Why is changing the key of my project not working?

[SkyDropsBeats]

Title self explanatory, so I'm saving a repeat of the same question to simply expand upon it; whenever I use the key/tempo change (see below) and set it to, well, anything, nothing works. I change the key from C, press the OK button, but any notes that I place are still in the key of C. This is especially strange because changing the BPM or the Beat Value actually works. Is there any fix, or am I to be banished to the purgatory of plain Cs forever?

[rsinger]

deleted

Edited November 24, 2020 by rsinger

[Colin Nicholls]

Changing the key signature at any point in the timeline is not going to change any notes you have already recorded, MIDI or Audio.

Read here

Quote

The key signature controls how Cakewalk displays notes in the Staff view, the Event List view, and elsewhere. The meter tells Cakewalk the number of beats per measure and the note value of each beat.

[..]

The meter determines the following:

• Where the metronome accents are placed
• How the Now time is displayed
• How the Staff view is drawn
• How grid lines are displayed in the Piano Roll view

 

[Glenn Stanton]

you need to "insert" the key signature, either by setting it in the beginning of the project initially, or at specific measures. 

Cakewalk - SONAR X2 Documentation - Setting the Meter and Key signatures

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=Recording.05.html

[scook]

23 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said:

Cakewalk - SONAR X2 Documentation - Setting the Meter and Key signatures

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=Recording.05.html

This is good link for explaining how to find the current documentation

 

Notice the

product=SONAR X2

part of the url. (Actually the url contains product=SONAR%20X2 where the space is replaced with the characters %20 which is read as a space.

 

For the current documentation change this to

product=Cakewalk

 

So the url now reads https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Recording.05.html

Often this points to current documentation on the same subject as the old SONAR link.

In this case, it does not.

Instead this link points to a page on Setting the Metronome and Tempo settings.

But it is close. 

Just above the title for the page is a navigational aid, circled in green in the image below

Clicking on Creating a new project moves up a level in the documentation where a link to the page on  Setting the Meter and Key signatures is found.

[SkyDropsBeats]

3 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Changing the key signature at any point in the timeline is not going to change any notes you have already recorded, MIDI or Audio.

Read here

 

I thought it'd be like that, but upon doing below, my note still plays a perfect C. Am I not understanding your instruction, or is there something I'm missing?

Edited November 24, 2020 by SkyDropsBeats

[Colin Nicholls]

I think you are not understanding.

What do you think should happen? Can you write out steps of what you are doing, and what you expect to see?

 

[scook]

5 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

What do you think should happen?

This was my question.

My guess is they are looking for something like Transpose MFX

 

[SkyDropsBeats]

31 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

I think you are not understanding.

What do you think should happen? Can you write out steps of what you are doing, and what you expect to see?

 

1. I open a new Cakewalk file.
2. I open the Key/Tempo Change under View, and change the key do my desired.
3. I open the Piano Roll View, and find that nothing has changed.

At this point, I'm expecting something like the notes on the left hand side of the screen to, well, do what they're supposed to do (I wouldn't know; this has been an issue ever since getting Cakewalk), but as I said, nothing happens. Am I missing something?

[user905133]

5 hours ago, SkyDropsBeats said:

 

At this point, I'm expecting something like the notes on the left hand side of the screen to, well, do what they're supposed to do (I wouldn't know; this has been an issue ever since getting Cakewalk), but as I said, nothing happens. Am I missing something?

I don't use the PRV; I have more experience with the Staff View.  When I change the "key" [short for "key signature"], the key signature changes.  However, if I had any notes previously entered as B when the key signature is changed to F, Bb, Eb, etc. the existing notes do not change to Bb; they remain as B natural. All notes added after the key change (to the right on the staff) are added in the new key based on the key signature.

I assume the PRV works the same way, but maybe not.

It has been unclear to me if you are expecting the key change to change all existing notes.  I am not sure if anything I said addresses what you might be missing, but maybe.  (My Audio PC is updating some things, so I can't check, but I thought the left hand side had a piano style keyboard; not sure what notes would change there.) 

Just did a quick test.  They both seem to work as expected for me.  Hope this helps.

ADDENDUM (after the two posts immediately below):

After @Colin Nicholls's post, I realized that I always took for granted the Staff View's snap-to-key-signature/scale for the above. I hand painted both measures using the Staff View and then looked at the PRV to see how it displayed there.

Being a non-PRV user, after @scook's post I just had to check out the Inspector's snap-to-scale feature in connection with the PRV.  That works!!! (It took me a while to get used to the mouse movement and placement of rectangles in grids, though.)   I'm not ready to use the PRV yet, but that feature has taken me one step closer particularly if I ever want to force my hand into placing notes based on specific modes.  Cool compositional feature. Thanks.

(See posts immediately below.)

Edited November 25, 2020 by User 905133
To add an addendum

[Colin Nicholls]

2 hours ago, SkyDropsBeats said:

At this point, I'm expecting something like the notes on the left hand side of the screen to, well, do what they're supposed to do (I wouldn't know; this has been an issue ever since getting Cakewalk), but as I said, nothing happens. Am I missing something?

You're missing the fact that the key signature doesn't affect what notes of the scale you are allowed or encouraged to play. It won't disable notes that aren't in the key signature; it won't change existing notes to be on the scale of the key signature; etc.

As @User 905133 says, it just shows up in the Staff View. If you want to see a specific PRV behavior based on Key Signature at a given time in the time line, I recommend you submit a feature request in the Feedback Loop .

[scook]

May want to check out the snap to scale feature or the Transpose MFX mentioned above.

[Nigel Mackay]

@SkyDropsBeatsChanging key in Cakewalk does nothing to the actual music/notes. In staff view it draws the key signature and knows where to draw accidentals.

If you want to change the actual notes you need to use Transpose. And you need to work out how many semitones up or down.

[scook]

2 hours ago, Nigel Mackay said:

If you want to change the actual notes you need to use Transpose. And you need to work out how many semitones up or down.

While one can create custom maps, the Transpose MFX has quite a few keys and scales built into the plug-in.

[Transcendent Thots]

Sorry for necroposting, but I found this thread while google searching for something similar.

I think OP may have been talking about a feature like this, where the keys on the piano roll can be filtered by Scale and Mode. Keys you're "not supposed to press" are simply removed from the piano roll, which makes it super easy to mess around with melodies and even chords, even if all you have is a mouse and a dream.

In other DAWs, you can toggle it on and off, just in case you want to mess around with key changes or something fancy or experimental.

If this isn't a feature in Cakewalk, I'd love to see it added. But it may depend on your design goals. Do you want making music to be quick and easy to the point where it's hard to screw up? Or do you want learning how to implement chords by hand to be mandatory? I was never really clear whether BandLab/Cakewalk was meant to be a tool or a school. (It's so good at doing both at the same time!)

Edited January 12, 2023 by Transcendent Thots

[user905133]

8 minutes ago, Transcendent Thots said:

Sorry for necroposting, but I found this thread while google searching for something similar.

I think OP may have been talking about a feature like this . . . .

Considering that the OP never returned after that date, if you have a feature request based on what you want, you might want to post it in the Feedback section as your own request.