New Features

Arpeggiator

• Per-arp swing control slider
• Automatable controls

BitBridge

• Server preference can now be assigned per-plug-in, and will be saved with projects

• Now defaults to loading one server; this setting can be changed by the user and will be saved across sessions

Matrix View

• Column naming
• Per-cell "one-shot" mode
• New button to stop all cells
• New option to automatically Groove Clip audio and MIDI clips when dragging into the Matrix View
• Improved Mode State UI indicators
• Cell content can now be dragged into the Track View
• Now supports Step Sequencer Patterns containing probabilities
• Accessibility and QWERTY keyboard support
• Now supports clips of up to 30 minutes in length
• Import files directly from cells

Media Browser

• New mode to preview audio/MIDI content in sync with project tempo
• When using Tabbed Edit Views, you can now drag content from Media Browser to the Matrix View Tab to open the Matrix View and drop the content on the cell
• Now supports Step Sequencer Patterns containing probabilities

Perfect Space

• 70+ new impulse responses, provided by Acousticas

PX-64 Percussion Strip

• New indicator to show when Expander is functioning as a Gate

Session Drummer 3

• Channel output selections are now simple dropdown lists
• All Steven Slate, Sonic Reality and Cakewalk kits now have .KIT files for easy kit loading without changing programs

Step Sequencer

• Improved parameter controls for Dimension LE, Dimension Pro, DropZone, Pentagon I, Rapture, Rapture LE & Z3ta+
• 35 new step sequencer patterns

V-Studio Compatibility

• VS-100 Control Surface support for x64
• New ACT mappings for PX-64, VX-64 and Session Drummer 3

Issues Resolved in SONAR 8.5.2

Accessibility

• Event list view was not accessible
• Accelerator keys fixed for the following: Audio Effects Dialog, Audio Options
• Using keybinding to arm a track did not always work while a project was playing
• Can now change focus in Track view to the Track Inspector
• Extra Encoding Options was missing a keyboard accelerator
• Insert Tracks dialog had incorrect or missing accelerator keys
• Paste | Advanced dialog had missing accelerator keys

Arpeggiator

• Arpeggiator user interface would remain on after an instrument track was frozen
• Arpeggiator widget group would not appear unless FX Bin was also enabled
• Extra root notes played quietly when using "Rhythms" presets
• Arpeggiator introduced random, flammed or doubled notes when using some pattern-based presets
• Open Preset dialog did not always remember last folder location
• Velocity control had slightly different behavior for Rhythm Only shapes

AudioSnap

• Clicking Set Clip from Project would sometimes cause SONAR to crash under specific conditions
• SONAR would sometimes crash when choosing 'Set Measure/Beat at Now'
• Improved results using Threshold control
• MIDI events could not be quantized in the AudioSnap Pool
• MIDI events would not snap to transients in the AudioSnap Pool
• Tab to Transients in the PRV always followed the first track rather than the selected track
• Using Copy as MIDI would paste notes at 100% duration, making it difficult to work with
• Clicking AudioSnap Enable/Disable button would sometimes hide the waveform of the clip
• AudioSnap Enable did not light up in the palette after selecting "Edit Clip Map"
• The AudioSnap Palette would always re-open on the primary monitor, even when closed from a secondary monitor
• Drag/scroll did not work with the Transient Tool when selecting transient markers off screen
• When adding envelope nodes at transient markers, nodes were created for disabled markers
• SONAR would temporarily hang when adding envelope nodes at transients
• After splitting a clip with transient markers on, markers on right-side clip remained on after switching tools
• Transient markers sometimes appeared on Groove Clips
• Transient markers were not displayed on frozen clips after freezing an instrument track
• Projects sometimes took a very long time to load, due to AudioSnap performing tempo detection on load
• Tempo detection is now performed on a clip the first time an AudioSnap command is applied to a clip
• Duplicate tempo candidates sometimes appeared in the Average Tempo list
• SONAR was not always able to copy the clip tempo to the project tempo when choosing "Set Project from Clip" if the selected clip was at the start of a project
• F1 Help did not always open for the AudioSnap Palette

Automation

• Automation envelopes were sometimes excluded when copying data from instrument tracks
• Clip automation envelopes were sometimes deleted from a clip when an overlapping clip on another layer was deleted
• Copying clips with clip envelopes into tracks with layers sometimes caused the clip envelopes to stop working
• Automation Write button in synth plug-in header did not always arm all automatable parameters

Cakewalk Plug-ins

• External Insert did not always properly compensate for latency while recording
• Under some circumstances, Channel Tools would cause overs and stop the audio engine
• For VX-64, PX-64 & TL-64, changing parameters from a control surface did not update the graphics in the UI
• VX-64 & PX-64 dynamics and delay modules would sometimes lose their settings on sampling rate changes
• Dragging nodes in LP-64 EQ during playback would sometimes crash SONAR
• 'Half Rack' Plug-ins from Project5
  • Were sometimes not installed correctly in Studio Edition
  • Did not work/play sound in all x64 configurations
  • Did not always display at the correct size
• Cakewalk MIDI FX plug-in controls did not display properly
• BitMeter plug-in was not installing correctly in SONAR Studio
• Projects containing Fantom VS or ARX editors did not always load properly in Windows Vista
• Tooltips were missing for Solo and Step Sequencer buttons in the SONAR plug-in header strip

General

• Bus input trim sometimes became inactive after bouncing, freezing or creating a V-Vocal clip in a project
• Non-default pan laws were not always applying the appropriate gains more info . . .
• SONAR sometimes glitched when enabling or disabling delay compensated plug-ins during playback
• Process | Audio | Reverse flatlined 64-bit audio files on x64
• Project files saved with Groove Clip slice edits did not always load the edits back in
• MIDI Echo no longer worked for Drum Maps
• the default latency for WDM/KS devices has now been lowered to 30msec from 100msec
• In the Event List, changing value or type of events caused the view to scroll to the top
• In the Piano Roll View, lassoing notes while zoomed in caused redraw problems and erratic selection behavior
• Improved overall stability on PC's using older AMD processors that do not support SSE2
• Assignable controls did not work for synths patched in an FX Bin
• SONAR sometimes crashed when inserting a VSTi with 'All Synth Outputs' checked in the Insert Synth dialog
• Insert Synth dialog did not remember settings across sessions
• Synth Rack could not be minimized when several other views were opened and maximized
• Floating windows could not be disabled for some views
• Projects containing Arturia Mood Modular V2.5 sometimes loaded with a compatibility warning
• Disk and CPU meters sometimes exceeded 100%

Instrument Tracks

• Inserting track templates containing instrument tracks sometimes played at a lower volume than when saved
• Pasting MIDI data to/from an instrument track sometimes created a new MIDI track

Matrix View

• Capturing to the Track View now obeys Matrix row mutes and solos
• Capturing to the Track View did not always work correctly for cells that were looping if the source clip was not a Groove Clip
• When capturing to the Track View, sometimes triggering a new cell to toggle off a previously playing cell did not turn off the capture from the previous cell
• Matrix View sometimes dropped the first buffer on triggering an audio cell and played an extra buffer after triggering the cell off
• Under certain conditions, MIDI cells missed the first note when triggered
• Pending cells would get triggered when enabling 'Sync to SONAR Transport'
• Cells did not stop when in 'Transport Sync' mode if the metronome was enabled
• When not set to 'Follow Transport', triggering a cell for the first time did not always start immediately
• When set to 'Follow Transport', stopping SONAR sometimes did not stop all cells in the Matrix
• Cells would not retrigger when Global Retrigger mode was on and Global Loop mode was off
• On some occasions, scrollbars did not always appear when rows containing populated cells were off screen
• Cell progress indicators were not always indicating the exact playback position of the cell
• Multiple clips could not be simultaneously drag-dropped from the Track View into the Matrix
• Did not support type 1 MIDI files
• Timing and performance optimizations

Media Browser

• Presets did not function properly in non-English OS's
• Presets pointing to folders under "My Documents" did not function properly on Windows 7
• No longer continues to play selected clip(s) after dragging into the Matrix View
• Preview Bus list did not update for renamed buses
• Improved stability with multiple projects opened simultaneously

Step Sequencer

• Opening and closing the controller pane when scrolled down in the view caused the view to scroll to the top
• With multiple rows selected, changing a parameter in one row sometimes changed all parameters in other rows as well
• Velocities could not be edited for newly-created steps while the velocity lane was open
• Velocities could no longer be edited after changing the number of beats in the pattern
• Edit controls pop-up did not appear correctly on screen when scrolled down the view
• Tooltips did not display the parameter/value as the control was dragged
• MIDI CC's in controller pane did not display the CC number
• Did not always retain New Value Types added to the controller pane
• Flammed steps played back inconsistently when per-step probability was less than 100%
• Clearing all steps sometimes did not clear probability settings
• Patterns with a time offset on the last step would sometimes hang the last note
• Step Sequencer sometimes opened on previously selected track rather than selected track
• Inserting a new row in a Step Sequencer attached to an unlinked Step Sequencer clip could cause SONAR to crash under certain conditions
• The Step Sequencer view sometimes expanded after deleting a row
• Looping the Step Sequencer with Reason 4 sometimes dropped notes after looping
• Performance optimizations

Session Drummer 3

• There was a memory leak in Session Drummer 3 upon opening and closing projects
• In French version of SONAR, some SD3 kits played at +12dB to +20dB too loud
• On Windows 7 x64, closing and opening the UI during playback sometimes caused SD3 to no longer play audio
• Various content issues with the following kits:
  • Steven Slate Kits
    • StevenSlate_OldZepKit_Dry and StevenSlate_SizzleKit_Dry had cutoff problems when quiet notes followed loud notes
    • StevenSlate_SizzleKit_Dry hi hats were not grouped
    • Dry kits weren't choking the hi hats properly
    • Sidesticks weren't full velocity sensitive and did not play properly at low velocities
    • Crash cymbals and toms were cutting themselves off
    • Toms were not correctly decending in pitch from Note 50 down to the lowest Floor Tom
  • Sonic Reality Kits
    • Some side stick sounds didn't have full velocity scaling; a very low velocity would trigger a loud sound
    • Some open hi-hats sounded like pedal hats, and had excessive low frequency content
    • Snares were monophonic; hitting a snare twice would produce an unexpected cutoff sound
    • Some snare rolls played too slow
    • PremrTimbaleKit: Right Hand Snare, Note 40, and Right Hand Low Snare, note 43, at high velocity, had an audible click in the right speaker
    • ClassicRock Kit: Crash Cymbal on Note 49 triggered a Bell hit of the Cymbal rather than a normal Crash Cymbal
    • Blues Kit: The Snare Roll samples had an audible hissing noise
    • BritRock Kit: The Snare Roll had an audible clicking on the attack
    • RingBeats Kit
      • There was an audible hissing noise in the Snare Roll
      • There was audible clicking in some velocity layers of the Snare Roll
      • SideStick had doubled/flamed hits towards the upper velocities
    • TR-707 had missing floor tom sample
    • TR-808_bright had missing low cymbal sample
    • DarkLordOfTheSethKits: sidestick was not fully velocity sensitive
    • NPulse kit contained some samples with extra hits at the very end
    • Groovy Kit Brushes Note 39 played the wrong sample

Track View

• Archived folders did not preserve Mute and Solo states
• Set Snap Offset to Now Time did not always persist the offset in clip properties
• Bouncing multiple Groove Clips that were split and moved sometimes yielded unpredictable results
• Groove Clips starting at Measure 1 played back incorrectly after the start time was adjusted
• SONAR sometimes did not draw clip waveforms for long WAVE64 audio files
• Improved stability with Groove Clips

Video

• Video sometimes did not maintain sync while looping in project

• Video was out of sync when using the audio metronome count-in
• Video lost sync when changing Now Time during playback
• WMV videos are sometimes displayed upside down when first imported into SONAR in Windows Vista or Windows7

After installing the update, please review the ReadMe file for more information.  This download includes English, French, German, Italian and Spanish updates for all supported operating systems.  This update is for both the 32 and 64-bit versions of SONAR 8.5 and can be applied on SONAR 8.5 or 8.5.1

To install this update you must be a registered SONAR 8.5 customer.  If you have not registered your product you can register online now.

Download the SONAR Producer 8.5.2 Software Update (Approx. 370 MB)
Download the SONAR Studio 8.5.2 Software Update (Approx. 240 MB)