SONAR Free Update to 8.5.3 for 8.5 Users Available
(ShackMan | Posted 2010-03-02)
Not long ago, Cakewalk began offering a free update to their SONAR 8 Studio music production software to allow users who had already added the 8.5 patch to go to 8.5.3, which adds a great deal of new features and fixes a good deal of bugs, most of them focusing on AudioSnap 2.0 and its features. That's not to say that SONAR was buggy from the start, but there were some stability issues with the plugin on release. The update also takes the time to focus on usability enhancements, optimizations, and smooth programming for complex audio timing tasks.
In conjunction with the release, Cakewalk is actually offering four new video tutorials on how to make full use of all the features of AudioSnap, both new and old, and the patch list is rather large, too. Here's the skinny on what Cakewalk is doing, taken from their site:
Feature Enhancements
AudioSnap
* Tempo Detection
o Improved tempo detection algorithm
o Added strength indicator to average tempo candidates
o Added option to set clip tempo to original project tempo
* Clip Tempo Maps
o Average tempo updates while editing the tempo map
o Anchored beat markers lock measure/beat markers to transients
o Automatic beat marker remapping while editing tempo map
o Average Tempo picker on Palette to change multiple clips at a time
o Improved behavior for split clips
* New resolution settings to set tempo changes on every beat, measure or clip
* Auto stretch mode added to Clip Follows Project command, emulates AudioSnap1 auto-stretch behavior
* New Extract Groove and Apply Groove buttons to match the groove of one clip to another
* Snap Settings can now be used to snap both audio and MIDI events to audio transients in selected tracks
Issues addressed
AudioSnap
* Improved stability
* Improved rendering
o Render Mode "Apples to" set to "Tracks" did not always apply to all clips on a track
o Bouncing using Radius Mix sometimes flat-lined clips
* Clip Follows Project
o Is now undo-able
o Toggling sometimes modified slip edits
* Clip Tempo Map ruler sometimes stayed on after disabling AudioSnap
* Addresses various graphical behaviors with transient markers, Clip Tempo Maps and AudioSnap Palette button states
* Show Pool Lines setting was not persisted in project files
General
* Arpeggiator sometimes stopped working after a bounce or freeze operation
* BitBridge servers defaulted to 1 after VST scan
* SONAR would sometimes crash when accessing a Windows 7 Homegroup from the Media Browser
* Improved stability when switching driver modes
The video tutorials can be found at:
http://www.cakewalk.com/owners/sonar85/videos.aspx
Registered SONAR 8.5 Producer, SONAR 8.5 Studio, and V-Studio 700 customers
can download the new update for free here:
http://www.cakewalk.com/support/kb/reader.aspx?ID=2007012920
For more information, please refer to the full press release here:
http://www.cakewalk.com/Press/02-19-10%20Cakewalk%20%20Announces%20Free%20SONAR%208.5.3%20AudioSnap%20Update.asp
