Not Liking the look of the New Sonar Interface

[Noel Borthwick]

32 minutes ago, norfolkmastering said:

Worth having another look at text legibility which I’m struggling with in the new Sonar GUI.  My monitors are on maximum possible resolution and I’m struggling with some of the text.

Can you be specific about exactly which areas you find difficulty with? Post screenshots if necessary.

[lychee]

For my part, I don't really have any problems with the "new" Cakewalk interface.

On the other hand, it might be time to rework the submenus.

The cursors, buttons and co in Windows 95/Vista style are very dated.

I also hope for the disappearance of the Vista Smartglass type frame when you reduce the working window to display several projects at the same time.

 

[Red Four]

On 3/11/2024 at 5:34 PM, Hillmy said:

Tungsten. CbB:

Tungsten Sonar:

CbB:

Sonar:

CbB is more well defined and different color shades show more details and make things very clear at first glance. I don't mean blurry. I just mean that it is more clear in CbB to figure out everything at first glance. You can even tell the boundary boxes in console and inspector view. Nothing seems flat and you can tell when one section or box starts and ends. In Sonar the Sends don't even look like a box, just a flat plane. Also buttons don't look like obvious buttons. 

I'm sure Sonar can look like CbB with a little more work and I am sure vector graphics are not a limitation. If there is a way I could make it look like CbB myself I would but I am not sure if the option is even there. 

I quite like the Tungsten theme in the new Sonar, though your screen shots do show two things about it that I *don't* like as much as in CbB: 1) The control bar is a lighter gray in Sonar. In CbB, the darker gradient on the bar makes the control bar visually closer to the darker background elements, which I think is better visually. 2) The Track/Clip lanes have more alternating contrast in CbB, which I find helpful. But apart from that, I really like what they've come up with for the darker set of color schemes. Hopefully this will eventually evolve into full control over scheme colors, but I am happily using this new Tungsten. It makes the jump from CbB feel easier and more like home.

[John T]

4 hours ago, lychee said:

I also hope for the disappearance of the Vista Smartglass type frame when you reduce the working window to display several projects at the same time.

Ha, yeah, that always jangles my brain slightly.

[Will.]

On 3/11/2024 at 3:19 AM, sjoens said:

And has no one noticed Concrete Limiter is now a free module?

Its been available in CbB for . . . since early last year. Cant remember the exact version it was released in, so its not new to Sonar. 

Edited March 14 by Will.

[norfolkmastering]

16 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Can you be specific about exactly which areas you find difficulty with? Post screenshots if necessary.

I've attached four images, two from CbB and two from Sonar.

In the Assignable button module have a look at the words 'Fit Project'.  You should be able to see an example of text fuzziness issues in Sonar in the letters 'F' and 'e'.  In general this module is much easier to read in the CbB version.

In the fader screenshots, have a look at the numbers '18' and '24' on the LHS of the Sonar fader scale.  Same issue of text fuzziness.

I can say that what you can see on the screenshots is pretty close to what I am seeing on-screen.

As I said in an earlier post, I use two 24" BenQ GL2450H Monitors running at their maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080.  Both are fed by digital outputs from a dedicated graphics card.

It may be that the Sonar text is super sharp on a 4k monitor but after spending an hour on a trial session my eyes were struggling to focus on the Sonar GUI.

[Sal Sorice]

Add me to the list experiencing blurriness in Sonar.

This is on my Samsung 55" Crystal 4k UHD AU 8000 HDR TV, 3840x2160 with Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming OC (rev 2.0), 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM / 7680 x 4320 Max Digital Resolution.

Here are some side-by-side images from CbB and Sonar. Sonar seems more blurry.  I'm clueless when it comes to this vector graphics stuff, just hoping things can be made sharper and maybe with larger fonts - note how much smaller the fader font is on Sonar.

 

[Heinz Hupfer]

HI:)

 

I like the new look very much, everything's very sharp and much better to read than in CbB.
Have 4K Monitors both in Studio and Office and in both monitors are a fantastic look with the Dark Theme.

(With the Transform Problems I found out that moving the items to a new track helped a while, worked about 20 minutes on an old project, then suddenly again no chance to be able to use it:(
Same problem as in CbB, in the meantime I have a new motherboard, Processor and RAM, no Midicard involved yet and no controller (AZSlow) installed yet. 
Fresh install of Sonar and no Transform Tool!)

Bassman.

 

[msmcleod]

@norfolkmastering / @Sal Sorice / @Heinz Hupfer 

There are a couple of things in the pipeline that should improve the look of Sonar vs CbB.

1. We'll be including a "Tungsten Classic" theme that more closely matches the colours of CbB, and certainly to my eyes has a more preferable contrast to the new Tungsten.

2. We're using a different graphics framework not only for the vector images, but also for drawing text. This is the same framework we're using in Next for cross-platform support.  Unfortunately, because it's cross-platform, the text rendering doesn't look as good on 1080P as it did in CbB.  We have a plan to fix this and will be addressing it very soon.

[Sal Sorice]

27 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

@norfolkmastering / @Sal Sorice / @Heinz Hupfer 

There are a couple of things in the pipeline that should improve the look of Sonar vs CbB.

1. We'll be including a "Tungsten Classic" theme that more closely matches the colours of CbB, and certainly to my eyes has a more preferable contrast to the new Tungsten.

2. We're using a different graphics framework not only for the vector images, but also for drawing text. This is the same framework we're using in Next for cross-platform support.  Unfortunately, because it's cross-platform, the text rendering doesn't look as good on 1080P as it did in CbB.  We have a plan to fix this and will be addressing it very soon.

@msmcleod, will things also improve for 4k 3840x2160?

[Wookiee]

19 minutes ago, Sal Sorice said:

@msmcleod, will things also improve for 4k 3840x2160?

Let's hope so furry paws crossed 

[msmcleod]

1 hour ago, Sal Sorice said:

@msmcleod, will things also improve for 4k 3840x2160?

The fix will be based on DPI rather than resolution, so yes, it should.

[norfolkmastering]

1 hour ago, msmcleod said:

@norfolkmastering / @Sal Sorice / @Heinz Hupfer 

There are a couple of things in the pipeline that should improve the look of Sonar vs CbB.

1. We'll be including a "Tungsten Classic" theme that more closely matches the colours of CbB, and certainly to my eyes has a more preferable contrast to the new Tungsten.

2. We're using a different graphics framework not only for the vector images, but also for drawing text. This is the same framework we're using in Next for cross-platform support.  Unfortunately, because it's cross-platform, the text rendering doesn't look as good on 1080P as it did in CbB.  We have a plan to fix this and will be addressing it very soon.

Thanks for the heads up that you are aware of the issue.  Text clarity is important.

[Starship Krupa]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned my biggest issue with the new UI so far: reduced type font size in the Transport module.

I'm hoping this will be addressed before release, but for now, the reduced size of the time, tempo, time sig and sample rate text make me squint, where that isn't an issue with CbB. At these small sizes, just a single point increase in font size can make a big difference in legibility.

On 3/15/2024 at 7:58 AM, msmcleod said:

Unfortunately, because it's cross-platform, the text rendering doesn't look as good on 1080P as it did in CbB.  We have a plan to fix this and will be addressing it very soon.

Aughhhhh! Sonar caught cross-platform cooties from Next!

I'm glad that you're working on a cure.

[mgustavo]

Hi, I'd like to say I liked Sonar UI new look, as well as improvements on brazilian portuguese language. Thank you bakers!
I also would like to ask about Pro Channel Concrete Limiter, because I couldn't find it on Sonar (my previous paid software was Sonar Professional).
Thanks!

[slenderhead]

Might be just me, but does the On/Off button for FX bin on Track 1 inspector look lighter than Master channel despite both being ON?

It has a green track colour applied yes, but that makes the button, when ON lighter in colour than the Master.

I thought it was OFF

[User 905133]

18 minutes ago, slenderhead said:

Might be just me, but does the On/Off button for FX bin on Track 1 inspector look lighter than Master channel despite both being ON?

It has a green track colour applied yes, but that makes the button, when ON lighter in colour than the Master.

In my experience, background colors always affect the clarity, visibility, eye strain, etc. for foreground colors.  There are even website design sites that discuss these things.  I haven't looked at them in a while, so unfortunately I don't have any links handy.

So it might not be your eyes. 

PS: I used to have a tool that would let you pick up a color (like with an eye dropper) and show you the breakdown of the component colors.  You could try to find one of those utilities to check it for yourself.

PPS:   < from the button. < painted in rectangles using MS Paint.

The green overlay of the track actually changes the color of the button. 

Hope this helps.

 

Edited March 17 by User 905133
to add a PPS; to add a PS

[slenderhead]

Thanks for clarifying - and oh good not my eyes then! Yea I guess can live with it and accept small price to pay for being able to change background colours. Thinking about it, it would occasionally be an issue too in CbB with a dark theme, as been unsure a few times especially when using the FX master bypass on the control bar whether I have the master FX bins on/off, as use that button a lot.

[David Baay]

Zooming and checking colors with a picker, it appears to me that this is an artifact of the smoothing algorithm blending the edges of the icon with the background, exacerbated by the fine line used to draw the icon. Even the most distinctly 'orange' pixels appear to  be very slightly altered by the surrounding background color. If they were all that pure color (i.e. no smoothing), I don't think there would be a difference, but the icon would be badly pixelated of course.

[John T]

If I have one general objection to the new look, it's that things like that button should be more obviously "lit" or "not lit". I don't think the at-a-glance readability is as good as could be.