Two Different Time Signatures / Session Drummer 3?

Separate layers will not respond to different time signatures.

Why did you put the 4/4 part in a separate layer?

All you need to do is have a starting sig of 3/4

Then when the chorus kicks in change it to 4/4

Change it back to 3/4 at the end of the chorus.

Layers shouldn't even enter the equation



Just imaging the chaotic cacophony if different layers were playing at different time signatures!!!

The short answer is that you need to do two things:

1. Insert Meter changes in your project at the beginning and end of the chorus so that the timeline has the right number of measures for each section, and the right number of beats in each measure.
2. Use separate Step Sequencer clips for the different sections.

It sounds like you might first need to bounce-to-clips your current step sequencer clips to convert them back to normal MIDI clips, split the clips where you need to change meter, and then convert them back to SS clips after inserting your meter changes and re-arranging everything.

I realize this might be to much of a broad-brush description if what you need to do, but it's difficult to give step-by-step instructions without fully understanding exactly where you're starting.

EDIT: To set up the meter changes, you can either go to Views > Meter/Key to insert several changes, or use Insert > Meter/Key Change to insert changes one at a time.

Most of what you need to do initially is in the Track View, including setting up the meter changes converting back and forth from SS clips to MIDI clips, and and re-organizing and restructuring your clips as needed.

You can have any number of independent clips in a MIDI/Instrument track driving the one instance of a synth associated with that track.  They can be overlapping in time, or run strictly in series, and they can be a mix of regular MIDI and Step Sequencer clips, which are just a special form of MIDI clip that SONAR uses to store the added info needed to display it in the Step Sequencer interface, and to prevent you from doing things to the clip in other views that might be incompatible with the Step Sequencer.
You can convert a Step Sequencer clip to a MIDI clip by selecting it and going to Clips > Bounce to Clips in the track view menu. You can convert any MIDI clip to a Step Sequencer clip by right-clicking it and choosing Convert to Step Sequencer Clip from the context menu.

You can create a new Step Sequencer clip in a MIDI/Instrument track by clicking the Step Sequencer button in the upper right corner of the SD3 interface associated with that track. This is covered in the Drum Production tutorial series I thought you had already seen, but maybe not. See this post:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2064704

Tons of good stuff in there.

Hope that helps. Step Sequencer can be helpful for drum programming in particular, but in some ways, it's kind of the "deep end of the pool" if you're just starting out with MIDI. If I were sitting down with you to show you how MIDI works in SONAR, that's not where I would start. I would start with the Piano Roll and Event List views, which are one and two steps closer, respectively, to showing you how MIDI really works "under the hood".

Well, it sounds like you are maintaining a good attitude for learning.  That'll help a lot.


Check the vids again for where he clicks the SS icon in the Session Drummer interface (you can bring that up by double-clicking the track-type icon in the track header or from the Synth Rack section of the Media Browser) to add another SS clip to the track, and then positions it where he wants it. You'll also need to set the number of beats in each Step Sequencer clip to match the time signature of the section it's in.


Your idea to add a second instance of Session Drummer with a new Instrument track to go with it will also work, if all else fails, but it shouldn't be necessary.

Good luck, and keep having fun!

If you really get stuck, PM me, and maybe we can swap a project file back and forth to get you squared away.

Reminds me of the time I tried to write a midi track for the Beatles "We can Work it out"  But that was with an Atari!! All I remeber from that was to quantize to triplets.