So Cakewalk has just announced SONAR 4. Wow. According to the feature list, this release will address every single one of my most-requested features:

  • At last: a navigator view.
  • At last: group tracks into folders.
  • At last: a nudge feature for making small adjustments in position.
  • At last: color preferences that stay with the track as you re-sort them.
  • At last: an audio metronome. No more routing a MIDI click track to one of my synths.
  • The “freeze” function for rendering selected tracks to a mix behind the scenes to free up processor power is pretty cool also.

They’ve also thrown in AV and surround-sound support, neither of which I’m particularly excited about, although if I was doing movie soundtracks I’d probably flip.

Over the last few months I’ve been working steadily away using SONAR 3 and if you’d asked me if I expected to upgrade I would have said “forget it”. But I’m placing my advance upgrade order tonight.