hey there, I'm really liking what I see in sonar X2 and I'm debating wich way to go (logic, cubase, sonar) in order to work within a full featured DAW. One thing that is crucial for me (coming from Reason/Live environement) is the midi re-grooving functions that both programs excel at. I can quickly come up with interesting parts playing with the various non-destructive midi re-grooving options that both program use, quickly experimenting with an mpc feel kick part playing against an sp1200 hat part, all in real time, all tweakable... really super mucical results and QUICK. And I can't seem to find anything similar within Sonar. So far in sonar, what I've seen as far as midi groove processing is : 1) groove templates (destructive, and very limited as far as usage) 2) input quantizing, so nothing magical here 3) straight quantizing... not a fan of it, especially within a vst context, where it gets rigid very quickly, even at moderate settings... take a lot of time to get proper results. Am I missing something?

Try groove clips. Also try the Step Sequencer. Any clip can be a groove clip. Either MIDI or audio. 

Its easy to create a MIDI groove clip just select it and ctrl R. An audio clip can be made into a loop with the loop construction view.  Also look into the Matrix. 

I have never used Reason so I have no way to compare them. 

you are not missing anything. Such quick features simply do not exist in sonar. Sonar is more about learning to program it via menus. Most of it is all possible, but requires menu diving instead of common functions being available in edit windows. A good example is the way that a double click of a standard audio clip is pretty much a useless thing to do. You would expect to be able to call up transients, slice up a loop into 16 parts, quantize to snap. You can do all that in sonar, but it involves more lengthy processes. Similarly the prv (traditional piano midi editor) is only a track editor , not a clip editor. So if you double click a midi clip to edit whilst the track is playing, it will scroll off the screen once the clip part has passed/or you wont see the clips notes if the track is playing before or after the clip. Demo it and see how you get on.

I'm aware of the groove clips, matrix and step sequencer - I'm refering to something completely different, wich is the ability to mangle with midi timing and feel on the fly, and mixing different grooves non-destructively. as so : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REq9GijEtQo anyone?

Swiller you are mistaken about almost everything. When I double click on an audio clip I get the loop construction editor. If you are looking for slicing up a clip this is not a Sonar ability because it is a non destructive DAW. For editing a MIDI click while playing hit the scroll lock key or use the time lime swipe to stop the time line from moving. Before one comments on a product it helps if the person knows how the product works.

Yeah, I thought there was some misunderstanding about what you were asking for, and I was in the process of re-searching it.

What you do have is the ablilty to use Groove Quantize. 

You could drop your kicks into something like Session Drummer 3 (or better yet, something like Battery) and then punch out whatever MIDI drum track you wanted.  Then you select that Drum Track, and do a Groove Quantize on it.

I remember reading in some book that one of the Cakewalk DNA groove presets emulates exactly the MPC Setting.  

This would still be destructive (since it now moves the Midi notes, but you can go back and forth doing undo/redo at least.  Might want to keep a copy of the original MIDI just in case....

Hope this helps!

John


Swiller you are mistaken about almost everything. When I double click on an audio clip I get the loop construction editor. If you are looking for slicing up a clip this is not a Sonar ability because it is a non destructive DAW......

John, I agree with Swiller.  IMHO, when double-clicking on an audio loop, it would be nice to have an editor like Logic does.  Also, it has nothing to do with Sonar being a non-destructive DAW -- and I'm not sure what meaning that has in the context of his reply.


You could have a window that provides both the capability of the Audiosnap and the loop construction view, plus maybe a few editing features from common wave and beat editors.   


Of course, you can split beats just in the same way you can as described here: http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation/default.aspx?Doc=SONAR%20X2&Lang=EN&Req=AudioSnap.18.html, but that's pretty convoluted, when it could be a bit more direct.

Sonar is non destructive because the underlying audio file is not changed. Thats why it does not have a wave editor. I'm not clear why the Loop Construction View needs Audiosnap. It has a quantize ability built in. 

Now as to it doing slices this is my fault in my thinking in terms of Recycle slicing. What Loop Construction does is create Acidized loops. But clearly I was wrong in saying it didn't slice. It does. I believe that is fairly new.  

In the PRV yes editing is destructive but that is use most for creating MIDI not just editing. For example though transpose is non destructive. As are many things one can do to MIDI without changing the underlying MIDI.

Live and Reason are niche products that have particular features that don't have an exact equivalent with Sonar. What Sonar excels at is supporting hardware and plugins and being a linear sequencer. Its merits have to be understood in context to comparable products.       

Actually there are a couple options.

1. ReWire!! Reason and Sonar make a great combination. Just treat Reason like a super rack of instruments working within Sonar. OctoRex, Kong...they're all great with Sonar.

2. The RXP REX File player. This seems to be a really well-kept secret, but it's fabulous. I'm not sure if it does exactly what you want, but here's how it works...you drag a REX file into it, and you can either loop the file or slice it. When sliced, you can play each slice in real time from a keyboard if you're into on-the-fly re-arranging, BUT you can also drag a MIDI file from the RXP player into Sonar, with each slice represented by a MIDI note (just like Reason). Then you can go into MIDI and mess around with the notes, jumble them around, overdub by playing slices from the keyboard, whatever.

But wait! There's more!! There's a multi-mode filter and amplitude envelope that applies globally to the slices, and all RXP parameters are automable. Also, you can transpose plus and minuse four octaves, tweak tuning in cents, and there's a cool random pitch function that can really add interest to percussion parts. So, you can lay down stuff on the fly, but then go back and tweak the slice's audio parameters.
  
Of course, if you're into Maschine or MPC, you can trigger the slices from the pads; you're not limited to using a keyboard.

As Mr Anderton said ... Rewire ;)

Will still allow you to do what you want in Reason and you can set the outputs however you like in Sonar. Record any vocals and other instruments plugged into your interface in Sonar and once read to mix down, either freeze the Reason tracks to stems or just bounce the whole lot when you are happy and if you have enough processing power ;) 

That said.....why do you want to move from Reason? Using reason/record you can do most of not all of what you can with Sonar and in general, it tends to run a lot better without the need of tweaking settings, unlike in many other daw's.