Sailor55

Thanks for straightening this out for me David. Much appreciated. - Dan

Speaking specifically about Project Templates, I find that I can create and save project templates but they are never visible to me in the SONAR start screen. The other handful of templates that ship by default with SONAR are displayed but any that I create are not. And yet, I put my templates in the same folder. This one: Cakewalk Content/Cakewalk Core/Project Templates. I can navigate to this folder and load a template, but the start screen refuses to display them. Confusing...

I too am a loyal customer since 1991 (Cakewalk for DOS). It occurred to me last September we will probably never see anything beyond a subscription model for SONAR. I think it's a great program as it stands today and decided go for it. I am not regretful. In my estimation, the subscription isn't more expensive than the cost of upgrading to newer releases every year or 18 months. Admittedly, subscribers are beholden to the company for as long as they use the product and can't opt out without saying goodbye to SONAR forever. But the fact we've both been using the product for well over 30 years strongly suggests we're not the type to jump ship anyway. Of course, I don't make a living as a record producer using SONAR (or anything else). If I did, the considerations would be vastly different.

Wow! A lot has happened since I've been away. Many thanks to everyone who helped get to the bottom of this. Much appreciated. - D

Thanks... Will do. - Daniel

Also, thanks Colin. I wasn't aware 2024.12 was available. I was using 2024.11. I've just updated to 2024.12 but the problem (as shown in my video above) still persists.

If the note pane is open (it doesn't matter how much, as long as it's not completely closed), then the effect disappears. That being the case (like before), the workaround is to just open the note pane slightly. Still, its a bug, and it shouldn't be happening.

I reported a bug last month where, when using a Drum Map, the velocity lane shrunk horizontally when the drum map itself was expanded vertically. That was fixed in the last version, but... now it seems to have returned in a new form. When you click on any existing note (to move it or to sound it), each time you do it , the velocity lane shrinks vertically until it disappears. As before, this does not happen if the midi keyboard lane is open, even a tiny bit. Please see video. Anyone care to confirm? Screen Recording 2024-12-10 132206.mp4

IMHO, moving to another DAW would be an enormous pain. If one is proficient at the many features of CbB, then moving to Cakewalk Sonar is completely painless. I actually found it to be a positive, enjoyable experience. My advice... get a year's subscription and don't look back.

I occasionally have this problem too. I am always able to fix it with Ctrl-Alt-Del and then simply cancelling the "sign-out/change user" window that pops up. When the Sonar screen returns the cursor behaves normally again. Don't ask me why. Magic.

Thanks. I have submittet a bug fix request.

When using the scroll wheel to widen or narrow a drum map midi track (horizontally), the velocity window (if opened) will concurrently narrow (vertically) until it disappears. This happens regardless of the method used to zoom horizontally. But... if you open the keyboard midi window too, no matter how little (as long as it's not completely closed), this behavior stops. I don't think this is intended.

I was a CwB user from day one. In order to get Bandlab Sonar, I paid full price for a one year membership on Aug 31. I've never once received any offer from Bandlab (either before or since) for any discount whatsoever. I'm not complaining. Just saying. I'm quite happy with the product.

Agreed. I accepted reality about two weeks ago and moved up to the New Sonar. I quite like it. No looking back. - Dan

Good suggestion, but it makes no difference, pre or post. I think you are correct. It was wrong of me to think the bus was somehow sounding "through" the guitar track. In order for the the guitar track to be soloed, its effects must also function or it isn't truly a solo . In order for that to happen the vocal bus must be 'active' too. That means you will hear it through the master. I guess it's unreasonable to expect Sonar to know that when a track's effect is side chained to a bus it should be aware to also mute the bus (and yet, still feed it to the side chain) when the track is soloed. I think the mystery is solved. The use of aux tracks is probably the best the way to go in these situations. My thanks to you both for helping me to think this through and improve my understanding.

The vocal bus output goes to the master bus which outputs to my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 interface.

When the track is muted the bus is still heard even though the track itself does not sound. Very strange. The only way to stop the bus coming through the track is to reassign the send to "none" or else to delete it. Lowering the send volume to -inf and even disabling the send will not stop the bus from sounding through the track. You can't even stop it by disabling the effect to which it is sending. Thanks for clarifying this. It is very useful to know. Since there are two or three ways to overcome this issue, it's not really a showstopper, but as far as I'm concerned you should be able to send from a buss to an effect input on a track. I don't think you can 'send' to a normal track anyway. When you go to insert a send, normal tracks are never offered up as a destination. You only get the option of aux tracks, patch points or side chain inputs to effects.

That certainly makes sense to me. But in this case, I wasn't 'sending to a track' (from a buss) so much as I was sending to the side chain input of an effect on a track. The Waves C6 side chain input is intended to control compression of a specific band. And in fact, it actually does do that. However, it baffles me as to why that should also route the send through to the track output as well.

Okay. Apparently, I'm the only one here who's ever seen this. I've discovered other projects of mine with the same problem. My takeaway is this: It's not a good idea to route a send from a bus back to a side chain input on a track effect (at least, not the waves C6 multi-band compressor). Yeah it sort of works, but in my case, not very well since the bus "sounds" back through the track and messes up the mix. From now on I'll use auxiliary tracks for such things since that always seems to work.

(I'm using Cakewalk Sonar, but this also happens in CwB) I have a project with several vocal tracks, all of which feed into a single vocal bus which outputs to the master bus. I wanted to duck a Rhythm Guitar track with the vocals. On that track's FX bin I have a Waves C6 multi-band compressor with a side chain input. So... I put a send on the vocal bus to drive the C6 side chain. And it seems to work except that, if I SOLO the rhythm guitar I hear both the rhythm guitar and the vocal bus. That can't be right. Or can it? This happens even if I disable the C6. It happens even if I lower the send volume to -inf. The only way to stop this is by routing the send to "none" or by muting the vocal bus. It seems the very act of routing the vocal bus send to the c6 side chain causes the vocals to route through the rhythm guitar track such that you hear it when the guitar track is soloed. Here is what does work: I put a send on every vocal track to a common auxiliary track then route the Aux track output to the C6 side chain input. Then everything works as expected. No sound from the vocal bus appearing in the Rhythm guitar track and the Aux track volume works as expected to control the C6 side chain input. The manual suggests a bus and an aux track are functionally the same. Apparently not in this case. What am I missing?

None of this is surprising at all. I'll keep using CWB until that is no longer possible. Then I'll go to the subscription-based SONAR since I'm disinclined to learn a new workflow. (Yep... too old, and maybe too lazy). SONAR's vector-based graphics offers no incentive to me anyway, and not much else seems to be on offer.

I too have several headphones kicking around. But when I want to hear exactly what I've mixed with no "personality" whatsoever, I turn to my Neumann NDH 20's. They bring nothing of their own to the table. I guess you could say that is their "sound"... i.e. no coloration of any kind. Granted, they are crazy expensive ($700 CDN these days, slightly less than what I paid for my used Mackie HR824 monitors many years ago) and takes a bit of getting used to, but the entire spectrum is presented in all its naked glory. I listened to some Billy Joel with them recently. Wow. Lots of stuff I'd never heard before. But, whether it be headphones or studio monitors, my vocal shortcomings are generally quite apparent (and irritating) to me. - Dan

That "pop up panel" is exceedingly important to me and central to my workflow which involves much audio editing. All the stuff one continually needs in a tight little box only an inch away from where the cursor is now. Please never take that away. Never. - Daniel

I donate a healthy sum to my local food bank once each year. I do it when it's convenient for me, usually toward the end of the year. I am happy to do so and the folks there are certainly appreciative. Early this year they called and asked if I would consider giving the same amount as last year in monthly installments deducted from my bank. They were quite persistent, but I refused. Clearly, they desire consistent and predictable cash flow. I suppose I can't blame them for that. But I don't like it. It makes me feel taken for granted and leaves me out of control. If for any reason I can't (or don't want to) give, I must take an action, rather than simply not take an action. I realize this is not an apples-to-apples comparison (i.e. charities vs DAW revenues), but seems the whole world is moving in this direction. I own outright a lot of Waves Inc. plug-ins. Waves has a thousand products many of which do practically the same thing. They'd much rather I pay a permanent yearly fee for the privilege of accessing any plug-in at any time. That puts me in full control of a grand array of products (many of dubious utility, but some that could become integral to a project) while putting me in less control of my money. Unfortunately, it's something I may have to learn to get used to.

Many thanks John for taking the time to make an extremely useful video. It is much appreciated. My takeaway: Beyond a membership to BandLab (which is not particularly useful to me), there is no good reason, at present, to obtain Sonar unless one wishes to monkey about with GUI issues for months on end while actual music production suffers. Cheers... - Daniel