Why Did Bandlab Change So Many Default Features From Sonar?

[criticsconfession]

I've been wanting to switch over from Sonar Platinum for years now but every time I try Cakewalk by Bandlab there are just so many tiny little nuisances that just don't exist in Sonar and were often just default features.

Quick example: in Sonar when I'm looking at the mixer and ctrl+click and drag a fader down, it adjusts all faders at the same time. In Cakewalk though, ctrl+clicking does absolutely nothing to a fader unless you have all of the faders selected. Wasn't the entire original point of being able to ctrl+click a fader to avoid having to select them all in the first place?

Another small but annoying example, why are the MIDI CC controls individualized now? What I mean is, if I open up the Piano Roll and the Controller Pane, when I look at the Controller Pane it used to be able to be divided for each type of MIDI CC control in Sonar. If I wanted to see both my modulation and my velocity, I could do that. But in Bandlab for some stupid and unknown reason, you can only select viewing one at a time by highlighting it in the bottom left corner. Who thought this was a good idea and needed to be changed?

For every great feature that Bandlab added to Cakewalk, it seems like they also took away a great feature from Sonar. What's the deal here? Why can't these have just been optional toggles instead of brand new default features? It's tiny little things like this that completely disrupt the workflow and are seemingly impossible to even google a solution for. Are there even solutions for these issues of mine?

Edited August 31, 2022 by criticsconfession

[Promidi]

4 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

Quick example: in Sonar when I'm looking at the mixer and ctrl+click and drag a fader down, it adjusts all faders at the same time. In Cakewalk though, ctrl+clicking does absolutely nothing to a fader unless you have all of the faders selected. Wasn't the entire original point of being able to ctrl+click a fader to avoid having to select them all in the first place?

This is call quick groups.  You can adjust multiple track's parameters by holding ctrl while adjusting that parameter.  This works for many parameters, not just level
 

4 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

Another small but annoying example, why are the MIDI CC controls individualized now? What I mean is, if I open up the Piano Roll and the Controller Pane, when I look at the Controller Pane it used to be able to be divided for each type of MIDI CC control in Sonar. If I wanted to see both my modulation and my velocity, I could do that. But in Bandlab for some stupid and unknown reason, you can only select viewing one at a time by highlighting it in the bottom left corner.

This is single lane controllers.  This view can be reverted back to multi controller lane by heading to PRV menu - Vew - Show Multiple Lanes

Note: I am the opposite.  I use many controllers in each MIDI track.  Multi controller lane view made these hard to work with (each land was too narrow).  In fact, I only updated to Sonar Platinum when single lane controller view were introduced.  I have only ever used Single Lane Controller View in PRV.

I could not even imagine going back to Sonar Platinum for MIDI editing.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Promidi

[Will.]

11 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

.mQuick example: in Sonar when I'm looking at the mixer and ctrl+click and drag a fader down, it adjusts all faders at the same time. In Cakewalk though, ctrl+clicking does absolutely nothing to a fader unless you have all of the faders selected. Wasn't the entire original point of being able to ctrl+click a fader to avoid having to select them all in the first place?

Well, this was annoying and broken in SPLAT which created a lot of issues for many. 

Now, it works perfectly as it was intented to work in sonar, but never got to be fixed. Like the above member said: It is now a fully working quick group function that are multi-functioned with sweet benefits to it. 

11 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

But in Bandlab for some stupid and unknown reason, you can only select viewing one at a time by highlighting it in the bottom left corner. Who thought this was a good idea and needed to be changed?

Not a stupid idea at all. If you had spend more time trying to figure this out, you wouldve noticed the ability are still there for a multi view pane. It just make more sense to have a single pane view anyway. 

Bandlab caters for all. Making workflow more streamline. Thousands of bugs that sonar had (like those you've mentioned) were fixed by Bandlab developers who happens to be the old team of Sonar anyway. 

Wait-What?! Would you look at that, who would have known? 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Will.

[Byron Dickens]

10 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

Are there even solutions for these issues of mine?

RTFM

[David Baay]

 

 

21 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

for some stupid and unknown reason

Sorry, but I have to ask: How can a reason be both unkown and known to be stupid? ?

I believe the issues have been addressed. I will only add that there was coincidentally a recent discussion about the fact that the documentaiotn still says the Quick Grouping affects all like-controls when no tracks are selected though that is actually no longer the case.  Given it was documented, this behavior was clearly not a bug, but it seems the Bakers thought better of it when a number of users were caught out by it, inadvertently making undesired changes to all tracks. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Often the Bakers will make such behaviors optional, but this is one case where they apparently decided it was not necessary and would just clutter up preferences with options that most users would never know or care about. If you want quick grouping to affect everything, you can just hit Ctrl+A which is more intuitive than  selecting nothing.

And finally, I'll take advantage of this particularly timely opportunity to point out that this is a perfect example of why it can be problematic to make even minor changes to longstanding behavior/appearance of the UI. There are always users who depend on the exisitng implementation and will be aggravated by the change.

Edited September 1, 2022 by David Baay

[Byron Dickens]

And I will take advantage of this particularly timely opportunity to point out that this is a perfect example of why it can be problematic to not stay reasonably updated.

[sjoens]

As discussed in another thread, the Quick Group function was changed but the manual wasn't.

BTW, I am well known for being stupid but no one knows why. ?

[InstrEd]

5 minutes ago, sjoens said:

As discussed in another thread, the Quick Group function was changed but the manual wasn't.

BTW, I am well known for being IQ challenged but no one knows why. ?

Changed that for you as I feel the same way at times

[Will.]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

Given it was documented, this behavior was clearly not a bug, 

Even with it being documented - it was the case back then. It had a BUG. I remember reporting this in the old forum where it would grab a pan knob (if it was the last step) before wanting to do the "quick group." It caused a lot of unwanted tweaks, because the last step that was done were still locked in on the previous worked on track or tweaked macro (with that open bracket four corner shape thing.) I believe it is still being used today in CbB, but its unlinked to any mouse movement and key press. So, with that i'll stand firm on this by saying it was in fact a bug even if it was intended to work that way, documented or not. 

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

Sorry, but I have to ask: How can a reason be both unkown and known to be stupid? ?

Dont know, it's the OP's statement. 

By the way: You make it sound like, I said it, by quoting that BS with my name to it. ??? Not cool!

My topic on reset all gain to unity like with the faders and this thread are two widely different topics. Dont be an a**!

Edited August 31, 2022 by Will.

[David Baay]

2 hours ago, Will. said:

By the way: You make it sound like, I said it, by quoting that BS with my name to it. ??? Not cool!

I just selected in your quote of the OP, and clicked the quote button.  For some stupid and unknown reason, the forum software did not understand I meant to quote the OP.  I'll fix it.

 

2 hours ago, Will. said:

My topic on reset all gain to unity like with the faders and this thread are two widely different topics. Dont be an a**!

Tell me with a straight face you weren't referring to that thread when you said:

11 hours ago, Will. said:

Well, this was annoying and broken in SPLAT which created a lot of issues for many. 

?

[Will.]

? Wear your reading glasses @David Baay ?

Edited September 1, 2022 by Will.

[criticsconfession]

18 hours ago, Promidi said:

This is call quick groups.  You can adjust multiple track's parameters by holding ctrl while adjusting that parameter.  This works for many parameters, not just level.

I'm aware of what quick groups are and it's not what I asked about at all. In all versions of Sonar at the very least since X1, everything would be quick grouped by default when you pressed ctrl and adjusted a parameter. I'm asking if it's possible to have that be the default again. Would be a total pain in the ***** to have to select like 30 different tracks or buses before just to adjust all of them instead of y'know, just pressing one button and doing what I wanted to do immediately.

[msmcleod]

9 hours ago, criticsconfession said:

I'm aware of what quick groups are and it's not what I asked about at all. In all versions of Sonar at the very least since X1, everything would be quick grouped by default when you pressed ctrl and adjusted a parameter. I'm asking if it's possible to have that be the default again. Would be a total pain in the ***** to have to select like 30 different tracks or buses before just to adjust all of them instead of y'know, just pressing one button and doing what I wanted to do immediately.

I was told the issue was that users were accidentally holding down CTRL and inadvertently changing everything when they didn't mean to, which is why it was changed to not quick group unless there was a selection.

In any case, if you really do want to change everything, just press CTRL + A before you do your adjustment.

[Lord Tim]

Do CTRL+A to select all tracks, and then CTRL+drag on the control you want to adjust, and it'll do every track, like Mark said above. It's one more keystroke to get the old behaviour back. I certainly prefer the new way, it's less prone to project wide disasters.

Or, alternatively, in Track View you can swipe your mouse over each track number to select or deselect a range, or SHIFT+click the first and last track number to select only those tracks within that range. Then CTRL+drag will work just on what's selected.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Lord Tim

[Starship Krupa]

On 8/30/2022 at 7:55 PM, criticsconfession said:

I've been wanting to switch over from Sonar Platinum for years now but every time I try Cakewalk by Bandlab there are just so many tiny little nuisances that just don't exist in Sonar and were often just default features.

Are you waiting for the behavior to change back to the way you preferred it? The longer you wait, the more changed and new features you'll need to learn if you want to stay proficient.

Also, if you stick around and keep an eye on the forum, you can raise a voice of dissent to changes you don't like.

These changes happen because a lot of people chime in with things like "I accidentally held Control when I meant to hold Shift when I moved the fader and now my entire mix is off." Despite pleas from myself and others, fader moves are still not Undo-able changes. So I like it the way it behaves now.

Put in a feature request to make the old behavior available via editing an .INI file or whatever.