Track Icons, anyone?

[Canopus]

I admit, I’ve made a couple of track icons over the years. When I have to take a break from some boring task, I find it relaxing to do something completely different just for fun. Sometimes it's track icons. Yeah, I know.

 

 

Today I noticed that I had made more than 500 of them, so I thought maybe someone else might have some use for them as well. They’re all virtual instruments and in some cases preset libraries. Of course, there’s a LOT of virtual instruments out there so please don’t expect to find every conceivable VSTi or library in this collection.

They are all in png format with a size of 96x96 pixels. The image files are named [Developer]-[Plugin]_cnps.png. That way they should be quite easy to locate despite the large number of files and also not inadvertently overwrite any existing track icons you might have. Some of them come in a few different variants as well.

How to use them in Sonar and CbB

Track icons are normally placed in the folder  Cakewalk Content\Sonar\Track Icons for Sonar, or Cakewalk Content\Cakewalk Core\Track Icons for CbB, and can be inserted into a project by right-clicking on a track’s default track icon and then selecting Load Track Icon. Navigate to the folder where your icons of choice are kept and take your pick. They can be added separately to Track View, Track Inspector and Console View. Just make sure that Views > Icons > Show Icons is selected and they should turn up.

You can optionally just drag-and-drop a track icon from File Explorer onto the track. Any part of the track will work as destination, so you won't have to drop it on the existing track icon. This action will also (almost always) automatically update the icon in the Track Inspector and the Console View as well. Fun fact: This drag-and-drop feature is not documented in the Online Help, nor in the Reference Guide. I simply found it out by trying.

I would suggest that these track icons are kept inside the attached folder so that they are kept separate from all legacy icons that come with a Sonar or CbB installation.

And no, I certainly don’t have all of these plugins and libraries. Far from it. But I do have a couple of them …

How to get them

These icons may be downloaded as a zip file from here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmXDCxaGb7JEgQTra_vTlaGww6zr?e=aBShc5

Disclaimer

I certainly don’t claim ownership of any of the trademarks faintly discernible on these track icons. Just in case someone wondered.

Edited June 4 by Canopus
Added default path to track icons used by Sonar.

[Byron Dickens]

That looks supremely cool for people who use track icons!

[Billy86]

Wow! Nice… and thanks for sharing!

Edited July 30, 2022 by Billy86

[Kurre]

Track icons also look good in stream deck. ?

[Matthew Simon Fletcher]

Great work! Much appreciated

[Michael Vogel]

Very generous of you to share your hard work. Thanks. 

[FJ Lamela]

Thanks a lot, they are really good!

[Canopus]

For anyone interested, I have added another 40+ icons to this bundle. Perhaps most importantly are the additional instruments that came with Arturia V Collection 9, UVI Vintage Vault 4 and Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 14. I have also added some older libraries from Kontakt’s Play Series which were previously missing, as well as some odd bits and pieces from 8dio, Ujam, Wedge Force and Xfer. A few examples can be seen below.

 

For instructions on how to download and where to extract, see the opening post.  The zip file contains the whole 550+ icon bundle.

[Noel Borthwick]

Perhaps post in this section as well.

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/45-track-project-templates/

[scook]

Moved to the templates forum with a link left in the CbB forum

[Canopus]

Zip file removed.

[garybrun]

1 hour ago, Canopus said:

Zip file removed.

please reinstate.
If you don't have space I can host on my server for you.

[Jim Fogle]

3 hours ago, Canopus said:

Zip file removed.

?

[Canopus]

Okay, sorry about the confusion. I was told by someone I know that the link I had posted didn’t appear to be read-only, but one that allowed anyone with access to the link to update the zip file’s content. Of course, if that was the case it wasn’t good. I was in a great hurry and hadn’t time to check it out, so the only quick fix I saw was to remove the file altogether and make a short post here that the link had been removed.

Now that I’m back I have uploaded a new copy of the icon file and updated the OP with a link that I’ve double-checked should be read-only.

[garybrun]

Thank you for adding it back.
Appreciate the work that has gone into making these.

[SirWillyDS12]

Thanks for reloading... Much appreciated...

[Jesse Screed]

Very Generous of you.  I am not sure I will ever use them, but I can appreciate the effort and generosity of your actions!

[Charles Outlaw]

Wow, thank you.

[Grebz]

Great work, thank you for sharing!

[Canopus]

I just found out that you can optionally drag-and-drop a track icon from File Explorer onto a track to replace the existing icon. Any part of the track will work as destination, so you won't have to drop it on the existing track icon. This action will (almost always) also update the icon in the Track Inspector and the Console View as well, but sometimes you'll have to switch selected track to trigger a repaint of those icons.

Fun fact: This drag-and-drop feature is currently not documented in the Online Help, nor in the Reference Guide.

Edit: I've later noticed that File Explorer isn't needed. In your Media Browser, it's possible to navigate to your Track Icons folder and drag-and-drop icons directly from there. I've personally saved my Track Icons folder as a Content Location Preset, so it's always easily accessible. The one drawback with using the Browser, instead of File Explorer, is that you can't see the source icon as an icon, only its file name.

Edited March 29 by Canopus