The SONAR 2017.07 update includes the following:

• Recently Used Plug-ins
• Bus Pane Aim Assist
• MIDI Ripple Editing Improvements
• Clip Edit Speed Improvements
• 30th Anniversary Rapture Expansion Pack
• Tech+Music
• Fixes and Enhancements

How to Download the SONAR 2017.07 Update

1. Open Cakewalk Command Center. If you don’t have the latest installer, Command Center will prompt you to download and install it. Cakewalk highly recommends that you do this. (Also remember that you can always download the latest version from the Cakewalk Command Center page.)
2. Update SONAR Core by selecting SONAR Platinum/Professional/Artist, then clicking Install.
3. Update SONAR Local Documentation by selecting it, then clicking Install

Recently Used Plug-ins

Artist, Professional, and Platinum

SONAR now keeps track of the last 5 Audio FX and Soft Synths. You can find these in the insert menus for Audio FX and Soft Synths as well as the Add Track Flyout on the Instruments tab. This works seamlessly with any plug-in layout and allows for quick access to the plug-ins you recently used without diving through a lot of menus or searching.

Bus Pane Aim Assist

Artist, Professional, and Platinum

Aim Assist has always been available in the Track view but not available in its Bus pane. Aim Assist has always been available in the Track view but not available in its Bus pane. We recently made Aim Assist available in the Piano Roll View's Controller Pane so that controller data could line up easily with notes. Now by extending Aim Assist into the Bus Pane, it's easy to line up Bus Pane automation with automation or clips in Track View..

MIDI Ripple Editing Improvements

Artist, Professional, and Platinum

Compared to audio data, Ripple Editing is much more complex with MIDI data—but with the 2017.07 release, MIDI data joins the ripple editing club. Just remember one of the cardinal rules of ripple editing: turn it on before doing the edit (choose Options > Ripple Edit Selection or Options > Ripple Edit All), and turn it off after the edit so you don’t move clips around inadvertently.

For examples of how ripple editing affects MIDI notes with Ripple All selected, view this month's Tech+Music publication!

Clip Edit Speed Improvements

Artist, Professional, and Platinum 

In projects with thousands of clips, SONAR’s performance can become slower if the machine can’t handle the amount of graphics being displayed. Starting with this update, users can perform tasks like split multiple clips at transients, or copy and paste loops hundreds of times, and continue to work in the project without interruptions. These improvements also affect operations such as split, move, undo, redo, ripple edit, as well as zooming and scrolling in projects with many crossfades. Undo of splitting AudioSnap beats is also much faster, and memory usage has been reduced by 75%. The benchmarks to the right compare differences between the 2017.06 and 2017.07 releases when doing operations with a  project that contains 15,941 events (see below).

30th Anniversary Rapture Expansion Pack

Artist, Professional, and Platinum

Cakewalk’s 30th Anniversary continues with more freebies! This month, it’s time to freshen up Rapture Pro and Rapture Session with 30 exciting new sounds.

Learn More

Tech+Music

Artist, Professional, and Platinum

This month's issue covers the latest SONAR 2017.07 update, Clip Edit Speed and MIDI Ripple Editing improvements, reviews the SampleTekk Classic Grand Piano and Digital Sound Factory B3 Tone Wheel Organ expansion packs for Rapture, and finally brings you expert tips for creating your own DIY Sampled Piano Mods, Understanding Loop Construction, and Mixing and Mastering.

Read it Now

Fixes and Enhancements

Artist, Professional, and Platinum

General

• Using SONAR with a 64-sample buffer size could cause issues when 64-bit Double Precision was enabled. This was discovered using the Adaptive Limiter but could affect any plug-in.
• Track View, Track View In-line Piano Roll, and Piano Roll View now have consistent behavior when thinning grid lines during zooming in and out
• Resolved a possible crash when using two-finger scrolling on the track pad
• Editing operations in large projects are now 10x faster. This affects Split, Move, Undo, Redo, and Ripple Editing
• Zooming and scrolling in projects with many clips and crossfades is now more responsive

AudioSnap

• Using AudioSnap to Split Beats could previously cause SONAR to become unresponsive when trying to display all the split clips
• Memory usage with AudioSnap has been reduced by 75% when using it to Split Beats without editing the transient markers

Browser

• Dragging plug-ins from the Plug-in Browser would previously collapses folders after inserting the plug-in into the project

Ripple Editing

• MIDI events will now be shortened or lengthened when Ripple Editing if the end of a note is selected or the selection is in the middle of a note. This prevents notes from getting deleted or truncated unexpectedly in some situations during a ripple edit
• MIDI clips are no longer split in some situations. This is to help preserve clips that contain long notes.

Snap Module

• Disabling Snap previously created problems with showing triplets and dotted settings, These buttons will now stay lit to better indicate what Grid Lines are being displayed when Snap is Off
• Snap settings could previously become changed unexpectedly if they were altered when Snap was Off
• The Control Bar’s Smart Grid option is no longer disabled on cancel out of the menu

Staff View

• Arrow keys now change track selection in the Track Pane of the Staff View

Step Sequencer

• Click + Dragging in Step Sequencer could cause SONAR UI to stop updating momentarily until mouse up

Track View

• Aim Assist now feels more responsive and moves smoothly in the Track View
• Resolved an issue where Copy & Paste with lanes closed could result in overlaps on the same lane
• Track View Grid wouldn’t update after changing the snap settings
• Track View wouldn’t always follow (non-smart) grid line settings in the Snap Control Bar module
• The Time Ruler no longer shows additional ticks when set to Smart Grid.This now displays the only the Beat markers.
• The Track View In-line Piano Roll didn’t follow snap setting in some situations