Bass Guitar

A bigger picture of Daw. development and feature request is as simple as picking any given Daw and start reading the user forum posts. I have observed that they all have one thing in common. Comments about a feature request that goes way back in time which was never addressed. Examples with Sonar might be updated Playlist. Event List and Staff view. Now the most recent request is for the return of Custom Themes or more options for customization of the Graphics. So all these developers are constantly bombarded with a list of feature requests. They might also be bombarded with hundreds of bug reports as well as crash dumps from the user base. Now how do you want this development team to spend their days? Making the software solid and dependable or adding new code to grant a feature request? Working towards stability benefits the entire user base and will eliminate any negativity in the Daw community. I believe this has been the main focus of the Cakewalk team since Bandlabs takeover. Making Cakewalk free increased the user base 1,000 fold and possibly resulting in more feedback about bugs and crashes. That results in the creation of what seems to have been the plan to eventually release what we now have. A rebuild of Sonar. The most stable version ever. Take note of how quickly the development team has been fixing any, and all issues that have been reported. This is definitely the focus. But then somehow they did manage to sneak in a long list of new features. This became very apparent to me when I returned to using Platinum last Spring. The sad part is that I feel the developers are a small team that is sort of trying hard to survive in a business environment that doesn’t really care one way or the other about their work. They have to sit there and watch their “Baby” fade away due to strong opposition to the membership deal. I think they have been on our side and fighting this best they can and are probably responsible for the delay in the end of Cakewalk as well as coming out with a Free version of Sonar. I don’t think that was a “Bandlab” thing. So personally I think we need to support the development team and not keep yelling at them to add new features. Let’s just get through this low point in Cakewalk history and help them succeed and hopefully they will also succeed in convincing the owners that if Sonar was once again a product that was not just by subscription it would once again be back on the map and even become one of the top sellers. I say this because I know that this is a Daw that can run head to head with Cubase. Studio one and Reaper. It shouldn’t be off the charts! Not at the bottom like it has become since 2023.

Im travelling so can’t confirm but isn’t Local Documentation installed from the Cakewalk Product Manager?

I googled your question and there was a lot of links to this forum which this question was answered. Try that. This sub forum is for old Cakewalk and doesn’t get many views anymore.

Remove the word Simple. It’s exactly the same thing as the split with the addition of it can also have midi data in the same track. Is this all a misunderstanding of what the ( simple) Instrument Track is? What does multiple audio outputs have to do with this. That’s a function of the VST which can exist in both types of instrument tracks. As well as both types can be fed by as many midi tracks as possible. I do this a lot.

But what Im saying is that in the case of both the examples above, there would be no difference if the instrument track was a split or a simple? Both can receive midi data from any midi track. They can also receive data from the output of another instrument if it is set to output midi data. Say you woke up one day and the latest update simply removed the option for the split instrument. All existing split instruments would open now as simple instrument tracks and because the icon is the same you would not even notice any difference. ?? Yes?

While researching about GM midi I found that the track name box can hold 128 characters. This is saved in the midi data.

@Starship Krupa I’m not debating anything. I realize that there is 2 choices and possibly a 50/50 split between how everyone will choose. Im just curious about a use case that if they did remove the split instrument option as to what would happen to those who work that way? Example you could still have the simple instrument track as well as a midi track or tracks that go there. In other words you don’t have to place the midi data on the instrument track. This is what Im curious about. The only difference I can think of is that you can’t put midi data on a split instrument track. But?

Im confused. What can’t you do with a simple instrument track that you can do with a split?? Im curious.

Yes the Steinberg driver has known issues with Sonar. You have to delete it in the RegEdit app. Look for Software/ASIO. Delete everything except your audio interface drivers. It’s OK to have other ASIO drivers for legitimate hardware as long as they are not connected. Example I have ASIO drivers for Motu, SSL and Zoom. But if you spot any 3rd party ASIO drivers like Magix or FL or Steinberg delete them. MIDI drivers don’t interfere with your audio. Not that this is the cause of your problem but it’s still best to eliminate any known issues when troubleshooting.

Im not sure what you mean by “ Configure” button? As I said all I needed to do was go into the mixer for the drum vst and re- assign each channel to a different output. I choose to use only 6 of the 32 available. Then you add the new tracks and choose the channel you want as track inputs. It’s very simple. This works perfectly for me using SSD 5, Mondo drums and Addictive drums. As well as it is the same in 2 other Daw’s that I use.

@Starship Krupa Yes absolutely the way it was made no common sense. Sonar is the only Daw Im aware of that has the two types of instrument tracks. There is actually no reason I can think of to have the split tracks. For me I think it was I started using them because it must’ve been the default back in 2005. The day I discovered the simple instrument track I immediately started using that. They had an opportunity the eliminate the split track when they re did new Sonar. They seem to prefer leaving old bits behind instead of updating them and removing the old ones. Over time this bad habit has made for a 2,000 page user manual and I think we have 6 or 7 ways to add an instrument track and even then that has a dozen options. You really don’t see that anywhere else.

When that happens the first thing I do is toggle the global bypass all effects. Another thing that happens is that windows update is running. Try airplane mode.

Follow up. Yes the track template works great.

I really don’t expect anything to get fixed, I was just wondering if it was something that got changed. These projects are only backing tracks and probably won’t get any more attention from me. All important projects when I see a split track I re insert the instrument as a simple track and drag the midi to it and delete the split track. Much more tidy.

I toss in that yes it has always been a pain. And my biggest complaint is that I click on the dialogue to edit the name and that never seems to stick. Next thing you know you’ve just triggered 4 keyboard shortcuts. I forget which Daw it is that has a track info section where you can name , colour and icon tracks and it doesn’t loose focus. And every other Daw I use seems to only use the track number as the default. And the name of the synth will change when you swap it out. Sonar rarely changes the name to reflect the change if you use Replace synth.