Feature request related to midi recording

[Sammy D]

Greetings to all.... I've been a long time Sonar user off and on for a number of years. I've consistently made a request for midi merge or overdub recording to a single clip. It's always fallen on death ears and I'm frankly not that optimistic as I make the request now. I've never understood why this feature has always been treated as frivolous. Dealing with midi clips in Sonar has always been messy. Having to bounce to clips to have a single unified performance has always baffled me. While other DAW's offered the option to do separate midi clips, they also offered overdubbing to the same clip as well.  I hope someone on the team will want to bring such a basic feature to reality in a world were stem separation is becoming a new standard in programs and Sonar still behind on basic midi. Let's go team Cakewalk/ Bandlab!

[Base 57]

The way Sound on Sound recorded clips are displayed in Track View is messed up. If you open the take lanes, all of the data in unmuted lanes is displayed in the parent track. But if you close the take lanes, the most recently selected clip is displayed on top of other clips. This is a problem that should be addressed. The parent track should at least show all unmuted data in all lanes always. This would appear to be a single clip.  

So, I am sympathetic to your problem. But...

41 minutes ago, Sammy D said:

Having to bounce to clips to have a single unified performance has always baffled me

Bouncing clips is merging them. Until the bakers make changes that address this problem, learning how to bounce clips is the simplest solution. I would not hold my breath waiting for overdubbing to a single clip.

[sjoens]

I suppose they could make them "appear" to be one clip when hidden, but that might be equally confusing for some users.  IOW, there would be no visual clue there's more than one take on that track.  I'd view having to spend a lot of time expanding TLs just to see if there's more than one take as a waist of time.

OTOH, when they're expanded, the main track does display them all at once.

What's odd to me is Paste Special > Paste into Existing Clips only works visually in PRV.  Track View still creates a new clip requiring a bounce to finalize the paste . . .  but that could be construed as another topic entirely. 

 

Edited October 17 by sjoens

[David Baay]

19 hours ago, Sammy D said:

I hope someone on the team will want to bring such a basic feature to reality

Okay, but then you get to answer all the threads on the forum like:

"I accidentally recorded a bad/duplicate MIDI take into an existing clip and it's too late to undo; how do I fix this, and why isn't there a big red flashing light warning me my takes will be merged?"   😉

[Sammy D]

On 10/17/2025 at 6:51 PM, David Baay said:

Okay, but then you get to answer all the threads on the forum like:

"I accidentally recorded a bad/duplicate MIDI take into an existing clip and it's too late to undo; how do I fix this, and why isn't there a big red flashing light warning me my takes will be merged?"   😉

A modern DAW, ( especially Sonar ) that has always been marketed as a product for professionals, should not have a limitation that even the most basic entry level programs have, including Cakewalk Next and BandLab! If you make a mistake recording audio... you typically have to do the following: Record it over, Attempt to punch in, do multiple loop record takes or comp the takes. Why is some users perspective about midi so different. Midi is far easier to fix by comparison. You're not going to always nail everything you do the first time, whether it's audio or midi. It's just an unavoidable part of the creative recording process. 

It's all about having the option to tailor your workflow to your needs. That's fine if someone prefers midi clip takes rather than merged midi. It's not elegant in Sonar. DAW's like Studio One, Reaper, Cubase, Samplitude, Abelton Live, Logic pro, have the option to record either way you choose. I particularly like the midi takes feature in Studio One. In most cases I don't record midi in takes, but it can be useful in certain scenarios. Most users of midi will have a need to move clips around the timeline or make duplicates of clips to do other things. You most certainly have to bounce to clips if you're doing such things in Sonar.  This becomes cumbersome to do when it's mostly a midi session. I think in the past I created a shortcut to do the bounce, but still had to select all the clips then use the shortcut. They could at the very least make a macro or script to do this since they refuse to do what all the kids on the block can do. 

The program still has a lot of it's old base code under the hood, so there are some core things that has never changed. There's a reason that Sonar has never been a leading DAW used in pro studios or a part of the conversation of DAW's, especially since it's only been for windows. The older Sonar gets the more it never really changes. They just add more siding to cover up the shortcomings.  The program will always lag behind the competition. The only reason I bother revisiting the program at times is because the sound engine is great. A lot of folks do step recording or manually input notes, so real time midi recording and midi merging is of no interest to them. Calkwalk Next is a cool lite weight app, but event that has problems with basic midi options. It doesn't have input quantization. It only does hard Q, after the fact. No option to choose the strength and it's acting wonky at this current time because there's a bug where it doesn't quantize to the set value. Midi is simply not their strong point! 💩

[David Baay]

On 11/2/2025 at 2:37 PM, Sammy D said:

A modern DAW, [blah, blah, blah...]

I was joking of course.  I don't think it would actually be that big a deal to implement a "Merge" option for MIDI recording, and it should even be possible to retain separate MIDI takes in hidden take lanes indefinitely, so that they could be 'unmerged" at a later date. In fact, it occurs to me that the only thing that's really needed is an option to display events as a single clip in the parent track and manage them as such.

I largely disagree with the rest of your critique. This has all been discussed ad nauseum over the years and decades. Suffice it to say Sonar continues to be developed, sometimes leading and sometimes following other DAWs in one respect or another. Every DAW has its strong and weak points. Every DAW has champions and detractors. Every DAW  has underlying architectural constraintss that make implementing a particular feature more or less difficult with more or less potential fallout. Every DAW worthy of the name is capable of producing fully professional output. The greatest limitations will always be the capbilities, creativity and imagination of the user.

[Byron Dickens]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

The greatest limitations will always be the capbilities, creativity and imagination of the user.

Bingo.

[Sammy D]

On 11/4/2025 at 9:59 AM, David Baay said:

I was joking of course.  I don't think it would actually be that big a deal to implement a "Merge" option for MIDI recording, and it should even be possible to retain separate MIDI takes in hidden take lanes indefinitely, so that they could be 'unmerged" at a later date. In fact, it occurs to me that the only thing that's really needed is an option to display events as a single clip in the parent track and manage them as such.

I largely disagree with the rest of your critique. This has all been discussed ad nauseum over the years and decades. Suffice it to say Sonar continues to be developed, sometimes leading and sometimes following other DAWs in one respect or another. Every DAW has its strong and weak points. Every DAW has champions and detractors. Every DAW  has underlying architectural constraintss that make implementing a particular feature more or less difficult with more or less potential fallout. Every DAW worthy of the name is capable of producing fully professional output. The greatest limitations will always be the capbilities, creativity and imagination of the user.

Yeah... I know it was a satire like joke, so no worries. And yes, the subject has been chewed to nearly no end over the years. But then... that's a bad reflection on the attitudes of the development team and their overseers. I'm far from new from the Cakewalk forums. I was quite active up until the time that company employees lost their jobs and the brand was in limbo. I ditched my old account and name some years back and created a new one more recently. I remember concluding that Sonar was an Elder man's Daw which was reflected in the attitudes of long time users and their common responses. Elder in the sense of being stuck and resistant about change or doing things outside of their own preference. More specifically, being comfortable with the way things are and so should everyone else, because that's the way it's always been and should remain! They also tend to disregard or not acknowledge valid points, because it's not inline with their interest. Yes... it's a generalization, but It's rooted in observation. If the shoe doesn't fit... then no worries for anyone reading.

If not for BandLab Technologies, Sonar would be long gone and forgotten. Roland kicked CW to the curb after only 5yrs, then Gibson tossed it away not long after. Funny how Roland acquired Openlab's Stagelight app then named it Zenbeats. Why did they get rid of CW shares? There have been many advances in technology in general and it continues to progress at a rapid pace. A.I. is causing major shifts. People are losing employment when companies fail to keep up with change and competition. Any entity with the attitude of things are fine the way they are, will find themselves in volatile waters. 

Having self made limitations in software, and not being concerned with the competition in this volatile climate and Trump era, is a foreseeable death sentence. I had plenty of limitations making music with hardware devices. I'm not from the software music production era. I started way before that became mainstream. I certainly made use of those limitations, but it's senseless in software. I seen the benefit of computer based music production and wasn't stuck on hardware beliefs. We're now in a era where you can download firmware to your hardware devices to fix problems and acquire new functionality. This wasn't possible some years ago. This is the times were seeing in tech.  In closing think of this: When protools came on the scene, many pros in the industry was not that receptive to computer based recording over the tried and true use of hardware, consoles and tape machines.  The tech wasn't where it is now. They eventually had to loose their attitudes and get with the program if they wanted to continue in the business where others made the switch physically and mentally. Some seasoned Sonar users will never make the switch!  

Edited Thursday at 04:08 AM by Sammy D

[David Baay]

11 hours ago, Sammy D said:

If not for BandLab Technologies, Sonar would be long gone and forgotten.

Maybe. I was actually anticipating Noel and the gang might get some financing together to buy the IP and give it a go without all the corporate overhead. It's hard to imagine Gibson wouldn't have found someone to do that at some point, but it might not have turned out as well as it has if not for Ming's deep pockets.

I'm distinctly part of the old guard when it comes to what I see as valuble features and glaring omissions in a DAW. I try not to push back too hard on what others want to see added/changed, and I think I mostly succeed. But I've always been more tolerant of life's many imperfections than some, and often find it slightly amusing how vehement people can get about the small shortcomings that all DAWs have or even just simple implementation differences between them - not that this is the case here. I just can't get that excited about any of it one way or the other. And it's not just my age; it's who I've always been. For years, I've been happy to see what the Bakers would add to each new release without wanting for much, myself. I suppose a lot of it was driven by keeping up with other sequencers/DAWs and feature requests from users as much as the Bakers' own initiative, and I should be thankful for that; I never really thought about it that much.