I have no clue what I could be doing wrong, so I'll entertain any and all suggestions.
 
Let's say I have an instance of session drummer. Let's say I make a loop from bar 3 to bar 7. Let's say that it's set up to cycle.
 
My result is FREQUENTLY not recording anything in the first area. So a kick for example, is not there. Now, while in record, I can hear it, but the loop doesn't have it. This is a frustrating. Must be something on my end.

If I understand you, you set up a loop and then begin recording into it and on playback, you're missing the first beat.  If that is correct, my guess--from personal experience--is jumping the gun on that first beat so that it occurred just before the recording began, hence the missing beat.  You'll see this especially if you start you pieces with the first bar empty (which I suggest you do).  If you look at the piano roll, you may well see that the first note started just slightly before beat one of loop start.  Then you just have to slide it right until it snaps to the first beat or if there's no note there, draw one in on the first beat, and you're set.

A clue, for whatever reason the "darkened" area in between the loops markers only shows up for part of the loop :grrrr:

I wonder if this isn't related to the now-time issues I'm having.

Just for the hell of it, try making sure your loop area is exactly what you want it to be in the Loop section of the Control bar before recording.  (You can even change it now with the recording you already have so you don't have to start over.)

MagBass


If I understand you, you set up a loop and then begin recording into it and on playback, you're missing the first beat.  If that is correct, my guess--from personal experience--is jumping the gun on that first beat so that it occurred just before the recording began, hence the missing beat.  You'll see this especially if you start you pieces with the first bar empty (which I suggest you do).  If you look at the piano roll, you may well see that the first note started just slightly before beat one of loop start.  Then you just have to slide it right until it snaps to the first beat or if there's no note there, draw one in on the first beat, and you're set.

It's a good suggestion, but it isn't what is happening.
 
Another clue: If I start every pass either a) with a measure of click before the record it's fine for THAT PASS! b) If I start THE FIRST PASS a measure before, THAT pass will be fine. all others are doomed.

Question: What do you have set for Recording Mode, Loop Recording and Lanes in Preferences|Project|Record?

If you are recording midi loops, please try using the Step Sequencer. In fact you may not want to fill the step blocks of the steps (patterns), but what you will have is perfect loop boundaries.

Did you try turning off the metronome count-in?

thanks for the responses! I'll try to answer them.
 
@step sequencer: Midi recording should be ok though
@loop points: That's kinda the problem. For some reason, sonar is not exact. For example, if I set the loop perfectly, the "darker" area in between the loop marks is missing the first part. You can see it. Why? I have no clue lol!
@count in: I've tried all ways. It's worse w/o the count in.
@settings: I'll try and look, but it's not logical that if you set a loop perfectly, it arbitrarily misses the first little small bit!

I just tried pretty much what you set up and got the exact result you did--except my loop boundaries were fine.  The problem, for me, what just what I said:  When I went into Piano Roll, my first note started a little before the actual first beat.  The reason it played the first time was because you correctly had a few empty start measures, so leading into the loop the first time, the note start of the first note sounded.  When you get to the end of the loop and you come around again, you miss the first note because it started too early and was not actually included in the loop.  I simply grabbed the first note, snapped it to the first beat of the loop and all was fine after that.  YMMV.