Drums in Cakewalk Sonar 4?

  • Thread starter Thread starter louloomis
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louloomis

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Hi. This is going to sound ridiculous....BUT...

I have Cakewalk Sonar 4 Producer Edition. I'm very new to it.

I do not have an external midi module. I have these audio devices installed:

1. M-Audio 2496 - which does not have onboard sounds
2. On the motherboard is an N-Vidia nForce audio chip...I'm not sure if this has onboard sounds or not.

My question is: with this setup, is there still a way to get basic midi drum patterns inserted into a song? Is this a feature of Sonar 4?

Thanks,
LL
 
So you want to program your own drum loops, or do you want to have pre-made midi or audio loops that you can just drop into your projects?
 
Yes, you can do this - one wqay is by programming your drump loops using one of the soft syntrhs included in the package. It's all in the user's guide.
 
Try Session Drummer. When you select the clips and load them into your song they are MIDI files.
 
Can I just say......YOU GUYS RULE!!!!! I got it!!!!

THANK YOU!

LL
 
Well, now that I got the drums playing and can write the midi file to a track and have everything going out to my mixer, I have a couple of other questions:

How do I record the audio of the drums into an audio track? I've got the N-Vidia soundcard (with drum sounds) going into my mixer (signal is good there) and then routed via an aux send back into Cakewalk via my M-Audio 2496 card. I've checked all the I/O assignments at the track level and there's no signal into Cakewalk. Tracks are armed and the path from the mixer to the 2496 have been checked with other sound sources and all is ok...except I can't seem to get any of my N-Vidia's sound to record through the mixer.

Can I possibly NOT record back into a different soundcard on my PC?

Am I insane? Would this cause some kind of feedback loop or something?

Thanks,
LL
 
Sorry one or two more questions for those who are still tolerant of my madness....

1. How do I lock audio tracks to a time grid of some sort. I recorded stuff previously to a drum machine and want to lock that into the bar lines somehow (I know other recording software does this). I'm not sure if I'm using the correct language for this.

2. Also how can I stretch and or synchronize the patterns/midi tracks of Session Drummer with pre-existing audio tracks?

Thanks,
LL
 
#1, you should be able to right click a MIDI track and go into FX>Cakewalk>Quantize. That should snap it to the nearest point on the grid level you set. You might notice some off notes you have to fix after this, but that usually isn't a big problem.
 
Thanks. But...how do I change the tempo and also how do I record the drum tracks as audio. Please see my previous post...I believe I have everthing patched in correctly, but still can't record the drum tracks as audio.

Thanks,
LL
 
If your whole recording is MIDI, you should easily be able to change the tempo. I think you just change the number by the top of the screen.

Default tempo is 120 I think.

I recall just changing the number would stretch the tracks back in the Pro Audio 9 days.
 
louloomis said:
Thanks. But...how do I change the tempo and also how do I record the drum tracks as audio. Please see my previous post...I believe I have everthing patched in correctly, but still can't record the drum tracks as audio.

Thanks,
LL
Click to expand...

You simply change the tempo by typing in the BPM you want and hey presto - it changes!

I don't know how you can record your drum sounds from your mixer with your setup but an alternative is to load up an adjacent audio track to your midi drum track with VSC which comes with Sonar and this will "play" your drum midi file. After recording the required amount of bars (you need to arm both the midi and auio tracks) you then highlight both the midi and the audio tracks and choose edit>Bounce to tracks and hey presto! A new audio track printed with your drums :)
 
I'd say crack open that manual and start reading, then come here and ask questions.
 
Can you expand on the VSC> bounce to tracks bit?

I can't find a reference to VSC in either the Sonar4 manual or Sonar4 Power.

That sounds like a handy tip.
 
c7sus said:
Can you expand on the VSC> bounce to tracks bit?

I can't find a reference to VSC in either the Sonar4 manual or Sonar4 Power.

That sounds like a handy tip.
Click to expand...
This actually applies to any DXi. Simply highlight the two tracks (MIDI and DXi) and select Bounce to Tracks. It will create an audio track of the MIDI data.

I can't think of many reasons why you would need or want to do this, since the MIDI + DXi combination will export to a wave file the same as an audio track will. Plus leaving it in MIDI format allows more flexibility in tweaking, if need be.
 
VSC=Virtual Sound Canvas. Its a Roland product that CAkewalk bundles with Sonar - I'm sure it is with S4 although I don't have that version. It may be on your disk and you didn't load it. I think S4 has TTS - another Roland product that should work.

Midi files need to play through either a soundcard with a library or a Virtual synth that is loaded in an adjacent track and linked together - take a look at the manual/help file for Dxi recording or synth recording. Channel 10 is the default midi drum channel.
 
dachay2tnr said:
This actually applies to any DXi. Simply highlight the two tracks (MIDI and DXi) and select Bounce to Tracks. It will create an audio track of the MIDI data.

I can't think of many reasons why you would need or want to do this, since the MIDI + DXi combination will export to a wave file the same as an audio track will. Plus leaving it in MIDI format allows more flexibility in tweaking, if need be.
Click to expand...

I agree wholeheartedly with that, however in my needs for simplicity and conserving processor power I'll bounce the audio to a track when I'm finished tweaking, and then remove the dxi. That is providing I'm running more dxi's that could benefit from saving that load on the processor. Otherwise, like you, I just leave it.
hehe , I guess I really didn't add or take away anything with this post. :)
 
Yep, as you load the processor with midi and the corresponding audio track(s), it's better to archive your original data after bouncing to audio. This frees up resources for large projects.
 
Paul881 said:
VSC=Virtual Sound Canvas. Its a Roland product that CAkewalk bundles with Sonar - I'm sure it is with S4 although I don't have that version. It may be on your disk and you didn't load it. I think S4 has TTS - another Roland product that should work.

Midi files need to play through either a soundcard with a library or a Virtual synth that is loaded in an adjacent track and linked together - take a look at the manual/help file for Dxi recording or synth recording. Channel 10 is the default midi drum channel.
Click to expand...

TTS in 4P is virtually the same thing as Hypercanvas (an improved VSC). It allows for fine editing of the eq, pitch,adsr, and effects on each patch and can be saved as a user setting.
 
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