SOLVED: Sonar XI Producer: Process>Apply Effect menu is greyed out??

I've selected some midi data on a track and want to apply a MIDI effect, but the whole menu is greyed out. Anyone know why this is happening?

Yes there is a bass line. The whole menu is greyed out... I can't access any audio or MIDI effects.

in a way you can process midi fx by bouncing to clips with the midi fx in the clips bin.

leealecbarrie


I've selected some midi data on a track and want to apply a MIDI effect, but the whole menu is greyed out. Anyone know why this is happening?

To use process/apply effect/midi effects you must have the midi track selected and have previously inserted a midi effect.

Thanks, everyone for your responses. I'll try the drag and drop, but..... as it turned out, I simply had to right-clck on the selected MIDI data and the MIDI Effects menu appeared as a popup menu window. From there, I could choose the effect I wanted. In this case, I wanted to use the Humanize effect from Frank's MIDI Plugins to make my entire MIDI bass track sound more lifelike. My confusion was due to the differences in how Sonar XI works from Sonar 8.5.
 
 

leealecbarrie


Thanks, everyone for your responses. I'll try the drag and drop, but..... as it turned out, I simply had to right-clck on the selected MIDI data and the MIDI Effects menu appeared as a popup menu window. From there, I could choose the effect I wanted. In this case, I wanted to use the Humanize effect from Frank's MIDI Plugins to make my entire MIDI bass track sound more lifelike. My confusion was due to the differences in how Sonar XI works from Sonar 8.5.
 
 

That works for a MIDI clip, but in 8.5.3 you used to be able to select groups of notes and invoke MIDI effects from the main menu.  X1 has now made this needlessly convoluted.  Something so simple (that worked) has been sacrificed on the alter of 'easier to use'. !?!?

"So how do I select a group of notes I've highlighted in the piano roll and process them to change all their velocities by +4?"

I am also curious as to how this can be done.

I no longer can use the Cakewalk FX tool except as a Midi Effect in a channel (which is compeltely worthless to me).

Does anyone have an answer??????????

Windows 7 64 bit
Sonar Producer X1b 64 bit build 246

"So how do I select a group of notes I've highlighted in the piano roll and process them to change all their velocities by +4?"

Use the Event Inspector and enter "+4" in the "Vel" area.

The Event Inspector is in the Control Bar. If you can't see it, try hiding some of the Control Bar modules.

SCorey

"So how do I select a group of notes I've highlighted in the piano roll and process them to change all their velocities by +4?"

Use the Event Inspector and enter "+4" in the "Vel" area.

The Event Inspector is in the Control Bar. If you can't see it, try hiding some of the Control Bar modules.

I wasn't aware that you could do an offset with Event Inspector by entering a signed value. That's good to know.

Thank you for your responses and please keep in mind that I haven't had time to try out your suggestions as of yet.
With the FX tool I used to be able to grab a specific bunch of notes within a cluster....set the velocity and randomize them with a numeric value.
(for example; the sixteenth notes of a high hat, I could set the up beat differently from the downbeat)
I am assuming this is no longer possible in one step?

I guess I am curious as to why this feature is no longer available as it was.

MGC59


Now I have had a chance to do try the suggested method.

I had to do quite a bit of digging to get to the Event Inspector screen.

What I am losing here is fairly substantial to what I do. In the past I would highlight a group of notes and call up the Cakewalf FX Velocity Plugin. Usually I would set a velocity value or make a percentage change. I then set Randomize to a specific amount and tendency.

I could do this very quickly and precisely with the old method.

For me the new method is NOT ease of use. It is a bunch of extra steps and it seems that it is unecessary since the FX Velocity component is still included in the program.

Is there any way to restore the functionality back to the way it was? Why would Cakewalk change this feature?

I agree.  Iit's ludicrous the way some things that worked fine in 8.5 have been changed under what I call the 'doctrinaire' design rules of X1.
 
Although, in the interests of fairness, even in 8.5 you still had to go Menu/Process/MIDI Effects/Velocity to bring up the popup needed and I forwarded a suggestion to CW wayback to make this do-able with a shortcut, but to no avail.   In 8.5 it was also blocked from being made into a custom keyboard shortcut.  I'm sure it's not just me that invokes this MIDI velocity 'FX' tool very regularly and to have it buried like this clearly shows that the CW designers are not mindful of users who work with MIDI a lot - you only have to see the tutorial videos to see that; the predominant discipline seems to be loops mostly.
 
Thanks brundlfly (post 16 above), for your method "After selecting the notes in the PRV, hover the smart tool over the upper edge of one of them to get the velocity adjustment tool".  It works but I found it so fiddly you almost need the mouse skills of a heart surgeon to do it speedily!
 
So please Cakewalk, you talk a lot about the fundamental philosophy of ease of use, which I agree is paramount, so let's see a fix that enables me to simply and quickly select a clip, track or group of notes in the PRV and with one click invoke the MIDI process velocity FX popup.   

This doesn't work for a highlighted group of notes in the PRV. If you highlight, say three, upping the velocity this way only works on the first note of the selection.

It works for me. I'm running 32-bit Quick-fix build 255 and all the lasso-selected notes got changed when I did the '+4' (or any other operation) in the Event inspector.

Maybe it's a 64 bit problem, or earlier build problem?

If it's any help I had the same issue.  
 
For some reason if you have the wrong edit tool selected it greys out the midi effects menu.  Most will be using the smart tool so they will come across this issue.  
 
If you select the midi write tool it opens up the menu.  Thats a bug IMO.  The worst aspect of Sonar (which I now love) is mousing in the notes and editing velocities etc.