Anderton
Week 122: Clean Up Your Console View
 
... You can do that with Folder Tracks in Track View, but you can't do the same thing in Console view...or can you?
 
For example, once an instrument's MIDI track is done (I use synth Track Folders with separate audio and MIDI tracks), the attention shifts to the audio track when you're mixing - so you don't want to see the MIDI track. ...

Extra thanks for your work from me too, and looking forward to the book and to future tips. Meanwhile, back to this tip of the week:
 
Due to recent retirement from my day job, I'm finding it rewarding to dig around in Sonar more. This time, I'm not able to duplicate your tip functionality (at least not yet). When I set up a track folder and populate it with MIDI and audio tracks, clicking on the folder indicator numbers under each type hides and shows the tracks just as you describe. But for me, the change in visibility is only happening in the track view with no corresponding change in the console view track visibility. I'm still on a learning curve with track folders, but I'm wondering if there are any preference settings or specific docking choices that would cause this disconnect between track and console.
 
Then, when poking around for pertinent settings, I noticed at the top of my console view a series of drop down selectors (Modules, Strips, Track, Bus, Options). Under the "Strips" drop down, there is an option to select or deselect "MIDI." Deselecting "MIDI" instantly makes all the MIDI tracks go away from the console view whether they are in folders or not. Seems very handy exactly for the reasons you mention. Re-selecting "MIDI" brings them back into the console view.
 
The strips menu does not offer a way to easily show/hide user-unique kinds of track groupings (different bands, etc.) the way your tip apparently works, but the vast number of Sonar controls made it easy for me to not know about the built in solution for showing/hiding MIDI tracks in console view, at least until now. Thanks for stimulating me to learn more.

My workflow is slightly different. I have several screensets for different tasks. The main two I always use are:
1. This the my audio mixing screen. On two of my three monitors, the bottom left one is the main screen that includes the track view. The right one has the mixing console. For this screen I go into track manager and hide all the MIDI tracks since I'm just mixing audio.
2. In this screenset all of the MIDI tracks are unhidden. The left screen still shows main view, but the right screen shows shows the piano roll. I use this screenset when I want to edit MIDI tracks either with a punch in on a synth, or manual tweaking the MIDI notes.
A simple screenset swap "hides" or "unhides" the MIDI tracks and sets up the right screen for the right application view.
 
BTW, count me in for your ebook!
 
Walt 

Week 123: SuperKick! Tune and Enhance Your Kick Drum
 
If you do hip-hop or EDM and don’t try this tip, in the immortal words of Herman Cain—“blame yourself.” This tip turns wimpy kicks into superkicks, using a different technique compared to the Drum Replacer. I’ve posted an audio demo at craiganderton.com on the Demos page so you can hear how cool the kick becomes.
 
The basic concept is to add another track with a low-frequency sine wave, tuned to your pitch of choice. This can be a WAV file, but we’ll talk about how to take this to another level after we get past the basics. An Aux Track “listens” to the drum track, and uses EQ to filter out everything except the kick; you don’t hear this audio, but we use it to gate the sine wave so it tracks the kick.
 
Let’s check out the setup (and a tip o’ the hat to Jeremy Habetler for the cool Green Glow theme...nice work!).
 

 
1. Track 1 is your drum loop. Insert a pre-fader Send that goes to an Aux Track (named “EQ Conditioner” in this example).
2. Temporarily insert a Sonitus EQ into the drum track’s FX Rack. Tweak the response to filter out everything but the kick. You may need only one lowpass filter band, with the Q kicked up to about 10. Start at the lowest frequency, then slowly move up until you hit the frequency that best isolates the kick. However if other drum sounds creep in (like low floor toms), you may need to double up on the lowpass filters, as shown in the screen shot.
3. Drag the Sonitus EQ out of the drum track and into the Aux Track.
4. Now add the track with the low-frequency sine wave, and insert a Sonitus Gate.
5. Assign the Aux Track output to the Sonitus Gate Sine Input.
6. Because the drum track Send is pre-fader, you can turn down the drum track while you adjust the Gate for the best possible sound. Start by setting the Gate Threshold to let the sine wave through when the kick hits. 
 
Because the sine wave is very low frequency, you need to set the Attack/Hold combination to be longer than an individual cycle. For example the period of a 50 Hz sine wave is 20 ms, so a hold time of 22 ms makes sure the gate doesn’t trigger on individual cycles…although if you want some really nasty lo-fi distortion, be my guest and use short attack and hold times. Also, it’s a good idea to use some Lookahead; 1 ms is enough.
 
How you set the gate provides a ton of options. Extend the Release for a “hum drum” effect, or automate this control for more expressiveness. Increasing the Hold time alters the character as well. The Threshold setting is crucial to avoid false triggering.
 
And of course, one aspect of the "Friday's Tip of the Week" sequel hasn’t changed since the previous generation of tips:
 
But wait—there’s more!
 
If you use a virtual instrument instead of a WAV file to generate the sine wave, you can pitch the kick with a MIDI track, as required by the song. Or, use SONAR’s transpose function on a WAV file. You can also use this to add more "bottom" to snare drums, providing you can isolate it enough from the rest of the drums.
 
 

Thank you, Craig, for all your effort :)

Excellent tip :) One of my favorite now :)

Hi Craig - another nice tip. I've used a similar method to augment a kick with a sine wave. But your tip adds some new elements. And your "wait there's more..." suggestion to use a VSTi to generate the sine wave is a great one. The kick demo sounds great. Definitely a great start to another batch of FTOTW's - and hopefully another book. Thanks

Thanks for the little nod there, I have updated the theme since the new update introduced the notes tab.
 
Also, I used this technique back in the days of Pro Tools and for whatever reason never really tried it in Sonar, so this is a nice reminder of what I could be doing.  However there are some EDM genres that require a sub channel follow the bass instead of the kick though

Maybe I don't understand what you need to do exactly, but assuming MIDI bass, copy the track, set all the notes to the same pitch, and trigger the kick. If not MIDI bass, use Melodyne Essential to extract MIDI and do the same thing.

Thanks!
 
Funny was just doing this yesterday and saw your tip this morning.  
I used the Low Cut/High Cut in the Gate to do the EQ stage.  But yeah handling that outside the gate would allow for more precision.
 
In my case having both set to around 22 hz or so actually worked to just catch the kick drum
 
Definitely pays to explore, experimented with a layer of synth loops and set the gate to duck, came up with a cool locked to the drums rhythmic part.  
 
Bill talked about that back in March
https://www.cakewalk.com/.../Sidechaining-in-SONAR

Keith Albright [Cakewalk]
Definitely pays to explore, experimented with a layer of synth loops and set the gate to duck, came up with a cool locked to the drums rhythmic part.  
 
Bill talked about that back in March
https://www.cakewalk.com/.../Sidechaining-in-SONAR

Yes, I'm quite a fan of sidechaining...I covered several applications in the first generation of tips. One of my favorites involved ducking reverb when an instrument played to avoid "stepping on" the instrument sound.
 
You can also do some really nasty distortion by setting the gate times to the minimum and opening/closing on individual cycles. But I thought it was too disgusting to include as a tip of the week 

Week 124: “Percussivate” Your Parts
 
A tried-and-true technique to impart rhythmic characteristics on a part is to use side-chaining. For example, if you feed a pad into a gate and use a drum part as the gate's sidechain signal, you can “chop” the pad so it follows the drums.
 
However, the Loop Construction View has yet another little-known talent that can let you “percussivate” any part. This technique can do all kinds of other tricks, like make it easy to create “faux” REX files, but for now let’s look at how to take a heavily compressed power chord and make it pulse rhythmically.
 
But first…go to Preferences and choose Customization > Editing > Clips > Right Portion for “Selection after Single Split.” You’ll see why this is important in Step 8 below.
 
1. Make sure the Clip you want to “percussivate” has a defined number of beats.
2. Double-click on the Clip (the default double-click behavior for Clips) to open it in the Loop Construction View.
3. Click on the Loop button and verify that the Beats field shows the correct number of beats. Note: This may appear to truncate the clip in the Track View. Never fear—simpily slip-edit the Clip's right edge to show the entire clip.
 

 
4. Use the drop-down menu below the Slice drop-down menu to choose the "pulse rate," as shown by where the transient markers fall. The screenshot shows quarter notes, but you can also choose “No Slice” to add markers wherever you want (by double-clicking just above the Loop Construction View’s “time ruler") to create polyrhythms and syncopations.
5. You can close the Loop Construction View once you’ve placed your markers where you want.
6. Click the Clip to select it, and place the Now Time at the beginning.
7. Press Tab. This places the Now Time on the first transient marker. Type S to split the Clip.
 

 
8. Keep hitting Tab and typing S until there are splits on all the transient markers. This is why you want to select the part of the clip to the right of the split in Preferences—typing S won’t add a split unless the region you want to split is selected. The screen shot shows what the Clip looks like when you’re halfway through the process.
 

 
9. Drag across all the slices to select them all. Now if you add a fade to one slice, you’ll add it to all of them.
10. You may need to add a very short fade in as well to prevent clicks. This only has to be a couple milliseconds, so it's not necessary to compromise the sound's percussive nature.
 

 
11. To make these changes permanent, and turn the loop-based clip into a standard clip, bounce the clip to itself (i.e., with all the slices selected, choose Clips > Bounce to Clip(s) in the Track View menu).
 
And there you have it—your "percussivated" power chord!
 
But...what good is a "Friday's Tip of the Week" without a "But wait! There's more!"? Please note that this tip shows a very basic application. For example, while you’re in the Loop Construction View, you can also change the pitch, pan, and level of each slice to do “audio step sequencer” effects, as described on page 203 in “The Big Book of SONAR Tips.” You can also split a Groove Clip into its constituent parts to create "faux" REX files without using AudioSnap, split REX files and shuffle the slices to create variations on a loop, and more. Is it any wonder I feel the Loop Construction View is one of SONAR's most under-exploited features?