barusa
...What I am looking for is the ability for the notes to play with different durations. I want the notes to play with short-long variations of the notes. My hopes is that every 1st quarter note would stay the same length. The second quarter note would play slightly shorter, say 90% of the duration. The third quarter note would be longer, say 110% of the duration...
Hi,
Barusa - The sort of thing you're wanting for the project you're putting together isn't so easily done using the Staff View exclusively. Some people do compose directly in the SV, more power to them. But people achieving success with that approach develop their own tricks for making the most out of the rather limited tools in SV.
When I first started using Cakewalk/Sonar, the Piano Roll View looked like a horror to me. From just looking at it, I couldn't see how that view could be musically useful. I remember thinking, "hmm, this must be for people who can't read music."
Well! I got over it - I forced myself to see what the PRV was all about - And that time spent in learning how to use it was the best thing I ever did for myself in regards to Cakewalk. I've long since considered the PRV as "The Heart of MIDI in Sonar." I rarely look at the Staff View anymore.
This is all leading up to an answer, a solution to how you want, with a variety of note durations - and you're right, having different durations, PLUS different velocity values, is the main ingredient for bringing life to a MIDI passage. With notes all the same length, then you'd be back to the limitations had back in the '50's and 60's during the early experimental years.
My reference here is Sonar 8.5 - the SV has been simplified in X1-- When you insert a note, you have the choice of setting what its duration will be before you insert it. There's a Note Duration window which defaults to 1:00, which is the full value of the note. Sweep your cursor through that window and type in a new value before inserting the note. The default resolution for notes is 960 Ticks Per Quarter Note. Leave it at that. In that duration window, inserting a quarter note, as example, type in 480, and your quarter note will be exactly 1/2 of one beat. -
So, that's one way to do it - I know, lots of work, but I don't know of a plug-in or CAL script that will really accomplish what you want.
Piano Roll View - much faster way of accomplishing the same thing. If you have your passage already inserted, fine, you'll see all the notes displayed over the graph, all the same length. Just start grabbing the ends of notes and dragging them left to shorten them. It's a far easier, more intuitive way to work in a variety of note durations because there in the PRV you'll have visual feedback--You'll see the pattern you want - Full duration, shorter duration, longer duration. You could do those length adjustments with the grid on, and your edits will snap to the grid, limiting your possibilities to the snap value - but my strong preference is to work in the PRV with snap totally off - Then I can change lengths to anything I like, and notes can be placed less than robotically, perfectly on the beat.
And so on. - In other words, Lots of tweaking in your future if you want to keep composing with a mouse. The best way to work is with a MIDI keyboard, with by-hand editing after each recording, as needed.
Randy B.