Starship Krupa

On 6/30/2025 at 9:34 AM, Notes_Norton said:

what I learned in school and via the Berklee correspondence course

"It's my authority and by golly I'm gonna appeal to it!"

I do not recognize Berklee's definition (or maybe it's just your interpretation of their definition).

Here's some NOTmusic written by Claude Debussy:

On 6/30/2025 at 12:17 PM, Sergei Pilin said:

More contrast needed, look how immediately much more readable and easier on the eyes the whole thing becomes with just one simple slider move in Photoshop

Nice.

I've had this question in the back of my mind since Sonar came out: do the developers use monitors or monitor settings with greater contrast/vibrance than my poor old Dell and Samsung HD monitors'?

The other day I bought a 27" 4K monitor thinking that it might help with my Sonar legibility issues. Unfortunately it didn't.

10 hours ago, GIM Productions said:

Up until 5 years ago I considered Sonar the best Pro DAW on the market overall

What happened 5 years ago? CbB came out over 6 years ago. IMO, it improved a great deal over the years, up until the point that development on it stopped.

Do you mean that 5 years ago another DAW surpassed it?

12 hours ago, sjoens said:

I customized it so it's more visible.  I use it to quickly troubleshoot basic midi issues but this becomes an issue when it fails because I can't tell what's causing it to fail.

I would love to find out how to customize it to be more visible. I would prefer it not to then go missing from time to time.

Does it still go missing if you back out your customization(s)?

I've never been able to detect any change in "LED state" in the icon, not from the start. The "lights" are just too small. My MIDI chain troubleshooting is to look at a MIDI track's meters to see if Sonar is able to take data in, and then if it's not, then I fire up MIDI-Ox.

I find MIDI-Ox' port mapping setup screen to be mostly unfathomable, so I use a "brute forcing the puzzle" approach to setting it up. Once it's set up, MIDI-Ox is a powerful tool.

Edited because misunderstood inquiry.

People actually use this? I've never been able to detect MIDI activity, the thing is just too small. Permanent disability.

A longstanding feature request of mine is to move the indicator somewhere within the main UI. Maybe at the bottom or somewhere in the transport module.

5 minutes ago, mrneil2 said:

Any idea on the number of people who have tried the Evaluation Sonar and gone back to physically using CbBl for day to day operations?  Would be interesting to know.

Only BandLab know for sure and that information is locked behind a wall of non-disclosure agreements.

11 hours ago, T Boog said:

I'm just whining Krupa. Can't a grown man whine anymore?! 😫

You're either not reading my posts or you don't think I'm a grown man.😆

On 6/19/2025 at 9:18 AM, Jeremy Oakes said:

I have a F/W Focusrite LS56, it works fine on W11 (out of the box, no need for the W10 legacy driver)

That is great news, if I remember correctly, the 56 is similar to the Pro 40, but with onboard FX?

I saw a post on VI Control from a person whose Liquid Saffire 56 had become unusable on his Windows 10 system. When he upgraded his OS to Windows 11, the interface started working again.

Reports of Firewire's death on Windows seem to still be premature.

I'm not concerned in any case, my Pro 40's can continue to be of value whenever Firewire finally does breathe its last. They should function just as well as an Octopre, and they're already paid for.

Sonar has a nice command that will fit your entire project on the screen horizontally.

Ctrl-Alt-F is the default keystroke for it.

13 hours ago, TracingArcs said:

I've commented on the BPB article as it seems some are incapable of reading/researching

Ah, so that was you tearing 'em up. Quite amusing.

I had heard that there are still people out there who think they're owed something special by BandLab because they paid Gibson for the SPlat lifetime updates plan 8 years ago. They don't seem to come around here any more.

That is, in addition to 7 years of continuous updates, which included a zillion bug fixes and several new features.

Wow, quite the explosion of videos!

Cakewalk-oriented video channels ground to a halt after the NuSonar announcement. I know because I search for them from time to time. I guess they were waiting to see what would happen.

19 minutes ago, T Boog said:

It seems to me like they just HAD to change the look of the UI in order to call it by a new name and charge money for it.

Of course there's more to the UI overhaul than that. The new vector-based technology is supposed to be able to handle display scaling better. We already have the resizable Console strip modules, which is great. The new Track Manager is a big improvement over the old one.

Theoretically, the vector-based UI should allow for greater customization. If not for the end user, at least for the developers. I hope we see more of that. I'm here to advocate for it.

I like the overall look of the new UI. Most of my CbB themes are as flat as I could make them, especially the dark ones. Flat is the current look for computer programs. Computers have been around long enough that programs don't have to look like physical objects.

The last big revamp of the SONAR/CbB UI was in the oughts, right? I know that new isn't necessarily better, but It was looking dated to me. I don't like having to switch back to CbB for certain tasks.

On 6/26/2025 at 7:06 AM, Colin Nicholls said:

I don't blame them at all for focusing on other things whilst rebuilding the UI engine from the foundations up.

"Blame" is a strong word. I like to stay away from figuring out what the devs' priorities are. I want to be able to use NuSonar, and they probably want it to be usable.

I'll put it like this: Sonar has multiple areas where legibility and accessibility has been reduced in comparison to its immediate predecessor. I'd like to see this reversed/remedied, especially if/as CbB gets phased out in favor of the free tier of Sonar. Others have concurred, and of course there must be many other users who never post on this forum.

NuSonar has been released for some time, and from the start, people have given feedback regarding how the legibility of Sonar is reduced from CbB's and how important it is to restore the features that have been removed from Color Preferences. Some users have stated that if these issues aren't addressed, they'll stick with CbB for as long as they can and then maybe go in search of yet another DAW. So far, things have stayed the same except for some tweaks to the contrast of grid lines in Track View/Clips Pane.

While the UI looks slicker overall, there are no areas where legibility has been improved. In most locations, text font size has decreased. Less so button image size, but there are some locations where that's gotten smaller too, such as the note length buttons in Piano Roll view. The underlying UI elements are the same size as they were in CbB, so making the graphics and text labels smaller isn't due to lack of real estate.

The text sizes really look like I went down a line on an eye chart. CbB was the last line I could read, and then NuSonar is the next line down where I start to miss letters.

In the places where text contrast against its background has changed, it's been reduced, not increased. A relatively small increase to text contrast against the backgrounds would help, though.

There are some operations, like comping, where I switch back to CbB even though I otherwise much prefer the look of the NuSonar interface. Comping, clip editing, any work that requires me to use the grid to line things up is much easier and faster in CbB because I can make the lines out better. When I switch back to CbB, my eyes relax, I can read labels again, and I don't have to rely as much on memory and guessing. It's easier and more comfortable to regress to a program whose UI I like less than it is to have to squint and press my face up to the monitor.

I'm about to connect with someone on Craig's List who's selling a 4K monitor, which I'm only interested in because it might help me see Sonar better. The HD monitors I already have are perfectly fine for everything else I do with my system.

I recently had a comping project with 4 linked drum clips. I started out in NuSonar, to give it a chance, but eventually had to choose between forcing myself and getting the job done. It's still mostly fine for MIDI editing, but I can't make out the note value buttons in PRV any more.

I don't mean this to slam the developers, they're good lads who work hard and do good work. The UI revamp is a herculean task and they've actually pulled it off. But if the reason for the reduced legibility is that Sonar is still relatively new, then what better time to provide feedback, before things are set in stone? There's still time to restore the text to its previous sizes.

For now, even a couple of color schemes with higher text contrast would help. "High Contrast Light" and "High Contrast Dark?"

They are completely compatible.

There's nothing to do except copy them and start using them.

I you change your Sonar file location preferences so that Sonar uses the same folder as the CbB templates, you don't even have to copy them.

1 hour ago, sjoens said:

only one app can be assigned to open a specific file type

Clarification: only one app can be assigned to open files with a given extension when the filename or icon is double-clicked in Explorer.

NuSonar and CbB can both open .CWP files once you start the program and open projects via the Start Screen or File/Open.

3 minutes ago, sjoens said:

Color options have been around since the early days of SONAR.  Sonar 8.5 had a ton.  X series actually broke them.  Some in the list didn't work but you could import a color set from 8.5 or earlier and get them back.  New Sonar almost closed the door....

Hmm, so with each big move in the UI, Color Preferences has become less capable of allowing the user to set colors? Disturbing.🤔

Between Theme Editor and Color Preferences, I was able to get CbB to mostly bend to my will, color wise. There were some elements that were impervious to color customization, notably the Browser background.

With NuSonar, the Browser background color can now be changed, you just have to be a developer to change it.😆

2 hours ago, Wookiee said:

It was only with the last iteration of the SONAR family,  Platinum, Professional & Studio did we see the theme editor arrive.

That's what I thought, that it was a relatively recent feature.

Theme Editor was fun while it lasted, but as far as making the DAW sufficient to my needs, not necessary. I don't have to have REAPER or CbB-level control over the program's look to be happy.

I need to be able to make out my measure and beat lines, and their colors weren't determined by Theme Editor. It was Color Preferences. Although the interface to the feature is still there, it no longer has any effect on parts of the UI that I want/need to modify in order to make them legible. I can't figure out what elements it even CAN control any more.

I have a feeling that Color Preferences dates back a good many Cakewalk/SONAR/Sonar revisions. I'll take a guess and say at least as early as the first X, probably earlier. The dialog has that "party like it's 1999" look about it.

One thing that gives me some hope is that among the current fixed color schemes we can get an idea of what screen elements can have different colors. If we're allowed to once again choose our own custom colors, the elements that I'm most interested in tweaking should be tweakable.

The aforementioned clip backgrounds and lines, text color in the Browser, various buttons, various backgrounds. As soon as they let us at it I'll be working on my own custom color schemes/themes.

I hope that it's just a matter of the devs wanting to rework the Color Preferences dialog panel to match the new Sonar look before we get it back. I didn't realize until I used CbB how much more inspiring a program is when I can set the colors myself.

21 hours ago, Wookiee said:

there is more pressing work to be done on the GUI

Indeed.

Restoring the text and button image sizes to at least what they were in CbB would be at the top of my list of pressing concerns.

Returning a small bit of functionality to the color chooser would be second. Specifically being allowed to adjust the color of my Track View/Clip Pane beat and measure grid lines would help so much. Despite the fun I had with Theme Editor, I could live without one if I were allowed to choose a few important colors.

I like the new look overall, but once CbB finally validates no more, my screens are going to start getting nose prints from my comping sessions!😆

Here's another act I would DEFINITELY go see, Trevor Horn touring as The Buggles at age 75 and just bringing it. How can he still be hitting those high notes? Oh right, never had a touring career as a singer except for that one stint with Yes. This is a great performance of one of the best songs on The Age of Plastic. He's a ferocious bass player, while doing lead vocals no less. He's so awesome he gets a pass on the 5-string.

Found my earlier notes/cheat sheet on Workspaces. Here it is with some editing:

Quote

Workspaces is a feature that I found conceptually baffling at first. Is it a way of saving the arrangement of the Skylight panels, Control Bar module order, availability of entire features, or what? And how does it relate to Screensets?

Here is my primer after forcing myself to figure it out via much trial-and-error experimentation.

Once understood, workspaces can be as useful as project and track templates. A custom workspace can allow you to save and load all of those things I mentioned.

One of the big confusion points for me was Workspaces' relationship to the Screensets feature. There is overlap there in that workspaces can do the same job that screensets do, which is store and recall window layouts.

Screensets are for per-project save and recall of window layouts. Docked, floating, position, zoomed, etc. You have 10 slots to save window and panel layouts. It is possible, though, to import layouts from one project to another. You have to have both projects open at the same time to copy them across.

Workspaces can save window layouts, and they can do more things. Workspaces, unlike screensets, are meant to apply to the program as a whole rather than a specific project.

So I think of screensets as snapshots of the window layouts that I find useful while I'm working on a specific project, having the Step Sequencer open or whatever. I think of workspaces as a way to apply customized settings to Sonar's UI, which includes applying a window layout. Back in the Theming days with Cakewalk By Bandlab, I used workspaces to fast switch among my half dozen custom themes, very handy when in the process of theme creation itself. Each workspace was set to load only the theme and leave everything else alone. Of course, with Sonar, we no longer have themes, only color schemes, so that option has been removed.

The Workspaces dialog is a bit confusing, because it really covers 2 different features, each with their own boxes in the dialog, but those features work pretty independently from one another. What they have in common is that their settings take effect when you load the workspace you're saving. What they do is different though.

The left box shows which program features you can elect to subtract from the UI. The description usually given is "hide," but I don't think of it as "hiding," because you can hide things from view without going to the trouble of unchecking them in a workspace. My mind tripped up on this at first, because I thought if I checked all the boxes, then when I applied the theme, a whole bunch of Control Bar modules and skylight panels that I usually keep hidden would pop back into view. But that's not what that means. If you have all of the Control Bar modules checked in the the left box, it doesn't mean that they will all always be visible, it just means that they can be shown if you want them to be. But if you for instance, never wanted to see the Sync module, even as an available choice, you'd uncheck it in the left box. And there would be no way to see it until you applied a theme that had that module enabled.

So the left column can be left untouched by most users. Experienced users know how to keep our stuff arranged so that it's not in the way, we have custom templates that only display what we want displayed and so forth. We don't care about the left box, at least not for this exercise.

The right box shows which layout choices you can apply when you load a custom workspace. How you have your Control Bar set up, the order of your track controls in Track View, which controls you're showing in Track Control Manager and so on. Once you get Sonar set up "just so," it's a good idea to save a workspace that has at least the first 4 checked. I save mine as "Erik's Standard" and I use it to tidy up when I load a template or project that has a bunch of stuff I don't want open. That is, in my opinion, the most basic and handiest use: just tidying up. The factory templates have a bunch of panels open that I usually leave closed, so I apply Erik's Standard and get my real estate back.

I've learned from experimentation that Console's layout and choice of strip modules is included in as part of "Window Layout." The documentation says that Window Layout "functions as a global screenset." This is where Workspaces overlaps with Screensets, and it's the only place where it does. Workspaces save and load layouts globally whereas Screensets does it per project.

In order to get started with Workspaces, first arrange Sonar the way you usually want to have things, Track Header controls, window layout, Control Bar arrangement, everything. Then select New Workspace, and name it "Waldemar's Standard" or whatever. After it's saved, go into Manage Workspaces and make sure that Waldemar's Standard is set to load all the things you care about. This is insurance against accidentally loading one of the canned workspaces (or a test workspace) and having them rearrange your stuff. You'll always be able to get back to your preferred layout by applying this workspace. If all you want is the kind of tidying up that I described above, you can actually stop here.

(I also suggest that before you go spelunking in the Workspace Caverns, export your custom key bindings in case you get befuddled and do something in the wrong order. A workspace can be set up to load custom keyboard shortcuts, and if you happen to select one that is set to load them and then switch back to "None" you will be unhappy, because the "None" workspace doesn't restore custom keystroke settings and you'll wipe out any custom key bindings)

Then go back to the program and open Console View just the way you want it, I presume maximized. Save a new workspace named "Waldemar's Console View" or whatever. Look in Manage Workspaces and uncheck all of the stuff that you don't want to be affected when you load it. We only want to load the window layout, nothing else. The rest of the time we'll be happy with Waldemar's Standard. If you prefer, you can switch back to "None," but I typically keep it on Erik's Standard. "None" is still a workspace, but behaves differently from the named ones.

The D key is better for quickly flipping back and forth between Track View and whatever you have in the Multidock, but you may find Workspaces useful for other situations. I have one that puts Sonar windows on separate monitors.

Now, about "None."

Sonar keeps track of how you adjust all of those workspace-y things as you go along. This is true no matter what workspace you started with or have it set to. I can load "Erik's Standard" and then start changing stuff that is included in that workspace's settings. Then once I save the project, next time I load the project, everything will be as I left it.

If I again select a specific workspace, settings will revert to the last time I saved the workspace.

The exception to this is "None." Think of "None" as a workspace that's saved automatically when you switch to another workspace. It behaves just like any other workspace except that you don't have to explicitly save it. The filename it uses is "Default.LNS"

So if you start with None, then switch to Waldemar's, then change a bunch of stuff and then go back to None, you'll revert to however things were before you switched to Waldemar's. It's good to know about in case you mess something up, get your skylight panels out of whack or whatever.

The "Apply Workspaces on Project Load" setting applies whatever the currently set workspace is whenever you open a project. I usually leave this unchecked, as I prefer to apply my workspace on demand and let the projects keep their own settings.

Hope this clears the waters rather than muddying them further....

1 hour ago, Waldemar Pawlik said:

Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for.

Jonesy beat me to it. The D key is all you need. Console or Piano Roll in the multidock and flip back and forth as needed.

I use Sonar on a laptop with a 15.6" screen, which is tiny compared to the humongous (3 of them) set of monitors I use on my main workstation.

For extra fun, try Shift+D.

Workspaces and Screensets are powerful, but they're advanced and require first understanding them and then configuring them.

Somewhere on this forum I wrote a guide to understanding Workspaces, I'll see if I can find it....

The most lamented feature that was left out of Sonar is the ability for the user to set custom colors for such things as beat and measure grid lines.

The next most is the full Theme Editor, but I understand why they deprecated that. The underpinnings of new Sonar's UI are just so different.

8 hours ago, Billy86 said:

Done. 

I don't see a topic from you there. Are you sure you posted it in the Feedback forum? I'll look in the Sonar forum....

4 hours ago, Swone said:

Hi excuse my english but what is the difference with sonar prenium and platinum on bandlabs platforms ?

Sonar Premium is the full-featured version of Cakewalk's flagship DAW.

SONAR Platinum was a product whose life ended in late 2017 when Gibson, Cakewalk's parent company, dissolved Cakewalk, Inc. SONAR Platinum came with a great deal of bundled plug-ins.

They later sold the Cakewalk intellectual property (not the company, just the intellectual property) to BandLab. BandLab reissued what had been SONAR as "Cakewalk By BandLab." The core program was the same as SONAR Platinum, but did not include most of the bundled software.

The DAW got a major UI update and changed its name to Sonar (mixed case). Up until now, Sonar has only been available as part of a paid BandLab membership. This version is now "Sonar Premium" and is still only available as part of the BandLab membership.

Sonar Free Tier is Sonar minus a few features (plug-in upsampling, multiple arranger tracks, free sound library). It also has a splash screen on start up that encourages the user to upgrade to the premium version. For most people's uses, it will function as well as Sonar Premium, and better than Cakewalk By BandLab.

There are so many free plug-ins around now that bundled software is not as important as it was when SONAR Platinum was still around.

I hope this clears things up. I know it's hard to follow.