Thanks for confirming... every now and then a feature I've been hoping for sneaks in and don't learn about it right away.

:-)




edit spelling

yeah, sorry; MS Paint mock up.

Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

Should work fine in most cases. Is this with hardware or software synths? If hardware, make sure you're not sending a patch change from the track header, as I've seen some synths ignore that first note while processing a patch change. If software, you might need to increase your Prepare Using buffer in Preferences for MIDI Playback and Recording.

F@ker


yeah, sorry; MS Paint mock up.

Awww...you got my hopes all up, only to just let me down.

Perhaps Cakewalk should take notice of something so simple. Yes, I've seen this topic pop up in the forum in the past and it always seems to just gets passed over as there being 'workarounds' to this issue. Well, 'workarounds' are great if there are no clear alternatives. I mean, with that logic, we've got plenty of 'workarounds' to forgo many features implemented in the current version of SONAR over the years.
I think having those 'negative' measures will make more...dare I say...'musical' sense.

brundlefly

Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

 Should work fine in most cases. Is this with hardware or software synths? If hardware, make sure you're not sending a patch change from the track header, as I've seen some synths ignore that first note while processing a patch change. If software, you might need to increase your Prepare Using buffer in Preferences for MIDI Playback and Recording.

Soft-synth. SFZ player, actually. I use a two note SFZ file as my metronome. I've done this ever since the built-in metronome stopped working around tempo and time signature changes.


(That's the SONAR way, really, isn't? Feature doesn't work? Find a work-around, and don't look back.)


I haven't used a hardware synth for some time. I'll retest this and see if it is just an issue with softsynths. Thanks.

stickman393

brundlefly

Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

Should work fine in most cases. Is this with hardware or software synths? If hardware, make sure you're not sending a patch change from the track header, as I've seen some synths ignore that first note while processing a patch change. If software, you might need to increase your Prepare Using buffer in Preferences for MIDI Playback and Recording.

Soft-synth. SFZ player, actually. I use a two note SFZ file as my metronome. I've done this ever since the built-in metronome stopped working around tempo and time signature changes.


(That's the SONAR way, really, isn't? Feature doesn't work? Find a work-around, and don't look back.)


I haven't used a hardware synth for some time. I'll retest this and see if it is just an issue with softsynths. Thanks.
 

I'm not sure what might be causing the problem you are seeing, but I can't reproduce it. SFZ responds to MIDI at 1:01:000 without a hitch for me.
 
It shouldn't matter for soft synths (which are treated like audio, even though they're MIDI-driven), but are you running a non-zero Timing Offset value?
 
And I'm wondering what's the miinimum amount you have to push a MIDI event out from 1:01:000 to get a response from SFZ? Also, is it the same for all soft synths? And is it the same number of ticks at all tempos, or is it a fixed absolute time, regardless of tempo?
 
 
 
 
 

brundlefly

stickman393

brundlefly

Has anyone else noticed that Sonar X1 (and earlier) can't actually play a MIDI note that starts at 1:01:000 ? If I set up Bar 1 to be a four beat count-in, and then rewind to start and press PLAY, I do not hear the first beat.

Should work fine in most cases. Is this with hardware or software synths? If hardware, make sure you're not sending a patch change from the track header, as I've seen some synths ignore that first note while processing a patch change. If software, you might need to increase your Prepare Using buffer in Preferences for MIDI Playback and Recording.

Soft-synth. SFZ player, actually. I use a two note SFZ file as my metronome. I've done this ever since the built-in metronome stopped working around tempo and time signature changes.   

I'm not sure what might be causing the problem you are seeing, but I can't reproduce it. SFZ responds to MIDI at 1:01:000 without a hitch for me.
 
It shouldn't matter for soft synths (which are treated like audio, even though they're MIDI-driven), but are you running a non-zero Timing Offset value?
 
And I'm wondering what's the miinimum amount you have to push a MIDI event out from 1:01:000 to get a response from SFZ? Also, is it the same for all soft synths? And is it the same number of ticks at all tempos, or is it a fixed absolute time, regardless of tempo?

Brundle - 


Thanks for the questions. On closer examination, I have discovered the following:

• Hardware synths work fine; the first MIDI note is being received and sounded completely.
• The SFZ player *is* responding to the first MIDI note, but the first part of the "click" waveform is not being played. I can actually hear the last short decay of the sound, but the initial "click" is being swallowed - perhaps by the SONAR audio engine not quite being ready to play back.
• The same effect occurs with a different softsynth - for example, I switched from SFZ to Session Drummer 3 : Only the decay of the initial note playback is heard.
• If I move the initial note +45 ticks away from beat 1 of the first bar, I believe I am now hearing the full click. The closer to 1:01:000 I move the note, the more is bitten off the initial attack of the playback.
• I tried varying the tempo of the project from 60 bpm to 160 bpm but it was hard to get a definitive answer. I think that slower bpms reduced the number of ticks required to offset the first note in order to hear the full attack, but it is very subjective. I am willing to say that it is my opinion that the delay time is absolute in millisecs, not ticks. If this is related to the audio engine warming up, then that makes sense I think. 
• This effect is not noticeable in a rendered, exported WAV file. The full attack of the click is audible, even when the note is at 1:01:000. Therefore, this effect happens on playback in an open SONAR project only (which, of course, is when I want the click to be audible :) )
• If I quadruple the size of my ASIO playback buffers from 512 to 2048, this does not seem to alter the results.

And final test:

• If I bounce-to-track, and then solo the rendered track, I hear the same thing, the intial attack of the first click is truncated; but if I then move the rendered audio clip out to start at measure 2, I hear the full attack. So the rendering is correct, but the waveform playback at 1:01:000 is still truncating.

So that's all interesting.



Sonar X1B (32bit); Windows 7 (64bit); Echo Layla 3G PCI.

This should be no problem to "cure" by the Bakers ... unless ... (I leave this bit open for Cake to fill in :-)

How's this: An attribute called "offset" (as someone said) in Preferences where you could enter any number.  Whatever number you enter is deducted from Bar 1, i.e. if you put 4 in, then all bar numbering is moved to the right and you get  -3, -2, -1, 0, 1 etc.

Flexible, and should cover most cases (I say "most" as there'll always be at least one disagree-er :-)  Obvioulsy, this would also need to be reflected in printouts and all displays, etc.

This subject of ruler offset was discussed here and a feature request was submitted.

I have mentioned this before but why cannot people simply start a production at 2.01.000 instead of attempting to start at 1.01.000 What is the big deal here, I cannot see it.

Anyone who attempts to start music right on 1.01.000 is tempting fate a bit. For a start, tracks that have been advanced may not get played and when a sequencer actually starts up right on 1.01.000 there are a few tasks that need to be done which might get in the way of music sounding off correctly.

By simply putting your music at 2.01.000 or later you avoid a raft of problems then. I know its nice for printing out music etc to have everything starting at bar 1 but musicians are not fussed about bar numbers in general.

Jeff Evans

I have mentioned this before but why cannot people simply start a production at 2.01.000 instead of attempting to start at 1.01.000 What is the big deal here, I cannot see it.

Actually I find any project that has stuff not starting at multiples of 4, 8 or 16 annoying. That said, I tend to start my projects at bar 17 or 33 so I have no problems with the fact that SONAR doesn't have negative bars/beats.

Anyone who attempts to start music right on 1.01.000 is tempting fate a bit. For a start, tracks that have been advanced may not get played and when a sequencer actually starts up right on 1.01.000 there are a few tasks that need to be done which might get in the way of music sounding off correctly.

Which tasks does it have to do that it doesn't have to do if you start a project midway?

By simply putting your music at 2.01.000 or later you avoid a raft of problems then.

I don't see how this is the case. I don't see what difference it makes to the sequencer where you press start. If you start at bar 1 with music starting immediately or if you have your Now Time set to the beginning of the Chorus and press play, it should give the same list of tasks to perform and the same load on the DAW...

UnderTow