[ddots-l] Re: New functionality for Sonar
- From: "Kevin L. Gibbs" <kevjazz@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 12:11:25 -0800
I tried to use strum once and the three notes I used were then spread
among three staves. What prevents that?
Kevin
-----Original Message-----
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Phil Halton
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 11:37 AM
To: ddots-l
Subject: [ddots-l] New functionality for Sonar
Hello Listers,
As you may or may not know, Sonar has a scripting facility called CAL
(Cakewalk Application Language). CAL Scripts can be run from within
Sonar
and perform specialized tasks on Sonar data in ways that can't be
achieved
through the menu system commands. Its similar to how JAWS allows for
scripts to be written to give additional functionality to
JAWS--CakeTalking
scripts for example.
What follows is a brief description of one such CAL program. If there
is
any interest in this sort of additional functionality for Sonar, I could
probably package it up and distribute it via a file sharing site-in the
same
way Chris Smart distributed his great tutorial collection.
The CAL program I refer to is called "Strum" and I've been using it with
good results, although its still technically in beta testing.
Notes on use of the "Strum.cal" program
this program alters chords in a selected region of a sequence in such a
way
as to simulate a strum effect--as though strumming a
guitar. It recognizes a chord to be any set of two or more notes that
reside at the same time line position. The maximum chord
size it will handle is 6 notes. If it encounters more than 6 note
events at
the same time position, it will indicate the MBT position
of the chord along with a message that the chord size is exceeded, and
then
terminate.
Preparing the Sequence region:
First, select the region you want to modify. Then run the CAL
program--it
will affect only the data selected. CAL programs are
run by selecting Process|Run CAL from the sonar menu system. Then
browse to
the strum.cal file and press enter. A note of
caution--it is important to first perform a "bounce to clips" on the
selected region before using this CAL (or any CAL) program.
The reasons have to do with the way sonar stores sequence data. Without
getting in over my head on this, if you've done any
editting on the sequence, then the data will most likely be stored in
"clips", and clips will be out of sequential order. You won't
notice it, but CAL will, and results will be very screwy. So, just get
in
the habit of doing a bounce to clips before running CAL
programs. Also, you will need to re-select the region after the Strum
program runs. This is because Strum actually erases the
origional sequence and re-writes it as a new sequence in the same time
region. CakeTalking will report that the region is still
selected, but it will be unaware of the changes and the region it thinks
it
sees as selected is actually no longer in existence. So,
simply press control enter again to re-select the region.
Input Parameters supplied by the User
Strum lets you alter three aspects of a chord; the span, or spacing of
the
notes in the chord, the velocities of the individual notes
and the duration of each note in the chord. You can choose to alter any
of
the three aspects, singularly, or in any combination.
That is, you could choose to pass over the selected sequence and set
just
the durations. Or, you could set the duration and
velocities of the chord tones in one pass and another pass for tinkering
with the span. However, once you set the span, you can
no longer use Strum on the sequence because the chord tones will no
longer
occupy the same time position and thus, will no
longer be chords from the program's point of view. So, setting the span
should be the last aspect you change. In order to use
Sstrum after setting the span, you must Quantize the sequence to
re-align
the chord notes to the same time position and span
them again. If re-quantizing, you can retain any duration setting
you've
made by unchecking the "note durations" checkbox in the
quantize dialog. Quantizing will have no affect on any velocity
settings
you've made.
Sorting chord tones
Before describing the input parameter screens, it should be noted that
there
is a fourth aspect of chords that can be controlled--
their sort order. If you look at a chord in the event list view, you'll
notice that the notes are not necessarily in any specific order-
low to high for example. Maybe you entered the notes as best you could
on
a keyboard, then quantized to align the notes to the
grid. Whatever order you entered them - even if you thought they were
pressed simultaineously, is the order they're going to stay
in. This is of no consequence when chord tones are sounded in unison,
but
when you "Strum" the chord, those out-of-order
notes will result in a peculiar sound--as if the instrument was strung
incorrectly. Using Strum automatically sorts chord tones into
ascending order. So, even if you choose not to enter values for span,
velocity, or duration--seemingly doing nothing to the
sequence--you will have by default, sorted the sequence's chord notes
Now, there are three input screens that prompt you for parameters for
the
three aspects mentioned. In addition, if you enter a
value in any of these screens, a companion screen appears that lets you
set
additional fine-tuning parameters. After the program
completes execution, a screen appears summarizing the parameters you
entered
so you can get a better idea of what parameter
settings result in what sound quality. The summary lists parameters as
follows:
SP=span, SC=span curve, V=velocity, VS=Velocity spread, D=duration,
DT=duration trim
The Input Parameter screens are as follows:
1) Span. This screen asks you for the number of ticks used to seperate
each
note of the chord. For example, entering 10 here
would seperate each note in the chord by ten ticks. Guitar strums sound
good at around 30 ticks.
2) Span Curve. This is the companion screen to the span parameter
screen
and asks for a number between 1 and 7. This "curve
factor" is used to seperate each successive note by an additional amount
in
addition to the base span entered in the previous
screen. A value of seven will cause no additional distance between
notes
and results in a linear spacing of chord tones. A value
of six will increase the span of each successive note by an additional
16%.
A value of five will increase the span of successive
notes by 20%, four for 25%, three for 33%, two for 50%, and finally, one
for
100%. Curving the span like this causes the latter
notes to be spaced wider than the earlier notes of the chord--kind of
like
fanning a deck of cards. Experiment a bit with these
curve factors--they take some of the mechanical sound out of the strum.
3) Set Velocity. This screen asks whether or not you want to
"standardize"
the velocities of the individual chord tones. You can
enter a value from 0 to 127. A value of 0 will leave the velocities as
they
are. If you enter any other value, all note velocities in
the chord will be set to that value.
4) Velocity Spread. In the Set Velocity screen, if you enter a velocity
other than zero(which leaves the origional velocities intact),
this screen will appear. It asks for a number of ticks between 0 & 10
that
will be used to scale the individual velocities of the
notes in the chord. First, each note is set to the base velocity
specified
in the Set Velocity screen. Then each note is scaled
downward from that point. For example, entering 3 will scale down the
velocity of the first note by a random number between 0
& 3. Then the next note will be scaled between 3 and 6, the third note
between 6 & 9 and so on. entering zero in this screen
will skip the scaling process and set all notes to the specified base
velocity.
5) Duration. In this screen you can set a duration for the chord tones.
A
value of 0 will leave note durations unaffected. Values
from 1 to 3860 will set the duration of each note in the chord to that
number of ticks. The value 3860 is the equivalent of four
quarter notes with a project time base of 960PPQ(PartsPerQuarternote).
For
an example, if you set this field to 1440, it will set
all chord tone durations to 1 and a half quarter notes. Keep in mind
your
project's PPQ setting when setting this input field.
Also, a calculator might be useful at first in determining tick to note
conversions.
6) Duration Trim. This last input screen lets you set a maximum value
for a
random trimming of each note's duration. Setting this
value to 50, for example, will trim from each note's duration, a random
number of ticks in the range of 1 to 50. Although quite
subtle, it is subtlety that makes for the "human" feel in computer
generated
music. As with all the other "companion" screens, this
screen only appears when a valid tick value is entered in the duration
screen.
End of notes
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