Hi,
 
I want to convert full midi arrangements with straight midi beats to swing style and hopefully make some fun covers of classic rock songs. Does anyone know how to do this? Can it be done? FYI - Years ago in my rock band days we did a lot of weddings and audience members would ask if we had any "swing" songs they could dance to and sadly we didn't but I realized we could play anything with a swing beat and it often worked very well.  For example, we figured out in a rehearsal we could perform Stairway to Heaven with a swing beat which worked surprisingly well and a few other songs which worked to everyone's amazement. 40 Years later I was thinking of resurrecting my "Swing-O-Matics" days and making some recordings. I'm lazy these days and wanted to take some nice midi arrangements, convert to swing beats and then record "real" guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals which is how I use Sonar. Fun, Fun, Fun.

You can use the quantize command and change the 50/50 setting to something like 66/34.
 
It most cases this would be affect 1/8 notes, but it depends on how you wrote it.

There is no automated way that this will work without pitfalls, But really the heart of swing is the 1/8 or 1/16th notes are quantizied to TRIPLET timing. 
There's no way to take a midi file that has been quantizied to a 1/16th or 1/8 note and move just those few notes that would now need to be on the triplet grid.  Once a song has been quantized it is to late to go back:
 
Here is the triplet grid with a blues song note that the snare roll shows as triplet groups. And the hi hat is also "shuffling" 

 
Her's the same song viewing the 1/16th grid with out triplets,, note the hi hat is not on the grid now. If this hi hat had been qualtized to this grid the notes would fall in a different place and not be triplets..

 
Here is a song that is quantized to regular 1/16th there nothing you can do other than go in there and manually move the notes, If you re-quantize to a triplet nothing will move. 

 
 
So I'm afraid the answer is you'll have to re do all the parts and use a triplet quantizing on everything, Drums, Bass keyboards. 
There's no magic button if you want it done right. 
 
I have a version of Stairway done in 2/4 time as a Polka. It's works surprisingly well as a Polka! 
 

User390096, great question.
 
Johnny,
 
Nice descriptive answer and the graphics demonstrate your answers well. 

There are CAL files for that. Swing 8 and Swing 16. Use a high percentage to start with like 95.

This can easily be done using the quantize plugin. Konradh is correct in what he said. The swing function of the quantize plugin does this perfectly. If the content is using 16th notes, set the quantize to 16th notes. For a perfect swing, set the swing to 66%. For over swinging you can use 68%-70%. If your grid is stricly 8th notes, then set quantize to 8th notes. The only drawback is that in order to change perfect 16th notes to swing you'll have to set the Strength to 100% otherwise the notes won't get all the way to the swung position. To combat the perfectness of 100% quantize strength, you can set the strength to a smaller % and increase the Swing percentage beyond the actual pecentage you're wanting to achieve. This will allow you to keep more of the random timing fluctuations of the original performance while adding swing. In Sonar, Swing set to 50% is straight, 66% is perfect swing (1st and 3rd note of a normal triplet grid), beyond 66% you get into over swing (think jazz ride cymbal or EDM Swing) under 50% and you move into negative swing (also useful) So for your application don't use a triplet grid, set the grid either 8th or 16th, Strength at 100%, Swing at 66% ( vary to taste).
good luck Swingin! I use this technique often to change jingles or songs from one feel to another. 😄

I put the MIDI quantize in the Midi FX bin. For Instrument tracks, you'll find the Midi FX bin in the Instrument Track You can dial in how much you want.
 

 

Thanx Blogo. I tried it on the whole multitrack arrangement and it seems to swing a bit now, at least it puts me into a groove where I can walk that bass and sing it in a more lounge-act style. Schweet! And thanks for all the quick replies. Long Live Sonar or at least the forum.

Well boy was I wrong :O   I didn't even realize that you could re quantize at all, I figured it was a done deal. 
But I still find it hard to grasp that it will only move SOME of the notes. 
Like in a swing hi hat pattern it's only the 2nd note on the triplet grid, the first note is on the regular downbeats. 
Now you got me going on this.. going to give it a go. 

UPDATE: Well I'm about half-way through the swing arrangement of "Stairway" and surprisingly ended up choosing the "Brush" drum set in GM (TTS-1) as the best sounding even though I've spent lots of money on AD2 and Steven Slate drums. The TTS-1 included with Sonar is very good sounding though I try to use more exotic sounds in my productions. I was shocked and disappointed there are NO brushes in the 4 or 5 AD2 paks I have from XLN. It looks like you have to drop about $80 to get their "Brush" Adpak. FYI - for once I successfully played my Roland drums at 128 latency and recorded the midi info with no computer crashes thru my new Apollo Quad Thunderbolt, then auditioned the various drum sets. For a quick bass line, I ended up using the acoustic bass in the TTS-1 which I created very quickly by performing a scat vocal audio line and then dragged it into an audio track where it was converted into midi and then the acoustic bass sound was applied - what an amazing program! I just ordered an active Peavey 5 string bass that I'll test out for a "real" bass line and I'm finally learning "Stairway" on the guitar, something I never tried to learn before as it was already taboo by the time I learned guitar back in the 70's (I was the drummer and lead male singer in my old band). Good times and I even sing the end part in a lower pitch as it's now a swing song and I could never hit those high notes of the original arrangement. Staying busy in retirement, bobba-do, bobba-day.
 
Thanx again for all the help and suggestions, Frederick