Hey all, Can someone run down how to Quantize a song in X1? Do you have to highlight all the tracks? I've tried it a couple of times, but afterwards it seemed like things still didn't line up right in a few places; so I couldn't tell if I did it right or not. thanks, ryan

Quantize is a really REALLY in depth feature. You have to set it all up right for each part or it will just make a mess. You may have to provide more details on what exactly you are trying to do to get a good answer. 

Essentially you have to set the quantize resolution properly for every part or it just won't work right. 

I can't help you more than that as I have yet to study that feature thoroughly yet. All I know is I tried to do it on a MIDI drum track once and it just threw notes all over the place. lol

What works for one song will not work for another song. its kinda like effect settings, there all different depending on how you want it to sound.

There are some good learnign tools online for this

Cj

Try this...

Open each track that needs to be fixed in the PRV.

Press Ctrl + A to select all the notes

Right click on the Edit Tool in the Tool Module in the Control bar (top of the Sonar window) then choose Timing (this is the Timing Tool)

Click and drag up and down on a note. 

You'll see the notes moving closer to the snap points on the grid.

Now you can see what what's moving where. Some notes may move forward and some may move backward. 

Now that you can see which way the notes want to snap you can lasso the notes (right click and drag with the Smart Tool... be sure to switch back to the Timing Tool before dragging the notes) or select a series of notes (hold Ctrl and click on the notes) and drag up and down to quantize them. 

The notes will keep moving as you drag them until they hit their closest snap setting. You can change the snap resolution in the Snap Module of the Control Bar.

There are many other ways to do this but that is a very visual/hands on way of seeing how Quantize works.

Cheers.

You need to sit down and work out the quantize resolution for each track. In fact it's probably better to take each MIDI clip as a separate case. 

To find the resolution, take the shortest note length of the clip you want to quantize. For instance, if your clip contains 32nd notes then you're going to want to quantize to 32nd notes. If it has triplets in it then you're going to want to quantize to those triplets. 


Lets say it has 16th note triplets but also straight 8ths. Quantizing to 16th triplets will work out well because those 8th notes will line up with the first note of each triplet group. 


However, it may be that your piece has a combination of note lengths which means that quantizing to a particular resolution may work for some notes but not others. For example you may have a series of straight 8ths with the occasional flurry of 32nd triplets. If you quantize this to 32nd triplets, it may be that your performance of the 8th notes was sufficiently off so that the quantize process nudges them just off the beat to the next 32nd triplet instead of right on the beat where they should be. 


In circumstances like this, I will often quantize groups of notes separately. I'll lasso the 32nd triplets and quantize those appropriately, then select the 8th notes and quantize those to 8ths. 


If you try and quantize a whole song, it is very unlikely that it will work out well. Sonar has no way of knowing what your original rhythmic intentions were, and some of your notes are bound to end up quantized to the wrong positions. There is no "one size fits all" setting. 


But once you get into the swing of quantizing, you can actually get through it very quickly. There are other settings to think of, but they're all pretty self explanatory. You can adjust the quantize strength, which will offset the notes by a few ticks so they don't sound too mechanical, and also swing, which introduces a dotted feel to the degree that you set it. 


Sometimes quantize can be used creatively to get a totally new feel. I will oftentimes take a straight MIDI drum pattern and quantize it to 16th triplets, for example. Have fun!

Good post sharke- And hopefully the op was referring to midi and not audio tracks for this. 

Quantizing your midi track should be the first thing you do after recording a new track, Then it will be tight. The next track you record can be played along in time instead of with sloppy timing. Building a song with sloppy timing will cascade until it's a mess. 

This holds true for audio as well, but quantizing audio is a different kettle of fish.  
Better just to play your guitar in time than to waste hours fixing it.   

Tell us about your project Ry, maybe we can help. Whaddya got..... Drum tracks, midi audio, guitar?

Rocky

The project I am working for quantizing is one that I imported from my Tascam 2488 workstation. I imported each track into Sonar as WAVs and they came in fine. I set them all at 00:00:00 on the clock. I just really want to clean up the timing a little bit, since I got good performances and don't really wanna redo the whole song again. I recorded each track with a click: -2 or 3 tracks of drums - played in with Roland synth -1 track of piano -1 track of bass -1 track of steel-string acoustic guitar -1 track of nylon string classical -1 track of vocals (which I might redo...)

So this is all audio? Oh boy. I think you are going to have to learn about audio snap. I can't help you there. Not yet anyway.

Which tracks need cleaning up? Groove 3 has a tutorial that has some excellent Audiosnap info. It's in the Sonar Tips and Tricks video. If it's minor nudges you can split clips and just drag the audio within the clips.  


Rocky