The Sunday Report...Sonar X1 Power! plus quirk-of-the-day...

Well, yesterday I got off my lazy rear and went over to GC and bought Scott's new X1 Power book.  Two reasons, mainly.  One, I need a book (or Kindle thingy) in my lap to reference while I'm working on whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish or figure out on my computer screen.  Second, I started feelin embarrased that I know so little about the software I make my living with.  So now, before I get to the X1 "Quirk-of-the-Day", I thought I might give a dimbulb's mini review of Scott's tome.  So here goes:
 
It's kinda pricey.  Even with my good guy discount (my sales guy used to work for me) it was still nearly $50 semolians.  But alright, I said, could be it's worth it.  It's big.  Almost 500 dang pages...and no I haven't read it "cover to cover" yet (not that I ever will for reasons we'll come to in a minute).  And heavy.  You could probably wallop your drummer purty good with it when he started draggin or rushin in the studio and not even leave any discernable marks.  Like they used to do to murder suspects and such in the interrogation rooms of 50s cop movies.  It's got a LOT of information in it about all the add-on stuff (instruments, effects, etc...) that Sonar has in it PLUS it will even school ya on some audio and recording basics and recording techniques.  I thought at first, well that's a bunch of stuff I'll never read cause I don't use those instruments or effects...but then I went ahead and read some of it and guess what?  No, go on guess.  It made me sorta interested in some of them.  I think now I might actually use a couple.  Honest.  Only now I'll know how.  It's very easy to read and understand.  Thank you Scott!!   Even for a nitwit like me.  I mean it's not "Open can of corn, heat, eat" easy but almost.  It covers ALL the bases (and then some) about X1s features and how to use them.  It has a decent index.  It is very well laid out. 
 
So, I know most of you are saying about now, what the heck if anythings wrong with dang thing?  Not much, really but here's a couple of things.  It is sometimes short on what it should be long on.  For instance it doesn't have much at all on the multi-dock which seems to have bamboozled so many (me included).  But maybe there's not a lot to say about it anyway.  And maybe there's more in the newer X1 addendums not in the book.  It's sometimes a bit "hyperbolic" (I'll stop short of saying just plain wrong).  Here's a passage from page 13:  You can change the colors of almost every element in the Sonar workspace.  Beg pardon??  Not on mine you can't.  Unless, of course, we're arguing over what "almost every element" means;-)  It has a butt-ugly cover.  No foolin.  I think they must've had some covers that were destined to be on books about surfin layin around and just said "screw it guys...we're goin with these".  I even took a pen a drew in a little surfer guy fixin to get wiped out in the pipeline...it's one helluva wave!  Plus it's got this squiggle thing beside the title that means...well...what?...I haven't the foggiest.  And I bet Scott doesn't either. 
 
OK...but IS IT WORTH THE MONEY???
 
You bet yor sweet bibby it is.  If you're having any difficulties with Sonar (heck, even if you aren't) I enthusiastically reccomend you go out and get yourself a copy.  You will not regret it.  It's a great reference and a teaching tool to boot.  Two thumps up (heck, four if you consider the big toe as the "thumb" of the foot). 
 
And now, the "Quirk-of-the-Day".
 
I had recently figured out how to get a click track built that would a: let me have the sounds I wanted (Ping Hi and Ping Lo) b: be able to delete everything except the first two measures (my countoff) after I had my initial rhythm tracks laid and c: be able to adjust the tempo to what ever I wanted.  I simply went into my Normal template (I have a custom built one) built a two bar clip with Ping Hi on the first beat, Ping Lo on the next three beats in each bar.  Then I bounced that to a clip.  Then I deleted the first Ping Hi on the second bar.  Then I bounced again to a clip.  Then I split the clip at the start of the 2nd measure and discarded everything on the right.  I  now had a clip that was exactly one bar long.  Then I "groove clipped" that.  Then I stretched it out for 150 measures.  Then I saved that as my new "Normal" template (which is at 100 BPM).  Only I found after using it that if I changed the tempo for a new project below about 85 BPM or so I started hearing a pronounced slapback on the Ping Lo clicks.  Anything above that was fine.  Then a helpful forumite replied to my post regarding this and said that he had simply tried creating the new template at 75 BPM and that got rid of the slapback and worked, as far as he could tell, all the way down to 8 BPM and as high as you'd care to go.  Great!  Only when I went in and tried to recreate it at 75 BPM, everytime I would try to groove clip my single bar it would double it's length to 2 bars with clicks only on every half note.  No matter what I tried this was the result.  I finally was able to solve the problem by going into the groove clip inpsector and forcing it to only have 4 beats per measure.  But I should have been able to just groove clip the thing and me done with it.  I had no trouble whatsoever doing this at 100 BPM.  Only at 75 BPM.  No biggie.  Just another head scratcher.
 
Rock on, me droogies.
 

It was actually sort of an impulse buy.  I was with my buddy who was buying an amp and I picked it up and started thumbing through it.  Plus it was on my GC card which is like....free...sort of;-)

Yeah, usually I would rather "buy it now" than wait to have it shipped. But I also ordered it through the link on Scott's site to give him a little more cash for the sale.

For those who are interested in doing so as well:

http://www.garrigus.com/pwrbkinf.asp?BookID=13

Then my tiny criticism still stands... shouldn't those have been removed??  That's what a word processor is for:-)

But you're right...great reference.

Really if you'll just follow my instructions above making your template at 75 BPM and then, if it does "double it" when you groove clip it just, go into the clip inspector to groove clip and change the 8 to 4 in number of beats per measure that will do it.  Takes about 5 minutes.  Then once you've learned how to do it you can make other templates in other time signatures as well.  I'm not sure if I just sent you a track template if it would work...although it should.  Let me know via PM if ya can't figure it out from the above instructions and I'll forward it along.

I had Sonar 5 Power as well.  It's pretty dog-eared now.

Why I did it is:  so I can have a click track already loaded in my normal template that I can change to any tempo, then after laying in my drum and bass tracks delete all but the count off measures.  If you use the audio metronome there's no good way to do that.  It would be great if you could adjust the number of measures the metronome would sound...especially with a key-binding.  Then, as soon as you really didn't need the metronome anymore, you could just hit your keybinding and just have your count off.  HTH.

RE:  Nice Avatar.

Kicking back on a bright sunny day at the beach.
I don't think I would have been able to see the screen of a Kindle.
Shows the validity of a hard copy verses a digital copy!  (on sunny days.)

Thanks Susan,

I guess they both have benefits, and both would be toast if I dropped them in the lake.
I will have to look into the kindle further.....

greg

yorolpal


I had Sonar 5 Power as well.  It's pretty dog-eared now.

Ha! Yeah, I would think so... this new X1 edition is a big change from the SONAR 5 edition.

Thanks!
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://www.garrigus.com/
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://www.proaudiotutor.com/
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/