Tapas Organizing sounds by Category in SONAR Sun Apr 27 09:11:02 2003 12.83.69.93 Hi, SONAR has an excellent feature to help categorize your sounds. Do you ever get lost trying to find the Nylon String Guitar or the best bells amongst the hundreds of patches that come with today's synths? Don't you find it a pain to compare the several Nylon String patches that may be hiding scattered across all the banks of your synth. By the time you navigate to the one you want by changing the bank and the patch, you have lost memory of the last one you auditioned. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to display all the Nylon strings in one short list that you could just click away on each entry to hear them play? All this can be done every easily by doctoring your Cakewalk Instrument Definition File - the one with the .INS extension. If you are using SONAR, you already have access to one of the most handy features of a sequencer - how to display all sounds from all banks of a synth in Alphabetical Order in a large scrolling list. Right Click on a MIDI Track in SONAR. This will bring up the context sensitive menu. Infact, you should right click on any object on any Windows program to see if it brings up a context sensitive list with several hidden goodies in them! Select the last option from the menu - 'Track Properties' You will get drop down list boxes for Banks and Patches. To the right of these two list boxes there is a folders icon. If you click on this icon it would launch the 'Patch Browser' Window. It will list out all your voices from all the banks in Alphabetical Order. This means, if you rename all your patch entries in your .INS file with a single letter category prefix, they will all show up grouped together as follows: A: Dark Piano Bank-2 Patch 45 A: Honky Tonk Bank-1 Patch 23 A: Grand Piano Bank-1 Patch 10 A: Upright Grand Bank-3 Patch 43 E: DX7 Bank-4 Patch 56 E: Electric Piano Bank-1 Patch 07 E: Fender Rhodes Bank-5 Patch 36 Notice that this list will pull voices together even if they happen to cross several banks. This window stays active allowing you to click on these sounds or simply use the Up/Down arrow keys to audition them one by one. You can organize all your sounds by some broad categories like: A = Acoustic Pianos B = Basses C = Cromatic Percussions - Bells, Mallets, Vibraphones D = Drum sounds E = Electric Pianos F = Flutes/Reeds G = Guitars H = Horns K = Drum Kits L = Leads M = Motion Synths N = Noise, Special Effects O = Organs P = Pads/Synth Pads R = Rhythmic Beats and grooves S = Strings V = Voices etc. There may be several types of Guitars. To further help speed up your choice, the second step is to decide on a Category Variation as the second character as follows: Ga = Acoustic Guitars Ge = Electric Guitars Gj = Jazz Guitars Gm = Muted Guitars Gn = Nylon String Guitars Gp = Pedal Steel Guitars Go = Overdrive, feedback, distortion Guitars Gx = Guitar sounds that I hated. To be deleted. Again there may be several acoustic guitars within a synth/rack. I used a third character (a number 1 - 9) to denote the ranking. For example: Ga1 = Best acoustic Guitar sound Ga2 = 2nd best acoustic guitar sound Ga3 = 3rd best etc. SONAR will show all the voices grouped by Category, and within each group, they will be subgrouped by Variation, and within a variation they would be displayed by Rank order. This simple scheme makes it extremely fast to track down exactly the voice you want. If you wanted to find the best acoustic guitar, all you have to do is type in 'g' in the drop down list followed by 'a' and '1' Ga1 This will display the best acoustic guitar on your synth/rack. No need to hunt through 1000 voices. Here is the full listing of the scheme I am using: ================================================== A: ACOUSTIC PIANOS ------------------------------ As: Acoustic Piano + Strings Ax: Bad Acoustic Pianos - to be deleted B: BASSES -------------- Ba: Acoustic Be: Electric Bd: Dance bass Bm: Miscellaneous Basses Bs: Synth Bass Bu: SubBass C: CELESTE/BELLS/MALLETS/VIBRAPHONES/CHROMATIC -------------------------------------------------------------- C: Celeste, Mallets, Vibraphones, Kalimba, Marimba Cb: Bells, Crystals Ch: Harpsichord Cl: Clavinets CO = Combinations D: DRUMS/PERCUSSION ---------------------------------- D: Drum Sounds, Gongs, Taiko, Timpani Dp: Percussion, Toms, Tamborines, Steel Drums, Wood Blocks, Castanets Dh: Drum Hits, Orchestra Hits, Bass Hits, Synth Hits E: ELECTRIC PIANOS ------------------------------- Es: Electric Piano + Strings F: FLUTES --------------- F: Piccolo, Recorder, Ocarina, Whistle FL: Flute, Pan Flute, Shakuhachi G: GUITAR --------------- G: Banjo, Mandolin, Koto Ga: Acoustic Ge: Electric Gh: Harps Gj: Jazz Guitar Gm: Muted Guitar, Guitar Harmonics Gn: Nylon Guitar Go: Overdrive, Funky, Distorted Guitar Gp: Pedal Steel Guitar Gw: WaaWaa H: HORNS/HARMONICA --------------------------------- H: English Horn, French Horn Ha: Harmonica, accordions, Musette, Bagpipe Hb: Brass Hs: Saxes, Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone Sax Ht: Trumpets, Trombones, Tuba Hw: Wind Instruments - Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet, Double Reed I: INDIAN/ETHNIC/WORLD ------------------------------------- I: Sitar, Santur, Shanai K: KITS ---------- Ks: Standard Ka: acoustic Ke: electric Kj: Jazz Kp: power L: LEADS ------------- Lg: Lead Guitars Ls: Lead Synths M: MOTION SYNTHS/MUSICAL EFFECTS -------------------------------------------------------- M: Motion Synths (Korg) Me: Musical Effects (Yamaha) N: NOISE/SCRATCHES/SPECIAL EFFECTS --------------------------------------------------------- N: Complex/Special Effects - (Korg) Na: Arpeggios Ne: Special Effects - Rain, Thunder, Wind, Gun Shot, Applause, Siren, etc. No: Noise, Fret Noise Ns: Scratches O: ORGANS ---------------- Oc: Church Organs, Pipe organs Od: Distortion Organ Og: Gospel organ Oj: Jazz organs Op: Percussive Organs, Click Organs P: PADS/SYNTH PADS ------------------------------ Pa: Ambient Pads Pf: Fast SynthPads Ps: Slow SynthPads R: RHYTHMIC/BEATS AND GROOVES ---------------------------------------------------- R: Rhythmic Patterns (Korg Triton), BPM (tempo based) S: STRINGS ---------------- Sf: Strings Fast So: Strings Orchestral Sp: Pizzicato Strings Ss: Strings Slow Sy: Synth Strings T: TECHNO --------------- V: VOCALS/CHOIR/AIRY ---------------------------------- V: Vocals/Airy (Korg) W: WAVES --------------- X: SOUNDS TO BE DELETED ---------------------------------------- XGo: Deleted Guitar Overdrive XO: Deleted Organ Sounds XE: Deleted Electric Pianos =================================================== Here is a listing of how the Category Mapping from different synth manufacturers correlate to my naming convention: Yamaha Motif-Rack ------------------------ Ap = A Kb = E, P Cp = C, Cb Or = O Pd = P Gt = G Ba = B St = S Br = Hb Rp = Hs, Hw, F Ld = L Me = Me Sc = Sy Dr = D Se = Ne Korg Triton-Rack ---------------------- Keyboard = A, E Strings = S Hits = Dh Arps = Na Guitar/Plucked = G Bass/Synth Bass = B, Bs SE = N Vocal/Airy = V Motion Synth = M Drum Kits = K Brass = H, Hb, Ht Fast Synth = Pf Bell/Mallet = C, Cb Organ = O Slow Synth = Ps Lead Synth = Ls Woodwind/Reed = F, FL, Hw Pads = P World = I Lead Splits = L Bass Splits = B Rhythmic Patterns = R Orchestral = So Roland XV-5050 --------------------- PNO = A EP = E KEY = Cl (Clavi), Ch (Harpsichord) BELL = Cb MLT = C ORG = O ACD = Ha HRM = Ha AGT = Ga EGT = Ge DGT = Go BS = B, Ba SBS = Bs STR = S ORC = So HIT = Dh WND = Hw FLT = FL BRS = Hb SBR = Ls SAX = Hs HLD = L SLD = L TEK = T PLS = Sy FX = Ne SYN = Sy BPD = Pf SPD = Ps VOX = V PLK = Gh (harps) ETH = I FRT = G PRC = Dp SFX = N BTS = R DRM = K CMB = CO Emu Proteus 1000 ---------------------- bpm = R brs = H, Hb, Hs bs1 = Ba bs2 = Be bs3 = Bu bs4 = Bd bs5 = Bm gtr = G hit = Dh kb1 = A kb2 = E kb3 = O kb4 = P kit = K led = L nse = Ne orc = So pad = P prc = Dp scr = Ns sfx = N str = S syn = Sy vox = V wav = W wnd = Hw, F You won't believe how easy it is to find a sound once you take the time to rename each entry in your Cakewalk .INS file with a 3 character [Category/Variation/Ranking] prefix. Tapas