Smart tool is useless on anything shorter than 16th notes in the PRV

OK so I know you can zoom in...and zoom in...and zoom in. But there gets a point where you're so zoomed in, you lose sight of where you are in the clip. 

So when I'm working on 32nd and 64th notes, they're pretty much just vertical lines without width. And it becomes impossible to manipulate these notes with the smart tool. The biggest problem is setting velocity. Try as I might, I cannot get the smart tool to turn into the "pen with bar chart" icon to edit velocities. The notes are too thin. 

I know I can select the move tool and right click to bring up the note properties box. But this is a real workflow killer, especially when you're trying to add accents to a passage containing hundreds of notes. With the smart tool, I can really zip through a clip and edit velocities. It's just a shame the smart tool is useless on really skinny notes. 

I've also tried editing velocities directly in the controller pane. But this doesn't seem to work very well at all - the velocity line is not responsive, sometimes it moves, sometimes it doesn't. When you do manage to actually get a hold of it, it lags behind the mouse pointer and moves in large chunks instead of small increments. 

Another issue I've seen with the smart tool and skinny notes is that you cannot lengthen a note to the right, only to the left. The note stretching icon appears OK, but you can only stretch the note out one way. If I want to lengthen a skinny note, I find myself having to stretch it out to the left, then move it back into its original start position. Again, a real workflow killer. 

I'd like to know if these are bugs, or just design flaws, and if anyone else has the same problem. 

Sharke,

I'm with you.  After using P5 for ages - SONAR still ain't as easy.

Mr. Jonesey, maybe it is just my fat fingers transgendered into my mouse.  Maybe I just have to practice more.  X2 is better than X1, but is still a chore.

For years I suffered w/ the clip fade handles.  That is almost right, now, unless I get into a hurry.

@

For me to have a good perspective on where I am in a clip, I would say that I need to have a zoom level such that at least 8 beats are visible. And at that level, it becomes impossible to find the 'hot spot" to edit velocities on a 32nd note. Perhaps we have different views about how far zoomed in you can be and still retain your sense of location. 

I don't know what you mean about editing velocities in the controller pane following snap settings. Why would they do that? Snap settings are a measure of rhythm, velocities are a measure of 0-127. I tried editing them with different snap settings and it's the same - the velocity lines are very unresponsive and lag behind the mouse in large chunks. To me, it seems like they should just move perfectly smoothly in sync with the mouse pointer. After all, it's just a line - hardly the kind of thing that would tax a modern CPU!

As for stretching notes, I think my problem is that when the notes are thin, it's all too easy to select the wrong side of them. So if you want to stretch a very thin note left, you have to grab the left side of it. Hard to do when it's only a couple of pixels wide. I must have been grabbing the wrong side. In my opinion it would be a lot easier if the stretch tool was multi-directional, i.e. whichever side of the note you grab, you can stretch it left or right. Obviously this would mean that if you stretch it back over itself, you change from moving the start time to moving the end time, or vice versa (if that makes sense). Would certainly make it a lot easier to stretch shorter notes. 

As a workround..............

1. Open PRV at preferred working resolution.
2. Right click on PRV tab and select "Lock Contents".
3. Double click on the MIDI clip again to open another PRV.
4. Zoom in to a comfortable distance for working on fine resolution notes.
5. Press Ctrl + Shift + left arrow to move back to zoomed out PRV
6. Press Ctrl + Shift + right arrow to move back to zoomed in PRV

The two positions should stay in sync allowing you to move from one to the other with ease.

HTH

I haven't used it myself in a long time, but assuming it's still there I wonder if the Microscope tool might help?
 

Well heheheh....here's the thing....it turns out I was totally confused about the length of the notes I was having trouble editing. Guess I thought I had a different grid resolution 


What I mean, when I talk about skinny notes, are the STACCATO notes you get from dragging the end of a note to the left until it's naught but a thin 2-tick wide line. These notes sound great with a raspy synth bass by the way! I just wish they were easier to manipulate. 

sharke

stevec


I haven't used it myself in a long time, but assuming it's still there I wonder if the Microscope tool might help?

That's what I originally thought too, but it seems the microscope only really increases the height of the notes, it doesn't affect the width. 

I'd forgotten all about the microscope. You can change the  horizontal magnification via the Cakewalk ini file.

MicroscopeHZoomMax changes the maximum horizontal zoom, set between 2 & 8, default is 3 so there;s plenty of scope to increase it.
MicroscopeHZoomThreshold sets the horizontal threshold before it kicks in.

See the manual for more details.

Yeah does seem a bit strange. TBH I can't get on with microscope mode, it blows my mind too much.

I use my workround and sometimes separate screensets at different zooms. Either way it's just a keypress.

Sorry, I just realised that's something different.

Ignore me - I'm hungry.