Cakewalk Sonar Default virtual piano keyboard

[Patrick Wichrowski]

8 hours ago, August Spencer said:

The great variety of Virtual Keyboard GUI's shown by this thread readers point to some odd coding thereof and an undesirable octave reduction in new Sonar.

Here are my screenshots of my Bandlab Cakewalk version and the new Sonar one on exactly the same laptop, monitor, etc. 

Cakewalk opens a nice 5 octave keyboard, clear and unclaterred whereas new Sonar only 2 large unwieldy 2 octave keyboard. For the record.

 

This 5 octaves virtual keyboard is a must have

[msmcleod]

On 9/4/2025 at 6:51 AM, Bristol_Jonesey said:

I've got a touchscreen on my laptop.

This is what I get. And nothing is draggable or expandable 😄😄😄😄😄

I think something is broken

 

Can you let us know your monitor configuration - e.g.:

Primary Monitor 1920 x 1080, 100% scaling (left),  Secondary 3840 x 2160, 175% scaling (right)

[Bristol_Jonesey]

2 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Can you let us know your monitor configuration - e.g.:

Primary Monitor 1920 x 1080, 100% scaling (left),  Secondary 3840 x 2160, 175% scaling (right)

Hi Mark

This is on a Dell XPS 17 9710 laptop. Single monitor only.

Resolution is at 3840 x 2100 (recommended)

Scaling is at 250%

 

Hope this helps!

[August Spencer]

This is my current  pc set up.
HP Spectre  x360 touchscreen laptop. I do not use the touchscreen function but it is there.

Pavilion 32" external monitor. Perfect for DAW editing.

Attached screen of display setup.
 

[August Spencer]

Here it is November 13, 2025 and I have not seen any action or reply from  Sonar about the Virtual Piano Keyboard GUI unwanted octave reduction. I posted 2 bug reports much earlier based on 2 Sonar versions. 

If they don´t think it is important, perhaps they should unblock the use of the last version of Cakewalk by Bandlab so that we can have a workaround Sonar deficiencies until they see fit to fix them...

[August Spencer]

For completeness on this subject, and since no reply or fix has been put forth by Sonar, I dusted off my original first keyboard: the Yamaha DX11 with 5 0ctaves and connected it via MAudio Midisport 2x2 USB interface to my laptop. Though it takes  some space on my working desk, it works perfectly entering MIDI notes in Sonar. No cumbersome octave scale shifting necessary, mostly. 

 

[AB99]

1 hour ago, August Spencer said:

For completeness on this subject, and since no reply or fix has been put forth by Sonar, I dusted off my original first keyboard: the Yamaha DX11 with 5 0ctaves and connected it via MAudio Midisport 2x2 USB interface to my laptop. Though it takes  some space on my working desk, it works perfectly entering MIDI notes in Sonar. No cumbersome octave scale shifting necessary, mostly. 

 

I would think it has other benefits too, especially for playing VI instruments.   It also has some pretty cool sounds in it! Enjoy!

Edited Monday at 07:43 PM by AB99

[sjoens]

FWIW, the VKB has always had display issues depending on monitor setup.  But 5 octaves??? 

[Bristol_Jonesey]

On 9/4/2025 at 6:51 AM, Bristol_Jonesey said:

I've got a touchscreen on my laptop.

This is what I get. And nothing is draggable or expandable 😄😄😄😄😄

I think something is broken

 

I haven't changed a thing on my system since my original post, now the virtual keyboard looks like this.

At least this is useable

 

Edited yesterday at 07:43 AM by Bristol_Jonesey

[sjoens]

That just simply is not fair!   Must be a bug as the tiny octave picker only shows 3 octaves - so which 3 are displayed?

Maybe a line in the Initialization file could be added to set displayed octaves??

[Xoo]

Could it vary depending on whether Windows thinks/knows the screen is a touchscreen one or not?

[Amberwolf]

 

12 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

I haven't changed a thing on my system since my original post, now the virtual keyboard looks like this.

Assuming you have not updated Sonar itself at all and it's still running the exact same version as then, then without knowing how Sonar is determining what to show, my best guess is that (if you haven't disabled these)  a Windows update or driver update has changed something in what's reported to Sonar for the capabilities of the system, and Sonar is then adapting the keyboard to these. 

But that's a whole bunch of suppositions, so....  

[sjoens]

I interpret the documentation to mean the overall size of the VKB is determined by touch screen or no touch screen, not how many keys it shows.  But I can't find anything beyond the help files on it.

Speaking of suppositions or theories, I also think VKB coding is internal and relies on how Cakewalk interprets system video settings.  Including how many octaves are shown.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

11 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

 

Assuming you have not updated Sonar itself at all and it's still running the exact same version as then, then without knowing how Sonar is determining what to show, my best guess is that (if you haven't disabled these)  a Windows update or driver update has changed something in what's reported to Sonar for the capabilities of the system, and Sonar is then adapting the keyboard to these. 

But that's a whole bunch of suppositions, so....  

Yes mate, there have been several Windows updates to this Win 11 laptop since my first post, so it could well be that.

I'll try my studio rig later on which is still on Win 10