Morten Saether Posted September 17 Share Posted September 17 New in Sonar 2024.09 build 30.09.0.105: In the prior Sonar release we made several performance improvements to the audio engine to improve CPU use and low latency performance. In this release we continue with the trend of optimizing Sonar with an additional focus on optimizing MIDI editing responsiveness and streaming, especially when dealing with large multitrack projects. Engine Optimizations Playback MIDI playback has been greatly optimized to reduce CPU load when playing dense MIDI data. This reduces the load when processing projects, allowing the engine to easily process data at even low MIDI buffer sizes. Synth playback has further optimizations to reduce CPU use in projects with many synth tracks. These improvements tackle problems leading to dropped notes in high load situations. Dynamic MIDI buffer size management In large projects, sonar will detect high load scenarios when processing MIDI and automatically detect the MIDI buffer size requirement for that session to avoid dropouts caused by MIDI buffer underruns. If high load is detected, Sonar displays a toast notification showing you the recommended buffer size. Choosing the recommended buffer size temporarily boosts it, allowing you to continue playback without any dropped notes. Note: This will not change the default MIDI buffer size in playback settings, but just changes it for that run session. You can see the result of this dynamic change in preferences, even though it won't be saved explicitly until the user changes the value manually. Project Load and Shutdown Reduced volume of message queueing during project load Mitigate problems caused by plugins that saturate windows with excess messages. This could cause other plugins to fail to show UI, or even interfere with Sonar loading its UI correctly when opening projects containing such plugins. Stop background meter activity while loading projects to free CPU bandwidth New Quick Exit Modes Exiting Sonar while a project is loaded can sometimes take longer than expected if the project contains a lot of virtual instruments or consumes a lot of memory. The most common reasons can be attributed to any of the following: Using large projects, typically with virtual instruments that load large sample libraries that take a while to release memory Audio drivers that are slow to un-initialize 3rd party plugin issues that prevent the app from shutting down properly Sonar now allows you to engage a Quick Exit mode that skips expensive shutdown processing when exiting the app, albeit far more safely than using Task Manager to kill the task. To use Quick Exit mode, hold down the CTRL or ALT modifier key when exiting the app. Note: The Quick Exit mode modifier keys only apply when exiting the app by clicking the app close button (x) or selecting the File > Exit menu command, and not when simply closing a project within the application. This is because individual projects must be closed normally to release memory resources. Quick Exit mode skips the normal project close process, bypassing manual memory release operations and other unnecessary functions, and instead defers to the operating system to reclaim memory. This allows the application to exit as fast as possible. Note: The primary benefit of Quick Exit mode is to improve the response time when exiting the application with large projects loaded. If Sonar exits quickly with your project, there is no benefit of using Quick Exit mode. There are three exit modes: Normal exit (default behavior with no modifier key): Always use normal exit if you don’t have problem with slow shutdown of the application. Closes the application and closes any open projects. Manually releases all consumed memory by the application and plugins. Releases audio and MIDI drivers. CTRL+Exit (faster than the normal application close) Closes the application, only performing essential app shutdown operations. Skips closing any loaded projects and releasing consumed memory resources, deferring the operating system to reclaim memory. The application is force closed using same mechanism as Windows Task Manager. Plugin DLLs are force unloaded. Global plugin resources, if any, may not be released. ALT+Exit Exits the application and additionally notifies DLLs to unload and release global resources, if any. Some plugin DLLs can hang with this method, so if you encounter this, do not use this exit mode. Similar to CTRL+Exit in other aspects. User Interface and Editing Optimizations to streamline handling of large multitrack projects. Many common editing and streaming operations have been finetuned to be orders of magnitude faster. Duplicating clips in synth projects has been greatly optimized Undo/redo operations for clip edits are much faster Splitting clips is much faster Track split is now much faster when articulations are present. The speed for archiving multiple tracks has been greatly improved by many orders of magnitude. Console view scrolling is improved. Optimized redundant redraws of track scale. Multitrack Piano Roll view drag drop optimizations Major improvements to drag and drop operation speed in Multitrack Piano Roll view when dealing with thousands of events. Prior to this change, dragging large multitrack note selections in the Piano Roll view to move to transpose was very slow and could even lock up with large amounts of notes. This operation is now thousands of times faster and has been tested with huge numbers of events in excess of 60K. The drop operation has also been sped up significantly. MIDI drawing optimizations New Enable GPU Acceleration option in Preferences > Customization - Display that allows the Piano Roll view to use GPU acceleration. This option is disabled by default. Note: Certain graphic cards may cause anomalies when GPU acceleration is enabled. General Optimizations: Further optimization for synth playback to reduce CPU use in projects with many synth tracks. Improvements to synth rendering to prevent race conditions leading to dropped notes in high load situations. Improvements to prevent plugins from flooding message queue when loading projects. Added mitigation for plugins that cause lost application notifications leading to loss of play head and meter activity during playback Sync Synth Rack strips with current track Clicking on an Instrument track will now also focus the corresponding synth in the Synth Rack. This behavior can be toggled via the Synchronize Track and Synth Rack Views option in the Synth Rack menu. Delete all articulation events belonging to an articulation map, group or specific articulation ID You can now quickly delete specific articulations that are in use in a project, directly from the Articulation Map editor. To do so, right-click the desired articulation map, articulation group, or articulations and select Delete All Sections. The Delete All Sections context menu command is available in the outlined areas: Note: Currently articulation maps, articulation groups, and articulations that have sections in use are shown in bold within the Articulation Map Editor, so it’s easy to see which ones have sections that can/should be deleted. Command to "Select Associated Tracks/Buses" Track and bus strips have a new Select Associated Tracks/Buses context menu command that allows you to select all source tracks/buses that route to the track/bus. Tip: In addition to the new menu command, you can also hold down the ALT key and click on the track or bus number to select source tracks on bus strips and to show destination buses on track strips. Command to "Select Associated Instrument Tracks" via the Synth Rack To select all Instrument tracks that are associated with a specific synth, right-click the synth in the Synth Rack and select Select Associated Instrument Tracks. New "Left Click Sets Track Focus" global option The new Left Click Sets Track Focus global option (disabled by default) allows you to set the focused track by left-clicking in the Clips pane (such as when selecting clip or making a time selection). To enable/disable this behavior, click the Track view Options menu and select Click Behavior > Left Click Sets Track Focus. This option can be useful if you prefer clicking in the clips pane to set the focus track. Improved Toast Notifications Resolved some stability issues and race conditions with toast notifications that could cause toasts to stop working altogether under high load scenarios while loading a project and performing a VST scan at the same time. Toast Notifications are now flicker free. Improvements to handling of Expired Session notifications BandLab sign-in is required to activate Sonar. For security, even if you have previously signed in from the app, a sign-in cookie has a limited lifetime and can expire. When the sign-in expires, you will be required to re sign-in, whenever the activation lease needs to be renewed, or if you wish to use BandLab services to upload projects etc. Sonar now detects when a user sign in has expired and explicitly prompts you to sign-in when necessary, via a toast notification. This status is also shown in the Help menu, to help distinguish between a signed-out state vs an expired sign-in state. Note: When in an expired sign in state the application cannot auto activate itself. Misc.: Frozen or missing synths show note numbers instead of diatonic note names Pitch Changes in the Piano Roll view now preserve clip cropping VST scanner has been updated to correctly scan WavesShell for ARA plugins Improved project load notifications for projects containing multiple instrument instances Lasso selecting in the Clips pane sets track focus Fixed: Inconsistent TV track header control layout after showing hidden tracks Fixed: Crash triggering MIDI note from controller Fixed: [Regression] Lyrics disappear when typing in Lyrics view Fixed: [Regression] Editing track names clunky Fixed: [Regression] Dragged clips have no transparency Fixed: [Regression] Seeking now time while playing MIDI track leads to silence Fixed: [Regression] Lyrics view does not accept input Fixed: Crash CTRL-clicking the engine reset button Fixed: Crash When selecting tracks with effects Fixed: Drag / Drop changing pitch in Piano Roll view causing notes to move in time Fixed: Crash opening Help menu after sign out Fixed: User project crashes in Loop Construction view when loading in Sonar Fixed: Clip extents change when moving note pitches in Piano Roll view Fixed: Cannot use standard Windows shortcut keys for the app menu while Quick Start Screen is open Fixed: [Regression] Nudging MIDI vertically can remove controller events unexpectedly Fixed: [Regression] Unable to adjust velocity in drum grid / mute notes in Piano Roll view Fixed: Resolved several reports of operations leading to UI going unresponsive to mouse clicks. Fixed: [Regression] Console view bus strips fail to display selection properly Fixed: Browser folder pane too narrow on high DPI displays Fixed: Scroll Lock not working in Event List view Fixed: Transform Articulations should always chase, regardless of chase controller setting Fixed: Media Browser "Folders" visibility tick box does not persist with project Fixed: Note changes unexpectedly when dragging in Piano Roll view after clip crop in Track view Fixed: Drag moving notes in Piano Roll view from cropped clip unexpectedly restores original length Fixed: Crash when quick group freezing synths Fixed: Drag and Drop of images for track Icons targets wrong track when there are hidden tracks Fixed: [Regression] Swipe select / Quick Grouping not working in Console view bus pane Fixed: VocalSync UI appears and immediately closes after adding a Region FX to a clip Fixed: [Regression] Adjusting height of docked Help Module results in docking layout issue Fixed: [Regression] MIDI notes change position unexpectedly after nudging up/down Fixed: When multiple ARA plugins are found within a single VST3 shell all plugins in the shell are treated as ARA Fixed: Media Browser "Folders" visibility tick box does not persist with project Fixed: Undoing Delete of synth doesn't activate synth until playback Fixed: Scroll Lock not working in Event List view Fixed: Transform Articulations should always chase, regardless of chase controller setting Fixed: [Regression] Selection is truncated when opening File Export dialog Fixed: Focused track is not shown in track list after opening Piano Roll view Fixed: Help module flickers with white screen when changing tracks and can show wrong help text Fixed: Synth Rack automation menu appears in wrong place when view is scrolled Fixed: [Regression] Changing current track is very slow when the Synth Rack is open Fixed: Sonar projects MRU should be written after successfully opening project file Fixed: Crash exiting application after drag importing a project file Fixed: [Regression] Missing notes in frozen track Fixed: Scrolling Synth Rack results in incorrect tooltips Fixed: Clicking in Arranger track noticeably slow to move Now Time Fixed: Missing notes in track 83 of user project Fixed: Windows message queue is flooded during project load resulting in lost messages / bugs Fixed: Target box for 'Drag to create Send' is misaligned on scaled displays Fixed: Drag Add Send Highlight not centered Fixed: Duplicating MIDI clips with CTRL+D is very slow in heavy synth projects Fixed: Now Time stops scrolling in time ruler when cursor in Articulations lane Fixed: Aim Assist is laggy in Articulations lane Fixed: Unable to open Piano Roll view after loading a project Fixed: VST scan complete or project load complete messages could not be displayed in some cases with large projects Fixed: Deleting a MIDI clip or editing articulation maps removes solo exclusive state on all tracks Fixed: Icons in Synth Rack don't draw correctly when scrolling Fixed: Slow drag and drop in Piano Roll view when lots of notes are selected Fixed: [Regression] Export as Track of Single Track with non-wildcard name appends track name unexpectedly Fixed: Synth Rack Icon position / display issues Fixed: Project load toast notifications flicker excessively Fixed: Skipped notes in busy MIDI project Fixed: Hang closing project open toast notification window Fixed: User project has invalid hidden folder state Fixed: First MIDI note is skipped on playback when using 180 ms negative delay time offset for articulations Fixed: Piano Roll view Now Time flickers during playback Fixed: [Regression] Jump images in Tempo Inspector are not disappearing when mouse leaves Fixed: Synth icons draw incorrectly in Synth Rack when vertically scrolled Fixed: Moving an effect's position within the same FX bin orphans existing envelopes Fixed: Node nudge in Piano Roll view sometimes misses notes from selection Fixed: Poor Time Ruler mouse hit testing on high DPI displays Fixed: Changing Workspace causes Synth Rack solo state to lose sync Fixed: Synth rack scroll wheel immediately jumps to end of synth rack when scrolling Fixed: ALT-click track number would not select strips in Bus pane Fixed: Excessive track scale painting in Tracks view Fixed: Main menu is not accessible via ALT+first letter of the menu name immediately after creating a new project in Sonar Fixed: Splitting a clip in projects in high track count projects containing Articulation maps is very slow Fixed: Crash when using shelf tool in Tempo track Fixed: Toast notification can stop displaying after app launch after loading certain projects while a VST scan is underway Fixed: [Regression] Selecting a clip doesn't change the track select indicator Fixed: Transport play head and meter activity can stop with certain plugins in the project Fixed: Hang when doing Render Region FX with Auto Align 2 Fixed: Step Record dialog behaves incorrectly while dragging on a high DPI display Fixed: Bus dB scale text appears above bus pane Fixed: Now Time artifact left behind in Piano Roll view time ruler when playback stops Fixed: Now Time appears in wrong place after docking Control Bar at top/bottom. Fixed: Opening Piano Roll view with selected tracks (or clips) should open with only the selected tracks Fixed: Activation toast: Link to Help Center activation topic Fixed: Toast related crash when loading a project while a VST scan is run Please give us feedback on this release. We hope you like it Sonar 2024 Overview 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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