Josh Wolfer

I've been a user of Sonar since v1.0. So I'm fairly competent when it comes to configuring sonar. I'm not saying I'm not messing something up here, but just to let you know that you don't have to dumb the conversation down for me

I just purchased an Behringer xtouch and xtouch ext. I was previously using the roland vstudio 700, but upgraded to UA Apollos. 

I'm just attempting to get the xtouch working by itself first. Then I will add in the EXT. 

When I setup the xtouch as a control surface, it DOES work, meaning that the faders slide into position, the stop/start buttons all work, so forth. However there is a MAJOR issue. The xtouch starts repeatedly sending control+tab keys. So much that if I change my window focus to my browser, the tabs keep cycling. Or if I open up notepad, it just sends a bunch of tabs in it. 

If I turn off the audio engine, it still does it. If I shutdown Cakewalk, it stops. And the controller resets itself to idle mode (all faders down). 

I tested this on my music studio DAW on the latest version of Cakewalk and also my secondary computer which is on an old version of Cakewalk by Bandlab (December 2018). Same exact problem. 

I downloaded Reaper software (it's horrible!) to test the same issue. The xtouch works perfectly. No issues. No repeated tab keys sent. So it appears to be related to Cakewalk software somehow. 

Other details:

• midi in/out is enabled in P - Midi devices
• Mackie control Unit is selected in Control Surfaces with the correct xtouch midi in / out. 
• I tried both latest xtouch firmware 1.14 and 1.15, same issue. 

I've been using control surfaces with Sonar for 15 years, so I can't imagine I'm botching this one up.  

Please help. This is extremely frustrating. I just filed a support ticket too. We'll see what Bandlab says.

+1

Actually, I've had something similar happen and that's when I created the marker, it was during playback and I hit 'M' to tag that spot and then rename it later. But my keyboard double tapped or something and it created 2 markers on top of each other, so when I dragged one, the second remained under it. 

Oof. Sounds like a new bug. I've never had that happen and all of my projects have tons of markers. 

23 minutes ago, Some Guy said:

Agree.  I've tried dragging markers and it just created another marker instead.  Maybe this is intended.  I'm not sure.  It surely wasn't what I was "expecting."

 

It only copies the marker if you're holding control when you drag the marker. 

So one thing that would be really nice, is the ability for markers to actually color the section of the bar, like the protools screenshot above. That would be really nice! I hadn't even thought about that. 

Frankly, the sky box interface doesn't work for me in general. When I bust out console view or piano roll, i ALWAYS just undock it and throw it on a second monitor. but that doesn't bother me as much as these little annoyances around markers. 

this, this, this, and more this. 

There have been many times that I wish I could see which plugins were causing which amounts of latency.

My only feedback is that I don't really care about bars or color, I'd like the value in ms.

Quote

The marker gets cluttered up by both the aim assist line, as well as the now time "stop" sign. 

These is not an issue of having a selection. The selection only inverts the color and adds the green top line and flags, which I really like. 

The issue is detailed in my response I made a second ago. It's purely about stacking the aim assist, MB ruler, stop sign, and markers. There is no reason why the layout couldn't be modified so that each of these things is completely unmasked by the others. 

That's my point

And none of it is a deal breaker. I've been using since Sonar 1.0. I just feel like Bandlab is listening to bugs and features now, so I'd submit a couple.

Quote

Aim Assist is snap dependent, meaning you set it using the snap module

Let me clarify. It's not the snap behavior I'm referring to. In the specific example from my first screen shot. The aim assist label (74:04:639) is covering up measure 75 under it. This is not ideal to me.

Frankly, it would be resolved for me, if there was an option to use aim assist with no measure, beat, frame label, since all I really want it for is to show a vertical line reference for where the mouse is and to visually show me snap points. 

Here is another problem with the current layout. When I stop on a measure that has a marker, I can't right click the marker to change the text, because the stop sign is blocking the marker. I have to click to another spot to move the "now time" and then I can right click the marker.

There is a general clutterness with the time bar. 

See the screenshot below. General issues are:

• The marker gets cluttered up by both the aim assist line, as well as the now time "stop" sign. 
  • If the now time stop symbol were above on its own track, this could remedy this. 
• The aim assist is overriding the standard measures / beat markers.
  • This may not seem like a big deal, since the aim assist has its own MBT label, it's harder to quickly understand. I have to "read" the aim assist MBT as opposed just "seeing" where it is. 
  • If the aim assist MBT were under the standard measure / beat labels, this would fix the issue. 
• When zoomed in far enough (second screen shot), the beat is added into the labels (M:B). This also makes it much harder for me to see which is the first beat of the measure.
  • If there was a way to toggle showing the beat when zoomed in, I'd love to be able to turn it off. 
  • Another possibility would be to color the first beat differently, or bold it, so I can still easily "see" where beat one is without having to "read" where beat one is. 

I realize that these are pretty nit picky changes, but they've bothered me for a while. If it's low hanging fruit, it's be great to have some of these changed, or at least have the option to change. I understand that not everyone's workflow or preferences are the same. 

Thanks Bandlab! Been doing a great job lately!

Interesting. Thanks for the response. I'd read that xtouch in MCU mode didn't work for certain things. I'll check it out more.

Now that CbB has HUI support added in the Sept update, does that mean we can use the Xtouch in HUI mode and have everything (like the colored scribble strips) work automagically?