Step Sequencer - Several questions

I've been a Sonar user since the Pro Audio days. However, I've never really used the step sequencer. Today, in the course of experimenting with drum maps, I decided to use the step sequencer. Immediately I ran into issues and questions:

1) How do you move notes?

I want to shift everything to the right 1/2 a measure. I have no idea how to select or move notes within the step sequencer. Left and right clicking don't do it. There is no lasso selection. Am I missing something???

2) How do you change time signature?

My project's time signature is 4/4 but I recorded (via MIDI) something that is instead 6/8. When I load it in the step sequencer, it sounds okay, but the step sequencer still shows 4 columns per measure instead of 6 (or 3). When I change "Steps" at the top of the step sequencer window to "3", it reduces the columns to 3, but the timing sounds off now. How can I get the step sequencer to show 3 or 6 columns per measure instead of 4, without changing the actual timing of the MIDI notes?

3) How can you get it to loop?

I have a loop defined in Track View. If I start playback in track view, it repeats the loop, and shows me the notes in the step sequencer. That's fine, except I wish I could start the pattern over at the beginning each time, and my track view is setup to pause rather than rewind whenever I stop plaback.

If I use the play button in the step sequencer itself, it starts at the beginning of the pattern (good), but does not loop. How can I get it to loop?

4) What are some good videos tutorials or examples

I'd love to see some [video] examples of people using the step sequencer to create good sounding patterns. Do you know where I can find such examples?

Thanks!

Quite fine questions you raise.

I did not know you could even shift notes DOH!  THAT would have saved me some time.

What I DID find was:

The Step Sequencer is ONLY built to deal with really a 1/4 note meter base.  I did a song in 9/8, and basically had to set it up as 9 beats with 2 steps - this is hard to explain.  The 2 steps were to give me essentially 16th note division in the beats.  BUT because the SS only really has a 1/4 note meter base, 9/8 becomes 2 measures of space for what should have only been 1 measure in the actual song, AND to get it to play at the right tempo you have to DOUBLE the tempo, so that the 1/4 meter base REALLY sounds like the 1/8 note meter that it is supposed to have been in the first place.

In other words, because it thinks of it all in terms of having a quarter note always getting the beat, for me to enter notes where what I am entering is really using an eighth-note base I have to essentially enter 2 measures of data played twice as fast, so that it PLAYS like I had entered it in 9/8. 

QUITE anoying that is - I did enter a feature request for this.

The other thing is in dealing with things like triplets.  Triplets are seen by the step sequencer as EVIL, I think.  To enter triplets, you have to divide the beat into some multiple of 3.  So, each quarter note beat would get 3 steps entered, giving you a triplet.  The tricky part is when you have combinations of triplets and quintuplets.  It just CAN'T be entered as a single measure.  I suppose you could do some sort of lowest common denominator math and maybe have 15 steps per beat to be able to do it.   That sort of thing is extremely messy, but thankfully, it does not seem to come up too often.

Other than some extra thinking, for handling non-standard meter bases (anything other than quarter-note) and dealing with the unfortunate realities of triplets and such, I find the SS pretty easy to use.

Lastly - and I'll end on a happy note - I DID find a way to quickly and painlessly get the note range set differently than the default note numbers that is presents when you first open the SS to enter notes.

Let's say that the default note number is 47, and then it all goes up chromatically from there, but I need to change the range to begin at note number 60 and go up from there.  Well, rather than having to manually adjust all of the note numbers, if you just delete all of the notes but one (use that X up at the top), then double-click on the last remaining note number to change it to whatever the LOWEST note number in your target range should be, then all you have to do is repeatedly hit that '+' sign at the top to add as many notes as you need.  It will add them to the top of your lowest note, chromatically building up whatever range you were looking for.  It is REALLY fast.

I hope some of the above makes sense - couple of things to look out for, and 1 technique for saving time, hope it all helps you with understanding the Step Sequencer some more.

AND thanks for the video links, Swamptooth, I will check those out too - sure to learn some there, as well.
Bob Bone

Sorry, forgot to mention one thing.

IF you wanted to change time signature for the SONG, then you would do that at the song level, back in track view.  Insert a meter change under the Project tab at the top.  The Step Sequencer will play things back at the meter that is present at that Now time when it processes each measure.

The only thing there is that you could enter a number of beats that not only can go beyond one measure, it could also be some in-between number of beats, which I have not done but would think would be a bad thing.  Sort of like crossing the streams when Ghost Busting.

I hope I have helped you a little,

Bob Bone

I still can't figure this out: how do we add swing to multiple notes/rows at a time in the step sequencer?

In fact, how do we manipulate *any* parameters for multiple notes/rows simultaneously? Ctrl-clicking and shift-clicking don't allow me to select multiple rows at a time. Is the step sequencer supposed to work like this, or is it broken?

click the step in that row. right click the step in the old one to delete. yeah... /

Reading this frustrates me. I appears that though you can be somewhat flexible per row, but not really anything globally? That seems mighty archaic. I think for many things I would just prefer to work in the PRV (though I understand the overall appeal)

I found a way to apply swing to the entire pattern: I added a Quantize MIDI effect to the track. I then adjusted the swing in that.

Pretty hacky, but it worked.

Hi Bob Bone,
                    I had notice that you are one of the most cheerful helper in the forum and you have plenty to write. Perhaps you should consider collecting all your writing in the forum and when you have enough of them then you can publish them in a book?

                    Just a tought. Just to let you know I appreciate your contribution.

Choo Shi-Hwei

musichoo

Hi Bob Bone,
                    I had notice that you are one of the most cheerful helper in the forum and you have plenty to write. Perhaps you should consider collecting all your writing in the forum and when you have enough of them then you can publish them in a book?

                    Just a tought. Just to let you know I appreciate your contribution.

Choo Shi-Hwei

If you'd like to read a book on how to use SONAR, you might want to check out the SONAR Power book series... http://www.garrigus.com/powerbooks.asp


Best,
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

garrigus

musichoo

Hi Bob Bone,
                   I had notice that you are one of the most cheerful helper in the forum and you have plenty to write. Perhaps you should consider collecting all your writing in the forum and when you have enough of them then you can publish them in a book?

                   Just a tought. Just to let you know I appreciate your contribution.

Choo Shi-Hwei

If you'd like to read a book on how to use SONAR, you might want to check out the SONAR Power book series... http://www.garrigus.com/powerbooks.asp


Best,
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

Well Scott,
               I am a old customer, I own Sonar2, 8 and x1 powerbooks. LOL
Choo Shi-Hwei

I do wish some time was spent expanding functionality and correcting problems with the Step Sequencer.

I happen to use it for drums, largely because I never put in any time at all on figuring out how to do things in PRV, and staff view is a nightmarish mess.

But, for what I am doing with it, Step Sequencer is working - pretty much.

Summing, +1 on the please fix it and add what would seem to be basic functions thought, 

Bob Bone

Hey, Kenneth - you can add more notes to the number of notes displayed, increasing the range for the SS clip, and you can also increase the number of beats - up to 64 - and also sub-divide each beat into some number of steps per beat.  (I don't know what that limit is, I just do it for 1/32 notes or setting up a measure for entering triplets and such).

If you instead meant you cannot zoom on the clip itself, to magnify its contents, then you are probably correct.

You are CERTAINLY correct in the Step Sequencer needing some developer time as there are basic design flaws on top of missing functionality.

Bob Bone

robert_e_bone


Hey, Kenneth - you can add more notes to the number of notes displayed, increasing the range for the SS clip, and you can also increase the number of beats - up to 64 - and also sub-divide each beat into some number of steps per beat.  (I don't know what that limit is, I just do it for 1/32 notes or setting up a measure for entering triplets and such).

If you instead meant you cannot zoom on the clip itself, to magnify its contents, then you are probably correct.

You are CERTAINLY correct in the Step Sequencer needing some developer time as there are basic design flaws on top of missing functionality.

Bob Bone

Thanks Bob, and yeah I meant that you can't zoom the actual gui and fit more into the same screen as you can in the PRV and my patterns are never short enough to fit so then you have to scroll.

I meant the Step Record with the bugs, the second record mode. I think it's much much better than using the step sequencer. But it's so badly bugged that it's not worth using. The shortcuts in Sonar grabs just about all the keys you need to use it without the mouse. You can do everything you can in the step sequencer with step record, only faster and with much more control.