Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

brundlefly

Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

 Should work fine in most cases. Is this with hardware or software synths? If hardware, make sure you're not sending a patch change from the track header, as I've seen some synths ignore that first note while processing a patch change. If software, you might need to increase your Prepare Using buffer in Preferences for MIDI Playback and Recording.

brundlefly

stickman393

brundlefly

Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

Should work fine in most cases. Is this with hardware or software synths? If hardware, make sure you're not sending a patch change from the track header, as I've seen some synths ignore that first note while processing a patch change. If software, you might need to increase your Prepare Using buffer in Preferences for MIDI Playback and Recording.

Soft-synth. SFZ player, actually. I use a two note SFZ file as my metronome. I've done this ever since the built-in metronome stopped working around tempo and time signature changes.   

I'm not sure what might be causing the problem you are seeing, but I can't reproduce it. SFZ responds to MIDI at 1:01:000 without a hitch for me.
 
It shouldn't matter for soft synths (which are treated like audio, even though they're MIDI-driven), but are you running a non-zero Timing Offset value?
 
And I'm wondering what's the miinimum amount you have to push a MIDI event out from 1:01:000 to get a response from SFZ? Also, is it the same for all soft synths? And is it the same number of ticks at all tempos, or is it a fixed absolute time, regardless of tempo?

• Hardware synths work fine; the first MIDI note is being received and sounded completely.
• The SFZ player *is* responding to the first MIDI note, but the first part of the "click" waveform is not being played. I can actually hear the last short decay of the sound, but the initial "click" is being swallowed - perhaps by the SONAR audio engine not quite being ready to play back.
• The same effect occurs with a different softsynth - for example, I switched from SFZ to Session Drummer 3 : Only the decay of the initial note playback is heard.
• If I move the initial note +45 ticks away from beat 1 of the first bar, I believe I am now hearing the full click. The closer to 1:01:000 I move the note, the more is bitten off the initial attack of the playback.
• I tried varying the tempo of the project from 60 bpm to 160 bpm but it was hard to get a definitive answer. I think that slower bpms reduced the number of ticks required to offset the first note in order to hear the full attack, but it is very subjective. I am willing to say that it is my opinion that the delay time is absolute in millisecs, not ticks. If this is related to the audio engine warming up, then that makes sense I think. 
• This effect is not noticeable in a rendered, exported WAV file. The full attack of the click is audible, even when the note is at 1:01:000. Therefore, this effect happens on playback in an open SONAR project only (which, of course, is when I want the click to be audible :) )
• If I quadruple the size of my ASIO playback buffers from 512 to 2048, this does not seem to alter the results.

• If I bounce-to-track, and then solo the rendered track, I hear the same thing, the intial attack of the first click is truncated; but if I then move the rendered audio clip out to start at measure 2, I hear the full attack. So the rendering is correct, but the waveform playback at 1:01:000 is still truncating.

Jeff Evans


I have mentioned this before but why cannot people simply start a production at 2.01.000 instead of attempting to start at 1.01.000 What is the big deal here, I cannot see it.

Anyone who attempts to start music right on 1.01.000 is tempting fate a bit. For a start, tracks that have been advanced may not get played and when a sequencer actually starts up right on 1.01.000 there are a few tasks that need to be done which might get in the way of music sounding off correctly.

By simply putting your music at 2.01.000 or later you avoid a raft of problems then. I know its nice for printing out music etc to have everything starting at bar 1 but musicians are not fussed about bar numbers in general.

Jeff Evans


Hi Undertow I agree that it should be the same starting a piece at 1.01.000 or a later time but for some and I am not sure of those reasons myself, it is not the same. With some sequencers I have worked with, I have found that starting right at the very start just kicks off a tiny bit later. Why one could ask. Sonar and Studio One seem to start off the bat at 1.01.00 but even with Sonar I have found that sometimes the very first metronome click wont sound for some reason. I have also had some of my external hardware synths not do something they should have as well at this position. But at all later positions there were no problems. So simply, there is a difference between starting at 1.01.000 and any later time. I wish I knew what it was, but if some things happen or don't happen at 1.01.000 and all is well at a later position then it must be deduced there is a reason.

SimonFenner


Because musically you are starting in measure 1, but you are not using all of the beats in the measure. If you think about it how can you record music into a measure before measure 1? It's just not possible cos it doesn't exist. So the DAW is not at fault. It's no different to playing live where the drummer gives you a count in and you start before he has completed this!

You'll just have to accept that some of your songs will have some silent beats in measure 1.

VariousArtist

I have a potential solution that would be easy to implement without having to risk modifying any existing code (i.e changing the current MBT implementation).

Basically Sonar could allow you to add another timeline format along with the presently offered MBT, HMSF, etc.  This would be displayed along the timeline just as you currently do any of those other existing formats.  Any combination of these can appear, just as we can do with MBT, HMSF, etc.

I'd suggest a name like OMBT (for offset MBT).  And the offset is a value stored per project somewhere in the preferences.

The advantage here is that the internal code that supports the present MBT implementation would not need to change.  Of course this only changes the timeline display in the tracks and not in the other windows (like Event View and the dedicated Piano Roll etc.), but in those cases they could include the OMBT as well.

Kev999

VariousArtist

I have a potential solution that would be easy to implement without having to risk modifying any existing code (i.e changing the current MBT implementation).

Basically Sonar could allow you to add another timeline format along with the presently offered MBT, HMSF, etc.  This would be displayed along the timeline just as you currently do any of those other existing formats.  Any combination of these can appear, just as we can do with MBT, HMSF, etc.

I'd suggest a name like OMBT (for offset MBT).  And the offset is a value stored per project somewhere in the preferences.

The advantage here is that the internal code that supports the present MBT implementation would not need to change.  Of course this only changes the timeline display in the tracks and not in the other windows (like Event View and the dedicated Piano Roll etc.), but in those cases they could include the OMBT as well.

Great idea.  Another alternative would be to allow a second (user-definable) timeline in addition to the existing (fixed) one.  Here's a more elaborate suggestion:  

Allow the user to create as many timeline rulers as he/she wishes.  Each ruler can be assigned a start and finish point and it will only be displayed between these points.  It can also be assigned a name and a colour.  Rulers can be created to represent the different sections of a song, e.g. verse, chorus, middle-8 or whatever.  You may want to adopt a colour scheme (e.g. choruses red, verses blue) so that the structure of the song will be clearly visible in Track View.  When editing in PRV, it will be obvious which part of the song you are looking at by the colour and name of the ruler.  And of course, the start point of a ruler can be set as any integer.