Pickup notes and measure zero

Can't do it as of now. I'd absolutely love to see a negative bar count in ... would be handy for those sorts of things. What I do now is start a song on a different odd measure ... usually 3.

Another reason

And any patches to change and buffers to fill.

I wonder if there's any penalty for starting at measure 100? This would sure make the counting simple. And if this is OK, I wonder if beginning each section on subsequent 100s boundaries, ie, 100, 200, 300, etc., might not be a bad idea?

Good idea actually..as a workaround for what we got now. I do like your feature requests even more.. the renumbering and the colors!
There was actually a "over a few hundreds measurs" midifile bug report a long time ago..I checked that classical midifile (it was from a site with long classical pieces) with Sonar 4 (and almost sure that also with 5)
After around 400 measures there was a big problem with importing and working with that file - Sonar chopped the endings of each track at different positions..that midifile could play in Winamp or WMP but not in Sonar, not the full length of it.
I hope it's better since then, I didn't check.

Enharmonic - "It's very counter-intuitive" - sure, 100%..it does make it hard. It's surprising we didn't see such requests here lately (if ever)

However, I too would like the ability to renumber my measures from any point in the score. Even better would be the ability to create sections in a score so that I can set a "measure 1" for each section

I doubt that you'll ever see that feature. It would be extremely confusing to the DAW software and any MIDI tracks. Personally, it would be confusing to me, as well. (Then again, I'm from the "old school" and am conditioned to read charts & scores with various notations & symbols that indicate when a new "section" begins & ends). I do, on the other hand, like your idea of changing color schemes for various passages within a song. It's not something that I necessarily would rely on but I think it would be a nice option to have.

Now then, to address your first question about starting at measure "zero". Here's my workaround:

I plan things so that the downbeat of the first "real" full measure falls on measure 21...Prior to that measure I get myself into the "mood" of the song by playing 8 bars or so and then starting a count-in so that measure 21 is actually measure "1"....I can easily look at my chart and figure out that the written measure "48" is actually measure "68" in my software. As a side note, the idea of a "negative" starting point is "doable" within a DAW system. Adobe's Audition allows the user that option. However, Audition doesn't record MIDI so I have not been able to ascertain how (or if) that would work within a MIDI based DAW recording (and I'm no MIDI expert so I won't even fathom a guess) or using SMPTE or MTC sync.

Interesting topic and excellent ideas on your part, but remember...the more complex the features that are added to a program usually translates to more $$$$...For my dollars spent, I don't mind the, IMO, minor inconvenience of not being able to have an actual "measure 1"...FWIW, I can remember nearly having an orgasm when the first analog tape decks were introduced that actually showed a true HH:MM:SS LED display on the counter as opposed to the antiquated "rolling numbers" counter display that really showed you nothing!

I doubt that you'll ever see that feature. It would be extremely confusing to the DAW software and any MIDI tracks. Personally, it would be confusing to me, as well.

confusing!? but it's just OPTIONAL...you don't have to renumber anything if you don't want to..

so that measure 21 is actually measure "1"....I can easily look at my chart and figure out that the written measure "48" is actually measure "68" in my software

talking about confusing - this is much more confusing! not that it's so hard to do but these kind of workarounds just add "one more thing" here and there until it gets to a point where you realize "wow, it could be so simple" (and you know.. users adapt some strange workarounds sometimes..we "get used" to some alternate workflow things but it doesn't mean it's all justified)

what i'm trying to say - let's not forget the simple request of the OP..it makes perfect sense.

aha..I see it now.. I do agree with some of this -

the more complex the features that are added to a program usually translates to more $$$$...For my dollars spent, I don't mind the, IMO, minor inconvenience of not being able to have an actual "measure 1"

I would maybe say that about the other suggestions (total renumbering and colors for sections..or Regions/Playlists that we ask for a long time) but not regarding the measure zero option - this SHOULD be there, it's not a matter of expensive development in that case.

ORIGINAL: MQ

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MQ

<Slaps head> damn, why'd I not think of that? Great idea.

I like the colour idea.
Negative bars have been requested for years. I start on bar 5 mostly, as drummachines seem to like 4 bar loops.

negative bars would also forever resolve Count In issues, there would be no Count In, just negative measures working toward bar 1.

A very long time ago, I started doing my stuff at measure 3. I think it was originally due to the fact that some midi gear reloaded when you went back to 1 and I would get glitches. No matter. I don't remember exactly why, but I sure don'tt remember the last time I started a sequence on 1. End points of loops are 19 (instead of 17) and 33...

I quickly found that if I could just remember how to add by 2s, I could work around this issue.

Hope that helps.

We need to have 0 and negative bars.....

Most Pro prgrams do...

Producer edition should have it, Studio-no.

Any news for this?

kwgm
Hello there Papa,
...
I too am an old-timer, and long ago when I carried music around in a folder, I learned to read charts that were divided into sections back (I won't say how long ago it was, but I will share that it was way before anyone had ever heard of MIDI!) I can still hear our band leader saying: "Now if you'll all turn to letter G in section E..."

 
kwgm, the first midi software I used was called Dr. T's for the Commodore.  It was laid out similar to what you are describing. I could set a midi phrase on the timeline (say a drum measure) and tell it to play it 7 times and then 1 measure drum fill-in once and then on to the next sequence. The could be made a sequence that could also be set to play, say 4 times.  It may sound really strange to the way we currently do things in Sonar but it seemed really intuitive. It also made me realize just how repetitive music actually is. The actual timelines for long songs could be a very small set of display elements.
 
When I moved to cakewalk, the timeline and edit process seemed really cludgy and unnecessary.
 
I too have felt the need for a negative measure. IMO, it is just as easy to start at some other measure and then set and use markers.

Very old thread for sure,, but an interesting topic for those who like to re-arrange midi files or there own creations. I often have had to do this with a client sitting patiently waiting for me to add another verse or chorus. The number part never bothered me as I put markers at each part,  but then the fact that the markers don't follow the copy paste does bother me. 
I always leave a blank measure before the count in. The count in will be 1 bar if no lead in and 2 bars if there is a lead in.  
The coloured blocks are cool. That would be nice but I can see it will never happen. 
My guess is very few people would benefit from a negative measure count, so they have never looked into this.  

I know it's an old thread, but in my case I don't know the solution: 
- I have to sync a video with my music. The video starts with 0 second, but the music starts with a pickup note in a tempo = 80, so the music is starting almost 3 seconds late.
How to solve this?