Stratman68 said:
I certainly disagree 99%-I have only been with Cakewalk since Pro Audio 6-About 15 versions or so. Your opinion is, exactly that "your opinion". Not FACT! But this is not the right forum, so I'll I'll stop here and you should to.
If the bugs don't bother you, more power to you. Cakewalk's posted lists of fixes for each update clearly spell it out, as does the Cakewalk forum. I can deal with the workarounds (doctor, it hurts when I do this....don't do that). My experiences with the early releases of major versions have been frustrating. Sorry, but it is a fact that their software is often buggy when first released, especially with the earlier versions of Sonar. A bug acknowledged by the manufacturer is a bug. Some of them have involved basic features. The initial list is typically long.
It's a complex application and I wouldn't expect it to be flawless. But the product is most stable after a few maintenance updates. Disagree 100% if you want.
I think I deserve a small rant after all the money I've shelled out followed by all the hair pulling and cursing. Here is an example of the bugs fixed for Sonar 8 before 8.5 was released. In my opinion, some of these bugs should never exist in an official product release. I stand by my recommendation of considering 8.5 instead of X1.
Issues Resolved in SONAR 8.0.1:
•Main Application
?Arming single parameters for automation was not functioning properly
?The Insert Controllers command no longer causes freezes and instability in SONAR
?The Insert Send Assistant is now available from the Console View and Track Inspector
?Inserting and assigning sends is more stable and responsive
?The Plug-in Manager no longer crashes on exporting a preset from the ACT MIDI Controller
?SONAR no longer crashes when opening an OMF containing unspecified proprietary information
?Editing track and bus names no longer causes CPU spikes
?The Split Note to Track CAL script no longer crashes SONAR
?Inaccuracies have been corrected regarding nudging, snapping, sliding and inserting time by Frames
?QuickTime H.264 export sometimes resulted in no file being created
?In rare cases, SONAR would crash when recording a stream of MIDI data (more likely on multicore/multiprocessor systems)
•Audio Engine
?SONAR no longer crashes when changing the driver type (WDM, ASIO) while the app is running
?Improved control surface response to REW/FF operations
?SONAR no longer deletes a Surround Main when changing the driver type while the app is running
?SMPTE Sync is now stable at low latencies
•Instrument Tracks
?New tracks are no longer created as clips are moved within an instrument track containing a multi-out synth
?SONAR no longer crashes when accessing Track Properties | Instruments from an Instrument Track
?Potential instabilities when right-clicking the Patch or Bank field of an Instrument Track have been resolved
•Console View
?Meter options were not retaining their settings
?Values sometimes did not display properly in narrow strips
•Track View
?Several issues regarding drag-and-drop and cut/copy/paste have been resolved
?Track controls such as gain, pan, and send level sometimes had no impact on the audio signal path
?Nudging a clip up/down did not always move it to the adjacent track
?Potential instability with the video track has been resolved
?Importing multiple audio clips now properly places them in multiple tracks, instead of stacked together in a single track
?Editing multiple selected clips within folder tracks now edits all selected clips as expected
?Scrolling is now more responsive in large projects
?Auto cross-fade settings were not being saved with project files
•Cakewalk Plug-ins
?The TL-64 Tube Leveler incorrectly exposed the Drive parameter as Input Gain to ACT controllers and automation
?64-bit versions of TS-64 Transient Shaper, TL-64 Tube Leveler, LP-64 Multiband and LP-64 EQ sometimes caused the left and right outputs to be out of phase with one another
?LP-64 EQ sometimes did not retain its settings when saved in a project file
•Third Party Issues
?FXPansion BFD 2 groove preview now works correctly with SONAR
•Known Issues
?Some users have reported a pause during playback with certain audio devices and comfigurations. As of this writing this issue is still undergoing investigation and any correction to SONAR that could potentially alleviate this behavior will be addressed as soon as possible
Issues Resolved in SONAR 8.0.2:
•On some system configurations, project playback would stall/pause intermittently
•Multi-selected clips could not be cropped together at certain zoom levels
•Intermittent errors occurred while playing projects containing V-Vocal clips
•The Track Inspector MIDI fader was not always drawing correctly
Issues Resolved in SONAR 8.3.1
•External Inserts
?The External Insert ping test now returns consistent delay offset values
?Audio now stays in sync with multple External Inserts in a project
?Scrub now works with External Inserts in a project
?Deleting and External Insert during playback no longer causes a crash
?Using an External Insert on a track containing Groove Clips no longer causes a crash
?Improved stability when changing driver type from ASIO to WDM with a project opened that includes External Inserts
?Automating External Insert parameters no longer causes crashes
?External Insert now displays delay offset value when used in a bus
•Instrument Tracks
?Dragging & dropping clips to/from Instrument Tracks sometimes resulted in clips disappearing
?Improved stability when archiving, deleting, inserting (as well as undo) instrument tracks or tracks routed to sidechain inputs
•General
?Moving clips to snap points sometimes did not align properly
?With Aim Assist on, Move-By didn’t work properly when dragging the end of a clip
?SONAR sometimes crashed when saving/loading presets from VST plug-ins
?It is now possible to use the Insert Send Assistant to create pre-fader sends without patching an effect
?Improved stability when hiding strips in the Console View
?Audio would sometimes drop out during realtime bouncing and exporting
?Improved performance and reliability when using dynamic arm feature
?User defined ACT MIDI Controller presets did not always appear in the plug-in preset list
?SONAR now correctly reports on and fully utilizes odd-core CPUs (3-core, for example)
?V-Vocal Mute/Solo controls sometimes affected the wrong track in projects containing instrument tracks
?Improved support for opening Type 1 MIDI files in SONAR x64
Check out the first maintenance release for Sonar 5...
Notable Bug Fixes:
•Clip envelope editing anomalies, which could occur when 1) creating a clip envelope in a project that had tempo changes, and 2) the clip was positioned after the tempo change and 3) the Now time was over the clip and 4) new nodes were created before the Now time.
•The Mute tool would sometimes mute the wrong clip due to mouse clicks being incorrectly treated as drags.
•The Mute tool could mute the wrong part of a clip if the project contained tempo changes.
•When punch recording, newly recorded clips were 3dB too loud if the panning law was set to -3dB.
•Envelope jump shapes were not rendered properly when sent to VST's.
•Wrapped VST's could occasionally be saved with different CLSID's on different machines, resulting in a "missing plug-in" error message.
•The Go-Previous Measure command would not move the Now time earlier than the current measure.
•When deleting a dotted line envelope-such as a Mute envelope-could leave the group "latched" in an undesirable state. For instance, a track could remain muted even if a Mute envelope was deleted.
•The Edit-Split. command would sometimes not work properly when selecting "Split Repeatedly".
•Jump envelopes did not take effect when the Now Time was moved during playback.
•Muting a cropped clip with the Mute tool could prevent the clip from being included when exporting or bouncing the clip.
•"Transmit MMC" option in Options | Project | MIDI Out did not work.
•It could be difficult to select steep envelope shapes.
•Quick Groups did not work properly for Send controls on buses.
•Redundant automation was recorded during punch recording when two or more controls were grouped.
•If a V-Vocal clip was created from a partial clip selection, the V-Vocal clip volume would be reduced if the track's Volume Trim was not set to 0dB.
•In the localized versions of SONAR, decimal values were displayed using a comma in the Process-Audio-Gain, Process-Audio-Normalize, and Process-Audio-Remove DC Offset dialogs.
•Audio Projects could produce a buzzing noise after playing a MIDI project in which the Now Time was moved during playback.
•Confidence recording could display incorrect waveform preview when moving Now time during punch recording.
•Crash with UAD v4.0 CS-1 plug-ins. Loading presets/banks saved from earlier UAD versions could crash the Cakewalk VST adapter.
•Presets/banks saved from earlier UAD plug-in versions could cause a crash when loaded into UAD v4.0 CS-1 plug-ins.
•Deleting a Send control performed several document modifications. It now only adds a single entry to the Undo history.
•All "Load Track Icon" commands are now labeled "Load Track Icon." to indicate a dialog will open.
•Custom track icons were not loaded when opening a project template via the File-New command.
•Opening a tabbed effect property page could result in a crash when the project was closed.
•Inserting a track template that contained a soft synth in a Bus FX bin could result in a crash if the Undo History was cleared or the project was closed.
•The Clips pane did not shade if a Bus was Muted/Soloed from the Track Inspector or Console view.
•A crash could occur when generating a long waveform preview while playing back a surround project.
•Adjusting track properties, such as mute/solo/arm, did not mark a project as dirty (modified, but unsaved).
•Changing a MIDI track's output would not mark the project as dirty.
•Changing 'Snap to Scale' Root Note or Scale value did not mark the project as dirty.
•Adjusting 'Show Automated Mute' from the Track Menu did not mark the project as dirty.
•Changing various In-line PRV parameters from the Track menu did not mark the project as dirty.
•Adding/deleting/modifying lyrics in the Lyrics view did not mark the project as dirty.
•Hiding/showing tracks in the Console view did not mark the project as dirty.
•If the Mackie Control control surface plug-in was enabled, simply loading a project would mark it as dirty.
•Inserting a track template that contained a tempo-synced effect (such as SpectraFX), then undoing the operation and inserting a different track template could result in a crash.
•CPU meter was reporting incorrect values.
•Tempo changes could cause automation envelopes to not be rendered correctly.
•A V-Vocal clip's Bypass state was not persisted properly with the project.
•V-Vocal clips would not render correctly after undoing a Freeze operation.
•New peak markers could appear in the wrong location if the Now time was manually changed during playback and the meter peaks were reset.
•Bus peak markers could appear in the wrong position when adjusting levels during looping.
•On a bus strip, if you set output, reassigned a send, or created a new send to a "new" bus, a crash could occur if the new bus was somehow routed to the default bus.
•A muted/soloed layer could become stuck in that mode after performing the Compact Layers command.
•When there is only a single layer, the per-layer mute and solo buttons are no longer displayed.
•Resizing a tabbed Loop Construction view could result in undesirable graphic artifacts.
•Drag&drop of track templates resulted in various unexpected behavior: dragging into empty workspace didn't work; dragging track templates to empty project made the template load without custom track icons; dragging templates in bypassed the Insert-Insert From Track Template-Import Filter settings; some track templates created extra tracks that didn't exist in the template; some track could be missing when dragging multi-track templates.
•Scrubbing audio at high latency setting and with '64-bit Double Precision Engine' enabled could result in a crash.
•If '64-bit Double Precision Engine' was enabled, audio of mixed bit depths could not be exported.
•Repeatedly opening the Colors dialog and changing settings could cause SONAR to become sluggish.
•Drawing of vertical rules could be slow in large projects that were zoomed out.
•Help-SONAR on the Web would go to the SONAR 4 Owner's page instead of the SONAR 5 Owner's page.
•Waveform preview "overs" would not always remain visible under certain situations.
•Waveform preview on a synth track that was assigned to a surround bus would not remain visible after stopping playback.
•Drag&drop of partial clip selection would create linked clip effects.
•Copying (Ctrl+drag) a partially-selected V-Vocal clip is no longer allowed.
•Deleting clip effects during playback could result in momentary CPU spike.
•MIDI key bindings would fail to work when toolbar tooltips were displayed.
•A crash could occur when attempting to play back a project using a sample rate that is unsupported by the audio hardware.
•The Track-Sort command did not work correctly.
•Missing key binding for View-Track View.
•Go-Previous Marker did not work during playback.
•Go-Previous Marker was available during recording.
•The Step Record window could display an incorrect custom tick value.
•The 'Custom Tick Step' edit box was always disabled when initially opening the Step Record window.
•Track icons could be drawn incorrectly in the Track Inspector if the Console view was configured to show small icons while the Track Inspector was configured to show large icons.
•After changing the Now time during playback, plug-in automation would only update correctly when envelope nodes were intersected.
•sfz could crash when starting playback if End = -1.
•When using tabbed views, the current tab view was not persisted in projects.
•Under certain circumstances, waveform previews could result in a flat line.
•If the BounceBufSizeMsec= variable had been changed in AUD.INI, bouncing down audio could result in the Mixing Latency setting being changed.
•Changing the master bus interleave (mono/stereo), could result in the bus getting out of sync.
•Folder composite clips were not always drawn correctly depending on zoom level, often making it appear there are multiple composite clips while there is really only a single composite clip.
•If a folder composite clip spanned multiple display pages, and had "child" clips that started in the offscreen page, the child clips didn't get selected when clicking the composite clip.
•In the Piano Roll view and In-line PRV, hiding notes (uncheck "Show Notes") would leave velocity tails that were un-editable. Hiding notes now also hides velocity tails.
•Inserting a Pitch Wheel, Velocity, or Aftertouch envelope on a MIDI track would cause the envelope to insert with an incorrect default value.
•Changing the Now time to earlier than the Loop Start time during playback could cause envelopes to not render correctly.
•If many views were tabbed, clicking on the rightmost tab would not scroll any additional tabs into view.
•The 'Load Track Icon' command would not always default to the correct folder if a custom folder was specific in Options-Global-Folders.
•Using a mouse wheel to scroll a tabbed Synth Rack view would also cause the Track View to scroll.
•The "Hidden" indicator in a Track Folder would not update if a track was hidden by the Hide Track menu command instead of the Track Manager.
•Inserting a track template would cause the current Track view tab (All, Mix, FX, or I/O) to always revert back to the All tab.
•Lasso selection would sometimes not work correctly if there was only one track in the project.
•In a Track Folder, the Archive button would not refresh properly to indicate if all or only some tracks within the folder were archived.
•The Quantize MFX would not apply the default settings.
•Moving a delay-compensated effect from a track FX bin to a bus FX bin during playback could cause audio to drift out of sync.
•Inserting a delay-compensated mono effect in a bus stereo FX bin could cause audio to drift out of sync.
•Cyclone DXi would sometimes have outside graphics bleeding through it.
•Looping a project while displaying waveform previews could cause SONAR to become sluggish.
•Generative MFX plug-ins, such as Session Drummer, would still play even after the MIDI track was archived.
•Slip-editing or fading a single clip could also affect other partially-selected clips.
•If an effect's property page was tabbed, but not the current tab, double-clicking the effect in an FX bin would make the tabbed effect property page visible, but the tab itself would not change.
•Clicking directly below the Strip Select (Quick Group) triangle in a track/bus header strip would cause the strip to be selected instead of the track/bus.
•Copying and pasting a MIDI clip would sometimes result in a clip that was slightly longer than the original clip.
•"Link to Now Time" is now enabled by default in the Step Record window.
•When the Track Inspector displayed a main out, the "Link Faders" button would momentarily disappear when adjusting a Send or EQ in the Track Inspector.
•Pressing the 'C' key to enable the Split tool did not immediately update the mouse cursor.
•Copying and pasting data on multiple MIDI tracks using "Replace Old with New" instead of "Blend Old and New" would only work on consecutive tracks. If there was any break between the source tracks, data that was pasted after the break would be blended instead of replaced.
•Events in partially selected clips that were outside the selection time range would be ignored during export. This was not a problem for MIDI and audio events, but if the time range spanned an envelope jump shape--such as a Mute envelope--the envelope could be rendered in an undesirable state (off instead of on, and vice versa).
•If the Track view was maximized, the resize handle was still visible in the lower right corner.
•The red "overs" displayed in waveform previews would not always display properly when zooming and scrolling the Clips pane.
•If multiple tracks were displayed in a tabbed Staff view, the displayed tracks would not be persisted by the Staff view when saving the project.
•Confidence recording (waveform preview) would not work if you punched in on-the-fly.
•The VST Configuration Wizard's 'Folder defaults' options were not persisted.
•Window layouts did not work properly if multiple views were tabbed.
•Improved responsiveness of zooming in the Piano Roll view and Tempo view.
•When editing controller data on a multi-clip MIDI track, holding down the Shift key to draw a straight line could cause data to be deleted after the line.
•When the Console View was floating and had focus, pressing "M" multiple times would open multiple instances of the Track Manager dialog.
•Performing a lot of drag or nudge edits that overwrote the Undo History could result in a crash.
•Under rare circumstances, audio clips would not draw properly if the CPU load was high.
•32-bit PCM ACIDized wave files created in Sony Sound Forge or Sony ACID could take a long time to import.
•Using the Navigator view to resize a Track view that contained several minimized track folders could result in a lockup.
•Copying and pasting an audio clip that had been cropped in the Loop Construction view could result in the pasted clip being offset by the crop duration.
•Clicking the 'Maximize/Restore the Tabbed View' button did not automatically give the tabbed view focus.
•It was sometimes difficult to move the vertical Track view splitter bar since the hit spot was only 1 pixel wide.
•Moving an imported Groove clip to an earlier location could cause the Groove clip to unroll.
•A crash could occur if you immediately right-clicked in the Track view after opening SONAR while the template menu was still busy initializing.
•Saving (overwriting) a CWB file multiple times could cause the file sizes to increase exponentially each time, until running out of disk space.
•Distorted audio could occur after freezing a ReWired instance of Project5 version 2 if the Project5 GUI was still open.
•Under rare circumstances, SONAR could become unresponsive after a while if 'Use Multiprocessing Engine' was enabled (Options-Audio-Advanced).
Sorry, but in my opinion, this is completely F'd up.