CAKEWALK SONAR 7 - NOW WITH CONCLUSIONS!

[mhaigh]

the v-vocal to midi will only work on clean monophonic sources, with a 4 part harmony on a busy audio track your pc will probably cough violently, fall over and die....

As MS has dropped support for xp64, you can only get vistax64 now, and sonar 7 only officially supports this.

[Columbian]

I'm new here, and I gotta say it's great to see how seriously you guys take this. This is a great, no-nonsense forum.

I'm hoping you can help me find a couple features that may or may not exist in Sonar 7.

Does sonar have anything like a MIDI compressor? I need a fast way to set a threshold and have velocities above that be all reduced by a percent I specify, and then, to boost the overall velocity level.

I've found things in Sonar that sort of do these things, but require 3 or 4 steps.

Anyone have a one-step solution?

And since I use a MIDI wind controller, I need to do that with MIDI breath controller values too.

thanks for any help.

[garrigus]

Not sure if this is what you need, but check out this article...

 

* Compressing MIDI Velocities in Cakewalk

http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/tip.asp?ID=1

 

And find more articles here:

http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/articles.asp

 

As referenced in the article, the Interpolate feature should work with breath controller values too... just specify it using the Control parameters.

 

For real-time MIDI velocity control, you can add the MIDI Plugins > Cakewalk FX > Velocity plug-in to the Fx bin of a MIDI track.

 

Scott

 

--

Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 7 Power & Sound Forge 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/

 

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free Absynth 3 or Kontakt 2 DVD Tutorial, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

 

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free WWF Slam Cam digital camera, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

[Columbian]

Scott:

Thank you for that tip. The interpolate process does do the job, as you suggested, for both velocities and controllers, including breath of course. and I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you give the "replace" side of it a range of values, it will scale your selection smoothly. You really do know this program.

It's a pretty tweaky and distracting process, though, and slows down the work flow. What I had in mind was something more like the MIDI plugin for velocity that Sonar already has. It's got a relatively intuitive GUI and can Limit, Scale, fade, and set to spec'd value.

It's not quite a real compressor / limiter, but it's real close. All it needs really is a threshold setting. The rest of the needed functions are already there: "Change" functions like a level boost; and "Scale" is close enough to a ratio setting. It's really more a question of their paradigm, and I'm actually surprised they haven't already cobbled this into a MIDI Comp/ Limiter.

Oh, yeah, and it should be able to do this to controllers, not just velocity.

Just my Christmas list.

Thanks again for the tip. I'll use it til a groundswell forces Cakewalk's hand. (ho, ho.)

[garrigus]

Glad I could help... yeah, it would definitely be nice to have something like the Interpolate function as a real-time plug-in. That would be seriously powerful.

 

In the meantime, Cakewalk does take user requests seriously and you can send in a feature request using the following page:

http://www.cakewalk.com/support/featurerequest.asp

 

Scott

 

--

Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 7 Power & Sound Forge 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/

 

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free Absynth 3 or Kontakt 2 DVD Tutorial, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

 

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free WWF Slam Cam digital camera, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

[Columbian]

Okay, I took your suggestion and went and submitted a feature request to Cakewalk. time will tell.

 

thanx again for your consideration.

[Anderton]

Here's a quickie compression option for 2:1 compression:

1. Divide all values by 2.
2. Add 64 to all values.

[Anderton]

For "limiting," just add a constant to all values.

[MoonMix]

Craig...

 

Going back to the External Insert Plug-In for a moment...the main reason I upgraded to v7 was for this ability. I simply wanted to be able to master w/ one machine (PC.) Then I read your post back on page 3 or 4 or wherever; & found that I can do the same thing in earlier versions of SONAR ???

 

This is pretty disconcerting...considering I'm running SONAR5 right now (haven't opened v7's box yet)...but judging from 7's trial version...I'm not real happy w/ the quality of the text (compared w/ v5). Specifically, the text in the Control Windows (In the Audio & MIDI Track control modules...at the left...Input, Output, FX Bin, Vol, Pan, etc.) looks cheap & jagged. I suppose it's because they've gone for a more streamlined approach...but the fonts look too linear...like the letters & numbers are displayed in straight line-stroke segments...[instead of smooth & radial (like in SONAR5)].

 

[This is merely a disappointment, mind you...not a big bitch or anything. It's just that I'm a huge graphics meister; & was hoping for better font quality.]

 

But having said all this...since you've also said this is not a 'major' upgrade...aside from the MIDI enhancements (which I'll probably use), I'm a bit miffed (or at least scratching my head as to why I upgraded).

 

Oh...on the mastering thing...I wanted to be able to route the full, stereo mix from a project, out & thru a hardware compressor/limiter; & recapture it in an adjacent stereo audio track...no big deal? (&; w/ a final mastering approach such as this...delay or latency doesn't matter.)

 

But...can this be accomplished cleanly (in 7...or even prior versions)?

 

Thanks,

 

MoonMix

[Anderton]

Yes, I do that kind of thing all the time. BTW it's true you could always use external effects in Sonar, BUT they didn't have delay compensation (you had to do it manually), and also, you couldn't use them as insert plug-ins -- you always had to go out to a bus, then bring the processed sound in through a separate track. So the insert thing in S7 is more about making it convenient and more accessible, than being some breakthrough new thing you could never do before.

However, the addition of the sidechainable effects, which is is big deal in terms of the upgrade, obviates about 70% of the reason I needed to use external effects.

[Anderton]

As to the fonts...that's something I never really noticed, and I don't find it problematic.

Since you're running Sonar 5, I strongly suggest installing Sonar 7!!! It's not just about what's been added in 7, but also, all the stuff that was added in 6. The cumulative effect of the two updates is huge. After using 7 for the past couple months I would not want to go back to 5. And actually, given how much I use MIDI, I wouldn't want to go back to 6 either.

[nivek_yoccm]

First, Craig, I really appreciate your reviews and keep them on my shelf right next to Scott Garrigus' books as well as your Sonar Insider! So thanks.

Have you (or anyone else) had big problems loading certain Z3TA+ programs? Particularly, the bank C 002 program, "superstring"? BEFORE TRYING, please turn off your monitors and unplug headphones--just watch the meters. . . If you get the sound I get, it's horrendously loud and like someone blowing air out really quickly. It always kills the audio engine and a few times has caused a fatal error and Sonar crash.

Will some readers try this and let me know? I can't imagine what it could be in my system (a brand new quad core w 4G RAM from a top DAW builder with an RME FF400 interface). I've even eliminated my controller (M-Audio Axiom) by just triggering the Z3TA+ program with the ribbon at the bottom of the GUI. Unfortunately, this seems to happen in quite a few Z3TA+ programs (at least quite a few in the C bank).

Please let me know if anyone can recreate this. Thanks very much!!!

Kevin

[garrigus]

The Superstring program works fine for me. Just tried it...

 

Thanks for reading my books!

Scott

 

--

Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 7 Power & Sound Forge 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/

 

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free Absynth 3 or Kontakt 2 DVD Tutorial, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

 

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free WWF Slam Cam digital camera, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

[Anderton]

Same here. Maybe re-install the content?

[nivek_yoccm]

Same here. Maybe re-install the content?

 

 

Thanks guys. I reinstalled Z3TA+ and same problem. I also had this problem on my last DAW (one of the reasons I got this new one. . .); so I've recreated this problem on two systems. Totally baffled as just about the only things that have been consistent between systems are: me, the RME Fireface (that shouldn't affect Z3TA+ though?), and the Sonar/Z3TA+ installations (I've eliminated the controller). I'm starting to suspect an actual error on my disc. I also just had the same problem when I brought Z3TA+ up in Project5.

[Anderton]

Try increaseing latency, or using WDM instead of ASIO drivers. Check for new drivers...might be an audio-related issue.

[garrigus]

What sampling rate are you using in your projects? I've found that for some reason (and I don't know why) that Dimension Pro (and possibly Rapture, but I don't recall at the moment) doesn't like to play properly at sampling rates above 48kHz. The same problem might occur with z3ta+, but I haven't tested it.

 

Scott

 

--

Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 7 Power & Sound Forge 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/

 

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free Absynth 3 or Kontakt 2 DVD Tutorial, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

 

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free WWF Slam Cam digital camera, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

[mhaigh]

i had also found z3ta+ to be very loud when i firste got it - however now it's no too bad, maybe since i installed the 7.01 patch? try that and see if it works...

[nivek_yoccm]

Thanks MHaigh, Craig, and Scott. That's definitely helped--ever since I got the Fireface and had problems with WDM, I switched to ASIO and stopped thinking about drivers entirely. I can get the (mostly C bank) programs to work; but only when I'm using WDM and at 48K. I'm actually very relieved that there is some progress! I am kind of concerned with being stuck using 48K though as I almost always work at 96K. . . It does still seem like a driver problem since CPU doesn't ramp up normally, but spikes instantly. In fact, just switching to certain programs (@ 96K), not even triggering a note, will trigger 100% CPU and maxing of levels (including the Master w fader set all the way down). Surely this is some kind of driver incompatability with these programs and 96K. . . I guess I need to try to get RME to duplicate this. I'd rather not be stuck in 48K whenever I want to use some programs (?).

Thanks very much, again. Just seeing some changes really helps; I was pretty bummed, having gotten a new DAW and still seeing these same problems.

Kevin

[Anderton]

Pitch-to-MIDI! Cool! Let's see how well it works.

I decided to start with something simple, yet possibly challenging: Creating a kick drum part for triggering Session Drummer 2. I inserted an audio track, plugged in a mic, clicked record, and started going "dum dum dum dum da-dum dum da-da-da-da-da-dum etc." (you get the idea).

The way pitch-to-MIDI works is decidedly easy. After you record the audio, you right-click on the audio clip and select V-Vocal > Create V-Vocal Clip, as shown in the first image. Then if you want to set up pitch range and amount of ticks between pitch bend events, you right-click on the V-Vocal Edit Window and call up Pitch-to-MIDI settings (we'll get into this a bit more later). Then, you drag the MIDI note icon (the bottom icon in the vertical toolbar shown in the left of the second image) into a MIDI track, and there's your converted clip.

But...it seems my "dums" weren't a consistent enough pitch (or actually no pitch at all), because the notes - while representing the correct rhythm - were all over the map, pitch-wise. This wasn't real good for triggering a kick drum, so before continuing, I had to figure out a way to transpose them all to the same pitch. Which brings us to a brief detour into...

[Anderton]

I first tried the transpose command, but there isn't a "transpose to a single note" option. Ditto the Transpose MIDI plug-in. So I figured that maybe the MIDI filter could be of some help.

Hey!! Wait a minute...I don't know where/when they sneaked this into the program, but somewhere along the line, the old MIDI filter became a powerful search-and-replace tool for MIDI data. I didn't see anything in the "What's New" portion of the documentation to indicate this was new to Sonar 7, so maybe it slipped into Sonar 6 and I didn't notice it. Whatever. In any event, go Process >Interpolate, and the Event Filter - Search screen appears, where I selected all notes at all velocities (first image). After clicking on OK, this screen turns into the Replace screen. Here, I specified that all notes be replaced with C3, while retaining velocity; see the second image.

This is huge, people. I'd seen Scott mention "Interpolate" and wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, but now I know. This is a wonderful feature that once again shows just how much better Sonar's MIDI implementation has become.

[Anderton]

This actually turned out to be pretty uneventful. All the notes turned into kick drums, and I thought that was pretty cool. There was no false triggering, and after a little judicious quantization, I had a vocally-generated kick drum part. While this was more about proof of concept than anything else, it got me thinking that this might be a very good way to do percussion parts with "finger drumming."

So I rested the mic on the table, and tried triggering with my fingers. This didn't work well at all; there were a lot of missed notes. I even tried gating and using Boost 11, but I guess "V-Vocal" is serious about seeing something at least vaguely vocally-oriented.

Then I tried singing the part with a "doo-doo-doo-doo"-type tonal sound. This worked much, much better; V-Vocal got confused only when I tried to do 16th notes, which I thought was because I couldn't articulate them clearly enough for V-Vocal to parse that they were separate notes. To check this, I slowed down the tempo and not only did V-Vocal translate my "mouth percussion part," it translated perfectly. Next time I need a conga part, I think I might sing it instead of play it.

[Anderton]

So I thought I'd try a bass part next, triggered from guitar. It worked reasonably well; the attached clip plays the unedited conversion from V-Vocal to MIDI clip for the first eight measures, then the edited version for the next eight. Editing basically involved removing about a half dozen short, false triggers - not bad, really. In fact, all these triggers were short enough that if I'd just told Sonar to remove all MIDI notes of less than a sixteenth-note duration, that would have pretty much done the job.

I also tried some lead guitar parts with lots of bending and nuance; V-Vocal couldn't really keep up, as when a note bent up to a new one, V-Vocal just assumed it was a new note. The pitch bending was kind of ragged too, as there were lots of little glitches. I tried tailoring the pitch bend data density using the Time Resolution parameter in the pitch-to-MIDI settings, but didn't have much better luck. I had much better results when playing straight chords on my Digital Les Paul, and sent each string to its own channel.

[Anderton]

So what's the bottom line? The V-Vocal pitch-to-MIDI function seems to work flat out best with (perhaps not surprisingly!) vocals. If you sing well and V-Vocal can track your vocals, it will translate that well into a MIDI part. Note, though, that making changes in V-Vocal (e.g., transposition, pitch correction) does not carry through if you convert the part to MIDI; only the original part gets converted.

Although my experiments with lead guitar weren't very successful, if I play cleanly (and of course, monophonically) and don't count on pitch bending, the results can be pretty good, as evidenced by the bass clip. Something like horn stabs would work well, if you were willing to build up a chord a line at a time. And I must say that doing drum parts with my voice worked well, once I figured out that V-Vocal wanted a tone, not just a burst of sound.

If you're looking for the ultimate pitch-to-MIDI converter, this isn't it. However, if you'll settle for converting voice parts to MIDI, this feature does the job much better than expected. I suspect it would work well on monophonic wind instruments as well, but I'm not a wind player, so perhaps someone else can weigh in on the subject.

The last point worth mentioning is that when V-Vocal was first introduced, it was a pretty squirrely little critter. Those days seem to be behind us; all the times I've used V-Vocal in Sonar 7 it has been stable and predictable.

BTW if anyone else has had either exceptionally good or exceptionally bad experiences with the pitch-to-MIDI function, let us know.

[Healing Spirit]

Although some of this thread is well above my current level of understanding, I have understood enough of it to:

1. Buy 7PE (Taking advantage of Cakewalk's generous competitive crossgrade offer)

2. Buy Scott's book. (It's now arrived... wow! Scott, what with writing such a massive tome, and authoring the Sound Forge book, when do you still find time to create music!)

So thanks guys, now the learning begins.