[SOLVED] How to make acoustic guitar groove clips or loops??

Has anyone made their own acoustic guitar loops?
I want to try and make a library of simple rhythm loops in various keys. Now I imagine that I should record a number of bars of each chord so that they line up with the bar boundries, and then split them at the zero crossing points to avoid clicks. I will then have a number of samples at a fixed tempo and key which can be saved.
 
What do I now do to make those samples able to be used at different tempos, within reason, to act like "acidized" loops? Is this even possible in Sonar? My limited understanding of "acidized" loops is that they will stretch or shrink to follow the host tempo and also are able to be raised or lowered a couple of tones.
 
I eagerly await hearing of anyone's experiences.
 
 
 
 

You can also set these up using Strum Acoustic and midi if you have Sonar X3 Producer.  I assume you want to use this as a songwriting/arranging tool.  If so, that would probably work well.

Ok, I have made and edited my clip and read the manual references and watched some tutorials on Cakewalk and Youtube. But...... I am missing something.
 

jamesg1213
  - when your clip is how you want it, right click and select 'groove clip looping'. 

I can't seem to find that particular command.
 
My clip wont stretch or roll out or do anything but play just it's one bar length. I can't seem to get anything happening in the Loop Construction editor. After watching the tutorial clip in the Cakewalk videos, it appears to be only for existing loops, not for construction of new ones.
Is it possible to make groove loops in Sonar? What am I missing?
 
 
 
 

This is so frustrating. I have a clip which when clicked will open the Loop Construction pane ... then...... nothing works.
Yes, it plays, but none of the options are available. The Loop button is greyed out, nothing in the tabs works and nor does the No Slice button work and the Beats and BPM indicators are greyed out.
The ruler shows only numbers and there are no markers to be had.
The only thing it does is loop around itself. Bleh.......

Hi, Optimus. Not sure why this is giving you a hard time but it should be rather easy. I just went and tried it out to make sure I remembered how to do it.
 
I'm going to assume you have recorded your clip to a metronome so it matches up to the timeline and that you have used your Snap settings to trim the clip to fall within a measure, beat or whatever musical time based period you want the loop to be AND that you have "Split at zero crossings" set in Preferences OR you have made sure the beginning/end of the clip have been faded appropriately to avoid pops when looped.
 
1) Select the clip you want to loop.
2) Right click the clip and select "Groove Clip Looping" from the context menu OR simply press Ctrl + L
 
Your clip is now a Groove Clip. If you drag it out it should repeat and the start of the next instance should appear at an exact Beat, Measure, whatever on the Timeline.
 
Now here is the part that might be causing you problems. If you want the Groove Clip to follow any time changes you have to...
 
3) With your clip (and only that clip) selected Press "I" to open the Inspector
4) Click the "Clips" tab at the top of the Inspector window
5) Click where it says "Groove Clip"
 
This will show you the Groove Clip options for the selected clip. You can see various information and options for the clip.
 
6) Checkmark the option that says "Stretch to Tempo"
 
Now if you change the project tempo the clip will adjust to follow the new tempo.
 
You can do this with any audio clip. You can export it to a special folder on your hard drive (that you create) and then just drag it into any project you want. I am not sure if the Groove Clip info will follow it (in which case it should simply follow the current project tempo) but you can always drag it into a project as is and use the Timing Tool to make it fit in time where you want.
 
You will need to render any time stretched audio though to avoid artifacts (what you will hear is Online rendering... what you want is to Bounce to Clips so you are using Offline rendering which produces much better results). Also advance Audiosnap features can let you do some really crazy stuff as does Loop Construction but simple looping is... well pretty simple.
 
Cheers.

Upon further research it looks like fiddling around with and exporting audio loops is better done using the Loop Constructor view. IIRC what I described above does work but it has been a while so I'll have to mess with it more.
 
Here is the beginning of the Groove Clip/looping section of the manual (it goes on for a few pages so just click the next button to continue reading).
 
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=Looping.07.html
 
You can just drag the clip into a Browser folder or export normally but it looks like if you want to export in RIFF or Acidized Waves you would do it from the Loop Constructor. I haven't played around with that feature yet myself but have been meaning to so this will serve as a reminder/bookmark but hopefully it helps you too. It doesn't look very difficult at all.
 
Cheers.

Huh... that's weird. It's just a normal wav clip? Have tried recording another clip to try this on? Is there anything weird about the audio file itself? I seem to remember having a problem with the Loop thing being greyed out a couple years ago in X2 but for the life of me I cannot remember what was going on or how I fixed it. Maybe there is a setting in Preferences somewhere or in the Inspector preventing it. This sounds like something to ask the Sonar forum dudes/dudettes or if all else fails Cake support.
 
Sorry it ain't workin' for you.
 
Good luck.

Rather than try to work with the clip in the source track, I like to copy the clip(s) to a new audio track. This isolates the clip, and makes it easier to see what you are doing.
Use the selection tool, not the smart tool.
Right click the new clip and select Groove Clip Looping.
You should see all four corners switch from square to angled.
Now, right click the clip, and open the Loop Construction View. It should be fully functional.
Pay particular attention to Beats(in clip). It is most likely wrong.
Be sure it matches the number of beats in your source clip.
Save the loop in the Clip menu in LCV.
You will need to switch to the smart tool to drag your loop out and have it repeat.
Hope that helps.
 

WooHoo.
I think I've cracked it!
Thanks Beep and RobertB. It seems that the clip in question first needs to be bounced to itself.
Then the context menu works and everything becomes good.
Once again guys thanks for your patience.
 
Cheers