Trying to use the PRV and it's driving me nuts!

I'm trialing X1 and figure if I can learn the very basics in 30 days and it all looks good, I'll buy it. So far it's not looking good. 

Here I am just trying to add a simple note on the PRV. In the first image, you can see that what I have already ends with a four note chord. Observe the length of the notes:




Now what I'm going to do is to add a single note three eighth notes short of the next bar. To my eternal annoyance, the 4 notes of that chord are automatically lengthened by a seemingly arbitrary amount: 



Can someone please explain what is going on here? I cannot think of any circumstances, in which I would require the insertion of a simple note to result in the automatic lengthening of the notes that went before it. What I also found is that this only happens if I insert the note before the next bar...anything past that, and the chord notes stay as they were. For the life of me I cannot work out why this is happening and I can't find anything in the documentation. Trying to keep my cool, and I've liked a lot about Sonar so far, but it's little behaviors like this which are making me seriously reconsider switching. Am I being completely stupid here and missing something obvious? Why are those notes changing? 

Thanks synkrotron. 

I was using the smart tool in the PRV, although I did try it with the draw tool as well and got the same results. Note duration is set at 1/8th notes. Snap settings are at snap to, magnetic off.

The notes up until that point had been inserted with a MIDI keyboard in real time. None of the preceding notes were selected when I inserted the new note. 

It does not matter which vertical position I put the new note - as long as it's anywhere in the next bar from the chord, the chord notes stretch up to meet it. 

A new discovery: if I ctrl+alt+right click any of the chord notes to bring up their note properties, they are extended to the same place, and they retract back as soon as I close the note properties window. 

Problem recurs when I close and open Sonar again. 

Also, if I just select one of the notes with the smart tool, it shows its extended length for as long as I hold the button down. It's as if the notes have a "hidden part" which is revealed when I either select it, or add another note in the next bar. 

Oh well, It's 3am and I'm going to sleep on it....

OK  I've slept on it (for 5 minutes). I think I'm almost understanding what's going on. When I first recorded this little 4 bar loop, the notes of the last chord extended into the 5th bar. So instead of trimming the notes down to size, I trimmed the clip down to size. To get to the piano roll, I double clicked on the clip. So obviously it's showing note durations up to the point at which the clip ends, when really, those notes extend a little further. 

So I guess when I add that extra note, it "untrims" the clip to take it in...thereby revealing the hidden part of the chord. 

Sorry, Cakewalk! I've been a dumbass.  And thanks again synkrotron. 

Hey Sharke,

Welcome to the Cakewalk forums.

I call it the 99% rule. Because 99% of the time I have a problem with X1, it's turns out to be operator error, i.e. My dumbass.

So welcome to the club.

And X1 is great, I would recommend buying the great deal they have now. Check out groove3.com for some great X1 vids.

sharke


Anyway I think I'll buy it

Excellent decision, although I am totally biased.


I'm sure you will come across many more strange things on your Sonar journey.


Any more probs, don't hesitate to pop in here for some help.


cheers


andy

Guitarhacker


I was trained from an early age to read music on a traditional staff, so I opt to use the staff view to do my manual editing and adding of notes. It makes a lot more sense to me. 

Well... I can read sheet music, but not "sight read." So I could use, and perhaps should go back and try Staff View, for, as you say, note input, and then do the tweaking (humanizing) in PRV. Yeah... the more I think about that, I really should make an effort on that "score."

Thanks Jonesey. I've not come across that yet, funnily enough. There's so much still to learn since jumping onto X1 last month. 

I think, for me at any rate, the problem is, you can carry on doing what ever you did in Sonar 6, or whatever, and most things still work the same. I must admit that I'm not using the new tool box in the most efficient manor, just yet, mainly because I'm still jumping around and exploring my new VST purchases.

At some point, I need to get back to X1, and learn as much as possible about all the new functions. Perhaps I should hit some of the tutorials available. As I've said, I came from Sonar 6 PE, and I'm managing to do the basics without knowing about all the new tools and methods.

So, thanks again :^)

cheers

andy