I believe there still are some idiosyncrasies in the way Sonar 3 handles meter changes that take some getting used to. I'm just finishing a piece for chorus and soundscape that's about 150 measures long with various meters throughout, 9/4, 6/4, 3/2, 4/2, 2/2, etc. I think you can duplicate the problem I encounter Ron, if you adjust your test sequence to have more than 2 measures of each meter and do the following:

For instance, if m.1 - 7/4, m.7 - 4/4, m.12 - 7/4, m.18 - 4/4.

Now, if you change the meter for m.9 to 5/4, I believe you'll see that m.9-11 will all change to 5/4 and skew the notation 1 beat from m.10 on, which may be understandable, but not necessarily what you would expect or want to happen.

If I've written 6 measures of 4/4 music from m.7-12, and decide one chord needs to be extended 1 beat and make the meter for that measure 5/4, I don't want the following measures up to the next meter signature to change, as well.

Work arounds are to re-enter the correct meter for the measure after your change (m.10 back to 4/4/, in this example), or at the onset, enter the meter signature for every measure in the sequence, which is time consuming at the beginning, but worthwhile later on. I do believe, even after correcting the meter issue using either work around, you'll need to go back and adjust all the clips (in other tracks) that were affected by the meter change.

What I was expecting Sonar to do was behave as notation programs such as Finale. That is, if I change the meter in one measure, all other measures would be unaffected, unless I specify the change to be over a range of measures.

This is not that problematic for me. I write my choral scores in Finale and create the soundscape sequences in Sonar. However, I do import a midi file of my choral score and insert it into the soundscape for reference, and this is where I noticed the problem. As I created the soundscape, and changed meters preceding the choral clip, the choral clip would become skewed by the amount of change.

ORIGINAL: G Rudolph
I'm just finishing a piece for chorus and soundscape

Just listened to the samples on your site. Very nice. Your choral voicing is beautiful. 'Dream Isaiah Saw' has a great balance of brass, drums, organ & chorus. 'Dicite' excellent, though the chorus shudda been slapped for that first note. :)

Good composers in your area. You know Thomas Massella?

Grey

Grey,

Thanks for the compliments. I don't know Thomas Massella, I'll have to check around. I try to support all the regional composers (music doesn’t have to be a competition).

Regarding "Dicite!", you wouldn't believe how I struggled with the conductor on that piece. She & I just couldn't see eye-to-eye. The tempo's too slow and there's not enough buoyancy in the sound. You're right about the chorus' first entrance (it's hard to get everyone started on a word like "Quem"). As I recall, other takes had a better beginning, but the intonation on this one was the best.

The "Dicite!" preview on the web site is only about 1/3 of the piece. When I get home this evening, I'll bounce the whole track and upload it...it has a neat finish (though the conductor bollixed up the ending, as well!) :(

Just want to say that I've always had the same sorts of problems inserting odd meters in Pro Audio/Sonar (at work so I can't try it right now in Producer 3, but it's not like what you're doing, Ron, more like what G Rudolph is talking about), and agree strongly that if you change the meter of one measure, it should change for only that measure, or that should at least be an option. Also, say you have just two measures, one measure of 7 and one measure of 4 and you copy them and then paste them right after the measure of 4, I'd like the meter of measure 3 to be 7 and of measure 4 to be 4... perhaps a checkbox in the paste dialog (Copy meter/key ?) would do... working it out in advance has worked on some of my material, but I have a few things that I've been putting off forever because they've been impossibile to work out in advance, although I know with this sort of flexibility I could work them out pretty quickly... and while we're on the subject, will there ever be an easy way to do polyrhythms in sonar? (in other words, not changing the PPQ and micro-managing note-ons, but just changing that 3 on the triplets to a 5 and viola!) thanks.

Glenn @ Reindeer Music

Hi Glen,

I just wanted to take a moment to tell you how moved I was by your work, it is very rare indeed to uncover such beautiful compositions. I urge everyone to give a listen, what you will discover will be both emotional and educational. I have bookmarked your site and look forward to spending more time there, what a great find for the season !!

LixiSoft,

Thanks, I'm very flattered. I've decided to upload the full versions of "Veiled in Darkness" (a cappella arrangement) and "Dicite!" to my catalog webpage this evening. You might like listening to the whole songs.

Hopefully, shortly after Christmas performances are over, I'll have nice recordings of "Magnificat", "Veiled in Darkness" (organ accompaniment), "Hodie" and my new work, "I Came from Light" to upload.

I’ll make a separate post in the Coffee House forum when they’re ready for human comsumption.

The old Pro Audio programs used to be very screwed up in the area of cut and paste. I think Sonar (at least since 1.3) is much better.

However, I think the bigger issue is that Sonar's edit tools are ruthlessly mathematical (add a different time sig, and the rest of the song obediently screws up unless you compensate later). What I've asked for is a set of edit tools that are "compositional and arrangement" friendly. Basically a menu of edit tools that allow you to think creatively about arrangement rather than worry about the negative side-effects of your edits.

Examples:
Instead of "Insert time signature" at the NOW time, how about "Insert x new blank measures of 5/4 across all tracks and revert to 4/4 afterward".

Instead of treating a time or key sig change as an instantaneous event that can be deleted, affecting the rest of the song, it should be a fundamental property of a time range, so that any deletions within that time range do not alter the following measures.

An arrangement edit toolset should operate on all tracks without regard to clip selection. Its just a FROM->THRU time thing that splits clips as appropriate.

Additionally, I'd like to see some fancier new tools for fitting a time line and time/key sigs to freely-recorded material (kindof a super-Fit to Improvization feature.) Fit to Improv is cool but there are some very limiting rules about how and when you can successfully use it. Instead, what if I could select a time range in a free-form audio file, and designate the measure start, end, time sig, etc, and have Sonar "frame" that section. Then I could go in and add "fit-points" to the audio to fine tune tempo and other things. I think most of that technology may already be in the groove clip feature.

Mike

A lot of people here are asking for new features, which is all well and good, but the currently existing features are buggy -- please let's get these fixed first. Insert measures actually doesn't function correctly on time sig change boundaries.

Andrew, with respect to your wanting old problems fixed before getting into new features, I agree. However I feel that this is (or maybe "was") indeed an old problem. I hardly think cut/copy/paste and Insert Measures are new features and they should work properly regarless of what is going on with time signatures. These problems existed with Pro Audio and the first 2 versions of Sonar.

Don't get me wrong, I really respect Cakewalk and I want them to continue to make Sonar so good that it gets all the respect it deserves for professional use. To their credit I understand that they have been working on this issue already. Their support is orders of magnitude better than Steinberg and others, at least Cakewalk responds.

I am encouraged by what Ron has said and look forward to trying it for myself. If this issue is really fixed I will be pleased to come back to Sonar and ditch Cubase. I have used Cakewalk since the DOS days and would like to return.

Bob

I am encouraged by what Ron has said and look forward to trying it for myself. If this issue is really fixed I will be pleased to come back to Sonar and ditch Cubase. I have used Cakewalk since the DOS days and would like to return.

Unfortunately the insert measures problem has not been fixed in 3.0