Groove Clip Looping Snares! Why does it expand!

I'm trying to GCLoop some snare hits. But, when I select the region to loop, it always expands beyond what I want.  For instance. The snare hit doesn't start at the beginning of the beat But it seems that's where the gcl starts and ends exaclty a measure later which is 1/4 of the next measure. That works great for a kick drum since it starts on the fist beat of the measure.  I've tried several times to select the region I want to loop but it never does what I want it to do.

Yes, I suppose that makes sense but I don't find it anymore useful. lol  I suppose that if one was to include a kick drum at the beginning of the region then GCL it you might be able to delete that kick drum and still have what you were shooting for. ;) I'm probably going about it the wrong way.

 I'll be honest. I'm having a hard time programming drums.  I did manage to start up the step sequencer. I got my snare hits where I want them. And I was was able to GCL them out. I'm not strong with the SS either. I guess whatever you come up with is going to be the same throughout on that track. So, I started another Snare track so I can input rolls and off beats and the such. In comparison, in Redrum you can create a beat with all the elements you want and then copy pattern to track. I'm guessing with the SS in Sonar you really have to create several tracks for your drum elements.  Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time trying to edit some drum hits in the piano roll and I'd have to say, that probably isn't the best way to go about editing drums in Sonar. I'm using Battery. I'm only using 4 drum elements right now. No drum map. I'm also finding that the snap to grid function in the piano roll still seems have a mind of it's own.

OK.. I think I understand what you are trying to do a little bit better, though not totally.  You are using Battery as your Drum module, and you are going to drive it with one or more MIDI tracks...correct?  And you have 4 drum sounds assigned to 4 pads in Battery I assume.

Let's assume you want to make this 1 measure long pattern:  Boom/Bam/Boom Boom/Bam  where Boom is a kick drum on beats 1 and 3, and Bam is a snare hit on beats 2 and 4.

I know there are many ways to do this.  But if you have played the notes (let's say C2 and D2) into a MIDI track, and trimmed away any blank space and bad hits, your clip should now be EXACTLY 4 beats long (1 whole measure...only).

You can now right-click on the clip, and select Groove Clip Looping.  This will enable you to grab the right edge (or curtain) of the clip and drag it out for however many measures you want, and that clip will repeat itself for each measure.

So obviously, if your clip contained only the snare hits, you could do the same thing to it.  Just be sure that the clip is exactly the length it needs to be, and that the notes inside the clip are on exactly the beat you want them to be on.

It should also be obvious that your clip can be any number of measures long, so if you wanted a 4-measure pattern, you could record it, groove clip loop it, then drag the edge to repeat the 4-measure long clip.

Quantizing your recording may help you get the drum hits on exactly the right beat, but may lose some human feel in the process.  But having the drum hits precisely placed in the clip will make the groove clip work properly.

I hope I haven't steered you wrong or oversimplified the process.

Let me know if I'm off track.  (no pun intended..LOL)