To be honest I'm not interested in playing what I've composed at all.   I am interested in composing what I'm playing :)

brundlefly- I'm a "he" not a "her." The avatar is of my wife. I'm a photographer and that's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken of her as a photographer. :)

Mathew - I think any of his real-time composition videos that feature musical styles that includes drums will show him composing the drum parts (such as the rock/metal and electro ones).

brundlefly

brundlefly- I'm a "he" not a "her." The avatar is of my wife. I'm a photographer and that's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken of her as a photographer. :)

 
Oops. Sorry, Rob. I wonder how many times I've made that mistake. Are you telling me Beagle's not really a dog?
 

Beagle is Snoopy. Everybody knows that. ;)

I agree with you windsurfer about the ability to edit multiple MIDI instruments in the PRV. I still haven't found a really elegant way to add a new MIDI track though. The only way I've found is to add an instrument MIDI track, add a couple of MIDI notes in a new PRV view then in the track view lasso all the MIDI tracks and click alt-3. Is there another way to just add a new track to edit? This might be a good new thread.

mike_mccue


The thing I like about this thread... and I mean this is a nice way...

Is that it clearly illustrates that many of us simply don't what SONAR does that makes it special.

This fact becomes a real problem when people purchase the Pro level of SONAR, happily report 100% satisfaction, yet evidently don't have any idea how many features they aren't even aware of.

I count myself as someone who doesn't know everything SONAR does...

We all should keep this in mind when someone else observes that some aspect of SONAR is due for improvement.


best regards,
mike

+1000

brundlefly

brundlefly- I'm a "he" not a "her." The avatar is of my wife. I'm a photographer and that's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken of her as a photographer. :)

 
Oops. Sorry, Rob. I wonder how many times I've made that mistake. Are you telling me Beagle's not really a dog?
 

Lunatique

brundlefly

brundlefly- I'm a "he" not a "her." The avatar is of my wife. I'm a photographer and that's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken of her as a photographer. :)

Oops. Sorry, Rob. I wonder how many times I've made that mistake. Are you telling me Beagle's not really a dog?

Beagle is Snoopy. Everybody knows that. ;)

I may not be a dog, but I do have to be "walked" and I get yelled at for sleeping on the couch. 

codamedia

mike_mccue


Re: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL7sLUdtAwY

Did you see how fast he switched the snap to settings?

Right Click - POW!!!

He didn't have to waste any time moving the mouse all way over to the control bar. ;-)

Why move the mouse all the way over to the control bar? You can assign all the snap to values you want to hot keys.
It's a two handed approach, but much faster than what you are suggesting.

Shift+N from previous Sonars was a MUCH better approach. A complete dialog with all snap and magnetic settings would open with one keystroke. Now they are cumbersome to get to, separated onto on the control bar, and magnetic settings are in preferences (which will also require mousing about in that menu unless its already been left at the right preferences submenu).

I think wasting my time binding 10+ hotkeys and remembering which ones are different snap values sounds like a poor plan to replace that ease of use. Which keys would I use? They took 0-9 for screensets, and I believe the function keys are now views. I have also seen the suggestion of using up my screensets for changing snap settings. Again a poor workaround from my perspective - and not the real intent of screensets. I'd like to see Cakewalk implement something more sensible than the old snap system, but right now everything they have shown for snap settings in X1 falls very short of being useful - hence why I have stayed with 8.5.3 and X1 uninstalled weeks ago.

I hope these videos showing what some people can do in the piano roll will help Cakewalk understand the frustration at some of the changes in X1, as it seems to be they had no idea what they were doing when they tore up the snap settings dialog and changed over to universal snap settings (universally despised). For myself, while I don't work quite as fast as the guy in these videos, X1 slows me down enough in several places that I will probably stay with 8.5.3 indefinitely and am now giving serious thought to 'brand X' as I don't want to pay for a bunch of upgrades in the future to get back basic functions.

To the OP, thanks for sharing the videos, pretty awesome to see people who can compose that fast.

D.

HumbleNoise


I agree with you windsurfer about the ability to edit multiple MIDI instruments in the PRV. I still haven't found a really elegant way to add a new MIDI track though. The only way I've found is to add an instrument MIDI track, add a couple of MIDI notes in a new PRV view then in the track view lasso all the MIDI tracks and click alt-3. Is there another way to just add a new track to edit? This might be a good new thread.

Hey, Larry - It's a simple one click operation to add another MIDI track, you don't need to do that awkward routine you described.  Just right click in the blank area under your tracks in TV, and choose "Insert MIDI track"--Or click in the blank area of a track header to have the new track appear above that track.  There doesn't have to be any data in a track for it to exist - it's just an empty track, and it shows up immediately in the PRV.

I do a huge percentage of my work in the PRV, working with any combination of tracks at a time that I need.  My Screenset for the PRV has a bit of the TV visible above it so I can quickly do work there also as needed.  That way, to add the new tracks, I don't need to change Screensets, I just go up to that sliver of TV and scroll to where I want to add the track.

Randy B.

Having just gone through the thread, it was very refreshing to have one dealing with what Sonar can do, and do well.

Along those lines, the defensive posts from Seth were most disconcerting... almost a sign of a disconnect between the Bakers and many of their users.  The Bakers know best how to use the program, and the users don't?  Not a good sign.

As one interested in traditional composition methods (using Finale), when using Sonar to edit completed pieces, the PRV is my tool of choice.

Thanks again Lunatique for some very positive input.

rbowser

HumbleNoise


I agree with you windsurfer about the ability to edit multiple MIDI instruments in the PRV. I still haven't found a really elegant way to add a new MIDI track though. The only way I've found is to add an instrument MIDI track, add a couple of MIDI notes in a new PRV view then in the track view lasso all the MIDI tracks and click alt-3. Is there another way to just add a new track to edit? This might be a good new thread.

Hey, Larry - It's a simple one click operation to add another MIDI track, you don't need to do that awkward routine you described.  Just right click in the blank area under your tracks in TV, and choose "Insert MIDI track"--Or click in the blank area of a track header to have the new track appear above that track.  There doesn't have to be any data in a track for it to exist - it's just an empty track, and it shows up immediately in the PRV.

I do a huge percentage of my work in the PRV, working with any combination of tracks at a time that I need.  My Screenset for the PRV has a bit of the TV visible above it so I can quickly do work there also as needed.  That way, to add the new tracks, I don't need to change Screensets, I just go up to that sliver of TV and scroll to where I want to add the track.

Randy B.

I was meaning to ask a different question in the context of adding another MIDI to track to an existing PRV, not simply adding a new MIDI track. I think I'll start a new thread addressing that specific issue.

I'm missing something - again - sheesh. If I just add a new MIDI track the PRV isn't updated to show that new MIDI track on my system. Is there a setting somewhere? I've always had to select the MIDI track/clip then open a PRV for that clip, or select multiple tracks/clips then open a PRV for all those tracks/clips. But adding another single MID track? I don't see it added to the PRV without selecting it along with the other tracks but the new blank MIDI track cannot be selected without MIDI data in it. Can it?

HumbleNoise


From another thread thanks lorneyb2

"In PRV menu click on Tracks - Pick tracks  and while holding down the Control key click on the track you want to add. It will now appear in PRV.  Temporarily mute all the other track in the area you circled and double left click to add a note; it will ask what colour(track you want to enter it on.  After that is done then you can unmute the other tracks again and away you go."

So simple. I may not have asked the question correctly. Thanks Randy.

Howdy - I guess what you were missing was the menu in PRV where you select what tracks you want displayed.  I could have been more explicit, and said that it's there in that selection menu where you'll see the track added. - All tracks are also visible in the side menu that has the M/S/R buttons.

That's an interesting quote you plucked from another thread.  That's certainly the way to select any or all tracks in the menu, by holding CTRL while you add tracks.  That's an unusual routine of temporarily muting tracks though - not sure why he's doing it that way.  By clicking a choice in the long side menu, that puts the focus on whatever track you want, and that's where new notes will be entered.  Doing it that way, the muting routine isn't needed.  At least, it's not something I've ever needed to do.

Most of the time, I'm just looking at one or two tracks at a time in the PRV.  But as a project get more developed, I'll add more tracks to view at a time, until I'm seeing everything in there.

Notice a tip in the Kruger video where he's showing how to avoid changing velocities on more notes at a time than you want.  They'll all start at the same time, so if you make an edit in the Velocity pane, you're changing all the values.  He temporarily moves the notes he wants to one side, so he has a clear shot at editing on their velocities, and then he moves the notes back.  Interesting way of doing that - because once you have a lot of things showing at once in the PRV, it can get a bit tricky keeping the notes in focus that you intend.

Randy B.

I'm so impressed most of his composition, i really loved it.

mike_mccue


" For some types of music using the PRV to write in drum parts can work, especially if you are using Drum Maps, but for many other types of music the Step Sequencer is far superior."


I simply don't agree... and... I write lots of drum parts in PRV... with the state of the art libraries that use most of the piano roll.

Even if all you want is a quickly assembled *beats* loop... it's way faster to work in PRV.

I'm glad PRV hasn't been deprecated for the 2010s. Although it came close to devolving... after watching Mr Kruger work I'm left to wonder how the smart tool could make the work any faster. It seems faster to know the hot keys than to wait for the smart tool to catch up and find it's focus.

I agree with mike 100%...I've started to use Abbey Road 80s drums a lot lately and always load up the full black kit which gives access to all sorts of articulations....I haven't yet got round to creating a drum map for it but have printed out NI's pdf of the key mappings for the kit - it covers most of the keyboard...if I were to use the step sequencer it would take forever to set up adding all the horizontal rows for each drum and keeping track of what is where and I would be limited when it came to adding variation and controlling velocities and controllers. In the PRV, set my snap settings right and I can quickly knock up patterns, add variations, draw velocities, copy/paste sections add the odd flam and draw and maybe the odd accidental hit on the bell of the ride rather than the side - the kind of thing a real drummer might do rather than tie myself to the metronomic Dr Rhythm kind of 'beatz' [by this I mean the constant repetition inherent in step sequencing...invariably an SS pattern becomes a groove clip and is looped - PRV is more freeform IMHO] that may come from using the step sequencer....

I've been using the PRV for years - I am not a fluent keyboard player but have found that I can mouse my way through the PRV and rustle up a piece fairly quickly.

In X1 I'm finding that manually selecting the tool rather than wait for the smart tool to decide what tool to use is quicker.

jm24


I found these vids yesterday attempting to find some tutorials about the PRV.
(and started a new thread)

Most of the tutorials I can find created by CW dudes are quick overviews.

And none for the PRV.  WHY?? Given all the changes with SX I expected a slew of clear tutorials and videos.  Where are they????

And what is most disturbing is Mr Perstein responds with the defensive-offensiveness we have been assailed with for the past three months.

A good PR person needs to be hired by CW.

The correct response here is: 
1: demonstrating to all of us USERS how we can work as fast as Theodor Kruger does with the latest and greatest Sonar tools

2: immediately contact and hire Theodor Kruger,
send him a copy of SX pro,
address his concerns about the newer stuff interfering with actual work,
and have him create some GREAT, DETAILED tutorials.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

What we get is another angry response about how we do not appreciate what all has been added, and hidden, making actions require more clicks, and diverted attention,....

Thank the Gods for Youtube.

J

I think pretty much everyone in this thread agrees. If Cakewalk faced their users with a bit more humility, they'd do much better. Some developers see their user base as a blessing, while others see them as a bunch of whiny, greedy bastards. How you interface with your user base and how you see them makes a world of difference. Why the hell Cakewalk didn't immediately contact Theodor Kruger and try to benefit from his talent and ability to amaze fellow musicians and Sonar users is beyond me. We the users can see it so clearly, and if Cakewalk was our company, that's what we'd do, but nope, the personalities at Cakewalk is not quite like the rest of us I suppose. Instead of seeing an opportunity, they see a threat, and they get offended, and they lash out. Not a good way to present the face of a company to your users. Remember, companies don't just make products and sell them, they must also foster a company culture, and a relationship with its customers. Too many companies suck at the last bit, because they don't have strict rules in how their employees should interact with the customers. If I was the boss, I'd have a strict rule where under no circumstances, should an employee of my company EVER use a hard attitude, no matter what the excuse is (unless he/she was physically assaulted). You put on your kind, fair, and friendly diplomat hat and keep it on until you are fired or you quit the job, period. I don't care how good of a musician you are or how well you know my software--if you can't win over my customers with a great attitude, then you need to work behind the scenes and NEVER interface with my customers.

Unfortunately, over the years, I have seen lots of cases where the people that are employed by companies are just not suited to PR, yet they are tasked with it. The problem is that they need people who are knowledgeable about their software, and are also musicians, yet we all know that musicians are some of the most difficult people in the creative realm--even more so than most writers, visual artists, directors, photographers...etc. Musicians have always been the most egotistical as well as the most irreverent, all due to the rockstar attitude that comes with modern music. So what happens is that musicians are asked to do PR work, and they can't help but let their attitude take over. Sometimes that's a good thing, because the users are musicians too, so we can relate to one another, but other times, we will clash.

IMO, the minute you take on the responsibility of being the face of an organization/institution/brand/movement, you lose much of your right to be 100% yourself, because you now have to put the welfare and reputation of what you represent before yourself. I've seen too many developers screw up on this front--just to go KVRAudio.com's developer's forum and you'll see glaring cases where attitude is thrown around and users end up getting alienated and offended. Some even outright cuss out the users.

I've been a moderator at forums, and I'm currently a moderator at the largest CG community on the planet, and the minute I accepted that responsibility, I put on my diplomat hat and never again completely said what's on my mind--I always filter them through careful thought, with a friendly, helpful, and positive attitude, no matter how rude the person is. You will get far more with honey than you ever would with a defensive, hard attitude.

In every single case, developers that exhibit humility and a big heart always win over the users, and the users will remain totally loyal to them. Go to V.I. Control or KVRAudio and search for Eric Persing's posts. He is one of the main reasons why Spectrasonics is loved as a company. He is a great model of what the public face of a pro audio company should be.