This is for stickman (missing the attack of the first note). Have you set the option for fade on start in the playback and record preferences dialog?

dantarbill

If you are sequencing against printed music that already has measure numbers, it would be way handy to have the numbers match up instead of having to add an offset.

I for one, would love the option of starting on measure zero (or -1 or -2 for that matter).

+1 in spades!  The computer can do the math way faster than I can and will never make the kind of mistake I might when I'm toasted ... er ... tired.

+1.  I'm sick of having to manually calculate the 1 bar offset for bars 33, 65, etc. Change the label of the first measure to zero and I'd be happy.  Anything that pushes or pulls the beat is always going to be slightly ahead of the measure mark anyway, so I'm fine having it start on the "second" measure, but would like the numbers to align with normal notation and or dance/remix conventions 8/16/32 etc.

I have a potential solution that would be easy to implement without having to risk modifying any existing code (i.e changing the current MBT implementation).

Basically Sonar could allow you to add another timeline format along with the presently offered MBT, HMSF, etc.  This would be displayed along the timeline just as you currently do any of those other existing formats.  Any combination of these can appear, just as we can do with MBT, HMSF, etc.

I'd suggest a name like OMBT (for offset MBT).  And the offset is a value stored per project somewhere in the preferences.

The advantage here is that the internal code that supports the present MBT implementation would not need to change.  Of course this only changes the timeline display in the tracks and not in the other windows (like Event View and the dedicated Piano Roll etc.), but in those cases they could include the OMBT as well.

At least it would help with those infernal calculations when comparing the DAW readings to some printed music.  I may be a maths major, but I was never very good at arithmetic ;-)

VariousArtist

I have a potential solution that would be easy to implement without having to risk modifying any existing code (i.e changing the current MBT implementation).

Basically Sonar could allow you to add another timeline format along with the presently offered MBT, HMSF, etc.  This would be displayed along the timeline just as you currently do any of those other existing formats.  Any combination of these can appear, just as we can do with MBT, HMSF, etc.

I'd suggest a name like OMBT (for offset MBT).  And the offset is a value stored per project somewhere in the preferences.

The advantage here is that the internal code that supports the present MBT implementation would not need to change.  Of course this only changes the timeline display in the tracks and not in the other windows (like Event View and the dedicated Piano Roll etc.), but in those cases they could include the OMBT as well.

Great idea.  Another alternative would be to allow a second (user-definable) timeline in addition to the existing (fixed) one.  Here's a more elaborate suggestion:  

Allow the user to create as many timeline rulers as he/she wishes.  Each ruler can be assigned a start and finish point and it will only be displayed between these points.  It can also be assigned a name and a colour.  Rulers can be created to represent the different sections of a song, e.g. verse, chorus, middle-8 or whatever.  You may want to adopt a colour scheme (e.g. choruses red, verses blue) so that the structure of the song will be clearly visible in Track View.  When editing in PRV, it will be obvious which part of the song you are looking at by the colour and name of the ruler.  And of course, the start point of a ruler can be set as any integer.

Try setting a count in beat of 1 to 2 measures. Or physically count it in after hitting record aiming for the start of the third measure. When you mix it all down it won't matter and it'll give the flexibility of starting the mixdown anywhere within the first two measures.

Kev999

VariousArtist

I have a potential solution that would be easy to implement without having to risk modifying any existing code (i.e changing the current MBT implementation).

Basically Sonar could allow you to add another timeline format along with the presently offered MBT, HMSF, etc.  This would be displayed along the timeline just as you currently do any of those other existing formats.  Any combination of these can appear, just as we can do with MBT, HMSF, etc.

I'd suggest a name like OMBT (for offset MBT).  And the offset is a value stored per project somewhere in the preferences.

The advantage here is that the internal code that supports the present MBT implementation would not need to change.  Of course this only changes the timeline display in the tracks and not in the other windows (like Event View and the dedicated Piano Roll etc.), but in those cases they could include the OMBT as well.

Great idea.  Another alternative would be to allow a second (user-definable) timeline in addition to the existing (fixed) one.  Here's a more elaborate suggestion:  

Allow the user to create as many timeline rulers as he/she wishes.  Each ruler can be assigned a start and finish point and it will only be displayed between these points.  It can also be assigned a name and a colour.  Rulers can be created to represent the different sections of a song, e.g. verse, chorus, middle-8 or whatever.  You may want to adopt a colour scheme (e.g. choruses red, verses blue) so that the structure of the song will be clearly visible in Track View.  When editing in PRV, it will be obvious which part of the song you are looking at by the colour and name of the ruler.  And of course, the start point of a ruler can be set as any integer.

I like the idea of colour-coded sections.  In fact, I believe I saw this feature in Pro Tools and it made a lot of sense to me.  When there's a lot going on screen-wise, these kinds of visual cues can really assist and since I already make heavy use of markers I would welcome colour-coding here.  Having the ability to include my own starting point for measure numbers in this would be a great bonus.  There are probably lots of uses here, and a simple example would be some instruction you might want to give such as "...start the delay in the third measure of every chorus".  With your additional feature this would be a piece of cakewalk...

Count me in! (Pun intended.) But seriously... this would be a great feature.

This is another reason why Sonar trails the industry in terms of music-to-picture. Say your first cue (bar 1 beat 1) begins at SMTPE time 1:00:10:00 but the start of the video is at 1:00:00:00. This is very common if your video has an academy leader pre-roll before your downbeat. Sonar has no way to slide the video on the timeline, so you have to make the SMTPE time match up with Bar 1 Beat 1. Every professional DAW which does music-to-picture allows you to define your first-measure downbeat at an arbitrary place along the time line. Sonar does not. 

I've had to move on to other DAWs which work much better as post-production tools. I cut my teeth in Sonar, but this missing feature is another indication of how Sonar continues to ignore the needs of people working with music-to-picture.

Here is a refinement of the above suggestion.  

Keep the existing timeline as it stands, but also have an additional customisable timeline.  This second timelime can be divided up as required by the user to represent different sections of the song, e.g. intro, verses, choruses, bridges or whatever.  Each section can be assigned a colour and a starting number which could be 1 or 0 or some offset.  It could also be assigned a name or descriptive piece of text.  When zoomed out the sections of the song would be obvious by the colours.  When zoomed in it would be easy to see that you were looking at say the 6th bar of the 2nd chorus.