P5 total newbie question...

Hi, there,

I feel TOTALLY stupid asking such basic a question, but all of my experience thus far has been with "traditional" hosts like Sonar, etc.

Recently, though, I am becoming more and more aware of the need to "see" my music laid out in a more visual manner, like the parts, patterns, etc. How well does P5 do this? I don't need to experiment much since most of my music is already done "in my head" and I don't really rely on loops and other material that I don't create. Is P5, therefore, something that I could still benefit from?

Sorry for the totally stupid questions. Keep in mind, though, that until recently I didn't even know why something like P5 was actually needed, meaning that I didn't understand what it could do that Sonar couldn't.

Stupid me, huh? (Or at least behind the times!) :)

Not a stupid question at all AL - in fact, many traditional "linear" DAW users don't see a reason why they'd want to use something like P5, or Live or Reason (all very good at "non-linear" DAW stuff - think "pattern-based"). But the P5 users know we have the real hidden treasure here! Sure, Sonar is awesome and feature-packed, but P5 fits a different niche and hits a different target audience. However, that's not to say that Sonar users can't benefit from incorporating P5 into their arsenal. Currently you can rewire P5 into Sonar (or any other host). Someday maybe the Makers will create tighter integration between the two products.

I came from the linear DAW way of thinking too, having grown up on Cakewalk back when it was still known as Twelve Tone Systems, but it was more natural for me, being a keyboard player who plays live a lot to migrate to pattern-based. The migration from linear to pattern-based was easier for me than for those who have always worked left to right. ... AND I don't do dance/trance music! So I'm a P5 user who doesn't use it to make dance/trance/triphop/hiphop/acid/whatever-techno-stuff. I use it for rock-n-roll (with modern synths and drum loops), and little jazzy/funk.

What's great about pattern-based and P5? Lots! But I think one of the coolest tools in P5 is the Groove Matrix. I use it live as well as in my home studio. I can drag loops or midi patterns onto cells on the Groove Matrix and trigger them from my keyboard (or a Trigger Finger - which I don't own yet!). I set up the columns to correspond to sections of a song: Intro, Verses, Bridge, Outro and perhaps a few variations of these. I can trigger an entire section with one keypress and switch between them as I wish in a live setting - and record the whole thing too (if it was worth recording).

I can be a one-man band that way, or as different musicians join my team I can mute the parts that they're going to play live (example: I get a bass player, then I can drop my bass parts and let him/her cover those parts).

Does that help you out any? Not sure I really answered your question, but I got my 2 cents worth in. Hope it helps you.

Hey,

All of your answers are well above and beyond what I was either looking for or expecting, so I feel that saying "thank you" would be an understatement!

If you don't mind me asking some more for clarity...

@Eric:

Your quote from another thread:

"I do all my composing in P5 and Battery is my main percussion synth. I usually use 3-4 outputs per battery track. After I've finished recording all the patterns for the song and arranging them in P5, I render all tracks to audio. I then import the audio into Sonar where I mixdown and master in two separate steps. "

...really helped me visualize a good workflow for me, too. I could do everything but my guitar recording in P5 then just import all the audio into a "regular" host. Does P5 allow you to output different audio tracks for kick, snare, toms, etc, if you have all of those on one MIDI track/clip/etc? Or do you have to put each drum sound on a separate track in order to do that?

@everdream:

Is one column all that is needed per section of the song? I guess when patterns change or add you just click on them and it triggers their recording in the main track? This sounds like a good workflow idea, too!

@Trusty:

So is rewire something that tends to sync well with other hosts? I've never used it before. Can you still edit your P5 project once it's rewired in?

Thanks a bunch, all, for an incredible amount of helpful info!

- A

+1 to all of the above -- and one thing I appreciate more and more about P5 is the "scratch pad" it offers me: I can rearrange stuff in P5 lots faster than I can in Sonar if I want to try different song arrangments.

Russ

ORIGINAL: AngelicLight
...really helped me visualize a good workflow for me, too. I could do everything but my guitar recording in P5 then just import all the audio into a "regular" host.

"Regular" hosts have deeper feature sets for recording and editing audio, but you know you can record audio in P5 right? The only potential disadvantage to this might be that other hosts record at a bit depth greater than 24. But if you're ok with 16 or 24, then getting your audio tracks down in p5 might be an option.

eric