Jump to content

Copy & pasting off-grid midi?


Recommended Posts

Has anyone got any pointers for copy & pasting stuff that starts just before/after a measure etc? Say a bar of drums, how do you get it to be in the same location in another bar? When I do it currently the first note gets snapped to the time marker, I'm hoping it's not a case of finding where the value is before/after the grid and getting the time marker to the same place every time!!! I imagine there's a way. Thanks as usual!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I should add: If you really need to paste rather than drag, snap the Now time to the start of the selection, hit the shortcut for Go To (mine’s non-default) change just the measure, Ok and paste. Go To defaults to current Now time so the beat:tick will be correct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crikey that 2nd suggestion sounds hard work if you're doing it alot! Think I'll just stick to drag copying!!!

I was having the most fun with this when copying/pasting a clip, where it seen seemed to drag the 1st note to the grid regardless of the clip fitting neatly within a set of measures? I'm hoping you can also do drag copying with clips also? It's there a way of drag copying that causes it to repeat? Or if I ask for repetitions of a clip should they fall into their grid position nicely? 

Setting snap to "by" sounds like the revelation I needed, I was curious what it was for but hadn't tried it yet! That tip for constraint of horizontal movement is useful too because that already ends up slowing stuff down when I need to do that!

Cheers guys!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you have the snap turned on?  
I always turn off snap when things won’t go were I want them to go. 

But generally,  especially drums, you want it to snap to the grid. 
the exception is songs that were not recorded to the clock. Then those projects need the snap turned off for sure. 
Songs recorded to the clock will sound sloppy if notes are out of time.  Especially drums and bass. 

Edited by John Vere
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I check the Clip Properties for the exact time the clip starts and then paste it based on that time. 

The clip may start at 7:03:847 and I want to paste it at about the 37th measure. Type 37:03:847 as the paste target.

Opps. See below.

Edited by 57Gregy
Correction.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/14/2024 at 11:00 AM, 57Gregy said:

CbB doesn't seem to work the same way as SONAR

Yes, it does. but you need to use Paste Special (Ctrl+Alt+V) to get the Paste dialog box. Very old versions of SONAR (like S8 and earlier) opened the Paste  dialog automatically every time.

Like Go To, the paste dialog defaults to the start time of the selection so all you have to do is change the Measure. Ultimately it's the same number of keystrokes as using Go To, but it might feel more straightforward.

Edited by David Baay
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Using snap "by" has really made life lots easier! A couple  of the other tricks have helped too (btw sloppy is exactly what we're going for, I'm tapping drums in and using midi keys etc then massaging them gently with a bit of quantisation) only thing is its also,sort of, loop based music too, hence the want to be able to very precisely replicate my imprecise playing haha. Thanks everyone!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, David Baay said:

Yes, it does. but you need to use Paste Special (Ctrl+Alte+V) to get the Paste dialog box. Very old versions of SONAR (like S8 and earlier) opened the Paste  dialog automatically every time.

Try SONAR Home Studio 6 XL. 😁
Thanks. I never thought I would have a reason special enough to use that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/14/2024 at 2:54 AM, BassMasterGeneral said:

Has anyone got any pointers for copy & pasting stuff that starts just before/after a measure etc? Say a bar of drums, how do you get it to be in the same location in another bar? When I do it currently the first note gets snapped to the time marker, I'm hoping it's not a case of finding where the value is before/after the grid and getting the time marker to the same place every time!!! I imagine there's a way. Thanks as usual!

I use a CAL script to set NOW to the same distance from its nearest measure that the FROM marker is from its nearest measure.

Say the FROM marker (THRU marker is somewhere after) is at 23 ticks before measure 10 and the NOW marker is nearest to measure 30 and I want to copy stuff that includes the events that start at 23 ticks before Measure 10 and retain that offset at Measure 30. 

1) Make sure the stuff you want to copy and paste is selected.

2) Copy the items to the clipboard (or Cut if necessary)

3) Run the CAL script, This moves NOW to 23 ticks before measure 30

4) Paste the items.

Here is the CAL Script

(do
    (dword time_now) (dword time) (dword goto_offset)
    (dword time_plus1) (dword offset) (dword stored_from)
    (dword measure) (dword measure_plus_1) (dword stored_from_measure)
    (dword new_measure) (dword new_time)

;move now to nearest measure    
    (= measure (meas Now))
    (= measure_plus_1 measure) (++ measure_plus_1)
    (= time (makeTime measure 1 1))
    (= time_plus1 (makeTime measure_plus_1 1 1))
    (= offset time_plus1) (-= offset time )
    (/= offset 2) (+= offset Now) (= new_measure (meas offset))
    (= Now (makeTime new_measure 1 0))

;move Now to the left by From's distance to measure to the right
    (= stored_from_measure (= measure (meas From))) (++ stored_from_measure)
    (= stored_from (makeTime stored_from_measure 1 0))
    (= goto_offset stored_from) (-= goto_offset From)
    (-= Now goto_offset)
);end Scipt

I use this script for every project and many of the stuff I do is not exactly on the grid.

I hope that makes sense (and what you are after).

Edited by Promidi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...