What happened to the Split Instrument/ Instrument track Icons?

[Bass Guitar]

In another thread here we are sorting out how to add multi output drums after the fact. All is fine but then I thought to save time I would create a track template and then use that. 

Take note that these are all my backing track projects which are all very much the same layout and are pure midi. Many are also holdovers from the early days when I used split instrument tracks. More on that in a minute. 

So I opened another project and I inserted the track template. All went as planed and I now had the SSD5 drums with 6 outputs all properly named and routing all good. I dragged the Midi drums into the what I assumed was an instrument track and it wouldn't play? I dragged the midi back to the midi track and set the output to the instrument track and it plays?? ( by the way holding down shift does not keep the data in sync)  

Then I start noticing that all the icons for the midi tracks look like what I remember as instrument tracks as there is just a little keyboard.

I confirmed that this was happening by first inserting an instrument and then inserting a split instrument. Both have the same icon? Now the question? is this something new or is this yet another graphics issue?  So as it is there is no way to distinguish between the two types of instrument tracks. 

If you look at my screen shot you can see that  Addictive drums is a split track. True pianos is not. And then the Combi organ, orange track is a instrument track and below the green tracks are split instrument tracks but all use same icon.   

Here is new Sonar

Here is Platinum

Edited Friday at 06:23 PM by Bass Guitar
add screenshots

[Glenn Stanton]

when i set up a project like you show, an Instrument track (i.e. contains both MIDI and the VI audio output) the instrument tracks all have the piano icon, and when i split that or simply insert synth, i get both a piano and midi icon (per track respectively).

are you thinking the Instrument track should resemble the older MIDI+keyboard icon rather than simply the keyboard icon?

fwiw, i never use Instrument tracks, just MIDI or audio, this way my templates are organized as "audio outs or record clips" in the top section, and all the MIDI tracks sit all together. i do this A) to avoid confusion, B) i can render and delete all the MIDI and VI and save as a mix project, and C) my record and mix templates are essentially all the same except the mix template has no MIDI tracks.

[Bass Guitar]

Look at the project at the top That is New Sonar. It contains a mixture of Simple and Split instruments but all the icons are the same. 
It should look like the picture below which shows a combination of icons. 
Unless they have recently changed this? 

These are old projects from back when I was still splitting tracks. 

 

[Base 57]

Page 904 of the current Cakewalk Sonar Reference Guide shows a clear difference between the icons of Split Instrument and Simple Instrument tracks.

@Bass Guitar is correct. Sonar is not currently using the Split Instrument Track icon.

[sjoens]

Unfortunately the reference guide uses screenshots from CbB with raster graphics, so not a good reference for this.

[Glenn Stanton]

hmmm in your Sonar one, and i see keyboards on the Instrument, and keyboard and MIDI icons on each respective split.  i think we need to have another icon for Instrument similar to the old one then with the keyboard AND MIDI combined like those of yore...

[Bass Guitar]

@Base 57 did you try inserting a split instrument track to confirm? 
 

I guess the question is this intended or another graphic bug? How come nobody has noticed this? It’s been almost two years? 

[sjoens]

My guess is most users use one or the other, not both, so they never noticed.

[Base 57]

2 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

 did you try inserting a split instrument track to confirm? 

Yes.

And as @sjoens just said, I never noticed until you brought it up. It is pretty low on my list of things the Bakers should work on.

[Bass Guitar]

I really don’t expect anything to get fixed, I was just wondering if it was something that got changed. 
These projects are only backing tracks and probably won’t get any more attention from me. 
 

All important projects when I see a split track I re insert the instrument as a simple track and drag the midi to it and delete the split track. 
Much more tidy. 

[Starship Krupa]

To answer the question in the topic title, the "MIDI+Keyboard" icon was retired from service with the introduction of Cakewalk Sonar.

The MIDI jack icon is used for MIDI tracks. The keyboard icon is used for Synth (VI) tracks.

There is no longer a special icon for Simple Instrument tracks (which are tracks that include both the VI and the MIDI tracks displayed as one unit), which leaves the "Keyboard" icon to do double duty on both Synth and Simple Instrument tracks.

Long form blather:

While I do agree that it would be handy to be able to tell at a glance when a track is a synth track vs. instrument track, not being able to tell is better than having it be backwards. And the way it was was backward: the "Keyboard" icon was displayed on Simple Instrument tracks while an icon that consisted of the "MIDI" and "Keyboard" icons overlaying each other was displayed on Synth tracks.

There was a lot of lobbying, especially from the theme creator community, to swap them so that the icon that was essentially one with Synth and MIDI stuck together would appear on the tracks that were essentially Synth and MIDI stuck together. This lobbying was not acted upon, and the "MIDI+Keyboard" icon was quietly dropped. Those of us who cared kept our mouths shut because anything was better than having it be backward.

Most users probably use either Simple Instrument tracks or separate Synth and MIDI tracks in their projects, but not both at the same time, so being able to tell them apart is not a big deal.

The "MIDI+Keyboard" icon is pretty ideal for indicating a Simple Instrument tracks. I have no idea how or why they got mixed up originally, but looking at it drove me nuts. One of the first things I did with creating themes was to swap those icons around. This could theoretically have led to confusion with the images in the documentation but I didn't care.