Please add colour customization at least for PRV

[Astraios]

2 hours ago, sjoens said:

Niemand. Ich meine, niemand macht MIDI besser als Cakewalk. Aber es gibt da draußen ein paar nette Funktionen, die implementiert werden könnten.

I wish I could agree with you, but I think some people would disagree with you...  Anyway, the Sonar PRV is really far out.

[sjoens]

For me it is true.  But  I cannot speak for others.  I can't even spreche kein Deutsch, so I can neither confirm nor deny if I said what you say I said.  But I probably did.    Then again, things can get skewed in translation.

Edited yesterday at 12:46 AM by sjoens

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

19 hours ago, sjoens said:

Nobody.  I mean, nobody, does MIDI better than Cakewalk.  But there are some nice features out there that could be implemented.

Nobody? I’ve got to disagree there. Cakewalk’s MIDI core is solid, but it’s missing a lot of things other DAWs have had for years: humanize, iterative quantize, non-destructive quantize, probability/randomisation tools, per-note expression, proper MIDI FX racks, etc. Even the Articulation Maps — while useful — aren’t as tightly integrated as Cubase’s Expression Maps.

There’s a reason most big Hollywood film scores get written in Cubase or Logic. They just offer deeper, more modern MIDI toolsets that streamline the workflow. Cakewalk still feels stuck in the mid-2000s on that front.

[sjoens]

It's been the only reason I stay with Cakewalk.  Cubase and others don't work for me.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

3 hours ago, sjoens said:

Cubase and others don't work for me.

Well it's good enough for Hans Zimmer so....🙄

[Bass Guitar]

It’s also $800 for the full version. 
 

I own Elements 14 and have been using Cubase since the Atari version. 
But Elements is what would have been Sonar Artist or Home Studio. So it’s missing features and a lot of add on plugins. 
I always liked software that has price points for the different tiers. 
And not to mention the good old LE or Lite versions of software that comes with hardware like many Audio interfaces do. 
Example you can get a free license to S1 when you buy a Presonus interface or controller. 
 

My very first version of Sonar Guitar Studio was free with a Roland Keyboard as they owned it back then. Later I got X1 LE free with a Tascam interface. 
 

Back around the release of Sonar there was a brief mention about releasing the tiered versions and so I was dreaming of the return of Home Studio, Artist, Professional and Platinum. 

That is a good system for software as it makes it accessible to people with different needs and budgets. 
Sonar Home Studio was $40 and Platinum was about $450 and Artist and Professional were somewhere in between. I Never could afford the full version so I had X3 Studio and the Sonar Professional. I scored Platinum cheap when I took the bait for the infamous Lifetime Upgrade deal. 

I guess we sort of got 2 versions that are equal to Professional and Platinum but not for a price point as expected and hoped for. 

Hopefully Bandlab will sell off Cakewalk once again and the new owners will look after it better. 
 

 

[matt]

The one thing the paid version of Sonar got me (pre-Bandlab) was a really nice crossgrade price to Cubase.  I forget but I think it was in the $249 range and I've been updating every couple years to keep it current even though I don't use Cubase much.  If you paid for Sonar or the lifetime deal you might still be able to get it, obviously the free version of Cakewalk/Sonar does not qualify for a crossgrade.

The one issue with Cubase that I can't get past, and I would love it if someone corrected me... I absolutely need volume/pan controls in track view, not in a console/mixer view.  If I can't get volume/pan controls in the track view my whole workflow grinds to a halt.

[Starship Krupa]

8 hours ago, matt said:

The one issue with Cubase that I can't get past, and I would love it if someone corrected me... I absolutely need volume/pan controls in track view, not in a console/mixer view.  If I can't get volume/pan controls in the track view my whole workflow grinds to a halt.

You have got to be kidding.

That's so absurd that I Googled it to see if maybe your info was out of date. What I found was that apparently Google's AI thinks it's beyond possibility for a DAW not to have level and pan controls in the track headers, because it says that Cubase has them. However, I found a long thread on one of Steinberg's user support pages where people are begging for it, even posting their own mockups. That's a more concrete indication that it actually does not. From what I can make out they have an inspector to the left of the track headers that includes those controls, so in order to adjust the level or pan on a track from the track view, you have to select the track, then make your adjustments in the inspector.

What could they be thinking? Isn't Cubase one of those DAW's that's been around since like before MIDI and originally called Pizza and Pipes or something like that? There are so many reasons you want those controls right there in your track header. It's kind of the bare minimum, isn't it? Solo, mute, arm, level and pan. Of course, it's nice if you can get all the widgets that Sonar offers such as phase, interleave, I/O, and the FX rack.

Aside from just being clumsy, one practical reason I can think of is being able to see at a glance how multiple tracks are panned.

It's this kind of WTF stuff that is the terror of would be DAW switchers: the program looks pretty cool overall and has some nice features that your current/previous one lacks, so you go for it. Then a couple of hours into your project, you get around to setting up the track header controls how you want them, kinda odd that the factory configuration leaves volume and pan off but whatever, where do we find the settings to turn them on. Hmm, can't find it in any config menu....not in global preferences. Maybe ask on the user forum, Reddit or Discord....wait, WHAT???

Or maybe you want to program some beats in this Cakewalk Sonar thing that came with your BandLab membership and you want a MIDI grid that displays the names of the individual kit pieces. To do that in your other DAW you use something called a "drum map." Let's see, does Sonar have a similar drum map feature for its nice piano roll view? In this View menu there's Show/Hide Drum Pane. Nailed it! So how do I get those kit piece names over on the left so I can see what I'm doing?

Three hours later, that beat you wanted to program is a distant memory, and you resemble Commodore Matt Decker from Star Trek's "The Doomsday Machine."

[user905133]

Never mind.

Edited 8 hours ago by user905133

[msmcleod]

10 hours ago, matt said:

The one issue with Cubase that I can't get past, and I would love it if someone corrected me... I absolutely need volume/pan controls in track view, not in a console/mixer view.  If I can't get volume/pan controls in the track view my whole workflow grinds to a halt.

[matt]

54 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

Yes of course, this is how Sonar works... and, last time I checked, Cubase lacks.

[Will.]

6 minutes ago, matt said:

Yes of course, this is how Sonar works... and, last time I checked, Cubase lacks.

Click Track Control Manager for more options. 

[user905133]

32 minutes ago, matt said:

Yes of course, this is how Sonar works... and, last time I checked, Cubase lacks.

Thanks for clarifying this.  I originally thought your post was intended as a criticism of Sonar (as if to say Sonar didn't have volume/pan controls in the Track View, only in the Console View), but on re-reading the post, it became clear to me that your issue was with Cubase and you were actually praising Sonar.

I think what fooled me is that paragraph 1 seemed to be saying the one [i.e., only] thing good about the paid version of pre-Bandlab SONAR was it got you a nice crossgrade price to Cubase (in the $249 range).  This seemed to be consistent with the suggestion that people who paid for SONAR / Sonar might still be able to get the "nice crossgrade price."

So when I re-read your post and realized (1) my misunderstanding and (2) how I came to misunderstand your post, I withdrew my post which had the following:

Anyhow, this is the Feedback Loop and the OP's request as well as the early suggestions was for having increased user control over colors/colours in Cakewalk Sonar, specifically in the PRV. 

Personally, in CbB, I used customizaed colors for the fonts and background of track/bus names for the different types (audio, instrument, MIDI, buses, etc.) so I could more easily see the different types of horizontal sections in the Track View Headers as well as to differentiate which specific track had the focus. 

If controls over those could be done in Cakewalk Sonar, I'd love to see that as well.  Thanks.

Edited 6 hours ago by user905133
word changes for the sake of clarification; fixed typo

[matt]

25 minutes ago, Will. said:

Click Track Control Manager for more options. 

I added every thing you can possibly add but still don't see any volume/pan controls in the track view?

 

 

[matt]

6 minutes ago, user905133 said:

Thanks for clarifying this.  I originally thought your post was intended as a criticism of Sonar (as if to say Sonar didn't have volume/pan controls in the Track View, only in the Console View), but on re-reading the post, it became clear to me that your issue was with Cubase and you were actually praising Sonar.

I think what fooled me is that paragraph 1 seemed to be saying the one [i.e., only] thing good about the paid version of pre-Bandlab SONAR was it got you a nice crossgrade price to Cubase (in the $249 range).  This seemed to be consistent with the suggestion that people who paid for SONAR / Sonar might still be able to get the "nice crossgrade price."

Apologies for the misunderstanding.  I have been contemplating the switch to Cubase from Cakewalk for years and years but not having volume/pan in the track view is a dealbreaker for me, I can't get past that.  Even now, I am very unhappy with the lack of color customization in this new Sonar, but I would rather deal with the bad colors than no volume/pan controls.  Anyway still hopeful the colors will get worked out...

[Will.]

7 minutes ago, matt said:

I added everything you can possibly add but still don't see any volume/pan controls in the track view? 

 

You know you're in the Sonar forum, right? 

This is Sonar's Track Control Manager window - where you can choose whatever you'd like to see on your tracks in the track view. 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Will.

[user905133]

2 minutes ago, matt said:

I added every thing you can possibly add but still don't see any volume/pan controls in the track view?

I guess my attempt to get the discussion back onto the topic of colors/colours failed.  😞 

[matt]

3 minutes ago, Will. said:

You know you're in the Sonar forum, right? 

I know how Sonar works... was not debating that I got all my widgets nicely lined up the way I like them.  By quoting my post I thought you were trying to tell me how to get them into Cubase.  Sorry!

 

6 minutes ago, user905133 said:

I guess my attempt to get the discussion back onto the topic of colors/colours failed.  😞 

Let's talk about colors!  Before another post about colors gets locked....

[Will.]

1 minute ago, matt said:

I know how Sonar works... was not debating that I got all my widgets nicely lined up the way I like them.  By quoting my post I thought you were trying to tell me how to get them into Cubase.  Sorry!

There we go clarification . . . Ah-No. 🙂

[msmcleod]

More colour customisation is coming: