Sonar 2025.05 Feedback

[Jonathan Sasor]

Hi all - please use this topic to post feedback specific to the Sonar 2025.05 release. Release-specific feedback is valuable to us, and consolidating it in a single topic is extremely helpful.

We request that  discussion in this thread be restricted to issues directly concerning this release, to make it easier for us to assist users. For other topics, kindly use the feature request section or create new posts.  Off topic messages will be deleted.

Thanks in advance!

Sonar 2024 Overview

[Base 57]

"Secondary Now Time display moved to main toolbar Now Time display as second row"

 I don't like this. I don't remember anyone asking for it. The other way was better. I suppose I will get used to it.

"Color theme improvements"

Can someone elaborate on this please?

[Base 57]

I've been using it for several hours now. Everything is working very well. My only problem is the secondary now time display is too small. I can't see it well without changing the scaling (which I'm not going to do).

Other than that one thing, I'm happy with it.

Thanks

[Scott C. Stahl]

Melodyne Now time stops following project. Plugin works, but now time cursor frozen. Reboot of Sonar repairs it, but soon stops running again 

[Sergei Pilin]

6 hours ago, Base 57 said:

9 hours ago, Base 57 said:

"Color theme improvements"

Can someone elaborate on this please?

 

I guess it's these ones, black on darkest grey. The harder to read, the more improvement there is, it looks like.

[pwalpwal]

37 minutes ago, Sergei Pilin said:

I guess it's these ones, black on darkest grey. The harder to read, the more improvement there is, it looks like.

blimey, that is surely an error

[Milton Sica]

MIDI DEVICES - KORG NANO KONTROL 2 - DOES NOT CONNECT

I set the MIDI Device and Control Surface preferences for my Kork Nano Kontrol 2 (Mackie).

In Cakewalk it is set.

In SONAR, I immediately get a message that the device was not found and that I have to set it in Preferences.

I do this, but nothing happens.

[Aaron Doss]

I updated yesterday and experienced my first issue today.  I am using Ozone 11 Mastering plugin (on the master bus) and it randomly stops working.  The master bus goes completely silent even though the individual track VU meters are still moving/responding to the audio on the track.  Disabling or removing the plugin on the master bus does not fix the issue.  I have to restart Sonar and everything starts working again (at least for a few minutes)

The problem appears to be related to the Ozone 11 plugin, If I don't add it to the FX chain, I don't seem to have issues.  This was never an issue in the previous versions,  I hope you guys can get it fixed since I can't export a mastered track without the audio dropout.

 

Update:  I am looking into this issue more, it seems I can replicate it on Cakewalk as well as Sonar, and Cakewalk was not updated.  I had one other concurrent update that was a "Windows 11 24H2 cumulative update" that was automatically installed yesterday.  I am also running plugin automation in this project, which could be causing an issue.  I am not convinced that this is a Sonar 2025.05 bug; it may be a Windows update bug that was introduced or an Ozone 11 bug. 

However, if it is an Ozone bug, I would expect that removing the plugin from the FX chain would restore audio back to normal in Sonar/Cakewalk.   Once the issue occurs, I lose all audio output from Cakewalk/Sonar until I restart the application.  So, there is an underlying issue that should probably be looked at.  

 

Edited yesterday at 06:34 PM by Aaron Doss

[John T]

Another vote from me against this now time thing, though not entirely.

I can completely see the logic of moving it; it made no sense where it was. However, I think this is an example of under-solving a problem.

It sensibly belongs alongside the main now time, but there's not actually room to make it readable without redesigning that box more throughly. "Just make it tiny" is not a solution. A swing and a miss, IMO.

To generalise this point a bit, I dabble with each Sonar version as it comes out, but I haven't yet got a membership. The subscription model isn't my favourite, but it's the generally worse readability than CbB that's actually holding me back. The main interface is quite good, but things like this and the pro channel EQ UI are frustratingly inferior to the previous versions.

Edited yesterday at 07:47 PM by John T

[IgoRr]

Today I installed the latest version of Sonar, and I can say: I think this is the best version in the last year or two! After this update, I now have everything in order with the display of all texts in all windows and sections, the names of modules appeared in the "Style Dial FX" section, which was not there before this update. In addition, the text has now become more contrasting in the windows of the pop-up hint in all places where it appears - on the "Automation" line, in the Piano-roll, etc. And now the track numbers are displayed in the headers, which I also did not have before. And today I am happy - I have a perfectly installed and configured Windows 10 system, I have the best DAW for serious and productive work with music in any style, and the very first project opened today also loaded faster, and is played with less consumption of system resources!

I thank with all my heart the entire team of developers and everyone involved in the "polishing" of my favorite program, happiness to you and good health to all!

[Colin Nicholls]

14 hours ago, Sergei Pilin said:

I guess it's these ones, black on darkest grey. The harder to read, the more improvement there is, it looks like.

Confirmed, I see this in Mercury theme only.

Mercury Classic has black buttons with White text/icon and still looks a little strange, but very functional.

I'm sure the UX Bakers will be all over this in the next release/patch.

I'm a Light Theme user myself and it is much improved in 2025.05, in my opinion.

[Aaron Doss]

11 hours ago, Aaron Doss said:

I updated yesterday and experienced my first issue today.  I am using Ozone 11 Mastering plugin (on the master bus) and it randomly stops working.  The master bus goes completely silent even though the individual track VU meters are still moving/responding to the audio on the track.  Disabling or removing the plugin on the master bus does not fix the issue.  I have to restart Sonar and everything starts working again (at least for a few minutes)

The problem appears to be related to the Ozone 11 plugin, If I don't add it to the FX chain, I don't seem to have issues.  This was never an issue in the previous versions,  I hope you guys can get it fixed since I can't export a mastered track without the audio dropout.

 

Update:  I am looking into this issue more, it seems I can replicate it on Cakewalk as well as Sonar, and Cakewalk was not updated.  I had one other concurrent update that was a "Windows 11 24H2 cumulative update" that was automatically installed yesterday.  I am also running plugin automation in this project, which could be causing an issue.  I am not convinced that this is a Sonar 2025.05 bug; it may be a Windows update bug that was introduced or an Ozone 11 bug. 

However, if it is an Ozone bug, I would expect that removing the plugin from the FX chain would restore audio back to normal in Sonar/Cakewalk.   Once the issue occurs, I lose all audio output from Cakewalk/Sonar until I restart the application.  So, there is an underlying issue that should probably be looked at.  

 

Final Update: 

The issue was related to the automation of the low-pass filter frequency on "Ozone 11 Equalizer" on an individual track.   For some reason, changing the low-pass frequency on the equalizer caused the "Ozone 11 Mastering" plugin (a separate FX plugin on the Master bus) to lock up and cause Sonar to stop outputting audio.  They must use a shared library that enters a corrupted state. 

Removing the automation on the individual track prevents the mastering plugin from corrupting Sonar.

I wanted a sweeping low-pass filter and decided to automate the Sonar Pro-Channel EQ., This works fine.

[Kevin Walsh]

I'm happy with this release, really like the look of the theme, but you know, it may not have changed all that much because I liked it before too. Sonar is certainly the best-looking DAW on the market imho. I needed to reinstall anyway because I think my C runtime dll's got overwritten by another install and I was having a lot of crashes. 

[msmcleod]

On 5/16/2025 at 3:56 AM, Base 57 said:

"Secondary Now Time display moved to main toolbar Now Time display as second row"

 I don't like this. I don't remember anyone asking for it. The other way was better. I suppose I will get used to it.

"Color theme improvements"

Can someone elaborate on this please?

Something else will reside where it used to be.  It's not fully baked yet though.

[Johnny Tsao]

When the UI Color Scheme is set to Light, the text in the Articulation Map Editor window is difficult to read, as shown below:

[Sergei Pilin]

42 minutes ago, Johnny Tsao said:

When the UI Color Scheme is set to Light, the text in the Articulation Map Editor window is difficult to read, as shown below:

This whole thing is a disaster, why there's a random black window in a light theme?The person responsible for UI colors clearly has no any clue about UI design. Please give us back the customizable colors and stop torturing that UI guy

[Johnny Tsao]

There are 4 color schemes after switching to Tunsten Classic,

this will cause the text of The Now Time of the second row to remain black and cannot be read.

They are Light, Light Gray, Mercury and Mercury Classic. Here is the screen recording:

Edited 8 hours ago by Johnny Tsao

[Sergei Pilin]

19 minutes ago, Sergei Pilin said:

This whole thing is a disaster, why there's a random black window in a light theme?The person responsible for UI colors clearly has no any clue about UI design. Please give us back the customizable colors and stop torturing that UI guy

And while we're at it, you've already reduced enough contrast making various BGs a shade of grey, that sure is easier on the eyes than pure white BG. But don't reduce it further by making dark text a shade of grey too, make it BLACK, don't be afraid of black text. Readability is the priority, not some hipster choice of shades of grey so it doesn't distract from whatever. Readability.

[Colin Nicholls]

Jeez you guys are harsh. Having worked in UI I know that there's no pleasing everyone, but cut them some slack. Overall the UI has been steadily improving, and any glitches are soon dealt with. It is OBVIOUS that they care about usability and no-one decided light-grey on white was by design.

Report the issues as you see them, I'm sure they will get resolved.

Also, it's a small development team and any effort put towards a theme editor to please the <10 people who actually care is not good use of resources. I'd prefer they concentrate on their core features, and I'm one of the <10 people.

[Sergei Pilin]

38 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Jeez you guys are harsh. Having worked in UI I know that there's no pleasing everyone, but cut them some slack. Overall the UI has been steadily improving, and any glitches are soon dealt with. It is OBVIOUS that they care about usability and no-one decided light-grey on white was by design.

Report the issues as you see them, I'm sure they will get resolved.

Also, it's a small development team and any effort put towards a theme editor to please the <10 people who actually care is not good use of resources. I'd prefer they concentrate on their core features, and I'm one of the <10 people.

All tastes are different, I completely agree. But there are things of preference (I've seen themes with green text on fire red BG and the guy was proud of it and had no troubles working with it), and then there are BASICS. The clips in the track view are one of the most important things (if not the) to work with in a DAW. Now look at the track view clips of the most used DAWs on the market on my screenshot, and then a light and dark theme of the same in Sonar. How anyone in his right mind could decide that clearly seeing clips in the track view is not important? It's not the matter of taste, it's a matter of professional incompetence.