Sonar wish list

  • Thread starter Thread starter tubedude
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tubedude

tubedude

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Post Sonar ideas here....

I want to create a "form letter" style wish list that we can all copy to an email and send individually so that they see more interest than just one person.
Each person that wants to add to the list, add 1 or 2 FEASIBLE things... things that are important or would make things better for us. Don't be silly with it, lets be real and make a realistic impression on them.
In 5 days or so, I'll take all the suggestions, make a form letter, and post it here, then everyone can paste it to an email and send it off. We really should all agree on everything that goes on the list. I have thought up a very intuitive way to do this, where items can be deleted from the form letter if you don't like them at all. But supporting each others ideas will give a better push.
Anyway, a few of my ideas are...
1) A Sonar spectrum analyzer, built in. All the ones I've tried have crashed it. Lets get this program where we can actually master with it.
2) An automatable stereo imager (a rotation device) similar to the Waves S1. The panning effects would be awesome, and automatable... you could really make a mix more interesting.
3) Some type of mastering limiter/maximizer, with a real good dithering algorythm. Again, for mastering.
4) In console view, the faders and meters are too wide. I propose removing the numbering, and making the meters half as wide to preserve very precious space. They are big and bulky, twice the size of a ProTools fader. Also there is an area above the faders that is usually blank and not filled... that needs to be gone unless you are using it. No need to scroll top to bottom all the time.

I think these are very realistic and usuable. Start adding, and if theres anything you disagree with on any posts, make it known! :)
Paul
 
I like your items 3 & 4 (although realistically you shouldn't need to use the Console view in Sonar anyway).

To this I would add:
1. The ability to create a "snapshot" view in Track View that could be returned to with a single click. I find that after resizing tracks (both width and height) to do certain edits, there is no easy way to get back to your original view - without having to essentially reverse all your steps.
2. I want the Pencil tool back from CW PA9's Audio View. I found this tool very handy, with no good equivalent in Sonar. And, yes, I realize it is a destructive edit.
3. I also liked the Combine tool from CW PA9. The Bounce to Tracks command is similar, but not exactly the same.
 
I also thought about suggesting a writable tool, where you can draw envelopes and it automatically inserts nodes at certain intervals.
 
Well, I can't beleive that there's not more interest in this... oh well... Cakewalk listens pretty well, and a group effort, I think, would make a good impact.
Anyone else?
 
where can i learn all this mastering stuff....dithering algorythms and what not....cuz i haven't a clue what most of the DX plugins do beside reverb and echo
 
Teacher,

If you have various plugins RTFM or, failing a manual, check the manufacturer's website which usually has an acrobat file (Waves) or similar manual online.

Also, just get your hands dirty and see what works, what sounds good, what doesn't. Take note of how what you apply affects the sound and eventually you'll start getting the hang.

Mastering tools such as compressors and maximizers and (god forbid) dithering are very complex so you should also try to find good articles online or in magazines on specific topics. A lot of what applies in the hardware realm is likewise for software, so even an old article on hardware based compression can help you understand your software.

I'm writing a bit of an article on some of these tools myself as a favor to a website by some good friends of mine, when I finish I'll post a link here so all the experts out there can tell me how wrong I am :D
 
Okay, my 2 cents:

1) Make it more bulletproof... I'm have a $(^*@&*&$#$%&@$& time getting it running without dropouts. (I had Cake9 right where I wanted it... what was I thinking?!?!?)

2) A way to organize plug ins

3) A way to customize commands more.... create your own toolbars, more ways to use the keyboard for commands

4) Like the idea of smaller faders in the console view.

5) Easier way of making instrument definitions (I make my own drum kits and go nuts trying to type them in the old way)

6) Faster importing of wavs (like Vegas)

7) Groups... so you could group certain tracks together so a command would effect all of them (without selecting them each time)

8) I'll think of more...
 
This is a great idea Tube! I will put my two cents in once or if ever I get Sonar to load on my machine. I,m sure others will chime in too was we discover what Sonar can or cannot do already.
 
1. like tube said: get it to were I can see the whole damn module in the track view.

2. I would like to be able to get rid of some of the parts of the toolbar I don't use to make more room for other stuff.
 
Hey Carter...

If I'm not mistaken, you can get rid of everything in the toolbar if you want, and place them anywhere you want.
All the toolbars are divided by a verticle line every so often... click on or around that line and you can drag the toolbar around. If you go to "something-toolbars", in the menu, you can click on what you want displayed and not displayed. I'm not in front of it, so I'm trying to go by memory, I may be a little off here...
You can take everything off the screen and use keyboard shortcuts for most of them.
I only have one bar of toolbars, across the bottom, and one floating about midscreen on the right.
:)
Paul
 
Hi

I don't have Sonar yet, but, I'll make a suggestion based on one of the complaints. If you wan't smaller consoles in track view, why not the abillity to fully customize the console, it shouldn't be that major of a change, it would be based on studioware technology, only limited to Sonar controls, rather than including midi.

think about it, if you want knobs instead of sliders, long sliders, fat sliders, vertical sliders, horizontal sliders. If you want other controls up front in track view, it should just be a matter of rebuilding or cutomizing the interface.

Just my 2.34 cents (cost of living went up)
TX

p.s. I'll be glad to send a copy of the letter to them when it's ready.
 
Unfortunately, tubedude you cannot get rid of everything in your toolbars. You have a choice between a number of tool bars and you can select which ones you want or don't want. That's okay, but it is not nearly as useful as customizing a toolbar. Also, I couldn't help noticing that sonar took away a bunch of keys in key bindings as "RSVD"....aaarrrrrgggghhh, there weren't enough anyway.... (as you have to hit control then the key, the number I can easily hit with one hand is pretty small)... I think cake went in the right direction with hide and resize tracks etc. but I would really like to customize the work environment.
 
Nice Thread Tubedude............My suggestion is the ability to solo the virtual mains. That way you can use them as a buss which will allow you to process things as a group for example......let's say you wanted to eq the whole drum set and compress/limit it, you can do that now but to just be able to solo it you can't do that unless you use a different output from your soundcard.
 
Some good ideas so far...

Keep em coming, everyone, we'll get this thing ready in the next week or so...
Good idea ace, wouldnt mind that myself, solo the whole kit with one button. I think, though, if they are assigned a fader grouping, will one solo button solo them all? Maybe not.... I'm gonna check...
Paul
 
i'd be more inclined to push for changes in the user interface than to ask for mastering capabilities. i really like the t-racks program (now supporting 24 bit wav files) and there is other good mastering software out there to use. (as i'm sure you know) in addition, it is possible that adding master capabilites to sonar could drive the price up a bit, proportional to the quality of the additional mastering facilities, methinks....whereas changes in the user interface probably wouldn't be so cost intensive...............to be honest, i'm pretty f*cking happy with sonar as is, that is if i could get it to work on my machine!!! it's clear that i'm going to have to upgrade my pIII 450 cause i like to use revalver , lots of revalvers....and while i can play back and record on an aardvark direct pro and with a delta 66 , i can't get it to work in wdm mode.....

i might be more inclined to ask for mastering tools if i didn't already have t-racks....t-racks rocks.

"but that's just me , and i may be wrong...." tyler durden

j
 
Hmmm...

I actually do have the Steinberg mastering suite. But, what I want mostly is a high quality built in dither and noise shaping so that we can burn directly to CDS without using an outboard, and a spectrum analyzer.
I'd just like to do away with all the "outboard" programs and have everything I want in one program, and all automatable. :)
Paul
 
when i go to master something , i'm ready to make a finalized wav file for mp3 encoding or whatever. the last thing i'd want at the mastering level is automation.... ;)

have you tried the t-racks demo?

of course some sort of mastering plug in would be great. something that would work as a bus master , that you could use in real time...but this would be way too processor intensive....methinks

i'm unclear about your concern....do you not master to stereo?

peace out dude,
j
 
Does it seem like SONAR looks and feels like Logic alittle? Anyhows, cool thread...I miss being able to quickly double click on discontiguous audio clips and having a nice big view for them with thick and clear automation vectors. (CPA 9) In other words, bring back the audio view! lol

Some other things, ...some kinda feedback about exactly WHY I got a dropout (while my cpu and disc useage meters are virtually at 0% ) when they occur.

A global fx button to minimize or maximize them all at once. And mabye have them all in scalable sized windows...some dx fx and dxi UI's are getting too huge.


Using dual processors, have the ability to direct which cpu handles what, ie- one to handle audio, midi ,etc and the other strictly for dx and dxi stuff. (Maybe it's already that way?)

A minor but important thing, let the user totally use what colors they want on clips ..it defaults to grouping them..no good, although you can manually change them one at a time. And, I'd like to be able to set the colors of the program itself to something other than whatever windows is set to. And how about updating the transport! It literally still looks like it could've come out of cakewalk v 1.0! lol

Make the console view scalable in size...I've never been able to get the whole thing in view..have to scroll, yuk.
Speaking of scroll, let me use my wheel on my mouse to move faders, yum. lol

Does anyonoe get use out of the Session Drummer? It's great for auditioning stuff, but I wish there was a different kind of drum pattern creator. The piano roll is pretty good, but I'd like to see a Fruity Loops style view where you can just click on a button to trigger the drum and make it real flexible , where you can have a bunch of buttons between beats to get different timed hits.

It seems right now, the best settings for live input monitoring, are just not gonna cut it when you get deep into a song's creation where you've got a dozen or so audio tracks + midi tracks + a lot of fx going on. There needs to be some way to quickly click between the optimum settings for when your live input monitoring, and the optimum settings for good playback performance. Maybe in a few more years , this won't be an issue.


I'm sure I could think of some more things, ...overall it's a pretty killer piece of software, and cakewalk is good about implementing changes, bug fixes, etc.
 
Tuedude... have you tried the mastering edition in sonar? It wouldn't work in pro9, at least not the spectralizer or freefilter. They didn't crash it, the way they do in cool edit, but they didn't work either? I'm going to check it right after i log off... didn't even think of it.

I also had a fair amount of problems with dropoffs.... got a "disk full" message when recording a single stereo track this weekend.... with most of my disk free, cpu usage at about 2% and disk usage at about 4%. If anyone has good ideas.... I've done the basics like set the computer for audio, turn off meters etc. There are a few other suggestions around that I'm going to try.

Correct me if I am wrong, but sonar can't currently group tracks (e.g., for midi processing or something), but you can group individual buttons. It would be nice to make track groups so if you want to grab the three tracks that make your horn section and quantize them then drag them.... do them together. (without selecting all three). Also, when you have grouped the mute buttons on some tracks and then go to archive, they are not grouped... just the mute... you have to archive them one at a time.
 
Another one, which probly is coming soon...file management...It would be cool to have all your takes automatically saved and sorted according to project. Each project could have it's own named folder inside the Audio folder. Each audio take could assume the name of the track they're from , for instance Bass guitar1.wav, Bass Guitar2.wav, etc. in numerical order , 1 being the first take. This would make it sooo easy to go back and pinpoint what your looking for. Adding a Play button for the Audio folders content would be really handy too.
 
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