Sonar: How to convert an audio sample into a groove sample or loop
These are my notes. I’m just sharing. I don’t claim at any measure to be an
expert on this subject. If someone knows better please do provide feedback so
we can all learn.
1. Import the audio onto a project track from the File - Import - Audio menu.
Note, sometimes when doing this, or when copying audio from one project to
another, the audio may not lign up correctly with the now marker, even though
we may have adjusted the settings correctly or selected the correct start time
in the Paste dialog. This might be a bug in Sonar 8.5.3. If this happens, we
should manually move it to align with the metronome. See Step 4 for this
procedure.
2. Go to Options, Project, Metronome tab, and ensure Playback is checked.
3. Ignoring the metronome for the moment, listen to the audio, then, using the
tripple-tap of Control-Shift-T, Tab, Spacebar to tap, Manually adjust the tempo
to an approximation of what it should be, so that Sonar closely aligns to the
tempo of the sample.
4. Using listening skills, identify the very beginning of the sample, and F10
to set Through marker there. Use Control F9 to set start marker to start of
project. We now have selected the leading unwanted audio. Select the track with
Comma key, then Control-X to cut the unwanted audio before the sample. In the
Cut dialog, make sure Delete hole is checked.
5. Align the start of the audio correctly with the part of the metronome
measure appropriate to the sample. In other words, sometimes the first beat of
the sample is not necessarily the first measure, first beat, but could be
example measure 1, beat 4, tick 60 (where the clock resolution is set to 120
PPQ) in the Options, Projects, Clock tab).
Hint: Once the entire sample is selected on the track, using the Slide function
can help to narrow down the positioning with the metronome by moving it back or
forwards by ticks. Using a minus sign before the number of ticks moves the
selection backwards by that number of ticks, while a number without the minus
sign moves it forward by the amount specified.
6. Once the sample is aligned with the metronome, listen through the selection
to ensure it does not drift from metronome synchronization. If it does, decide
if the sample is lagging or speading up, then slow down or speed up the tempo
until it fits without drifting. Note this will not work if the sample was
created by human musicians not following a tempo grid. For this we have to
create a groove quantize grid, which is a whole other discussion. Anyway, once
you have clearly determined the tempo, make a note of it so that we can later
use it in naming the final audio file with the BPM value as part of the
filename when we are saving it as a groove looped wave file. You can always
check it with Control-Shift-T while the project is still loaded in Sonar.
7. Now that the clip is nicely ligned up with the metronome, let's delete any
trailing audio, making sure it ends just before the next musical beat. Playing
back the sample, hit Spacebar just at the point where the music should stop,
then press F9 to see where the Now marker has landed. You can now type in the
nearest MBT value to the next beat location. For example, let's say the now
marker was at 4:04:115, so we can change this to 5:01:000, and press enter to
locate the Now marker there. Press F9 to set the From marker to that location
of the Now marker. Hit Control-F10 to select through end of project, and use
the Edit, Delete function to remove everything trailing, making sure to again
use the Delete Hole checkbox before hitting the Ok button out of the Delete
dialog.
8. Just to be sure, if the audio does not exactly start at project start, I
usually record a few milliseconds of audio at project start by arming the track
and hitting the R key immediately followed by Spacebar to stop. I do this
making sure no audio device was patched to that track's input, to ensure no
actual audio sound is recorded but only blank audio. This is because we want
Sonar to recognize audio from the very start to the very end of the sample
duration, so that it will create the proper groove clip.
By the way, I must mention at this point, that only at this time when we have
manually recorded audio onto the track, can we see audio events in the Events
List View. When we import audio (like we did in Step 1 earlier), it doesn't
seem to show up for some reason. Not sure why. I am assuming that after the
next step of bouncing all audio to a single clip, that the recorded and
imported audio combine into a single clip stretched across the track, and so
when we see the audio event in the Events List View at that stage, the single
clip may well be containing the imported sample as well. This is my speculation.
9. Now that the audio track is prepared for the proper start time and duration,
I usually use the Edit, Bounce to Clip function, just to make sure we have a
nice single stretch of audio in a single clip on that track.
10. Now we select the entire track again (comma key, F9, F10), then we use
Alt-Enter to bring up the clip properties of the clip we just selected.
11. On the General tab of the Clip Properties dialog, we name the clip if
desired. Make sure the start field shows 1:01:000, even if our actual audio
doesn't start there. Remember our silent passage from Step 8? It represents
this start of project for the sample recognition. Next tab to the Length field,
and varify that it fits the duration of the entire sample as per the project
MBT end time.
The "Original Time" read-only edit field must show us start of project:
00:00:00:00.
12. On the Audio Stretching tab of the Clip Properties dialog, on the Groove
Clip Sub-tab (which should be selected by default - [the other tab is the Audio
Snap tab which I have not yet understood]), Enable Looping checkbox must now be
checked. Beats in clip must contain the number of beats contained in the entire
sample. Note this field does not usually include the correct number of beats by
default, so be careful here. You can simply count them before getting into this
dialog and noting them down. You can also work this out from the General tab of
this dialog, by calculating them with the Length field there. For example, if
the Length field shows 2:03:000, then there are 2 measures + 2 beats (since it
ends at the third beat). That gives us 4 beats from the first measure and 2
from the second = 6 beats in total). Of course this is assuming the project is
set to 4/4 in the Meter/Key view. The remaining fields here beginning with
"Follow Project Pitch" should be left unchecked, since we are only
time-stretching rhythmic material I assume. Now we can Ok out of the dialog.
13. Now let's test if our work has paid off. Play back the project and see that
it still aligns properly with the metronome, does not needlessly speed up or
slow down, and starts and ends where it should on the timeline that we have
configured earlier. If it does, great, go to Step 14. If not, undo the
"Groove-loop properties" action, go back to step 10, and check carefully as we
retrace our steps. Still testing the success of our groove sample, change the
tempo of the project and see if the audio follows the new tempo correctly.
Note, even when it does follow, if we change the tempo more than 10 BPM, we
will notice artifacts in the time-stretching of the audio. If anyone knows how
to fix this, such as using the "Stretch Audio" feature and "Type of audio" from
the Fit to Time dialog, please let me know, because these things do not appear
in the Clip Properties dialog. I could not seem to use the "Fit to Time" dialog
on its own to make a sample into a groove-loop sample so that it will follow
the project tempo, and I suspect the "Type" field which includes things like
"MPEX- Solo instrument" Etc, will help stretch and shrink to time with less
artifacts if chosen appropriately for the audio material.
14. Finally, to save the sample as a groove looped Wave file sample, first
let's again make sure our track is selected with Comma key, our start and
through times are set to start and end of project with Control-F9 and
Control-F10 respectively, then we go to View, Loop Construction View, or press
Alt-2 shortcut. This view does not become active so we must Control-Tab to it.
Jaws will report the name of the view "Loop Construction", after reading the
file name, from the title bar of the child window. Once here, press the F key,
and it will bring up the File Save As dialog. Now we save the Wave file as
normal, but in the "Filename" edit combo field, let's remember to use the tempo
BPM value in the File Name to remind ourselves of what the default tempo of the
sample is. Check where we are saving (the "Save In" combo box and the "Folder
View" list view, and then save the file. Saving the file this way is supposed
to save the groove clip as a riff wave file.
Please save these notes in case I lose them. I'm decently good at taking notes
but bad at keeping them. I may ask some years later and hopefully someone would
have saved this.
