sonar 8.1.
 
When CW announced the end of Project5, I took that as a positive and optimistic sign for both Cakewalk AND Sonar and posted as much in the forum (often finding myself "defending" CW's decision as a forward-looking move against those who simply saw it as a confusing and confused abandonment of the P5 technology and customer base.) Most of those posts probably carried some implied, at least, criticism of CW/Sonar, but it's not possible to discuss some positives without reference to negatives. Anyway my positive reading of the P5 announcement (in fact P5 had been dead for at least a year) kept me interested in Sonar, in part because I would love to have a DAW with a well integrated and smartly implemented pattern/cell matrix kind of thing (which is why I bought P5 on a special offer when I upgraded to Sonar 7 from 6.)
 
Throughout the summer, Sonar kept sending me upgrade offers of various kinds, including the infamous free "next paid" update/upgrade if I upgraded to 8 post July. This also kept me interested and in the game and at least potentially still on the CW train. And I continued participating in the forum.
 
I was away from the forum for a month or two leading up to 8.5's release (miss me???) but I kept getting CW's promos in the mail and, honestly, they weren't what I'd call endearing. They had the effect of lowering my expectations and even my curiosity about Sonar 8.5. Still I tried not to let CW's historically tone-deaf marketing prejudice my view of the product.
 
By the time 8.5 came out, and I had a chance to see what it was, what it was not, and how it was being positioned, I could no longer overlook how CW's development strategy and marketing strategy seemed to finally be in perfect sync ("Looks like real drums"), leaving me as a user and potential upgrader very much on the outside.
 
As I've said in another recent post, I'm no longer able to see myself in CW's view of its userbase, as reflected in the product they deliver and the way they communicate to existing users and potential customers about it. It's likely that my "estrangement" from the Sonar userbase *as CW appears to view it* has shown up in some of my posts as a "running down" of Sonar users generally. I regret that, because even though the tools I use matter enormously to me, I have no opinion at all on what anyone else uses. What works for you works for you. What matters is the work you do. 
 
That's been my journey through DAWdom and why I'm still hanging out here. Believe it or not, what might seem like my running down of Sonar and CW has really been an effort to support them in a newly competitive environment that, despite my affection and attachment as a long term user and customer, I sincerely believe has been rendering Sonar an alsoran.
 
This has all been in the last few weeks, and follows a year of losing faith while remaining hopeful. Separating while holding on. On this side of 8.5, that hold is far more tenuous, and I suspect my presence here will eventually sync with my actual exposure to Sonar.
 
 

...meanwhile, getting this thread back on track.

Something that has caused me LOTS of grief is the lack of a confirmation dialogue when hitting the "Reset" button when customizing your toolbars.  I can't express enough how easy it is to click reset, and have all of your toolbars all messed up again after spending 15-20 minutes customizing it the way you want it to be.

Also, I've noticed minimizing VST Instruments seem to overlap the status bar, while on the other hand, minimizing views like the Piano Roll View, minimizes above the status bar, and you can drag it behind the status bar as well, unlike the VST Instruments.  Would be nice to stick with one way.

Hi Marah,

Of course you know I'll always be a cheerleader of your posts as I've never had a problem understanding where you're coming from. I have an intense amount of respect for your knowledge of the program as well as your writing skills to get your points across. And yeah, I know I'm a creepy lil cheerleader, (LOL) but to me, you came off exactly as Undertow had mentioned. Your DAW story from beginning to end was also a good read like all your stuff and I think you are totally credible in your positives as well as your negatives.

That said, I can also see exactly what John and Susan have mentioned as far as the tone in some of your postings. I read a few things one time and asked myself "Was that our my Marah? She sounds pissed! Must be the name change?"  I think what we may have seen in your posts is definite frustration over something you were hopeful about that somewhat left you one day losing confidence when things you had hoped for didn't materialize. That's perfectly credible to me especially if you're a long time user. I feel you have as much right to be positive when you need to be, and negative when you need to be as long as it's well explained.....and you've always gone out of your way to explain your views in full. I might not have said *some* things the way as you did at times, but I'm sure you could say the same for me in some of my posts. We can't measure the level of another persons frustration unless we can BE that person, nor does everyone have the same threshold. I call it being human. :)

I think what happens is, we all don't just use this program. We live it. When you live something, you become close to it. In my opinion, there is only one man that comes to this forum with nothing but bad stuff to say that doen't even use Sonar. He's had more negative stupid comments than anyone registered here. Seeing his name makes me cringe as he has NEVER had one good thing to say. Why the mods didn't ban the guy is beyond me, but he was a reason I stayed away from here because it would have been all too easy for me to lose my composure and get banned from here or pay the dude to meet me somewhere and see if he'd be as tough on the street as he was on the screen. That's how much HE got to me....and when a person has that much of an impact, ignore just isn't enough.

I've never seen you as this type of person no matter how negative you may have been at times. It's passion and frustration setting in and I think we can all agree we ALL feel it at times. I think the people that have had success with Sonar like myself and many others for how we use this program, are as credible with exploiting the good stuff as the people with some negatives who are having issues or wish to see new things implemented. Like someone said in this thread, you sometimes have to post the negatives...especially if they DO exist in your world. 

It's all in the delivery really and lets face it, some of us are very passionate...some are very frustrated, and some are very pleased. At the end of the day, in this particular scenario, I see passion from quite a few people on this forum and really sincerely feel they wouldn't be here to just down the program its creators or the customers for the sake of a rise. I hope Sonar will win you back someday Marah because I love reading your posts...but if not, it's best for you to use what allows you to have the easiest work-flow to get your job done and your ideas out of your head. I'm still waiting to hear some tunes...hook me up! ;)

Ok, now that I somewhat got involved where I shouldn't have and will probably get pounced on, I'd like to say that I agree with the Sonar console view being not to my liking. I've not liked it since Sonar 6 came out. I thought Sonar 5 had the best mixing console view of all the versions so far and I remember fighting off using S 6 for the longest time due to that. It is just like you said...if something really turns you off, it can effect the desire in which you use it. I caved in because the options in 6 were much better than 5. When 7 came out, I was hoping for a console change...no dice...same with 8 and 8.5...no change. I would love to see various mixing consoles available or the ability to skin/change them like we see in Reaper. We should have full control on what we see from the ground up. I made a mention in a post a long time ago that I felt it would be incredible if we could literally build our own DAW inside of Sonar literally using templates. Kinda like creating a document in MS Ofiice or something where you basically can do anything you want. For some people, they wanna open up and go....I wouldn't mind intense options that allow me to create a full SSL mixing console or something inside of Sonar or maybe a hybrid of something.

But as it stands now, I have hated the console from 6 to present with a passion. How to change it, I don't know as I am not savvy in the art department nor can I say exactly what I want.....but I pretty much had it all with Sonar 5's console look and wouldn't mind having it back with the ability to add some of what is offered in 8.5. Create a hybrid of sorts...or it would even be cool if the Bakers created 25 different looking consoles and let us tweak them or something to our needs.

Other than that, a user like me can only list very few issues with Sonar, and it works well for me. As a matter of fact, I'll give you all the issues that bother me that I wish could be changed....which aren't many for my use of the program.

1. New consoles, ability to create hybrids, templates to choose from...new Sonar created consoles etc because I hate the current one.

2. I'm hoping my gap that appears while arm on the fly while punching out gets fixed sometime soon. I can't use arm on the fly because of it and have wanted this option for many years.

3. I hate the long wave form draws in 8.5. For those of us that don't use transients etc, we shouldn't have to be punished for it with an 8-10 second cache of the wave. I'd like to see this auto-transient thing have a disable button.

4. I still sometimes forget not to double click on a wave file for editing. Remember those days? I don't like what happens now when you double click it....I have no use for that loop splicer thing or whatever that is. LOL!!
 
Those are my only issues right now, so for me, Sonar is nearly perfect for how I use it. I haven't submitted any requests because I'm not sure if my console thing is credible or even possible. I have no problems with midi or scoring, guitar tablature, or any other issue there. I've been a Cake user since 4 I believe...so to me, 4 little things aren't that bad. I know some of the people here have a huge list of credible issues and implementations. I sincerely hope that those with good ideas get their voices heard as well as those waiting on bug fixes that may be wreaking havoc in their lives.

I was kinda sorta inaway going to make a similar post about the console view... but I didn't want to get roasted over an open pit... so here's a +.5 to AndyW's post.

AndyW

Robin Kelly [Cakewalk
]

OK big group hug and let's move on. I think we are all discussing workflow and the console, it's scalability in it's current form and future requests....right?

Console view?  Two words: eliminate it.  Why are we wasting time with an outdated paradigm at all?  The track view has everything you need and it is a *computer paradigm* not a "I'm a pretend mixing console" paradigm. Last time I checked, we were running our DAW's on computers.  To coin a phrase...you don't use nuclear power to raise the sails on your ship. You design a whole new way of providing propulsion around the new power plant.  To me, the console view is a holdover to make people who were comfortable with analog consoles feel comfortable in a DAW environment(and yes, I started on analog consoles).  Time to move on.

OK...how's that for a feature request? 

Agree! Because the more I think about workflow the more I realize that I hardly use the console view at all. Most of my workflow is in the Track View and that Inspector is a God send,, so I say expand on that CW and whilst your at it put the Track Inspector back in HomeStudio.

There is a way to expand Trk View across both monitors which is pretty darn cool, I often leave the Trk Inspector open since it doesn't take up much space, and I would like to see the Track Inspector improved, enhancements such as;

. Expandable FX bins under shortcut key-toggle with plugin view access tweaks in clearer view, slightly larger view when it's expanded. Thereby no need to open the actual FX module all the time since most of the tweaks can be done in the Trk-Inspector.

. Include New Automation Tool-Bar with OS on/off, hide/display env toggle including safety latch/lock for each env type such as; Pan, Vol, FX to prevent acidental edits and to make editing much easier. Included expand view for lanes in trk/clip-view.

. In Trk/clip view allow Nodes to increase in size as you Zoom in, making it easier to do edits.

. Nice Gradient Color-Tabs option to replace Trk-Icons.  Narror Color Tabs takes up far less space and having the gradient option allows more variety and unique visual clarity for larger projects rather than being a one solid color all the time.   I never use Trk-Icons, IMHO Trk-Icons make SONAR look like a 3 y/old picture n spelling book or somthing like that ya' know... hey kids what animal is in that Trk-Picture Icon? Yes! It's a Cowbell, can you spell Cowbell?

Here's a rough a design I did for the trk-view



Also notice much larger space to display Track Name and in slightly larger font yet still keeping it all nice and compact!!

I have also in the past submitted feature request to enhance the PRV, to basically enhance the workspace and thereby improve workflow. You can view that thread here

.