Cakewalk Sonar

[Medsy]

Hey gang...

Ok...ive recently downloaded Cakewalk Sonar ( 170 meg.... which is not alot for u guys but here in oz on a 56k modem its pretty steep )....

So far....im loving it....! Its gonna take a loooong time to fully work it out but its got everything..... Ive tackled midi drums and stuff before and this is waaaay easier to use than the last program i had. Will rock cause i can just lay me tracks down next to all the midi stuff...!

Im bout 1/2 way through writing up a drum and bass line ( midi....and NOTE FOR NOTE DRUM TRACK....heheh) of Metallica's ORION... ( cool song for harmonies and great solos )...and so far the result is quiet surprising.... yes its still midi...but once i have the midi tracks finsished...ill convert to waves and then go to town with reverbs,eq's and im sure i can get a close 'real' sound out of it... well as real as it can be....but itll still be midi

Once its blended in with my layers of guitars im hoping its gonna kick ass.....

Stay tuned i hope to have it out in a few days....

Id love to know how they use the drum maping to use real drum samples instead of the midi.....anyone?????

 

[rabies]

Where did you download it from?

 

[NobleSavage]

You can get the demo from cakewalk.com... or hot versions from kazaa.

To get real drums sounds, it's easiest to use sound fonts. To use sound fonts you have to have a Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 or higher. Others might support soundfonts, but I've yet to find them. Then you need to download a font. A great site for sound fonts is www.hammersound.net. You can find others by searching for soundfonts on google or yahoo.

The soundfont I use is Drums by Slavo. It's not the best or most realistic, but I think it sounds nice for the melodic metal I do.

Once you have the soundfont unzipped onto your hard drive, open Sonar, then go to Options, then Soundfonts. This gives you a nice menu to attach your new font to the program. Once it's attached, create a midi track and choose soundfont as the Output device and your drums as the bank. Sonar makes the whole thing SOOOOOO easy.

The downside is that each soundfont is mapped differently and your midi drums probably won't match up with the soundfont mapping, so you'll be forced to start all over again.

You can check out some better instructions I've created for this process, as well as a small sample at http://lycanthrope.hypermart.net/howtodrums.htm as well as how my drums sound in 'real' recordings at http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1444&alid=-1 - the mixes suck pretty bad, but you get the idea of the drum sounds possible with soundfonts.

To get an idea of other cool things that you can do with soundfonts, check out the piano and cello on the track Bittersweet at http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/305/vernon_walker.html. The cello, in particular, sounds amazingly cool. Once you use soundfonts, you'll laugh at the thoughts of general midi instruments.

It's not like having a real drummer, but it's better than waiting.

 

[rabies]

Thanks for the info NobleSavage.

I wonder...if it is all a matter of just 'programming' the drums..are there libraries of pre-canned drum tracks out there? Maybe somebody has already done an electronic drum track for 'Run to The Hill' for example, and we can just borrow them?

 

[Eddies cellmate]

Originally posted by rabies
Thanks for the info NobleSavage.

I wonder...if it is all a matter of just 'programming' the drums..are there libraries of pre-canned drum tracks out there? Maybe somebody has already done an electronic drum track for 'Run to The Hill' for example, and we can just borrow them?

They can be found Rabs. Some of course are lousy, but some are quite useable. This is how I did Holy Smoke, though I had to "fix" that one up quite a bit first it saved alot of time.

Thanks again for the info NS.

Sonar does look awfully cool, though awfully expensive too!!!

 

[Medsy]

Rabs: Yeah get it from KaZaA..... the only program to have for all your swappin needs...... Then just do a lil searching for a cdkey when it comes time to install sonar....

I reckon just about every song there is is around the net in midi format somewhere..... Ill have a quick look for run to the hills....once i have it....its as easy as turning off all the midi tracks untill your left with just the drum track...!! Like savage said...they vary in detail and accuracy but alas.... Ill email it over if u like.....

Im just TOO fussy with my music....if im gonna do a cover..it has to be exact....i guess i like the challenge and since ive been out of recording for so long....im having fun 'programing' my own version of orion....

Savage: Thanx for the cool info....ill download those slava files asap.... in fact it was u who made me gety sonar....and im reckon i aint looking back.... worth it alone just for all the plugins let alone the midi functions....!