In the new SONAR 2 Power! book by Scott Garrigus, you will find helpful tips on an assortment of topics within SONAR 2.0. In part 3 of our series, we have collected a small sampling of tips from chapter 9-11 that deal with using loops, synths and effects. Throughout the coming months we will continue to bring you more tips from SONAR 2 Power!

Groove clips and pitch

Not all Groove clips should follow the pitch of the project. Why? Well, if you have a Groove clip that contains percussive data like a drum instrument performance, you don't want the pitch of that clip to change, because it will just make the drum performance sound strange. For these types of Groove clips, only the "Stretch To Project Tempo" option should be activated. The "Follow Project Pitch" option should be activated only for clips containing pitch-related performances such as guitar, bass, woodwinds, horns, strings, and the like.

Setting Virtual Sound Canvas DXi parameters

Some of the Virtual Sound Canvas (VSC) DXi parameters can be set by simply setting the corresponding MIDI track parameters. For instance, by changing the Vol, Pan, Bnk, Pch, Chr and Rev parameters of the MIDI track driving one of the VSC DXi Parts, you can control the volume, panpot, instrument, chorus effect, and reverb effect parameter for that part. When you save the project, those parameters are stored along with it. But there is an advantage to adjusting parameters within the VSC DXi itself. You can save all the VSC DXi parameters as a preset using the Preset drop-down list and Preset "Save" and "Delete" buttons located at the top of the window. By saving a number of parameter configurations as presets, you can quickly switch between configurations to test out different instrumentation for the project you are working on.

Creating your own sounds with DreamStation DXi

There is one way you can create your own sounds with the DreamStation DXi automatically, and without having to know anything about analog synthesis. Just hold down the Shift key on your computer keyboard and then click the CLR button at the top of the DreamStation DXi window. This makes the DreamStation DXi randomly set all of its parameters, thus automatically creating a new sound. Many of the sounds may not be useable, but click enough times and you could come up with something very cool.

Clean and Vintage processing in the Sonic Timeworks EQ

The equalizer effect provides both Clean and Vintage processing. Clean processing gives you a more modern, clean, crisp sound found in most EQ effects today. Vintage processing gives you a warmer, smoother, type of sound found in early EQ effects. You'll have to listen to each processing type to determine which one is right for your audio material. To choose a processing type, click the "Clean/Vintage" buttons in the Global section of the dialog box.

Saving Sonic Timeworks CompressorX presets

You can save CompressorX presets using the standard method for all SONAR effects, or you can use a special method by right-clicking anywhere within the dialog box. This will bring up a menu that will allow you to load and save presets to separate files that can be shared with friends. Another advantage of saving presets this way is that if you use another program to access the CompressorX effect, your presets will be available from within that program too, and not just from within SONAR.