msmcleod

10 minutes ago, Tommy Byrnes said:

Sorry, yeah. All on Win 10. My fear is the 1394 FW is not well supported as I have an older  Apollo firewire interface I use with the Unison pres. I don't want it to brick on me.

FWIW - up until 2 months ago, I was on Windows 10 and besides the main title bar colour (it's white on Win 10, themed on Win 11) I didn't encounter any graphical issues.

I'll be trying out 1394 FW at some point the next month or two, when I try to get my old Yamaha 01X mLAN install working on Win 11.  I know at least one user on the 01X Facebook group has it working on Windows 11, so I don't think there's a general 1394 FW issue on Windows 11.

I've not had any issues with audio drivers on Windows 11, so you may be ok.  Best to see if you can reach out to fellow Apollo users before you consider upgrading though.

1 hour ago, Amberwolf said:

aaannnd...what is it that it does so well for you? 

If you've been battling to get two tracks to fit together without fighting each other, this does the trick.

I don't use it much myself (if EQ fails, I'd rather re-visit the arrangement or the sounds I'm using), but it certainly does the job if you're struggling, and can be a massive time-saver.

2 minutes ago, craigb said:

"Dual purpose?"  What else is it good for? 🤔

 

😜

A very cheap keyboard stand.

3 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

@msmcleod Mark, any reason why Workspaces and Export limitations are  not included above?

You'll need to ask whoever produced the comparison chart - I wasn't involved in it.

6 minutes ago, tdehan said:

Great!  When should we expect the next update?

hopefully some time this week, all going well.

They've been a bit naughty here... CC101 is indeed an RPN, but they're meant to be sent out in pairs (as per MIDI spec)... i.e.  CC101 should be paired with a CC100 - which is what Sonar will do.

I think using an articulation map may get around this.

@Richard Wikstrand - please contact support@cakewalk.com

The SynthRack is fully functional in the free version.

13 hours ago, tdehan said:

@msmcleod Hello, is there a solution for this issue?

Thanks

 

Just pushed a fix this morning.  It should be available in the next update.

The other thing to bear in mind, is that you can’t negatively delay before 1:01:000.  Any articulations that are delayed such that they would be delayed before 1:01:000, will be clamped to 1:01:000.

The way around this is to insert a blank measure at the beginning of the project.

41 minutes ago, tdehan said:

Where is the THEMES folder located in the old Sonar X3 Studio?

There were no themes in SONAR X3 - they were first introduced in SONAR Platinum.

@Nigel Simmons - One thing that could be the problems is your MIDI prepare buffer size.  If this is less than the negative delay, this could be the problem - e.g. a MIDI Prepare Buffer of 50ms, and a negative delay of 100ms will almost certainly result in the articulations not being sent out.

Try setting your prepare buffer to at least 25ms to 50ms larger than your largest negative delay - i.e. a negative delay of 100ms should have a MIDI prepare buffer of somewhere between 125ms and 150ms.  Note that this requirement only affects negative delays, not positive delays.

Also note that an excessively large MIDI prepare buffer will add a noticeable delay to the project starting after pressing play (i.e. setting it to 1000ms, which is a second, will add an extra second to the delay between pressing play and your project starting).

The MIDI prepare buffer is set ion Preferences->MIDI->Playback and Recording:

If this doesn't solve your problem, please send your problem project to @Jonathan Sasor.  Issues with negatively delayed articulations are incredibly difficult to reproduce, and even once we reproduce it can take hours of debugging to determine the root cause - so please try to delete as many tracks as you can to keep the project as simple as possible, whilst still reproducing the problem.

If you could also let us know what your MIDI prepare buffer size is, this will help to reproduce our end.

I always set Windows to use my on-board Realtek sound device, and use my audio interface solely for DAW use in ASIO mode. That way Windows can do what it wants with regard to sample rates without affecting my audio interface.

If your audio interface is set to the default Windows device, Windows will try to override it.

In my studio, both outputs go into my Mackie Big Knob Passive - this has two inputs which I can switch between.

In my office, I use one of these, which mixes my Realtek, Focusrite 6i6 and Alexa together all going into my ARC Studio before going on to my speakers.

I use a Silent PC for tracking on occasion.  It's an Intel J4215 @ 2Ghz with 8GB of RAM.  I've also got an Intel N100 @ 2.6GHz with 16GB of RAM.


Both of them run Sonar fine, but you need to realistically set expectations.   The reason I chose these over a laptop is because they're completely silent - they just get really hot (they're designed to).  Decently powered laptops sound like a jet engine when the fan kicks in.

The J4215 is fine for tracking - I've recorded 16 simultaneous audio tracks while 32 audio tracks are playing, with an ASIO buffer size of 128.   No FX were used at all, and the Pro Channel / Spectrum Analyser was disabled on all tracks.  The audio was being tracked to an external SSD via USB3, which it coped with fine.

The N100 does a fair bit more, but again, I can't expect too much.  It'll happily run a fairly standard 32 track project with 2 or 3 VSTi's and a standard set of VST effects. Any reverbs are normally put on a bus for sharing, and if doing any mixing, I'll up the ASIO buffer size. I also commit changes regularly, bouncing to track(s) after edits and freezing when I can.

The N100 is eventually going to serve as a virtual synth.

TDLR:  A mini PC will work, but I wouldn't recommend it for general DAW use.  It's certainly adequate for tracking on location though.

Does it show up as a separate download in the Cakewalk Product Center?

1. For Track Colors, go to Preferences and check "Show Strip Colors".  You can adjust the Saturation to suit:



2. There's currently no way to change the marker colors other than changing Color Scheme, however we're currently having discussions about ways to provide color schemes in the future.

This means that Library.db (the file that stores your plugin categories) has been corrupted somehow.

While Sonar isn't running, 

1. Go to:  %APPDATA%\Cakewalk\Library  within Windows Explorer.
2. Rename Library.db to Library.db.old
3. Start Sonar

Library.db should be re-created.

You'll then have to re-categories any plugins that don't categorise themselves automatically.

FWIW -  if you use Articulation Maps,  Articulation MIDI events are always sent prior to any notes / CC events on the track.

26 minutes ago, tdehan said:

Microsoft Surface:
Scaling: 200% (recommended)
Resolution: 2736x1824 (recommended)

Sonar Display Scale = 100%

Playlists display correctly in Cakewalk by Bandlab as well as Sonar X3 Studio.

Just to confirm, are you running the ARM version of Sonar, or the Intel (x64) version?

27 minutes ago, tdehan said:

Playlists display wonky in Sonar compared to Bandlab Cakewalk.  The first image below is from Bandlab Cakewalk and the second is from Sonar.

 

Can you let us know:

- The resolution / scaling of your screen(s) in Windows
- Your display scaling within Sonar

@Tommy Byrnes - what is your display scaling set to within Windows? 

If you're using a custom scaling (i.e. not the standard 125% / 150% / 175% / 200%), it's known to be problematic - in fact, Windows warns you it might cause problems if you try to set a custom display scale other than the standard ones.

Another thing worth trying is running dxdiag.exe  - this is a built-in Windows diagnostic tool that will check the integrity of your DirectX configuration. 

17 hours ago, Hotel California said:

Colour issues, Play List issues, and Project Windows opening in a completely different size and area behind Play List?

1. The image is the playlist of the Sonar by Bandlab (Previous version). All looks fine, and the Project that loads, loads correctly in size and area placed in window. Now look at #2 image.
2.  The image is of the NEW Sonar Playlist. Notice the top of playlist menu. Menu Buttons are cutoff and hard to press onto. Also look at the Project Window. See how it's really small hiding most of the project area, and behind the Playlist.
3. Customization/Colors: Notice that the text are all scrunched up and impossible to read.
4. Playback and recording area does not change once you change and save what you want on or off. (Sorry no image for that)

The issues for both the Play List View and the Color Preferences page have been fixed for the next update.

15 hours ago, warrickhale said:

In the audio effects plugins I do not see THU anywhere, the only Overloud plugin that is available is Breverb. Is there an action I need to take to make THU available? (I am using the paid-for version which says it has the Guitar FX, which I assume means THU...)

TH-U is a separate installer in the Cakewalk Product Center

9 hours ago, Larry T. said:

So, you think my current PC with the I7-4770 CPU at 3.40GHz with only 8GB ram will run a full Sonar install ok?? 

Thanks again 👍

FWIW - I'm running a i7-3770 @ 3.4GHz... I've now got 32GB ram, but was running on 16GB for years.  I'm typically use an ASIO buffer size of 64 on my Focusrite interface ( I can use 128 on my RME, as its round-trip latency is better).

8GB will work up to a point, but performance will drop considerably once Windows decides to swap memory to/from disk. 

To avoid this happening, try to make sure Sonar is the only application running (a web browser with lots of tabs open is a killer!); avoid multiple VSTi's that use larger sample libraries (things like TTS-1, the SI Instruments, AIR XPand! 2, Synthmaster - even Omnisphere are probably ok, Kontakt probably isn't).  Also stick to 1080P for your diplay resolution, as 4K will use 4 x the memory for graphics rendering.

FWIW,  I've run Sonar on an Intel J4125 @ 2.0Ghz with 8GB RAM, recording 16 simultaneous audio tracks whilst playing back 32 audio tracks without issue.  No VST's were involved however, as it was just a tracking session.

If you do start to see performance drop and upgrading your machine is not an option, consider upgrading your RAM to 16GB while they're still available - it's relatively cheap nowadays.

Other techniques such as freezing tracks when they're "complete" can help considerably too. For tracks using sample library based VSTi's, make a copy of the frozen track (so the copy is a pure audio track) and archive the original synth track / disable the synth in the synth rack.

It's worth mentioning that Sonar will not run on Windows 7, as it relies on Windows API's that are only available in Windows 10 and above.

19 minutes ago, John T said:

That's not the issue. With them on or off, the difference between CbB and the new Sonar is still there. 

I tried making a video, but it doesn't really look like anything; you kind of have to feel it. 

Are you using any clip gain envelopes - also what is your screen resolution / scaling?