Sonar 6 Quantize Question

[jasonsantiago]

at work we have cubase 4 and sonar 6. At home I run SX3 and was trying to decide if I want to upgrade to Cubase 4. C4 won't load directX effects and my battery 2 and gforce mtron don't work. Everything works in Sonar 6. This is a huge update. The Auto-Tune VST version even has real time graphical mode sync now, where it didnt work that way in Sonar before. I also love the new tracks layout that makes selecting tracks and adding inserts just like cubase. My main problem with cubase isn't the interface, I LOVE it, it's that it crashes so insanely much and so many of my projects get corrupted that I have to save twice everytime (once, then Save As, Steinberg even added a form of this into C4 because of project corruption problems!)

However, there are some things I've wanted to do that I don't see how to, and if I can't do them I can't use Sonar.

Here is one: I don't see any easy way to toggle the grid's quantize and length quantize. I see whole note to 32nd then dotted and an option to turn triplets on. I've also found this "note duration" option within paintbrush, but I don't understand how to do something like say have 1 1/16th note being drawn every 1/4 note. In cubase I pick 1/4 for grid quantize and 1/16 for note duration, and boom. It works. Then you can do cool stuff like hold down control and drag left or right and it will draw a steady stream of that pattern locked to that pitch. I see a bunch of the "custom patterns" having the ability to do this, but no way for me to quickly dial note duration and grid quantize, which is absolutely baffling and is a basic feature for me.

Any help? Would love to love Sonar 6, so close here...

[jasonsantiago]

Anyone? This is an actual question, not a silly rant or slam of another product

c'mon someone has to know

[fandango]

It's a little bit difficult to understand exactly what it is you're after here (even though you've described it well), just one of the limitations of the forums, I think.

If you have the Grid set to Quarter beats, you can select a 16th note and the editor should snap them to place on the quarter beats (scroll the image right to see the grid view that's easy to miss):



However, when you use the Brush Tool (instead of the Draw Tool) to draw the notes, it disregards the snap settings and just sticks them all together:



If that's what you mean, then I agree that it is unhelpful behaviour and that the Brush Tool should obey the settings specified for the grid.

[jasonsantiago]

yes, this is my problem. The pencil can draw one note at a time like in your first image, but you can't click and drag to draw a line of notes as in your first image, so you try the brush tool and you get only notes all in a row. There's not way to get the click and drag motion of the brush, but with note-duration quantization and grid quantization.

Thanks for the help, btw. I'd be shocked if Cubase could do this, but Sonar couldn't. There has to be a way.

[mojkarma]

It is up to you which upgrade you will take. Just one opinion (and I absolutely don't want to bash here), Sonar is, regarding midi editing, about 15 years behind cubase.
Maybe some arguments:
no mute tool, no split tool, no glue tool, no multiple controller lanes, no selecting notes with just touching them with the lasso (you have to draw the lasso exactly arround the notes), no infobar above the ruler, ...

Another pain in the ass, at least for me is that in sonar you have to use the pencil tool for changing the note lenght or start and end time. This forces you permanently to switch between the select tool (for selecting the notes you want to edit) and the pencil tool (for changing the note duration).
Sonar became strong in the audioarea, but the midiside is a little better than protools.
Strange for a product which started as a midisequencer!

[ericj23]

whats wrong with battery 2 in cuabse 4 - mine works

there was a problemw ith battery 3 - but that just needed the dll renamed and the problem went away -

[jasonsantiago]

eric, maybe I just need a Battery update then.

mojkarma, I love cubase, don't get me wrong all my projects are cubase and I've used it for years. I'm just tired of so many of my songs getting corrupted or crashing so badly that I am considering other alternatives such as sonar, or even, gasp, a mac. But I think all platforms are probably going to crash trying to do crazy midi stuff with reaktor and a large variety of plugs & synths unfortunately.

i'm also sick of cubase's lack of swing or shuffle on the master tempo. Why can't Cubase just have a master shuffle slider like Fruity Loops? there are alternatives but they are unnecessarily complicated.

[mojkarma]

eric, maybe I just need a Battery update then.

mojkarma, I love cubase, don't get me wrong all my projects are cubase and I've used it for years. I'm just tired of so many of my songs getting corrupted or crashing so badly that I am considering other alternatives such as sonar, or even, gasp, a mac. But I think all platforms are probably going to crash trying to do crazy midi stuff with reaktor and a large variety of plugs & synths unfortunately.

i'm also sick of cubase's lack of swing or shuffle on the master tempo. Why can't Cubase just have a master shuffle slider like Fruity Loops? there are alternatives but they are unnecessarily complicated.

It is not normal, if your cubase crashes so often. I don't have such problems. Maybe there is a problem with your hardware. I cannot tell you. I and a lot of other users don't have this problem.
Just one thing. Forget Sonar completely as a midisequencer. Sonar has nice features on the audioside, but they ignore absolutely anything on the midiside. I started my studiowork ten years ago with cakewalk proaudio 6 and I liked it. But to be honest, there is nothing they improved really on the midi.
Just look at the pianoroll picture which fantango has posted.
You have to go to the upper left corner, just above the pianoroll to select a controller (you can see the "notes/vel..."), and then you have to move your pointer down at the bottom for editing purposes.
Now, imagine to do that on a 20" screen. Jumping up and down to edit the controller.
In cubase you open multiple controller lanes and edit staff in a second.

Another example:
Hardware synths. In cubase you open the patch list and select a patch. Cubase immediately sends a programm change to your externaly synth. This is very handy with modern keyboards, which have over 1000 of sounds. When you find your patch you just press ok to get rid of the patchlist window.
A different story in sonar. You have to open the patchlist window, then you select a patch and you have to press ok to execute the programm change. The window of course disappears. But if you don't like the sound, you have to open the patchlist again to choose another sound and press again ok. If you want to try 20 different pianopatches, you have to open the patchlist 20 times.
This is just crazy. Even protools handles this better, which is not a midisequencer at all!

I'll tell you, forget sonar for midiediting. You will spend more time with your mouse than with making music.

[fandango]

I wouldn't say "forget sonar completely as a midisequencer", but I do agree that Sonar's piano roll feels quite old now, compared to the quick and easy MIDI editing offered by packages like energyXT and FL Studio (and maybe Cubase, but without a demo, I guess most people will never know). Constant switching between tools in Sonar feels like a chore. However, if it was to inherit anything from Cubase, hopefully the nasty shadow effect on Piano Roll notes won't be one of them. Looking at the screenshots it's hard to see where a note properly starts on the grid. But yes, I really hope Cakewalk have a think about some improvements to the traditional Piano Roll view and perhaps the Score editor before plowing on with extras like in-line editing, etc.

[Johnny Cherry]

I played with Sonar for the first time at a friends a few weeks back and the piano roll was the first thing I really didn't like about the program, I can't believe how slow it is compared to Fruity. I also always found Live's piano roll slow compared to FL's.