Importing PA9 wrk into Sonar 8 - Envelopes all out of wack

So does nobody know how Pro Audio 9 volume and pan envelopes translate to Sonar 8 and/or a method for getting them to work?

John


I would delete them all and start over.

Well that just ruined my year, haha.

While there may be a simple solution to your problem (tho I doubt it) I'm sure you understand just how big a leap Sonar 8 is over PA9.  Your asking an awful lot of "backwards compatibility".  I'm assuming that you'll be keeping your audio tracks (and whatever DXi, if any, instruments or effects) from your ten year old sessions.  Is that right?  If so...and you probably won't want to hear this...I'd suggest something similar to John.  Only more so.  Redo it all.  I've got songs that I'm working on for a current album project that are as old as yours and have been through countless re-arrangements and reproduction.  I've (mostly) bettered all of them and (more importantly) learned new tricks techniques and have vastly better instruments and tools to work with now.  If you're just trying to recreate this as exactly as possible by all means try to find an answer to your question and continue on.  I'm sure someone more knowledgable about envelopes back in PA9 here on the forum (or at Cake tech support) will help.  Just a thought.  Good luck.

I never used PA9 but if the envelopes are getting brought in and showing up you would think that they are being interpreted as envelopes.  Maybe you can trick them into becoming active.

A couple of things to try(if you haven't already) toggle the read enable button off and on and try that; next is right click on the envelope and select delete; hit play and let it play a bit of the clip, then rewind and hit the undo or Ctrl - Z to put the envelope back and see if it responds.  If no luck then right click envelope and click on Assign envelope and select one of the options BUT NOT MUTE, if you have a volume envelope assign it to pan hit play and see if the pan meter responds then repeat the process but assign it back to volume.  It may be a way to trick it into reactivating.

If no success with that then try Options - Global - "Display envelopes on Pecentage scale"(about 1/3 down the page)  and check it, hit play and see if you get any action or if the envelopes change.  Then switch it back off.

Worth a try anyways.  If it fails try contacting Support to see if there is a work around as has been mentioned already.

If these are MIDI tracks then yes its MIDI data the same as it is in Sonar 8. If these are audio tracks the envelopes are not MIDI events.

Considering that automation was exclusively clip-based back then and that there were only 2 parameters available (volume-pan), it doesn't surprise me much if Sonar doesn't know how to react to those w/ the enormous quantity of automation parameters it offers.

If you right click on the envelope, anything shows up? is it assigned to anything? Normally, you can re-assign envelopes.

I guess you tried that, but just in case...



EDIT - Nevermind, just saw your most recent post.

These tracks are Audio tracks but back then, Pro Audio used the midi automation system for Volume and Pan automation.  I'm not sure how it worked, but the Track Volume and Track Pan controller info showed up in the Piano Roll.  Yes, for Audio tracks.

When I right-click on the envelopes, the same info shows up as would be expected.  They are definitely being imported as Track Volume and Track Pan envelopes.  When you roll over them, they will say Volume or Pan.  When you right click on the clip, you have the option to "Show Track Envelope" and I can select Volume and Pan and make the disappear and reappear.  They also show up in the Event List.  I can add Nodes and do further editing.  Sonar just is not responding to them in playback. 

I briefly mentioned above that Sonar was also creating other envelopes but let me elaborate:  Upon opening, there are four Aux buses (Pro Audio did not have buses).  Some tracks have Aux Send envelopes for some reason.  Also, some clips have a Gain envelope that is deriving information from somewhere but is not the Volume information.  Sonar is responding to the Gain envelope.  But all these extraneous envelopes are easy enough to get rid of.

The only envelope I can reassign is the Clip Gain envelope.  None of Track envelopes (Volume, Pan, Aux Send) have an option for reassignment.

Also, the tracks sometimes do some funny things.  For instance, I just opened up one of the files and the Bass Drum track starts off panned to the right but immediately upon playback goes all the way to the left.  There is no pan envelope nor is there any pan information in the Event List.  If I turn Automation Read off, it does not do it.  So where is it getting its automation information from?

Anyway, I've been searching the forum for the last couple of days and I'm surprised that no one has been importing Pro Audio wrk's into Sonar or, at least, talking about the envelopes.