Granted, I don't read music and I play by ear and so most of the time my timing is fairly close if not spot on. However, sometimes, when recording my own music I find myself speeding up. I would use the metronome but honestly it is just a distraction to my ears as my mind is constantly thinking about what notes are coming up next on the piano, etc etc.
 
I used to have a keyboard some years ago (it was a full scale yamaha) and it had this nice little function where I could enter a time measure, say 4/4, and I could play as fast or slow as I wanted, and it automatically chopped the music to where only the amount of notes allowed in a beat would be within a certain measure. So I could speed up or slow down and it basically autocorrected the issue.
 
Does Sonar Cakewalk have anything such as this? I'm still new to this and can't even fully figure out how to use loops, etc, so I'm a bit of a dunce when it comes to this software. (Sometimes I miss Logic Pro, but I no longer have a macbook :( )... any help or advice for keeping time without a dreaded metronome would be greatly appreciated. I would do a foot tap but when playing piano and having to use the foot pedals, that gets to be a little confusing. :D

This is a syndrome that cannot be solved by technology.
 
I use a drum pattern so I can hear the hat kick and snare but even that for me is nothing like playing with flesh and blood. I still speed up and slow down and also as you have described listen to the click and think too much resulting in many tries to get a groovy feel playing with a rigid clock. which never quite satisfies.
 
I wish I had session musicians in cages in my basement I could call upon.
Pass out charts and go ready 1 and a 2 and a.....
 
That would solve this big issue for me.

bitman
This is a syndrome that cannot be solved by technology.

 
Well, it was partially solved in that keyboard I had. I wish I still had it. This way I could lay out the basic rhythm and then just play over it. But alas, it just doesn't seem to be around anymore. It was really neat. You could take a 4/4 measure and say "I want there to be 20 beats in each measure" and the piano would auto tone that shiz to make sure only 20 notes made it in each measure, etc.....
 
I have that issue, and one other that I am not sure how to address. I shall ask it in another forum, but I'll mention it here as perhaps you may know. I do a LOT of orchestra recording, and it seems that panning doesn't help me much in the way of making the orchestra sound "full" but not "overbearing." Like, If I diminish the sound volume it just sounds loud but not as loud, you know? Not sure how to even explain that one. LOL

Perhaps the keybard that you had did something similar to the Quantize function in Sonar?
 

+1 for quantizing, but honestly forcing yourself to practice to a metronome is a better habit. It is similar to learning tones via exposure in that timing consistency can also be ingrained this way.

I assume SONAR still has the input quantize function - or...? That would perhaps solve a part of the problem.
Then again, with any kind of quantizing you must play fairly close to the correct tempo to avoid
undesired jumps to wrong direction.
 
Of course, you can also play to your desired varying tempo and then create a tempo map, but that
means quite a lot of extra work and tweaking.

Sounds like step recording to me. You can play at any speed, and it will fill up the measures evenly.
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/...help=Recording.27.html

Some music needs to speed up and slow down. If the music you are trying to record is Solo Piano type then ya, a metronome will not work. If you trying to record a pop tune, however, then use a drum pattern instead of the metronome. I find it gives you a better feel for a song.

I've almost stopped using the metronome when recording MIDI. I record freely, and then use Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline to the performance after the fact. At that point, I can quantize as needed and soften the tempo variations or completely remove them. If the piece is going to remain solo piano, I usually leave some or all of the natural tempo variation in place, and only completely "flatten" it if I'm going to record more parts, using the piano part (or sometimes a drum or bass riff) as the timing reference.
 
I can play pretty well to a metronome, but the tendency to alternately rush/drag to stay right on top of the downbeat can mess with "intra-measure" timing, and I'm more prone to suffer from red-light anxiety and have a big hiccup in the middle of a performance when using the 'nome.
 
When I do use the metronome, it helps to have the click tempo really well-matched to the tempo at which I would naturally play without a click. For that, I use this technique:
 
- Disable Stop at Project End in Track View Options if it isn't already so the transport will run in an empty project.
- Start playback with no click sounding, count off a couple-few measures in your head, and stop the transport on the next downbeat.
- Shift+M to open Set Measure/Beat At Now, and enter that measure and beat.
- SONAR will set the tempo to make the specified beat fall on the absolute Now time where you stopped the transport.

Well, it's hard to explain. I like all of these suggestions and now I have to grab a sonar walkthrough and learn how to use this thing. (I got this program second hand and it didn't come with anything but the serial number the guy had written on the box. No manuals, etc...)
 
To give you an idea of what I mean, here's a link to one of the short pieces I did. Everything is fine until I stop playing piano and go all orchestra, then I find I got ahead of myself and wound up playing faster, as evidenced when the piano comes back in and I had to fade out the orchestra and basically end the song because of the missed step timing. 
 
https://soundcloud.com/mi...low-walk-into-darkness