HOME.. BUY.. OPINION.. NEWS.. MUSIC.. VIDEOS.. BANDS.. LINKS.. TRADER
TEACHMEDRUMS

PORTING MIDI MUSIC OVER FROM LOGIC-RPC

If you are planning on moving music over to Sonar from Logic-RPC make sure that you ROUND OUT THE SPEED. Sonar speeds are in BPM to 2 decimal places but Logic speeds are accurate to 4 decimal places. It can make a difference on a very long piece of music. In my case, I tried to port a song recorded at 127.2402 BPM to Sonar but Sonar displayed the speed as 127.24. I was syncronizing several MIDI tracks to Audio track mix. The midi track would start to DRAG after 6 minutes.

USING SONAR 2.0 SOUND FOR VIDEO PRODUCTION

I consider Sonar a great audio production tool but I wouldn't recommend using it for putting sound to video. I had a project where I recorded my drums to my digital camcorder.CLICK HERE TO SEE FINISHED DRUMSOLO CLIPS At the same time I recorded the 4 audio tracks to SONAR. Because the timing is so good with digital recording, the past 5 years I have managed to sync several projects without SMPTE OR MTC of any kind. All I do is line up the beginning and the pieces stay in sync from beginning to end. The problem with SONAR for syncing this way is that it only plays back video at 5-10 frames per second. So you click the PLAY BUTTON and the thing never looks right. This is especially true with drum solos, because in a single 1/5 second frame I may have played 2 or 3 strokes with my drumsticks. In other words, I'm saying that BLIND trial and error SYNCING doesn't work with Sonar. Also SONAR would only import the VIDEO without the AUDIO from my MEDIA STUDIO PRO DV NTSC 48 KHZ camcorder file. Sonar seemed to have trouble finding the the correct VIDEO CODEC. If it would have imported audio with the video, I could have had a VISUAL CUE and just simply have lined up the wav files and later discarded the camcorder audio. (I must also add that the audio files were sampled at 44.1 khz, but Sonar is supposed to change sample rates automatically when importing files.) I also had problems exporting the video. Once again, for some reason, Sonar was unable to work with the several popular CODECS that are on my system. In the end, I used Sonar to mix down to stereo and exported to STEREO WAVE FILE. Then I used COOL EDIT to UPSAMPLE the new mixdown up to 48 khz. After that I used MEDIA STUDIO PRO 6.0 to sync up the 48KHZ STEREO MIXDOWN FILE to the video. To make things easier, in the future, I must remember to record the audio at 48KHZ if I want to sync it to my Digital Camcorder files.

Multiple track SPLITting WON'T allow me to DELETE THE HOLE !
(Discarding the deleted part of multiple tracks so that the 2 sections at each end join together without a space of silence.)

I call these razor blade cuts, because in the old days you could cut audio tape using a razor blaze to delete whole sections or re-arrange the music. When you would cut through the tape, you would be cutting through ALL OF THE TRACKS. Now this was real destructive editing! You marked the tape with china pencil and cut away. We even used this for LOOPING. What I wanted to do was remove a large chunk of the center. Anyway, a very helpful individual told me the MULTI-STEP way of accomplishing this cut, but it should be simple as cutting a single track and DELETING the HOLE

USING CAKEWALK BUNDLE FILES UNDER SONAR

For those of you that don't already know, the *.cwb file format is supposed to be a way to place your ENTIRE PROJECT into a single Sonar readable file with all pertinent MIDI, channel I/O settings, and SAMPLE data. This ,in theory, makes it easier to create a backup, or to send a single file over the NET to a recording studio or collaborator. For those of you with older versions of Cakewalk, you will be able to load your old *.BUN files, but *.CWB files created under Sonar 2 can't be read by CakeWalk 9, 8, 7 etc. I discovered a few caveats with *.cwb files however.

After I recorded several vocal tracks, I wanted to create a single BUNDLE with the instruments and vocals for archive. When I created the bundle though, it came to 755 megs (too large to burn on CD) so I said to myself "Time to do some editing" BUT TO MY SURPRISE AFTER CUTTING SEVERAL MINUTES OF AUDIO OUT, THE .CWB FILE WAS STILL 755 MEGS ! I mean that I cut out absolute garbage, such as empty silence, coughs and sour notes! This is because we are using NON-DESTRUCTIVE editing here! Working with many smaller files , rather than chopping up 10 or so tracks seems to work better for me. It is also much faster if you are working with something like COOL EDIT. If you only want to edit a 10 second CLIP with Cool Edit, while under Sonar 2.0, Sonar will HIGHLIGHT the CLIP PART but COOL EDIT WILL LOAD IN THE ENTIRE 8 MINUTE JAM .WAV FILE before you can do anything with it. If you are cutting back and forth, this can get very time consuming, not to mention that both Sonar and Cool Edit will also make backup copies , filling up your hard disk, as well!

Keep in mind that anything DELETED using this method will really be GONE, but this will help keep your *.CWB files to a CD recordable size. Here's a suggestion for the future....Sonar backup utility that creates MULTIPLE *.CWB files, under 700 megs, that can be saved to MULTIPLE CD's.

SONAR USES LOTS OF DISK SPACE
...Another way to look at the work around.

Since Sonar 2.0 uses nondestructive editing, a typical piece of music with 10 tracks of 24 bit audio could easily grow to 2 gigabytes in size. Even after you create a Sonar 2.0 BUNDLE FILE (*.cwb), the file may still be way too large to fit on a CDR. In my case I have worked around this by making MULTIPLE BUNDLE FILES for each song. For instance I have a *.cwb files called RAW DRUM TRACKS, FINAL MIX, VOCALS all for the same song.

Also, another thing that will help is a little PRE-CLEANING. If you know that you only want the first and last MINUTE of that 6 minute drum track, it is better to DELETE THE MIDDLE and then save it or BOUNCE it to 2 separate smaller files (keep them 24 bit though). Then delete the original track and IMPORT THE AUDIO back into the project in the proper places. IF YOU JUST KEEP THE TRACK BUT USE SONAR EDITING FUNCTIONS TO CUT AND DELETE, SONAR WILL STILL KEEP THE ENTIRE SOURCE FILE IN THE BUNDLE.I figured this out, because I had a 755 megabyte BUNDLE, and no matter how much I used the DELETE and CUT functions to EDIT, I would still end up with a 755 megabyte BUNDLE (*.cwb) when I went to save the file. There may be a way to turn off non-destructive mode, but I haven't found it yet. I'm working with most of the SONAR DEFAULT SETTINGS.

It seems that Sonar 2 will ALWAYS MAKE COPIES OF IMPORTED AUDIO FILES by default. Now if you're like me , with all of your important files backed up on CD, these redundant files just waste space. Besides that, every time you SPLIT a file or edit it in any way, Sonar 2 will create another additional "Tool_copy_of_" file . So to save disk space, go to Options/Global/AudioData and UNCHECK "Always Copy Imported Audio Files"The other issue I have with the *.cwb files is this.

NEW DISCOVERY AFTER USING DVD RECORDING TO SAVE *.BUNDLES March 17, 2003

I'm getting an unusual error under Sonar 2.2.

"Unable to write output file. The audio disk may be full."

The reason that this is unusual, is because I have over 10 gigs of space left on my C: partition and 20 gigs left on my D: partition, where my AudioData folder is. I also have 512 megs of RAM.

This happened after I BOUNCED 6 tracks of Triangle Synth layers and then tried to save as a BUNDLE. My guess is that the final *.cwb file would be 3-4 gigs max, so why the error?????

Go figure.

THE ANSWER

With help from those at Craig Andertons Forum and Harmony Central, we have found the solution which is not one that I am happy with.

FROM PAGE 543 OF THE SONAR 2.0 MANUAL.
"Note:Due to Windows limitations, bundle files (.CWB) are limited to a size of 2 GB."

Why do I need to save such a large file???

First of all Sonar is NON-DESTRUCTIVE which means that it saves EVERY CHANGE of an audio file from beginning to end. So it will save the .wav , before you do any editing, file in it's raw form. Then it only saves CUT points while working with Sonar but If you export it out to Cool Edit or Soundforge and add reverb or compression etc. and load it back, it will still keep the original file AND SO ON AND SO ON, EACH TIME THAT YOU MANIPULATE THE FILE externally. After returning from Cool Edit under the Sonar "Tools" menu Sonar will say something like "The file has changed. Do you want to keep it?" If you say yes it reloads the audio with the new file, BUT ADDS THE OLD FILE TO THE *.CWB list. You can look in your Sonar audio directory to confirm this. You will see things like Tool_copy_1_of_drum.wav, Tool_copy_2_of_drum.wav, Tool_copy_3_of_drum.wav , Tool_copy_4_of_drum.wav etc. etc. ........Tool_copy_15_of_drum.wav .THIS IS WHY THE BUNDLE FILES GET SO LARGE AND THIS IS ALSO WHY THE SONAR LIMITATION OF 2 GIG *.CWB FILE IS INSANE. After trying to only save 8 tracks of 32 bit audio, along with all of the non-destruct data , the file easily grows beyond the 2 gb limit.

WHAT KIND OF MICKEY MOUSE SOFTWARE IS THIS? When working with WindowsXP pro, which is now what I am working with, the 2 gig file size limit should no longer apply.

THE SONAR *.CWB FILE SEEMS TO HAVE A MIND OF IT'S OWN

Here is what happened. I recorded many MIDI tracks using the SBLIVE card as the main midi sound card. I saved the bundle. Later I added Unity DS-1 (see note at bottom of page 1) I gave the DS-1 MIDI DEVICE a high priority. WHEN I LATER LOADED UP THE *.CWB BUNDLE ALL OF THE SBLIVE CHANNELS WERE RE-ROUTED TO THE UNITY DS-1! Of course I can see the thought behind this. If I send my bundle down to you, and the only devices that you have are DXI synths, I can see the bundle re-routing all my midi tracks to the DXI synths, but I never removed the SBLIVE card from my system! I only gave it a lower priority.

USING COOL EDIT WITH SONAR 2.0

As I have said earlier in this review, Cool Edit is my MAIN way to manipulate .wav files. To pull up Cool 2000 , while in Sonar 2.0, you must have the section of the wave file highlighted in the Sonar arrange window. Clicking on Tools will bring down a menu with "Cool Edit". Click on it and you are there! A better way would have been to be able to "Select Default Wave Editor" and then anytime double clicking on a wave in the future would automatically bring up Cool Edit, Sound Forge etc.

If you want to use Cool Edit with the same AUDIO DEVICE as Sonar 2.0 (perhaps RSP-RPC 1/2) then click under Options/Audio/Advanced "Share Drivers with other Programs". Otherwise "DEVICE ALREADY BEING USED" error will show up.

I personally find the SONAR WAVE VIEW difficult to work with because, for me , HIGHLIGHT OR SELECT doesn't even seem intuitive, but for those of you who are familiar with the SONAR WAVE VIEW (Is it an Editor, or is it just a type of WAVE VIEW?), you could use IT rather than Cool Edit 2000. I plan to look deeper into the WAVE VIEW in the future, but now I have a project to finish and will take the path of least resistance.

NEXT PAGE

1 3

THE WAY

MUSICINIT.COM
CAKEWALK STUDIOWARE FOR VM3100 PRO