Anyone know of or willing to create tutorials for hip-hop workflow on Sonar?

I hesitated to post this because any reference to hip-hop often is an invite for ignorant comments. It's not for me.  My son and his friends have been getting into hip-hop and have been experimenting with various methods.  They asked about Sonar, but like many who try to use Sonar for hip-hop, they found the workflow very non-intuitive for such things in comparison to other programs.  I know, one can create just about any genre of music on any DAW, but i would be lying if i said Sonar was ideal for this task based on my experience.  The irony of this is that there are many who complain that Cakewalk is focusing on dance and loop based production which is pure nonsense.   Most of the additions to X2 were not geared towards any genre or style of music.  i can also say with certainty that the hip-hop producer using Sonar is likely to be just as frustrated as the guy who feels the staff view features fall short.

Anyway, i have found a few tutorials on youtube, but most (if not all) are by guys who definitely are not hip-hop producers.  regardless of your opinions on hip-hop, most concede with any genre there is a huge difference between the person who loves and breathes the genre and the person who knows the theory behind it but just dabbles. It all may sound alike to you, but there is a reason why some producers are getting 7 figures per song and some are selling "beats" for $25.

I'm capable of putting together a hip-hop song in Sonar.  It's rare when I have to because 99% of the time in my job, the song is already created.  I know when i do, it seems to take me a lot longer than my son and his friends using other methods and the results are mixed

???

Why wouldn't Sonar be good for hip hop? I managed to toss together some loops and stuff the first week I had it and I had never done ANYTHING loop based before. Drag some beats and loops into the TV and go to town.

Maybe I'm missing something. :-/

I do create and mix hip hop music and ive been doing it for years in sonar. Its very easy in sonar. soanr is not your problem if you cannot do it.

Cjay.  i did not say i could not do it.  i said that i find the workflow for it in Sonar less intuitive than other methods.  But since you do create hip-hop, perhaps you can help. How would you go about creating flipping a sample MPC style where the elements of that sample are chopped and  mapped across keys?

Beepster thanks.  the matrix is cool, but what gives ableton a leg up in that one particular area is the tight integration of it's matrix style sequencer with it's built in sampler.  The kids are currently on the Fl train.  Sonar's mixing and mastering does beat those programs imo.

I could never figure out FL even back in the old days when it was just a glorified beat box. I am curious about Ableton. I've got a Light version that came with my Scarlett I'd like to check out but I'm a dinosaur by most standards so I should probably just stick to Sonar for now.

The one thing though is Hip Hop is a little different than the electronica/dance type stuff that makes Ableton so popular. Hip Hop is a little more repetitive and I think the sound quality is more important as it's roots are more steeped in R&B than anything. Essentially it doesn't need wicked fast changes and elements swelling in in out. It's more structured so Sonar and it's instruments/effects could indeed beat out those other programs if executed properly. 

On the fly live though Ableton seems to be king.

Of course this all merely based on what I've read and seen on the internet so it might be completely wrong.

Cheers.

here is a very simple example of what I would like to be able to do simply in Sonar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwAHIDicQ3k

The first part of the video is easily done in Sonar using audio snap and SD3, minus the sequencing aspect. Needless to say that method probably only works for percussion and how one would easily do what happens beyond 3 minutes would be , imo, painstakingly tedious in Sonar.  Once again, maybe i am missing something.  I am not trying to bash, but learn.  I do realize this video is using a third party plugin and maybe that is the answer, but i was hoping to be able to replicate to some degree that workflow without third party plugins.

I just watched that whole thing and I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure all of that could be done with the Matrix in conjunction with the Loop Constructor and likely easier than that. Also you get the added benefit of seeing it recorded into the Track View for further editing. 

They made a bunch of enhancements to the Matrix in X2 that pretty much made it do everything it should have in the first place. Whether it all actually works or not I don't know but in the vids I've seen it's pretty darned flexible.

I got an email from FXpansion about Geist (I'm on their list because of my BFD purchase) and really to me it seems like a very basic sampler for folks who don't want to invest in a full fledged DAW. I'd check out all the vids on the Matrix for X2 and pop open the manual to really flesh it out. Frankly that vid looked more complex and rigid than the workflow in X2.

Again... not an expert but that's my impression. Cheers and good luck.

Beepster


Hey, John. You know more about this stuff. Take a look at that vid he posted and see what's happening in Geist. You'll probably be able to dissect it better than I can and offer Sonar based alternatives. To me it seems like Geist would be more difficult and limiting to work with but I just don't know enough to put it into words properly. The only thing I see that might be easier is when they split up the loop and the sections automatically map to the controller. Not sure if that can be done in Sonar. Cheers.

I didn't see anything in that vid that one couldn't do in Sonar. I also forgot to mention Dropzone. It was made for Hip Hop more or less. Beep I am no expert on Hip Hop. 

Beepster. Geist is not meant to be a full fledged DAW. It's simply a sampling drum machine that actually functions as a sampler instead of just playing back samples. I posted that video not so much to compare geist to Sonar since they are two very different animals, but to show an example of one production style. It does what it does well, but as mentioned, is still not quite the same as hardware. I'm not a fan of FL studio, but the dismissal of it being just for kids looking to make things quick is not quite fair since it is currently being used by some of the top current hip-hop producers.

Thanks. Poise may be helpful. The step sequencer in Sonar has actually grown on me. maybe it is session drummer that is messing things up for me in that particular genre. As it stands now, I find it easier to use the free sampler short circuit for drums despite it's lack of drag and drop