Mark Morgon-Shaw

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I’ve run into this as well – at first I thought it was user error, but it’s consistent. I just opened several recent projects and in all of them the PRV keyboard strip was closed by default. When I switch to Cakewalk by BandLab, the same projects open with the strip visible in its normal position. In Sonar, if I drag the strip back into place and re-save, it seems to remember it the next time I open the project. I also noticed the track pane is closed in all these projects. I’m pretty sure it should have been open in at least some of them – I do occasionally close it, but the PRV keyboard is something I always leave open.

The BandLab Membership itself doesn’t seem to cater for professional users. It’s clearly aimed at up-and-coming artists who need promo tools, distribution, mastering, etc. That’s a completely different crowd from the hobbyists we see on these forums. Right now you’ve got three very distinct groups: Hobbyists (mostly older) – just want a solid DAW to make music for themselves. They’ll happily buy once, maybe pay for an update every few years, but they aren’t spending monthly. Aspiring/“wannabe” artists (younger) – they’re chasing exposure, playlists, distribution, branding tools. BandLab Membership is built for them, but they don’t care about a heavyweight DAW like Sonar. Most of them are in FL Studio, Ableton, Logic, or just on the BandLab app itself. Professionals – We don’t need distribution bundles, mastering gimmicks or social features. We just need a rock-solid DAW that lets us work quickly and reliably, with clear licensing so we know our projects will always be accessible. That’s it. The problem is BandLab’s marketing is all over the place. They’re trying to pitch Sonar to three very different audiences at once — but the product and business model don’t properly serve any of them. Hobbyists resent subscriptions, pros need ownership and stability, and the younger artist crowd doesn’t see Sonar as relevant or modern enough compared to the competition. It just feels scattershot — like they’re tone-deaf to the core user base and missing the expectations of the next generation at the same time. So instead of capturing new users, they’re bleeding their legacy base while failing to onboard the younger crowd.

There are two major missteps with Sonar that have caused the most backlash and driven users to jump ship to other DAWs: The new GUI – They’re only now starting to fix it almost two years on, but it should never have been released in that state. The licensing model – Deeply unpopular from day one, with still no alternative option. Both were completely avoidable own goals. With a bit of foresight and genuine engagement with the user base, neither issue needed to happen. It’s a real shame — Sonar used to be one of the major DAWs in the industry. Now, for most people, it barely registers. Hopefully, now that they’ve finally addressed the GUI problem, they’ll listen to their users and rethink the licensing model.

In theory if the whole thing is vectors, shoudn't you be able to drag out the entire timeline display to whatever size you want? Otherwise what's the point.

Why do you think it's called Reddit..'cause once you've read it , it's gone

Excited to know theming will be back

Finally !! I’ve been banging on about the lack of clarity in the new GUI for 18 months and really hoped they'd have done something sooner. It took a flood of users jumping on the free tier to really force them to acknowledge just how badly this interface misses the mark. At least now there’s a promise of making it more comfortable to use — about time. Let’s see if they actually deliver.

Most people I know who make production music work in this type of way, it's rare that a contempary drum sound comes straight out of any single VSTi, there's a lot of layering and processing going on to make them sound modern.

I’ve been working this way for years, and it’s not because I don’t know how to use multi-outs — it’s because it offers flexibility you simply can’t get when everything is tied to a single AD2 mixer. Why I use one AD2 instance per drum element: Total sound independence – I can load a kick from one kit, a snare from another, toms from a third, and cymbals from yet another without being locked into a single kit’s tonal character. Easy layering – Two kicks? No problem. One clean, one heavily processed, perfectly phase-aligned, each with its own FX chain. Separate routing for sidechains – Kick can hit the bass sidechain, snare can trigger reverb ducking, hats can sidechain a synth gate, etc. Creative FX freedom – I can slam the snare with distortion, gate the toms, and run the hats through a delay — all without touching the other drums. Simple freezing/bouncing – Each drum’s audio is frozen independently, so I can commit parts without printing the whole kit. Yes, it uses more CPU/RAM, but on a modern system it’s barely noticeable. For me, the workflow gains outweigh the tiny performance hit. Multi-outs make sense if you want to treat AD2 like a traditional kit, but for hybrid, layered, or heavily processed productions, multiple instances is the way to go.

I had one of these. A Pioneer CTF-950 ( early 80s ). It was my Dad's originally but he never used it much so I persuaded him to let me buy it off him to use in my studio. I think I gave him £80 for it in 88 or 89 But I used TDK MA-XG cassettes with it , with the metal chassis inside the cassette case. Recorded all my original demo masters on it.

Well it's better than nothing, I've put it at 105%...I don't need to do this any other software though so I am not sure why CWS is less legible , maybe just a perfect storm of drab colours, lack of contast and 2d flatness

Be good if it worked for audio as well

There's no native per app scaling as far as I can see and as Sonar is the only app that seems problematic, plus I don't really want to lose the screen real estate on all the other programs I use daily. CbB was fine, as is every other DAW I've demoed - I don't think it's me.