What I've come up with so far seems to be the easiest, although the reason for my post is hoping that someone has a more convenient method
1. In EZKeys I create the blocks and the chord changes as a sequence of single chord change hits/blocks. I save that in an EZKeys dedicated version of my current Sonar file/song. Meaning, I can have a variety of EZKeys instances and tracks in this song. It's just the file I store the block patterns in for creating and for a backup. I have a unique track/EZKeys instance each for the chorus, one for the verse, one for the bridge etc.
2. Each time I create one of these chord change block pattern sequences (meaning just the chord strikes), and I have the whole sequence of chord changes for that part (like the verse), I open up the EZKeys Browser, and in My Favorites I create a folder for the name of the song I'm working on. In that folder I make sub folders for verse, chorus, bridge, etc. I then drag the particular block line (like the verse chord strikes) into the verse folder for that song in the my favorites section in EZKeys.
3. After I've dragged those block sections into those folders I can save and quit out of the Sonar file that has all of these EZKeys blocks tracks. What's interesting to note is that when you drag the chord blocks sequence into my favorites it turns the blocks into a one long pattern block (loses all the distinct chord changes).
4. I then open the actual Sonar file I'm working on that I'm going to apply EZKeys to. When I open EZKeys in that file, I can go to the EZKeys Browser, the My Favorites section, find my particular song's folder in there, and then as an example, I can drag the verse block sequence right into a Sonar MIDI track. This is before I throw a pattern from EZKeys onto the sequence within EZKeys itself. Why? Because, if I want to call up another synth to just follow the chord changes, or let's get advanced and say I'm going to use those chord changes in Catanya, I just want the chords. So I save out a clean "chord change" only MIDI sequence and save it in Sonar (for each part, like verse/chorus etc.)
5. Once the chord changes are saved out in their own track, then in EZKeys I can apply some pattern from the patterns and select the one I like to whichever section I have pulled down from my favorites in the EZKeys chord area. After I like a certain match up, then I can drag that juiced up MIDI sequence onto another Sonar MIDI track for playing the more complicated keyboard playing (not just the single chord changes). Very likely I'll end up using a different softsynth than EZKeys for actually playing back the MIDI. For example, Addictive Keys for a clean piano sound.
6. I kind of repeat that process for the different parts. Now, if it occurs to me that I want to change something in the chord blocks sequence, I can do that. I could just overwrite whatever is in the EZKeys window. But if it's a bunch of chords that need to change in the sequence and i want to continue to have/use single chord changes in another MIDI track, it's easier for me to go back to the original EZKeys blocks only Sonar file (where I started), make a quick change in there on whichever track was the source track, resave it to the favorites as a ver 2 of that part, save and quit out of that source Sonar file, and in the actual Sonar file I'm working on with the real Sonar structure of everything, I can utilize that updated source sequence now from my EZKeys favorites folder for that song.
That sounds like a lot of steps, but it's time saving for me so far. I wish EZKeys would have a way to return a pattern to its original single chord changes after applying the updates from one of their patterns. But I don't see that as an option presently.
post edited by lawajava - 2015/05/06 02:01:11