Acid Loops

[Jay Johnson]

I have a bunch of acid loops. When I preview them, they play fine, but when I put them into a project, they all play in the same key. Any thoughts?

[David Baay]

Isn't that the point of using acidized files - that they'll be  stretched and pitched to follow the project tempo and key?

I don't compose with loops but I believe you can disable the default key-following behavior in the Groove Clip section of the Clip Properties tab in the Inspector.

[Mr No Name]

acid loops have a specific file extension name that might not be recognised in sonar, sonar has it's own version called "groove clips" I believe.

[David Baay]

5 minutes ago, Mr No Name said:

acid loops have a specific file extension name that might not be recognised in sonar, sonar has it's own version called "groove clips" I believe.

I believe this is mainly a difference in terminology. Both Acid and Goove Clip files use a .WAV extension with the tempo, key and beat marker metadata encoded in the file header. So far as I know, Sonar fully supports the Acid format for .WAV files as well as .REX files.

[Chaps]

20 minutes ago, Jay Johnson said:

I have a bunch of acid loops. When I preview them, they play fine, but when I put them into a project, they all play in the same key. Any thoughts?

It's been a long time since I've worked with loops but I believe in the Loop Construction View (Alt+7) you have the option of the loop following the project pitch (key) or root pitch of your choice. In the image below it shows the PITCH button NOT Highlighted, where it follows the project pitch and Highlighted where you pick a root pitch for the loop, which will change the pitch of the sample's playback. I don't have any Acid Loops to try this on but this is how Groove Clip pitches are changed.

[Jay Johnson]

If a have a loop that is AM and a loop the is F they both play fine when I preview them, but when I drag them into the project they all play in Cm and the key of the song is Am. I don't use loops much either, but was playing around with them.

[Mr No Name]

34 minutes ago, Jay Johnson said:

If a have a loop that is AM and a loop the is F they both play fine when I preview them, but when I drag them into the project they all play in Cm and the key of the song is Am. I don't use loops much either, but was playing around with them.

what happens if you change the tempo of the project? does the key of the loops change ?

[Jay Johnson]

I did try Chaps workaround, and it does solve the issue. It's just extra work to have to manually do each loop. Changing the tempo didn't matter. I just thought there might be a specific reason why all the loops were going to Cm. My first time on the forum. I'm impressed with all the quick help. Thanks

[Amberwolf]

What happens with any loop when dropped into a project depends on what the loop creator actually set within the file.  There are some loopmakers that set the flags for all the proper things, and even include marker data so when you drop it in there are markers automagically placed in the timeline.   Most don't seem to set all the flags, and some don't even set the loop flag nor include the tempo data, forcing the user to do this for each file.   Some of them don't seem to have the beats info even though looping is enabled, and Sonar sometimes guesses wrong on how many so it plays twice or half as fast as it should.   And it seems to be hit or miss with some loopmakers where some of their stuff has some things, and some has others, and none of it has everything.    

So I long ago got used to just checking the looping properties of everything as I drop them one at a time into a project, by pressing Alt-Enter on each clip as I go, and no longer pay attention to what was already set right, so I don't know which makers do it right or not.