Drawing multiple velocities in PRV

Lasso the notes you want to work with. Then hover your mouse over the top of one of the selected notes until you see the mouse change to the shape of a pencil with some lines next to it. Now click and drag up/down to adjust the velocity of the selected notes.

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
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garrigus


Lasso the notes you want to work with. Then hover your mouse over the top of one of the selected notes until you see the mouse change to the shape of a pencil with some lines next to it. Now click and drag up/down to adjust the velocity of the selected notes.

Scott

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

Hi Scott...

I don't think that's what he's referring to... I came on this problem earlier in X1 but haven't posted about it.... until now...

I believe he wants to draw in curves which used to be as simple as selecting the desired item to draw for and click-drag...
Now it only wants to enter a single value/point... I'm trying to remember how I found the right tool, but I do remember it was buried somewhere... Not very intuitive. I'll have to try again and see if I can find where it is and how I got there... ;-)

Keni

[edit] Ahhh... You need to select the freehand tool instead of the smarttool as well as select the controller you wish to draw... I just did it...

[end edit]

Skysaw

Keni

I believe he wants to draw in curves which used to be as simple as selecting the desired item to draw for and click-drag...
Now it only wants to enter a single value/point... I'm trying to remember how I found the right tool, but I do remember it was buried somewhere... Not very intuitive. I'll have to try again and see if I can find where it is and how I got there... ;-)

Keni

That's exactly it, Keni, and thank you. I guess the best description is painting velocities by dragging a shape. I'd appreciate it if you could figure out where you might have found a solution. This is having a huge impact on my workflow (not to mention my mousing wrist).

Press F9 takes you to the draw tool that does what you are describing, assuming I'm understanding you correctly. If it's just a quick draw press and hold F9 then when you release you're back where you started.

Hi FBB,

Thanks for the post. I'm away from my machine at the moment... Is F9 different than holding alt to draw? I've found I can use the drawing tool to work with every controller except velocity in PRV. That is, unless I use the controller pane, which as I explained is problematic.

Skysaw


Thanks Randy,

I'm not sure what I've been doing wrong, but I'll give it another try since at least now I know it's possible. I'll let you know how it goes.

Good - Let me know how it goes.  I'm not the ideal person to advise on this since I still rely on 8.5, leaving X1 just for occasionally experimenting.  And I can't get to my music computer - it's being worked on - so I can't confirm, but it seems to me I wasn't having trouble editing velocities in my usual way on X1.

It's of paramount importance to have the Grid off, and to use Ctrl so you can draw in a free-ranging way.  And I think it's Ctrl+Alt to draw straight-edge ramps.

Randy B.

FastBikerBoy


Ah sorry. I misunderstood. That doesn't work AFAIK in the PRV because there seems to be no way to select just velocity.

It seems it's controller pane or nothing.

Hi, FBB - I'm not sure what you mean---?  If you've asked for the controller panes to be displayed, the basic default view is velocity.  That's what you get if there are any notes in the track, and there they are, ready for editing.  If you don't have the controller pane on, you get the velocities superimposed the notes in the main PRV window--which some people don't mind.

But what do you mean--you can't select velocity--?

RB

FastBikerBoy

Skysaw

Keni

I believe he wants to draw in curves which used to be as simple as selecting the desired item to draw for and click-drag...
Now it only wants to enter a single value/point... I'm trying to remember how I found the right tool, but I do remember it was buried somewhere... Not very intuitive. I'll have to try again and see if I can find where it is and how I got there... ;-)

Keni

That's exactly it, Keni, and thank you. I guess the best description is painting velocities by dragging a shape. I'd appreciate it if you could figure out where you might have found a solution. This is having a huge impact on my workflow (not to mention my mousing wrist).

Press F9 takes you to the draw tool that does what you are describing, assuming I'm understanding you correctly. If it's just a quick draw press and hold F9 then when you release you're back where you started.

Hi FBB...

Thanks for that one... That just saved me a lot of grief (later)... From reading further posts in this thread I'm not sure if I really got to the root of his issue...

Now I can draw in curves for notes/controllers/etc as I did before, but if velocity is the need, I don't think there's a way... The velocity is tied into the note value and not a separate event as is a controller event... I may be mistaken... If he needs MIDI Volume, it's there by selecting the appropriate controller from the drop down...

Keni

FastBikerBoy

Keni

I don't think there's a way... The velocity is tied into the note value and not a separate event as is a controller event... I may be mistaken... If he needs MIDI Volume, it's there by selecting the appropriate controller from the drop down...

I concour.

AH, I see- Thanks for the clarifications.  --Well, I've never tried to edit velocities without the controller pane, but I can see how that wouldn't work - you'd be inserting notes by accident instead.--that's what the controller pane is for, to edit.

I'm not sure why Skysaw can't make the velocity pane large enough to work with --He said if he expands it to the size he wants, then he can't see the notes in the main window.  Maybe his screen resolution is way small---?

RB

rbowser

FastBikerBoy

Keni

I don't think there's a way... The velocity is tied into the note value and not a separate event as is a controller event... I may be mistaken... If he needs MIDI Volume, it's there by selecting the appropriate controller from the drop down...

I concour.

AH, I see- Thanks for the clarifications.  --Well, I've never tried to edit velocities without the controller pane, but I can see how that wouldn't work - you'd be inserting notes by accident instead.--that's what the controller pane is for, to edit.

I'm not sure why Skysaw can't make the velocity pane large enough to work with --He said if he expands it to the size he wants, then he can't see the notes in the main window.  Maybe his screen resolution is way small---?

RB

I'm not quite sure what he's seeing, but I know that I'm pretty uncomfortable in the controller pane much of the time... Say when I have a track recorded from a guitar-controller where I need to see/access six pitchbend-channels (etc.) at a time... One for each string. Last time I tried, it divides the screen space into just that many separate "lanes" which I cannot maximize (or haven't figured out how yet)...

Keni

Piers66


Hello,

Just tried this, and it worked first time.

I selected a previously recorded clip in a MIDI track, switched to Piano Roll View, expanded the window enough to see the velocity values of the recorded notes clearly, clicked on the freehand draw tool and just drew a curve through them (the velocities, not the notes):



I didn't switch the grid off. In fact I tried setting it to various values (from 64th triplet to whole) and it seemed to make no difference. The midi clip I was editing was quantised (1/8 notes), so I selected some notes and moved them some random fraction of a beat. Still no difference.

Note that if you select some of the midi notes in the clip, when you draw the new velocity curve it only effects the selected notes. Select none, and the curve is applied to all notes within the time frame of the curve.
Thanks very much for the explanations in previous posts. I'm a newbie with Sonar, and mostly learning through random experimentation. This was a new one for me!
Piers.

Excellent, Piers - Thanks for this post.  I'm frustrated that I can't get to my computer to check on things - but your post reminds me of something I did notice in X1.  Previously, if you had the Grid on in PRV, that would effect your drawing in the controller pane - it would quantize it.  But I do seem to recall now that in X1, turning off the Grid is no longer necessary.  Good--I'm glad you tested and posted this.

And from your screen shot, it all looks very clear to me - those velocities are plenty big enough to work with.

Skysaw, when you get back to this thread, it would be good to know what your screen resolution size is.

Keni - the controller panes can't be re-sized individually.  You have to re-size the entire PRV, and the panes get larger with it.  But there is certainly a limit to how many panes you can have open and still see well enough to edit.

RB

rbowser


Keni - the controller panes can't be re-sized individually.  You have to re-size the entire PRV, and the panes get larger with it.  But there is certainly a limit to how many panes you can have open and still see well enough to edit.

RB

Thanks RB...

But no matter how large I make it I still get the controller pane divided into the number of controllers being used... So if I have 6, it's only 1/6 of the available area no matter how much I zoom... and that can be very hard to work with...

I would need to be able to zoom an individual controller so that I could see/adjust just one at a time...

Keni

rbowser

<snip>

Keni - the controller panes can't be re-sized individually.  You have to re-size the entire PRV, and the panes get larger with it.  But there is certainly a limit to how many panes you can have open and still see well enough to edit.

RB

Hello again,
 
It's true, you can't set the height of one controller to be greater than another, but you can change how much of the whole PRV pane is devoted to the notes, and how much to the controllers. Just drag the horizontal bar between the two.
 
In my screen shot it's roughly 50% notes, 25% velocity, 25% CC7, but I could have changed that to 10:45:45 if I'd wanted to view the controllers in higher resolution (so to speak). If you've already maximised the PRV pane on your screen there should be more than enough height to see what you're doing.

I suppose the only problem might be if your MIDI track had a dozen different controllers recorded in it, all taking up their share of the pane...
 
Piers.

Thanks for your input everyone.

Some clarification:

1. Yes, you could do this with Sonar 8 without the controller pane. I have spent many hours doing this because it's how I actually compose.
2. This is not a problem that better screen resolution would fix. I am using a dual monitor set-up with 1680x1050 on my main monitor.

I can't express how disappointed I am that I can no longer do it. Perhaps that seems like hyperbole to some people, but it is a huge setback to me. Why the feature was taken away is baffling to me. I guess I have no choice now but to use the controller pane, but this is going to slow me down permanently.

Piers66, thank you for going through the trouble of demonstrating how to do it in the controller pane, but as I mentioned, this is not what I wanted, nor what I could do in Sonar 8. That is just not enough vertical space to keep the range of notes I need visible without having them so tiny I cannot edit them. Meanwhile, the velocity pane is not large enough to enable subtle editing of the values by hand. I just don't have the motor control or wrist power to make it easy. Consider that the pane represents 127 possible velocity values, and that sometimes just a tiny difference in velocity makes all the difference in feel, especially in solo piano music, for example.

I do appreciate all the input and the attempts to help me find a means of doing what I want. And I completely understand if a lot of folks here can't see why it's an issue. But surely this matters to some of you, no? Aren't there more of us drawing velocity freehand?

FBB, yes individual controller lanes are easy to switch off, but I don't relish the idea of continuously switching them on and off, especially since it is sometimes very hard to even read which lane is which controller when you have more than three lanes. Worst of all, the setting for which is in view is not saved, and if I want to see velocity, I have to first turn everything on, then one by one click the little close boxes. I expect to be repeating that process many times an hour. Time I would much rather spend on actually writing music.

One thing i find helpful in this regard is the PRV setting that will only show the velocities only of selected notes (PRV -> Notes -> Show Velocity On Selected Notes Only). This does take place in the controller pane, but at least you only have to deal with the notes you want to edit.

So if i'm looking at a drum kit midi track in the PRV and want to change velocities of, say, Hi-Hat notes, it's pretty simple with this setting on. Lasso all the Hi-Hat notes to be changed, hit F9 to go pick up the Draw Tool (freehand mode as mentioned above), and do the deed. Only the Hi-Hat notes will  be visible in the velocity controller pane.

Regards
Glenn