Thanks for all the responses.  Papa, is it bad that I used to think 256 meg was all I would ever need?  LOL.  I remember when that was huge.  Anyway, I'm off to look at laptops this afternoon or tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll find a good deal.  Then it's on to upgrade to Sonar 8.5.

Wade,

There was a time when many of us "not-so-computer-saavy folk" thought 256MB was plenty of RAM! *LOL* Only after I began digging into DAW work did I discover how wrong I was! *LOL*

FastBikerBoy


I use Sonar with playlists as my fall back for providing backing tracks for my live solo act. I've never had to use it 'for real' yet. I have a Roland Sonic Cell for that and I use it only for MIDI files no audio.

I have however under the above limitations rehearsed with it on several occasions and never let me down yet.

Sonar 8.3.1 PE on a Toshiba Satellite T6400 @ 2.00 Ghz, 3 GB RAM with Windows 7 x32. If that's of any use. The only thing I couldn't get working was the Start/Stop via MIDI for some reason.

I thought this was the whole idea behind Sonic Cell - create your stuff using Sonic Cell as your interface and sound module with Sonar, create a playlist with SC play list editor, dump everything onto a jump drive and let SC do the play back on the gig...

Unfortunately, there are only stereo outs on the SC, and I'm not sure you could have it play back MIDI and audio in the same song.  It would be nice if it had at least 4 outputs and a click track output.

The other thing is that with Sonar 8.5.2, you'd be able to use MIDI to control the Matrix View, to allow for some variation when playing live.

I've heard that the Fantom G and Sonar play well together.  It's my understanding that the Fantom G could be used as a audio and MIDI interface to Sonar.  When your stuff is done, you could dump it from Sonar into the Fantom G sequencer, and with MIDI controlled RPS, you'd have some live flexibility.

The only problem is that the Fantom G isn't a cheap solution - however, I would trust it more in a live situation than a computer running Sonar.

pbognar

FastBikerBoy


I use Sonar with playlists as my fall back for providing backing tracks for my live solo act. I've never had to use it 'for real' yet. I have a Roland Sonic Cell for that and I use it only for MIDI files no audio.

I have however under the above limitations rehearsed with it on several occasions and never let me down yet.

Sonar 8.3.1 PE on a Toshiba Satellite T6400 @ 2.00 Ghz, 3 GB RAM with Windows 7 x32. If that's of any use. The only thing I couldn't get working was the Start/Stop via MIDI for some reason.

I thought this was the whole idea behind Sonic Cell - create your stuff using Sonic Cell as your interface and sound module with Sonar, create a playlist with SC play list editor, dump everything onto a jump drive and let SC do the play back on the gig...

Unfortunately, there are only stereo outs on the SC, and I'm not sure you could have it play back MIDI and audio in the same song.  It would be nice if it had at least 4 outputs and a click track output.

The other thing is that with Sonar 8.5.2, you'd be able to use MIDI to control the Matrix View, to allow for some variation when playing live.

I've heard that the Fantom G and Sonar play well together.  It's my understanding that the Fantom G could be used as a audio and MIDI interface to Sonar.  When your stuff is done, you could dump it from Sonar into the Fantom G sequencer, and with MIDI controlled RPS, you'd have some live flexibility.

The only problem is that the Fantom G isn't a cheap solution - however, I would trust it more in a live situation than a computer running Sonar.

Yep, that is the whole idea of the Sonic Cell and it works great, but I think you are correct you can't mix audio and MIDI playback in the same track.

You can have MIDI files and Audio in the same playlists, and I think you can use MIDI to play the synth section of the sonic cell while playing back both audio or MIDI but I've no call for that so never tried.

I use it standalone for MIDI file playback (with Audio for between sets) and it sends all my patch changes via MIDI to both my Boss GT-6 (guitar pedal) and vocal processors. For that it's fantastic no more tap dancing on effects pedals for me. The only pedal I press is the stop/start which is attached to the GT-6 and again sends control via MIDI.

I use Sonar (in the live situation) purely as a backup for if the SOnic Cell were to give up the ghost.

This worked really well, except I needed it to stop automatically at end of each song. AFAIK there is no way to embed transport control events in to the event list, so it needed a work around. I added a new midi track and put pause events at each stop position and sent it to a midi out which was merged back with the footswitch midi using a merge box.


Cliff

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I am not familiar with pause events, could you expound on that please.

I do a 1 man band program with backing tracks I've done on Sonar.  I get the mix done, export to audio onto an Ipod and away I go. No set up problems, no extra equipment, just my sound system, my saxes, and my Ipod and away I go.  I will duplicate the list onto my laptop just for a backup.
 I used to use the laptop and sound module but had a number of bad experiences with static zaps that would require a whole system reboot.

I have a question about backing tracks. I'm getting ready to do some backing tracks for about 15 songs. My plan is to put them on my ipod and use my ipod docking station to plug into my P.A.
I have read that when doing the backing tracks, click only should be panned hard right, and the backing tracks should be panned hard left. My question is: is it ok to put the music and the click track  in the right channel for my monitor?
Thanks in advance

Why would you need a click track? Are you not using drums or percussion in your backing tracks?

As for feeding the click to monitors, it really depends on how  directional your monitor system is and how close you are the the nearest members of the audience. Why go to the trouble of creating backing tracks if you're going to sum them to mono?
 
In a live situation it's quite acceptable to have a "stick-verbal count" leading into the intro (or the first bar of a song that has no intro.

Sixfinger

This worked really well, except I needed it to stop automatically at end of each song. AFAIK there is no way to embed transport control events in to the event list, so it needed a work around. I added a new midi track and put pause events at each stop position and sent it to a midi out which was merged back with the footswitch midi using a merge box.


Cliff

---------------------------
 
I am not familiar with pause events, could you expound on that please.

You can set it up with ACT. Choose a note-on event (say C2) and configure ACT to respond to it with "Transport Pause". Whenever Sonar sees a C2 coming in on the midi channel assigned to the ACT controller it will pause the transport. btw pause stops the transport and keeps the "Now Time" at the time it stops rather than returning to the start, and this feature was subject of a lot of heat on this forum until it was added into one of the recent versions Sonar.

In the configuration I described above, there would be a C2 in the midi track which was sent out of a separate midi i/o at the time I wanted the project to pause. This midi output is merged, using an external midi merge box, with the midi coming from the ACT  controller box before it goes into the midi input assigned to the ACT controller.

ACT is very powerful as it allows almost all Sonar commands to be remotely run using a midi device.

I have read that when doing the backing tracks, click only should be panned hard right, and the backing tracks should be panned hard left. My question is: is it ok to put the music and the click track  in the right channel for my monitor?

I'm with papa on this. Why not just monitor the whole mix? I use sticks or occasionally a ride bell for intros if that's the issue. With a bit of practice you can get a click in then play solo for several bars before backing comes in and stay in time. I do it all the time as part of my solo act. Stairway to Heaven being a classic example. Black Sabbath's paranoid is another.

If you really need a click then the set up will depend on your PA/mixer. It's conceivably possible for me to do that using my peavey powered mixer. The right channel can be assigned as a monitoring system if I wish but I use it as a mixer and take a mix out to my PA power amp in stereo and use a separate monitor mix out to powered monitors. Works a treat.