Colin Nicholls

Hi John, unfortunately that is correct. Themes are not supported in the new Sonar. It uses an entirely different graphics/display engine (vector based, not bitmaps) as part of the High-DPI support. It's early days, though, and BandLab/Cakewalk haven't ruled out bringing back some form of user-customization for colors in Sonar. I fully expect to see some kind of theming back in the product in the near future but it won't be based on the previous theming engine, and those Cakewalk themes will not be compatible. The built-in themes (more than just Tungsten and Mercury!) do a good job and being generally acceptable to most people but of course there's always something that, if only we could tweak slightly, would make it perfect 🙂 I hope that helps.

I would think it was a problem if you chose "Basic" and then decide you'd actually prefer the fuller menu set... etc. with no way to back out of the initial choice.

Some other DAWS or Audio programs may reset the buffer size and other ASIO settings , but Sonar just opens and uses the ASIO settings at whatever they currently were set to last. SO if you are comparing DAWs or whatever, double check before you open a project in Sonar that the ASIO buffer settings are where you expect them to be.

This happens to me whenever I un-dock the Synth Rack. It never seems to remember how I last sized it in Floating state.

A MIDI track is just that, a MIDI track. You can create one completely independent of any virtual synth. Ctrl-Shift-T or right -click in the left pane of the Track (Arrangement) View and select "Insert MIDI track" It will point to the default MIDI output but you could create an empty Drum Map and point the MIDI track to that.

Shift-C Also Right-click on the space next to the icons to get more options

Citation needed

Ah, I see. Yes, you do.

Did this change? I thought it had always been C:\Cakewalk Content\Cakewalk Themes

Yes, I believe so. I mean, technically one of the perks of a paid BandLab membership is access to the Full version of Sonar (with no nag screen and many extra features over the Free Tier version.) I don't want to put myself up for being challenged by The Internet as to whether this is "the same thing as paying for" but essentially yes.

The "Unable to Sign In" warning appears to be benign. It's annoying though. I don't really need yet another notification that I don't have connectivity. The only time that toast notifiction should appear is if it genuinely needs to connect to a server in order to fully function. (Oh, and don't get me started about VST plugins that sit and wait during load because they are trying to "phone home", only to give up and continue working as expected )

You know I'm never going to overlook an opportunity... I have no idea how the colors are assigned internally but my guess is that there is some kind of lookup table of "named color element = #000000". We don't need a Theme Editor - we just need to be able to drop an appropriately formatted text file into a specific location to have Sonar recognize it as an alternative theme source. I realize it isn't quite that simple - you'd need to validate the file structure as "good" before adding it to the list of available themes. Back in the day we used to use XML/XSD for that, no need to write a document format validator from scratch, just define the .XSD. Ideally, there would be a default lookup table that our custom color maps would "overlay" rather than replacing, but you know I'd be happy if I had to provide the entire color map without any shortcut. Anyway. Keep up the good work. We have faith!

Where have you been? Nope. There's quite a selection of built-in color themes; maybe one of them will take your fancy.

HI, @Steve Ennever See the image below. Track 1 is primarily directed to Master (by default) but I have also created a SEND to Bus B, and I'm about to create a second SEND to Bus C having right-clicked on some empty space in the Track Header. After that, Track 1 will be simultaneously outputting to Bus A (Master) and Bus B and Bus C

Hi, @BATTLEHAMSTER, welcome to the forum. Yes, you're in luck: You can cross-grade to the new Sonar for only $179/year, discounted to $79 for the first year.

Welcome to the forum. It sucks you're experiencing the behavior you describe. It's definitely not typical. I hope you get to the bottom of it.

The latest I heard was that, although they haven't ruled out the possibility of more user-configurable color customization options surfacing in the app in the future, there is no active development of a Theme Editor at this time.

Interesting. It isn't included in the feature matrix in this post

There is no Theme Editor available for new Sonar, so what is included in the box is what there is, for now.

Default? I don't think so. Only after you've recorded them. See the Inspector with the "Clip Properties" tab selected.

Today I learned! I never use input quantize. Good one, @tparker24

Yeah, that's a [citation needed] if ever there was one

This seems to be a comprehensive list of what is new or changed in Sonar over CbB, but it does not mentioned mastering anywhere. https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002369593-What-s-the-difference-between-Cakewalk-Sonar-and-Cakewalk-by-BandLab

You should probably render a mix from each application and then compare by inverting the phase of one of them - that is the only objective way to identify differences. I don't recall reading or hearing about any engine changes that would affect the sound apart from what I will mention below. If you're hearing a qualitative difference, it pretty much has to be a difference in plugins (plug-in versions?) or choice of sculpting in ProChannel, etc. One difference you might notice is that, under stress, you may get pops, crackles, drop-outs. With an improved multithreading engine or otherwise optimized, you might no longer hear such artifacts. But I suspect that isn't what you're referring to. Always compare applications with no other apps running, eg. don't have a web browser open in the background with the Cakewalk Forum open :-). Browsers can use unpredictable amounts of memory as they cache stuff (by design). So you want to make sure as much of the machines resources are available to CbB or Sonar as possible.

I don't recall seeing anything like that... can you post a screen shot with more context around the button/icon? Is it a toggle? What happens when you push it? What theme are you using? What does it look like in other themes? What do you see in CbB (if you have it) with the same Track Options selected? Do you use surround sound features?