Metronome suspend/resume - Is this possible?

I'd like to halt or mute the metronome during a portion of a musical piece that departs from a regular, periodic tempo for a moment, allowing for some tempo-less musical meandering, and subsequently restart the metronome on the down beat of my choice.  The closest thing I can think of as an example is Little Feat's Willin', where the chorus is followed by "And if you give me...", which although bears its own sort of timing linking the vocal harmonies, is flexible enough tempo-wise to go almost anywhere until the down beat on "wine", at which time the tempo is back in its pre-meandering grove.
 
I can automate a mute on the metronome bus for the first such occasion in a song, but after that I can't think of a good solution.
 
I've been unable to find a way to just suspend the metronone until the downbeat on my say so, maybe with a footswitch to restart/unmute it.  I wouldn't care if Sonar wanted to keep counting steady measures quietly to itself and to just truncate the duration of that last measure before my downbeat, at which time the previous tempo would resume.
 
Any suggestions for how to do this?  Thanks!

Another solution would be to not use the metronome - use a hi hat in Session Drummer - you can place the hits wherever you want

Thanks all.  You've given me some good ideas to try.
 
I could just go completely metronomeless and do a tempo map after recording a guide performance, but I like to have the intended beat occasionally rein me in to something steady-ish. 

What if you: play to a given measure lets say 100 at 4/4 and 140 BPM.  Mute the metronome buss.  From measure 100 you ramble or stop.  At the point you start to play again, calculate the time and set some random tempo, (in the background and muted), that will result in having that point be measure 101.  At measure 101, you can have it set back the tempo you need.

"It works on paper"

but volume automation doesn't take into account that the non-linear, tempo-less groove can be of any length of time.  you can automate volume, but you have to know exactly how long the improvisation is going to be, which is in most circumstances, unpredictable.

Well, everybody gets extra points for creative thinking here, but I believe that what I want to do is not technically possible with Sonar X2a, or possibly any other DAW, for that matter.
 
The problem with muting or automating volume on the metronome track as an only solution is that it will be the DAW defining where the downbeat is on the resumption of steady tempo, not me.  I may be able to work with that by getting the metronome volume sufficiently attenuated in the meandering bit but not so much I can't hear it, and then "working with" Sonar's click to restart on a mutually agreeable moment.  Still not ideal but it may work.
 
The problem with doing things in two separate takes is that it's doing it in two separate takes.  The feel of the musical meandering naturally resolving back into a steady tempo may be very difficult.  I'm not going to dismiss the idea of a cut and paste solution just yet though.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions everybody!

Record separately / cut and paste makes it easy. I don't see an issue with the feel if you do it that way. If anything, that would work better as you wouldn't be trying to squeeze your meandering into a set period of time. Your downbeat back into tempo would happen wherever you wanted it to. 

Either that or set a guide as stated then overdub until its right. Most of the time people meander pretty much at the same speed every time when overdubbing.... It kind of gets its own tempo/feel without the  mathematics.Wouldn't take much to get it right, in which case the high hat suggestion by Bristol J would work just as it did for the Beatles in day in the life for instance.

Sorry..... I'm meandering ;-) 

Good luck

Bibs

The problem with not using Sonars clock is you won't be able to do any MIDI editing with quantizing. 

Bristol_Jonesey


Another solution would be to not use the metronome - use a hi hat in Session Drummer - you can place the hits wherever you want

Maybe use a footswitch to actuate the hi hat?  Is that the idea, Jonesey?  Then go back later and tempo map that hi hat?

  dear wizard, sorry for off-topic, but i checked out your video "yeah it's good", and it is indeed really really good. totally liked the effects. could you let me know the software you used for the video? i create my videos with the windows move maker, but these effects are not included here... thanks - tom