Sonar. A few midi puzzles.

[Jim Y]

I tried this in the Sound-on-Sound forum with no reply. I'm sure I'll do better here. This refers to Sonar 1.3.1 but I dont think 2 will be any differant.

1: Is it possible to rehearse to the metronome before actually recording? Sonar is the first sequencer I've come across that won't play unless you first record something.

2: Can a midi part be looped individually - so that it plays until you hit stop? It can't really be necessary to copy it all the way through, can it? I very often want to make a basic drum loop to record the rest of the song to before building a proper "play thru" drum track.

3: Is it possible to get the Sonar transport to be fully remote controlled from another device? I can get it to wait for sync and then stop by remote and it will jump to song position pointer but it seems silly to have to hit play in Sonar before play on the master device everytime.

[c7sus]

You should be able to program the metronome to play "X" amount of bars prior to recording beginning.

I'm not sure about the layout of sonar because I'm still using PA9. But you should also be able to loop MIDI commands.

Again, you should be able to set the DAW as a slave to another MIDI device. What MIDI interface are you using?

I would suggest getting Scott Garrigus' SONAR POWER. I have his book for PA9 and it is a great resource. He includes screen shots and little tutorials to walk you through creating and editing.

[Mr Martin]

1. Here's a quick fix for that one. I put one MIDI note at the beginning of the piano roll and another one about 120 measures out. Then select the MIDI while playing button and hit play. It will keep playing the metronome until it gets to the last beat. Not the most conventional method but it works.

2. Select the start and end points, hit the looping button (two yellow brackets, and push play. It will go until you hit stop or a blackout for those Californians. http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipApril01.html

3. The transport functions are fully automatable. I have 2.0 and there is a new feature that is an update from 1.3. There is a article on it in Tech Tips on the Cakewalk site. It will walk you through it. It's tricky and you will have to "teach" Sonar the commands. Once its up and running ypu'll be glad you took the time. http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipMay02_1.html

c7sus is right, get the Garrigus book, worth every penny.

[Mr Martin]

1. Here's a quick fix for that one. I put one MIDI note at the beginning of the piano roll and another one about 120 measures out. Then select the MIDI while playing button and hit play. It will keep playing the metronome until it gets to the last beat. Not the most conventional method but it works.

2. Select the start and end points, hit the looping button (two yellow brackets, and push play. It will go until you hit stop or a blackout for those Californians. http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipApril01.html

3. The transport functions are fully automatable. I have 2.0 and there is a new feature that is an update from 1.3. There is a article on it in Tech Tips on the Cakewalk site. It will walk you through it. It's tricky and you will have to "teach" Sonar the commands. Once its up and running ypu'll be glad you took the time. http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipMay02_1.html

c7sus is right, get the Garrigus book, worth every penny.

[Mr Martin]

1. Here's a quick fix for that one. I put one MIDI note at the beginning of the piano roll and another one about 120 measures out. Then select the MIDI while playing button and hit play. It will keep playing the metronome until it gets to the last beat. Not the most conventional method but it works.

2. Select the start and end points, hit the looping button (two yellow brackets, and push play. It will go until you hit stop or a blackout for those Californians. http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipApril01.html

3. The transport functions are fully automatable. I have 2.0 and there is a new feature that is an update from 1.3. There is a article on it in Tech Tips on the Cakewalk site. It will walk you through it. It's tricky and you will have to "teach" Sonar the commands. Once its up and running ypu'll be glad you took the time.
http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipMay02_1.html

c7sus is right, get the Garrigus book, worth every penny.

[Jim Y]

1: Yeh, looks like dummy midi notes are the only way to fool the metronome. It appears you can save these in a template so I'll try that.

2: The loop points on the time bar affect the whole song. I want individual tracks to have their own loop, so I only need to produce a basic backing while I build the rest of the song. It seems crazy to have to paste copies thru of something that's only temporary!

3: Hmmm... this may well be a Sonar2 feature, I'll have a look at the link.

Thing is, the above points are features I miss from my old Atari sequencer - A shareware prog call Sweet16. This was pattern based, all on one screen, very quick to learn and use. I can't help thinking that current sequencer designers are obsessed with sample loops and plugins - they forget basic functionality. If Sweet16 could use more than one midi in and a few other features I would still be working with it!

[Torpid-x]

For a temp drum beat acidizing is the answer, it beats the metronome anyday.....

Record the pattern you want to loop to an audio track.
Trim it down to size.
Right click on the audio clip and select Groove Clip Looping or highlight it and hit CTRL+L.
Grab the right edge of the audio clip with the mouse and drag it out as long as you want it.

Simple solution, I never thought I'd have a reason to use acidized loops untill I wanted to do what you want to.

[Torpid-x]

One more thing...

Record and save those basic beats at your most common tempos, that way all you have to do is import them and drag them out to capture a quick idea.

Another idea is to do the copy and paste thing and save that file as a template for new projects, that way you can change the tempo if you need to. And you might as well set up a couple of audio tracks before saving the template and/or anything else that you use all the time.

Either way you'll have to do a little initial setup work. After you do the initial work, starting a new project is easy, finishings the hard part

[Teacher]

all u have to do is make a loop (u don't have to put dummy midi notes) and set the metronome to on in playback mode

[Jim Y]

Yes I do need the midi notes!
I cannot make a loop without first recording it - I don't know I'm playing in the right rhythm until I've recorded it and figured out the tempo! Catch 22 Duh! If I hunt around for a pre-recorded pattern or loop I'll have forgotten what I want by the time I find it!

My method of working is...
1, Get idea in head
2, Play metronome and figure out tempo.
3, Record a few bars of midi drums.
4, Figure if it's a 2, 4 whatever bar pattern and loop accordingly.
5, Get on with the rest of the tune.
Is that such an unusual way to work? Does everyone else use pre-recorded loops?

Just got "Sonar Power" today. At first glance, it looks like the manual re-written...

[Jim Y]

I solved the midi clock sync dropout problem. The solution is neither in the help files, manual or Sonar Power. Although they tell you to do this for MTC/SMPTE sync, it is not mentioned in Midi clock setup.
Under Transport menu, select "Loop and Auto-shuttle".
In the dialog, tick "Loop Continuously".
Once you select Midi Sync and hit play, Sonars transport remains under remote control until you hit Esc.

And I did a template with dummy midi notes to solve the metronome preview problem.

It does look like it's impossible to make an individual clip loop independantly. It may be possible to load the clip as a pattern into Session Drummer. Then it should always loop until the end of the song even as it grows.