What's the deal with Sonar and octave values?

you could use transposition, or alternatively set base octave for pitches in sonar preferences to -2. nope, octave ranges are not universal. 

There is a midi plugin called transpose. You should be able to put that on the midi track fx bin and set it to transpose down 24.

sharke


I can't seem to find the base octave setting?

I can't tell you exactly where it is as I'm miles away from my DAW, but this setting is in there somewhere - you just have to find it!

I had this same issue a long time back. 

 The thing that not a lot of people know, is that all software/hardware companies don't stick to an agreed standard of what the base MIDI notes are. This is the cause of much frustration. 

 So Sonar's C0 = Native Instruments Battery C2 - Yamaha could be C1 etc etc. 

It's all very misleading. Took me ages to discover all of this way back. 

 I've been looking for a chart I found back at that time that showed all the manufacturers notes in a translation chart. It was brilliant. Alas, now I can't find it. 


 If anyone has the table or knows where it is, please chip in! 

Here is what the Sonar doc says on this:


MIDI note ranges can vary amongst manufactures. Specifically, it is the MIDI base octave for pitches. Some ranges may begin at -C2 while others might begin at C1. A common side effect can be observed when sequencing with drum instruments. For example, the instrument might internally label a drum sound "Kick1" as being located at C3, where as the MIDI sequencer (i.e.,Kinetic, SONAR, etc) appear to trigger that note using C4.

Different MIDI note ranges DO NOT transpose the note event between applications. In other words, the instrument will sound the same whether played in project5, Kinetic, SONAR or any other MIDI sequencer application. 

When using SONAR, a convenient solution for aligning MIDI notes to the instrument's advertised values is to set SONAR's MIDI Base Octave For Pitches. You can do this in options- Global-MIDI Base Octave For Pitches.  

This page last updated: 11/5/2009

This should clear things up lol

http://www.music.vt.edu/m...s/octaveregisters.html

Bigdogs


You can find the Base Octave for Pitches setting in Preferences, Customisation, Display (not sure why it's there)
Simon

Aha, thanks. 

robert_e_bone

fwrend


This should clear things up lol

http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/appendix/octaveregisters/octaveregisters.html

Yeah - but they have the wrong expansion of MIDI.  They indicate it means Musical Instrument DEVICE Interface, when it really means Musical Instrument DIGITAL Interface.


I just LOVE quibbles for breakfast.


That is actually a quite nice explanation of the whole issue with octaves and such - thanks for providing it.


Bob Bone

That's hilarious!  I didn't even notice - what's that say about our fine higher ed institutions???
 
This is actually a very well layed out explanation.  BTW - this person has a nice collection of native american flutes - just click on the "next" page.
 
http://www.flutopedia.com/octave_notation.htm
 
 

brundlefly


Another thing you might encounter in connection with this... some synth manufacturers deliberately transpose bass instruments so that you can play their low notes on a 61-key (or smaller) controller. So they'll end up notated an octave higher than they sound; Dim Pro does this IIRC. But, of course, not all synths do this, so you may find that changing synths suddenly causes your bass part to sound too high. 

I actually noticed this recently. And then of course you have oscillators going at different octaves so who even knows what the "correct" pitch is on a synth sound?