Sonar Live backing tracks

Yes, it will work. Just make sure you have a rock-solid laptop and experiment with it extensively before taking it "on the road"...Another option would be a rack-mount PC.

As for Playlist vs. hour long sets...What if you decide to change things around? Whatcha gonn do then?

Thanks Guys.  I see your point papa2005.  Changing the order would be a pain without the playlist feature.  I just want to be sure this idea would work before investing the money.  So, does the playlist close each previous project before opening a new one?  That would be ideal.

You set up a playlist with the songs you wish to play back. It then starts working it's way through the list, loading files up in advance as needed. It's that simple.

As papa2005 has said you can put set time waits in, wait for keypresses or wizz through them how you wish. Best bet is just to have a play around with it and see how it works best for you.

*LOL* With only 256MB RAM you're lucky you can get SONAR to even open! *LOL*

Last weekend I used Sonar to provide backing tracks for 10 songs - about 40 minutes.

I needed to use the lyrics view for cues, and although the playlist will open the lyrics view, it gets mixed up with which song is showing the top most lyrics so I found it unuseable.

So plan B was to put them in sequence in one project. I put markers at the start and end of each song, and put text in the lyrics to denote the starts and ends as well, so that I could step through easily from one song to the next.

One thing that was really important to me was that I did not want to be seen messing with a computer, so I used a midi footswitch to transmit start/stop, go to next marker, and go to previous marker, all set up with ACT.

This worked really well, except I needed it to stop automatically at end of each song. AFAIK there is no way to embed transport control events in to the event list, so it needed a work around. I added a new midi track and put pause events at each stop position and sent it to a midi out which was merged back with the footswitch midi using a merge box.

Since there were some unused audio ins and outs, i put them to good use by feeding an aux from the external mixer into Sonar and set up a couple of busses for reverb and echo . These came out separately from the backing tracks and fed two unused inputs in the mixer and were used to effect the live vocals.

This worked really well in rehearsals and I was encouraged enough to add a further midi track to automate changes to my POD settings at the start of each song, and where necessary during a song.

On the night I was able to have complete hands off, closed the lid of the laptop, had an extension screen with the lyrics/cues in a stage monitor type box next to the real stage monitors, and the footswitch in front of it. Tap the 'start' switch, the count in track plays to the stage monitors, POD receives its set up midi commands, song plays and stops at the end. Tap the 'go to next marker' switch, lyrics/cue indicates which song is cued up. Repeat etc, or tap through/back to the start of the song you want to do next.

Whatever you choose to use I recommend that you run it through with all the equipment you intend to use as it is almost certain that something will not be as you expect, and you don't want to be fixing it on the night.

By the way I used an M-audio fw1814 with a buffer of 256. There is no noticeable latency in the reverb/echo effects so long as you set them up as sends ie 100% effect only. Midi merge and midi footswitches are Phillip Rees devices that hadn't seen any use for about 8 years, and I was pleased to put them to good use.

The gig went well and  the audience were not aware of how it was being done.

HTH

Cliff

*edit* the laptop is an old Toshiba Satellite P4 with a 7200 HD fitted, it ran with CPU usage less than 10%, and disk use less than 5%

Wade,

There was a time when many of us "not-so-computer-saavy folk" thought 256MB was plenty of RAM! *LOL* Only after I began digging into DAW work did I discover how wrong I was! *LOL*

pbognar

FastBikerBoy


I use Sonar with playlists as my fall back for providing backing tracks for my live solo act. I've never had to use it 'for real' yet. I have a Roland Sonic Cell for that and I use it only for MIDI files no audio.

I have however under the above limitations rehearsed with it on several occasions and never let me down yet.

Sonar 8.3.1 PE on a Toshiba Satellite T6400 @ 2.00 Ghz, 3 GB RAM with Windows 7 x32. If that's of any use. The only thing I couldn't get working was the Start/Stop via MIDI for some reason.

I thought this was the whole idea behind Sonic Cell - create your stuff using Sonic Cell as your interface and sound module with Sonar, create a playlist with SC play list editor, dump everything onto a jump drive and let SC do the play back on the gig...

Unfortunately, there are only stereo outs on the SC, and I'm not sure you could have it play back MIDI and audio in the same song.  It would be nice if it had at least 4 outputs and a click track output.

The other thing is that with Sonar 8.5.2, you'd be able to use MIDI to control the Matrix View, to allow for some variation when playing live.

I've heard that the Fantom G and Sonar play well together.  It's my understanding that the Fantom G could be used as a audio and MIDI interface to Sonar.  When your stuff is done, you could dump it from Sonar into the Fantom G sequencer, and with MIDI controlled RPS, you'd have some live flexibility.

The only problem is that the Fantom G isn't a cheap solution - however, I would trust it more in a live situation than a computer running Sonar.

Yep, that is the whole idea of the Sonic Cell and it works great, but I think you are correct you can't mix audio and MIDI playback in the same track.

You can have MIDI files and Audio in the same playlists, and I think you can use MIDI to play the synth section of the sonic cell while playing back both audio or MIDI but I've no call for that so never tried.

I use it standalone for MIDI file playback (with Audio for between sets) and it sends all my patch changes via MIDI to both my Boss GT-6 (guitar pedal) and vocal processors. For that it's fantastic no more tap dancing on effects pedals for me. The only pedal I press is the stop/start which is attached to the GT-6 and again sends control via MIDI.

I use Sonar (in the live situation) purely as a backup for if the SOnic Cell were to give up the ghost.

I do a 1 man band program with backing tracks I've done on Sonar.  I get the mix done, export to audio onto an Ipod and away I go. No set up problems, no extra equipment, just my sound system, my saxes, and my Ipod and away I go.  I will duplicate the list onto my laptop just for a backup.
 I used to use the laptop and sound module but had a number of bad experiences with static zaps that would require a whole system reboot.

Why would you need a click track? Are you not using drums or percussion in your backing tracks?

As for feeding the click to monitors, it really depends on how  directional your monitor system is and how close you are the the nearest members of the audience. Why go to the trouble of creating backing tracks if you're going to sum them to mono?
 
In a live situation it's quite acceptable to have a "stick-verbal count" leading into the intro (or the first bar of a song that has no intro.

I have read that when doing the backing tracks, click only should be panned hard right, and the backing tracks should be panned hard left. My question is: is it ok to put the music and the click track  in the right channel for my monitor?

I'm with papa on this. Why not just monitor the whole mix? I use sticks or occasionally a ride bell for intros if that's the issue. With a bit of practice you can get a click in then play solo for several bars before backing comes in and stay in time. I do it all the time as part of my solo act. Stairway to Heaven being a classic example. Black Sabbath's paranoid is another.

If you really need a click then the set up will depend on your PA/mixer. It's conceivably possible for me to do that using my peavey powered mixer. The right channel can be assigned as a monitoring system if I wish but I use it as a mixer and take a mix out to my PA power amp in stereo and use a separate monitor mix out to powered monitors. Works a treat.

I exported my stems to Live and used that for backing tracks for a while.

If I had to do it again, I'd prolly do one of the following:

Option 1
iPod. Put the click L and backing tracks R. L goes to drummer's headphones R goes to house. Easy, compact, and bulletproof.

Option 2
Mainstage. Looks awesome and fun, and hey, Nine Inch Nails uses it.

This is a 6 year old thread.
You might consider starting a new thread, with your equipment (cpu specs etc) in your signature. 
Of course read these old threads as there is valuable information in them. But as things change, like operating systems, DAW software and hardware (an iPod? what's that?) techniques change as well with the times.
 
Michael