One of the nicest things about using a sequencer (like those
available from Cakewalk - Sonar, Home Studio, etc) is how easy it is
to do editing tasks on specific parts of your music while you listen
to it. The best way I've found to do this is to loop a section of a
song over and over while making changes. This is accomplished by
doing the following:
1) Drag your mouse in the Time Ruler of one of the Views (such as
the Track or Piano Roll view) to select a certain section of your
song.
2) Click the Set Loop To Selection button in the Loop toolbar. This
will automatically set your software to loop this section of your
song.
3) Press the Spacebar on your computer keyboard to start playback.
4) Use the zoom tools to zoom in on the section of the selection you
want to edit.
5) Now you can do precise note editing with the Piano Roll view or
audio editing with the Track view, etc.
As you start to edit, however, you'll notice something annoying. If
your selection is more than a few measures long, the Cakewalk
software will scroll the screen as it plays through the loop. This
makes it very difficult to do any editing.
As your Cakewalk software plays through the looped selection, press
the Scroll Lock key on your computer keyboard when the section you
want to edit is displayed. The Cakewalk software will continue to
play, but it won't scroll the display. Now you can easily edit your
data while your looped selection continues to play. This allows you
to instantly here your changes. Isn't that great? To start the
display scrolling again, just press the Scroll Lock key a second
time. Happy real-time editing with Cakewalk!
Scott R. Garrigus is the author of Cakewalk Power!, Sound Forge Power!,
Sound Forge 6 Power!, SONAR Power!, and SONAR 2 Power!, as well as the
publisher of DigiFreq. Learn about more cool music technology tips and
techniques and have the chance to win free music products by getting a FREE
subscription to DigiFreq... go to:
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/
