New Feature Coverage

October 10, 2009

Aim Assist Enhancements

One of the new features that was added to the 8.x release is Aim Assist Enhancements. Aim Assist is a great way to see exactly where on the timeline your cursor lines up. Whether you are placing content, moving existing clips, or just trying to get a good timing reference, it's nice to see where you are on the timeline, so Aim Assist was created. When you move your cursor around the Clips Pane, you will see a vertical line attached to it that extends up to the Time Ruler. You will also see an overlay where the line crosses the Time Ruler that shows the exact time location.

One of the new enhancements that has been added to the aim assist line is its Snap to Grid properties. Now, the aim assist line will obey the settings you have for the Snap to Grid options. By using this feature, you are able to see where the closest snap point is while you are moving your cursor. So, if you have snap set to quarter notes, and snap is enabled, the aim assist line will extend up to the ruler at the closest quarter note rather than the exact location where the cursor is. Further, if you click and drag on a clip, you will see the aim assist line attach to the end of the clip to show exactly where that clip will snap to as you drag it. If you drag in the left half of the clip, the aim assist line will attach to the beginning of the clip, whereas if you drag within the right half of the clip, it will attach to the end of the clip. See the video to the right for a quick show and tell.

Sonar 8.5 Released

October 1, 2009

Cakewalk has released the much anticipated version 8.5.1 and I am going to go over a few of its features and some of the fun things that come with this release.

Why the Version Number?

In short, Cakewalk has changed their internal naming conventions in order to keep things reasonable for release schedules. the 8.5 update contains a LOT of new features, in fact some may argue that there are as many or more updates to this release than there have been in past releases with full point changes (i.e. 9.0).

Does this mean that there will be a Sonar 9.0 release right away? According to Cakewalk, "no", but it really doesn't matter what the version numbers are when the feature additions are as good as the ones we are seeing this time around with a point release.

One thing at a time

As mentioned above, there are a TON of new features in Sonar 8.5. There are a lot of websites out there that are happy to release this information, paste the bullet points for the update from the Cakewalk site, and gain the traffic of Sonar's popularity. I hope to do something different on this site - provide USEFUL information that helps you understand the updated features. I will be adding content on a regular basis, including video tutorials on features, but this takes time to do and I only do this part time, so please be patient. I hope that you will continue to come back here to learn more. If you find this information useful, please consider a PayPal donation, which can be done using the button at the top of this page. Any amount you want to give will be greatly appreciated and the more that gets donated, the more time I will be able to dedicate to updating the info. Also, if you have any comments or want a particular feature covered, please let me know at blades@lavelle-home.net and I'll be happy to give it a shot. Some of the content here will also cover features that may have come available in earlier releases as well because there's a lot of stuff that sometimes gets missed!

Videos to the right

To the right of this text, you will see some links to video tutorials. Each will be a short, easily digestible bit of information presented in a screen capture movie covering one specific feature. Please use these as a supplement to the text. There are also some videos below that will cover things at a more general level, so check those out as well.