The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights?

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TomHelvey
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2014/10/31 03:32:17 (permalink)

The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights?

If you check out some of the composition and production techniques on YouTube, you've probably seen people effortlessly converting a whole note chord progression to eights. Here is a workflow I came up with in Sonar, is there an easier way to do it?
1. Select the MIDI clip you want to convert.
2. Process -> Length: select 50%, uncheck Start Times. Hit OK. Repeat until the note durations are 1/8th notes. Alternatively in the Piano Roll view you can drag the note duration to an eight note, if you have the entire section selected all of the whole notes will be resized.
3. Copy the clip (Ctrl+C)
4. Turn off Smart Grid, it gets in the way of setting Snap To to eights unless you're in clown mode. (Right click on the grid resolution setting on the toolbar). Alternatively, you can zoom out until the snap to setting is 1/8.
5. Set the grid to eight notes. Right click on the grid resolution drop down and select 1/8th notes.
6. Set the now pointer to the next eight note boundary and hit Ctrl+V.
7. Repeat step 6, 7 times.
8. In the track list, double click the track until the entire track is selected. (Sometimes you get all the tracks selected, just do it until the entire track you want to change is selected).
9. Select Bounce To Clips from the track menu.
10. Split the track where you started editing.
11. Done.
 
In Live, this workflow is:
1. Select the clip or the notes you want to change.
2. Drag the end point to the eight note boundary.
3. Ctrl+drag right 7 times.
4. Done.
 
Doing this kind of editing in Sonar just seems endlessly awkward. Is there a better and easier way to do it?
 

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#1

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    FastBikerBoy
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 05:55:24 (permalink)
    I'm not sure I'm following exactly what you are trying to do but if it is just convert notes to eighths there are several ways. One of which is to select the clip, and in the event inspector module set duration to 480 ticks. That's it.
     
    If you then want several more copies of it hit ctrl + L to convert it to a groove clip and then drag it out to required length.
     
    If you want to use copy and paste you can but there's no need to do it several times just use "paste special" (Alt+Ctrl+V) and change the repetitions to the required number.
     
    If you mean something else you'll need to be more specific.
     
     
    #2
    Anderton
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 09:54:10 (permalink)
    Also not sure what you want to do, but I'm assuming this is an example:
     
    You have eight measures of music. Each measure has a chord. Each chord consists of whole notes.
    You want each chord to now consist of eighth notes, and this series of eighth notes would play consecutively so it would now fit in one measure. Right?
     
    If so:
     
    1. Select the clip in Track View, or notes on the PRV - doesn't matter.
    2. Process > Fit to Time
    3. Assuming these notes start at the beginning of the project, enter "2:00" as the new thru time (you want it to be one measure, so you want it to end where measure 2 starts) and check "Event Times."
    4. Click OK - done.
     
    If all you want to do is change the durations but not their start times, select all the notes in the PRV, and slip-edit the note's right edge down 1/8th note. The others will follow.

    The first 3 books in "The Musician's Guide to Home Recording" series are available from Hal Leonard and http://www.reverb.com. Listen to my music on http://www.YouTube.com/thecraiganderton, and visit http://www.craiganderton.com. Thanks!
    #3
    TomHelvey
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 12:03:28 (permalink)
    I don't think I explained what I was trying to do well enough.
    Start point: 4 measures each with a whole note chord.
    End point: 4 measures each with 8 eight note chords.
    I just tried this again using only the PRV, it's probably easiest to do it there but it's still a lot of steps and you still have to fiddle with the grid and paste options. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+V on paste showed me I had the right options selected to merge the clips without changing any settings but prior to bringing up the paste options Sonar always pasted into separate clips which then had to be bounced to a single clip.
    This kind of edit should be simple, obvious, and trivial.
    PRV:
    1. Turn off smart grid.
    2. Select 1/8th note grid and 1/8th note duration.
    3. Select the clip.
    4. Drag the first chord to 1/8th note length. (slip edit)
    5. Hit Ctrl+C (make sure the whole clip is still selected first)
    6. Move position to next 1/8th note.
    7. Hit Ctrl+Alt+V to make sure things are pasted correctly (blend old with new, paste into existing clips)
    8. Repeat 6 & 7, 6 more times (Ctrl+V) will work after the first time.
     
     
     
     

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    #4
    swamptooth
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 12:26:58 (permalink)
    Open the prv set grid resolution to eighth notes smart grid off hold the alt(?) Key which will show a razor tool and you click at each 8th note line.
    Resize the chord to 8th note, copy, move the pointer to next 8th note line, paste special with repeats set to 7 and paste into existing clips enabled.

     
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    #5
    Anderton
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 12:45:12 (permalink)
    TomHelvey
    I don't think I explained what I was trying to do well enough.
    Start point: 4 measures each with a whole note chord.
    End point: 4 measures each with 8 eight note chords.



     
    I'm still confused. For the end point, if you have four measures and each measure has eight chords, how are those eight chords arranged? In other words, suppose your starting point was:
     
    Measure 1 = Whole note A chord
    Measure 2 = Whole note B chord
    Measure 3 = Whole note C chord
    Measure 4 = Whole note D chord
     
    Would the final result be one measure with eight eighth notes chords arranged like this:
     
    option 1: A B C D A B C D 
     
    ...or like this:
     
    option 2: A A B B C C D D 
     
    ...or something else? If option 1, then the fit to time procedure will work fine. The only difference is that you would simply fit to half the measure, then either:
     
    • Copy and paste that half measure to fill out the measure, or...
    • Hit ctrl-L to turn the half-measure into a loopable groove clip, then slip-edit it to create as many interations as you want.

    The first 3 books in "The Musician's Guide to Home Recording" series are available from Hal Leonard and http://www.reverb.com. Listen to my music on http://www.YouTube.com/thecraiganderton, and visit http://www.craiganderton.com. Thanks!
    #6
    FastBikerBoy
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 13:45:42 (permalink)
    I think I understand what you're trying to do. Again there's probably several ways but I'd do it like this
     
    Set grid to eighths
    Select all
    Drag all down to eighths so there's an eighth chord at the beginning of each measure
    Ctrl X
    Position now time to first measure
    Ctrl+Alt+V
    Set repetitions to 8
    In the interval box type 0 0 480
    Hit OK
     
     
    #7
    swamptooth
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 13:49:25 (permalink)
    Hey Anderton, he wants to go from the left to the right.  It's pretty odd though, because the series of steps that he posted to follow in live works exactly the same in Sonar, so I'm a bit confused now too!  
     
    come to think of it tom, you could shorten the chord to an 8th note length, ctrl+drag it 3 times to the right, select the 4 8th notes and ctrl+drag once to the right thus reducing the total steps necessary by 2.
     


     
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    #8
    Anderton
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 14:15:52 (permalink)
    There's also Paste Special, with the repetition option. But Swamptooth, agreed - I don't see why he doesn't at least use the Live workflow in SONAR.

    The first 3 books in "The Musician's Guide to Home Recording" series are available from Hal Leonard and http://www.reverb.com. Listen to my music on http://www.YouTube.com/thecraiganderton, and visit http://www.craiganderton.com. Thanks!
    #9
    swamptooth
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 14:25:29 (permalink)
    I just learned never to post a reply in the forum before my first cuppa joe.  I opened live, followed his steps, and thought to myself "hey, that's what i do in sonar ALL THE TIME!" LOL!

     
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    #10
    FastBikerBoy
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 14:41:00 (permalink)
    Yes now you come to mention it the OPs Live workflow works that way in Sonar too.  Personally I still think the method I posted is quicker but then I'm more used to that than click dragging.
    #11
    DrLumen
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 15:07:11 (permalink)
    For your consideration... </rod serling>
    Here is a script I wrote some years ago for this type of function.
     
    Select the TRACK in which you want the durations changed. Run the script. You will be prompted for various values. They are:
     
    Start and End Level
    These are linear changes to the new note velocities over the length of the original note. For example, you could have it go from 0 velocity for the first note to 127 for the last 1/8th note. Or vice versa or set both to 100(?) if you don't want any velocity change.
     
    Ramp Grain (Duration)
    This is the length of the new notes. For 1/8ths it would be 120 @ 240ppqn.
     
    Shortest Affected Note
    This allows you to specify the length of the notes to be affected - like 960 for a whole note in a 240ppqn environ. Note that anything less than 960, in this instance, will be ignored. If your timing is a little off you may want to try 950 or something.
     
    Overlay
    This will allow multiple events to overlap at the end of the notes.
     
    FYI, the ; are reminders and I left them in here for debugging and some documentation. No, I don't rem as I should... who does? ;)
     
    ;

    (do
     (int tbase 120)
     (= tbase TIMEBASE)
     (int len 0)
     (int islvl 127)
     (int ielvl 0)
     (int slvl 12700)
     (int elvl 0)
     (int itrk 0)
     (int ndur 1)
     (int shrtdur 120)
     (int ndurmod 1)
     (int chgdur 20)
     (= chgdur (/ tbase 4))
     (int chglvl 1)
     (int deltalvl 0)
     (int dursteps 0)
     (int thislvl 0)
     (int overly 1)
     (int ochgdur 0)
     (dword timestep 0)
     (int cdur 0)
     (int theta 1)
     (getInt islvl "Start Level" 0 127)
     (getInt ielvl "End Level" 0 127)
     (getInt chgdur "Ramp Grain (Duration) (Default = tbase/4)" 0 960)
     (getInt shrtdur "Shortest Affected Note (Duration (in Ticks))" 0 960)
     (getInt overly "Overlay Long to Short (0 False)" 0 1)
        
     ;(getInt itrk "Target Track" 1 255)
     (forEachEvent
      (if (== Event.Kind NOTE)
       (do
        (if (>= Note.Dur shrtdur)
        (do
        ;(pause "islvl:" islvl " ielvl: " ielvl)
        (= slvl (* islvl 100))
        (= elvl (* ielvl 100))
        (= thislvl slvl)
        ;(pause "slvl:" slvl " elvl: " elvl)
        (= chglvl (- slvl elvl))
        (= ndur Note.Dur)
        (= dursteps (/ ndur chgdur))
        ;(pause "chglvl:" chglvl " Steps: " dursteps)
        (= theta (/ chglvl dursteps))
        ;(= theta (/ chglvl dursteps))
        ;(= deltalvl (/ theta 100))
        ;(= deltalvl theta)
        (= timestep Event.Time)
         ;(pause "Note Dur-" ndur " Steps-" dursteps " Theta-" theta " Timestep:" timestep)
        (delete)
        (while (> ndur 0)
         (do
          (= deltalvl (/ thislvl 100))
          (insert timestep itrk NOTE Note.Key deltalvl ndur)
          ;(= thislvl (- thislvl deltalvl))
          (= thislvl (- thislvl theta))
          ;(pause "Cur Lvl" thislvl " NoteDur-" ndur)
          (= timestep (+ timestep chgdur))
          (if (== overly 1)
           (do
            (= ndur (- ndur chgdur))
           )
          )
          (if (== overly 0)
           (do
            (= ndur chgdur)
           )
          )
          )
         )
        )
        )
       )
       )
      )
     )
    )


     
    I would suggest you tinker with it a bit on a scratch project. That way you will know what to expect before you turn it loose on a composition.
     
    Then again, maybe I misunderstood the OP as well.
    #12
    gswitz
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    Re: The Easiest Way to Convert Whole Notes to Eights? 2014/10/31 16:28:43 (permalink)
    tempo times four. :P

    StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen.
    I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
    #13
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