buildanax

I just got the new Sonar today and am enjoying it. I'm a 30+ year Cakewalk user and I still enjoy it as much as ever. I use it to make my living and it pretty much does all that I have ever needed it to do. Here are 3 wish-list items for me. 2 of them are midi related and seem like they would be easy to implement, however the 3rd one is audio related and maybe not so easy. 1. When choosing a Synth icon to use for a plug-in that is inserted in the Synth Rack, it would be nice for the icon you choose for the Synth Rack to also change on the corresponding midi track. As it is, you have to choose the icon you want for the synth rack, then go to the corresponding track in either the track view or console view and repeat the process. If there was maybe an option on one of the "Preferences" pages that would let you choose to "Update track icon when choosing icon for synth rack". 2. Several generations ago in Sonar you had the option of the "Key +/-" function for transposing midi tracks to be listed in the track view properties along with Volume, Gain, Pan, Input etc. Suddenly after one of the updates it disappeared from there and can only be accessed via the track properties of the "Track Inspector". It would be nice to have the "Key +/-" featured listed again in the options on the "Track Control Manager" page. It would just save a few clicks plus not have the "Track Inspector" taking up screen real estate.. 3. This one may take some work to accomplish but it you have ever been around a DAW that has it, it is a beauty to have. Let me say from the outset that if Sonar currently features this I would love to know how to enable it. Anyway...here goes! I am not a Pro-Tools user nor a fan, but most of the studios that I play sessions in (I'm a keyboard player and vocal producer in the Gospel genre) use Pro-Tools and I have seen this feature come in handy so many times when sitting beside an engineer and producing a vocal session. In PT, if you have a track armed for recording, as soon as you hit play it is already in record mode, even if you have not hit the record button. If you hit "Stop" without hitting the record button, it just dumps what it just recorded and you don't see or hear any difference. But, if you hit "Start" and then get to the place where you want to punch in and hit "Record" it shows up on the screen as expected and ends whenever you hit "Stop" or punch out. That is all normal and expected. However, (and this is the beauty of this feature)..... suppose you realize that you punched in late and maybe clipped off the beginning of a note or phrase, in PT (and some other DAW's) you don't have to undo it and try it again. You can simply drag the edge of the new audio clip to the left and uncover the section before you punched in and the beginning of the word or note that you thought you had clipped is actually there because PT actually started recording as soon as you hit play! Therefore you could technically drag all the way back to where you actually started the playback and the audio would be there. I don't know if I have described it in a way that makes sense but it is extremely handy to have. In a nutshell, recording starts as soon as you hit play but nothing is kept unless you hit "Record". If the artist starts singing along before you punch in, they may have given you a better performance on a line or two before you punched in. Instead of sitting there and saying "I wish I had been in record sooner because she sung that line great", all you have do is peel the wave form back to the left and there is the line she just sang because it was recording as soon as you hit play!!! Again, if this feature is already in Sonar, please tell me how to find it. Thanks for letting me make my wishes know. Danny C

I just downloaded the 2021.09 early release and have encountered something that I am not sure about. When attempting to export a file using the new "Export Audio" page, when I go to "Choose Export Location" and choose the designated folder that I want to export to, I notice that none of the files that are currently in that folder are showing up. It just says "No items match your search". Is this a settings issues or am I missing something? Prior to the update I could always see the other files in the folder which was essential in order to make sure I am not duplicating something. I can go to the regular Windows File Explorer and see what is in the folder but that is inconvenient when I am used to automatically being able to see that information during the exporting process. Anyone else noticing this or having this issue? Danny C.

I downloaded the "early release" this morning. The new features seem to be working fine, however, when I attempt to export files in either .wav or .mp3 format the program crashes and instantly closes. I have opened several different projects and attempted to export a file and it happens every time. I have used Cakewalk almost daily since around 1993 as part of how I make my living and this has not been happening at all until today when I installed the new update. I recorded two full soundtracks today for a client with numerous VST plugins used in each song. When I did the final mix on each project and attempted to export it, it crashed every time. It looks like I will having to do a "rollback" to the previous version until this is fixed or until I can figure out what is going on. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Additional info about this issue: Today I downloaded and installed the "Official Release" and the problem was still there. However, I have isolated what seems to be causing the crash. I noticed that when I bounce a mix down to a stereo track and then export it, it exports fine. But....when I type in a name for the track and then export it....it crashes. After more experimenting, I have concluded that if I include a hyphen in the track name, that seems to cause the program to crash when exporting. I can remove the hyphen, and it will export fine. So.....how to I get this information to the Bakers at Cakewalk so that they can determine if this is a an actual program bug or if it is something in my system?

Is this the best place to offer feedback to the developers on the Version 2021.04 update? If not, can you tell me where I should make this post? If so, here is one little suggestion. Can you give us the option of turning off the "Custom Theme Incompatibility" notice that pops up each time you open Cakewalk. I realize this happens when you are using a custom theme....which I am doing. There doesn't seem to be any problems with the compatibility of the theme I am using. This notice is not causing a problem, it's just annoying to have to see it and have to click on it every time you open Cakewalk. For a split second it always makes you think that there is a major problem when the program is opening. I have searched through the Preferences section and do not see an option to turn it off. There is an option to turn off "Show Project Load Notifications" but that does not have any affect on it. Anyway....this is just my little request/observation.

THANK YOU for posting the solution to this issue!! I just started encountering this same issue with my sustain pedal. After an hour or so of trying to diagnose the problem, I was just about to uninstall and re-install Cakewalk-Bandlab because the issue was not showing up on any plugins when ran in Stand-Alone mode, nor was it happening in an older version of Sonar X2 that I happened to still have installed. After seeing the post about checking to see if the "Enabled" button was ticked on the Preferences-Keybinding page, I remembered that I had ticked the "Enable" box a couple of days ago when creating some key bindings. There needs to be a little "Information Note" on the "Help" page that notifies you that ticking the "Enable" button will cause this issue if "Controller" is turned on in the "MIDI 'Shift' Options" column. I've been a Cakewalk user for over 25 years and had never encountered this. I felt like there had to be a simple solution to this but I totally missed it on this one. Thanks again for the helpful answer!

Currently in the Mix Console view there are only two options for the track width. It would be great if there were more options or a "Fit To Screen" option. Often times I find that with the the normal width, all of the tracks don't fit on the screen, yet when I choose to "Narrow All Strips", it shrinks them to the point where all of the tracks are visible but there is also some left over unused real estate on the screen. It would be great to have some other options there. Would anyone else find this useful? Still loving Cakewalk!

I agree with this request. It would also be nice to have it so that if you load an icon into a track, you could have the option of it automatically loading that icon into the synth rack as well. Currently, when you load an icon to a track, it will automatically load it to the mixing console, why not let it also load it to the synth rack in order to save the extra step of having to insert it separately?

Is there a setting anywhere within Cakewalk so that when you choose an icon for the synth rack, it will automatically update the icon in the track properties section for that track......or vice versa? Currently, if you choose an icon in the track properties area for a track, it automatically updates it in the console view....which is convenient. It would be nice if it would also do that for the synth rack as opposed to having to make two separate selections in order to accomplish it. Does anyone else ever find a need for this when using the synth rack? Where do we go to make suggestions to the design team to consider this (or other ideas) for future updates. If I am missing something as to how to accomplish this little action, I would love to know the secret! Danny C.

Please ignore my previous post. I figured it out. I was trying to import it as a Color Scheme rather than a Theme. I had also downloaded it to my Sonar Themes file rather than Cakewalk.

This theme looks great! I downloaded it but I notice that it is a .sth file as opposed to the standard .clr file that is usually used when importing colors to Cakewalk. How do I open or import a theme that is a .sth file? Sorry if this is a dumb question with an obvious answer.