Sonar flow .. I'm fighting it....

I'm having (more) weird experiences with S3P in terms of basic operations not really working quite how I would expect them.

Specifically, this is what happened to me the other day. I'm sure this is, to some extent, not having figured out the best way to accomplish the task, rather than specifically a Sonar issue, but I'd be interested to see how others handle this.

I decided that rather than reach for my old 'comfort blanket', my aging Roland MV-30 music production system, it was high time I really got on top of MIDI within Sonar, and I had a nice simple project; make a handful of simple backing tracks for some vocalists to use at home...

Having established that Session Drummer didn't have any 'off the shelf' patterns that fitted, I banged something out on my Akai drumpad - just two bars worth of 4/4, and quantised that to 1/16 note to give me a solid scratch backing for the keyboard part. I checked in piano roll view and it looked fine. It played fine as a loop, too....

(how DO you add new named patterns to Session Drummer, by the way?)

I then copied these two bars a hundred times (by selecting the exact start of bar 3 numerically as the 'copy to' point).

I then looked at the piano roll view and noted that the MIDI events 'drifted' slowly over time, so that by the time I'd got to bar 40 or so, I was out quite a bit - maybe 1/32 note - and yet I'd copied precisely two bars by selecting the start and end exactly, as far as I could see, numerically, to the start of bar 3, also numerically from the dialogue box (i.e I didn't rely on visually selecting a region).

I then decided to do it differently by marking the loop region as the first two bars and then dragging and dropping them to a new MIDI track. Then I wiped the original track and copied back 100 copies of the two-bar pattern. This worked, but why plan A failed is still a mystery to me.

(I considered linked clips, but I wanted to go back in and add some random fills and stuff by overdubbing, as a linear MIDI track, so this didn't seem a good idea).

Of course, by then the will to live was starting to fade.

What I would have done on the MV-30 would have been

(a) select a MIDI track.
(b) go into pattern record, set a length e.g 2 bars and then hit record. Metronome beep will automatically give me something to lock into, then just bang in two bars and then hit quantise.
(c) then select copy pattern to track and make 100 copies
(d) presto, one linear MIDI track over which I can add improvised bits and pieces.

That would have taken maybe 30 seconds all up. What's the best way to achieve the same thing in Sonar?. I've already found that if I want a metronome in S3P I'm up for an S4 upgrade or I have to use an external MIDI synth - does anyone know a free/cheap plugin that resolves this?.

Markers/loop points are also frustrating me. What I want to be able to do is play something and then bang a key once to set the loop start point, then again to set the loop end point, then copy the (MIDI or audio) looped region quickly to another track without a lot of mousing around. Can this be done?. Ideally every time I did this, it would be great to automatically get that piece of the track copied across to a brand-new track, different each time.

What's the 'best practice' with keyboard shortcuts for accessing markers and loop points?. I keep accidentally screwing up my loop start and end points all the time and what I'd like to do is 'lock' them so that I won't lose the current loop accidentally until I 'unlock' it.

PS: I am working on a little control surface project, having gotten the SDK pretty much figured & gotten my BCR2000 working with it. This project is intended to provide support for those nifty transport controls you have on all modern keyboards. They can't be bound using standard Sonar key binding so I am creating a control surface plugin for this - can't see why it won't work. Once I have that going, I intend to see if I can't make rewind and fast forward work the way humans want - i.e, they don't rocket straight to the start or end. Instead,if play is engaged, I want to hold rewind/ff down and watch Sonar accelerate progressively in the appropriate direction. I have a compiler and I know how to use it.... will share, as BCR2000 code, completely as freeware.

wow! real time feedback. Thanks for that. I was (naively) looking for some kind of menu option to do it. (which, to be honest, wouldn't be unreasonable), but hey, if that's how its done, great! - at least I can add stuff.

um, yeah, possibly. But I am running with 'out of the box' settings. Most of the time I'd really like things to snap to bar boundaries, to be honest. I went quickly looking and didn't see where to set that, though I'm sure there's an obvious setting, right, and I'll go 'doh!'....

In musician mode, what I am trying to do is say

here's two bars worth of stuff. Please copy it to bar 3 onwards 100 times.

Now maybe the very last event in the two bars is before the end of those two bars, but what I want Sonar to realise is that I am selecting precisely two bars to be copied, musically speaking. Oddly, you seem to have to do everything by time values, when what you really want to say is

starting at bar 3 measure 2, copy 2 measures to bar 4

and you can't say that without doing a good deal of mental arithmetic currently. Unless there's some alternate display mode I don't know of.

Welcome to Software Sequencing. You will find you can do a great deal in Sonar when it comes to editing sequences. A lot of this can cause confusion in how to get what we used to think simple tasks done in Sonar.

I found Sonars copy and paste to be pretty functional once I learned how to use it. Its a bit tricky to understand a first. The first thing is making sure you are selecting your data right. I leave my snap settings on measure when I am doing midi that way I can select ranges with ease. If copying a 4 bar loop only select the 4 bars.

Next when you select Paste you will see a huge intimidating menu. make sure your paste to point is right. You can just type in 9 for 9:01:00 and etc. The track needs to be selected correctly and the interval needs to be set right if doing repetitions. Usually when all of this stuff is accounted for I find I can paste with ease. Another alternative is ctrl dragging stuff around which automatically copy and paste sequences.

For key commands for setting loop points, I don't think there is much sonar offers (you can bind a key to engage the looping function though) and I am not a fan of mousing around either but my productivity increased by changing my studio around to emphasize midi sequencing in Sonar. I find I do best when I am sitting in front of a computer office style while my midi keyboard is angled on my left side. A swivel rolling chair helps alot too along with a chair mat. Ergonomics is the best workaround for a program that involves a good deal of mousing around. I still hope Sonar continue to improve on this issue because I understand not everyone has the space/money requirements for a good setup.

Oddly, you seem to have to do everything by time values, when what you really want to say is starting at bar 3 measure 2, copy 2 measures to bar 4 and you can't say that without doing a good deal of mental arithmetic currently

You must have a different Sonar, there's no arithmetic involved in mine to copy/paste

First, make sure you actually have 2 bars - not 2 bars +/- a few ticks. If it's a few ticks less it doesn't matter, if it's more, it won't work as you need it. Check that by right-clicking on the clip, apply trimming and then "Properties".

Second: Set the Snap options in the track view to "Measuer" and "Move To".

Third: Copy the clip

Fourth: Insert with "Starting at..", Repetions as needed, activate "Align to Measures" and off you go.

No math, no problem, excellent workflow ...