Reference Guide

452
Editing MIDI Events and Continuous Controllers (CC)
Adding and Editing Notes in the Piano Roll
Drag-quantize
SONAR makes it very easy to quantize individual Note events (or other MIDI events) without having
to use the Process > Quantize command.
Drag Quantize works by clicking on an event (or one of many selected events), and moving the
mouse up and down. The up direction moves the events toward the quantize target times; downward
motion moves them away from the quantize target times. You immediately see the data being moved
towards the target in real-time as you adjust the mouse position.
Drag Quantize is one of the programmable mouse “Actions”, which can be assigned to any mouse
button and key combination. By default, Drag Quantize is assigned to CTRL+middle-click when
using the Select tool. For more information, see “Flexible Piano Roll tools” on page 457.
Drag quantize strength
The quantize strength is continuously variable based on mouse dragging and the results are visible
in real-time. It is even possible to have “negative” strength, which allows you to un-quantize events
(move them away from the target quantize time).
As you drag the mouse up or down, a dynamic tooltip shows the current quantize strength (-100% to
+100%). A “deadband” around 0% allows the Drag Quantize tool to easily position the selected MIDI
events at their original position.
Drag quantize resolution
The quantize resolution is determined by the current Snap to Grid resolution if snapping is enabled
(see “Defining and Using the Snap Grid” on page 316). If Snap to Grid is disabled, SONAR will
analyze the selected events and automatically determine a suitable resolution.
To drag-quantize MIDI events
1. Select the MIDI events you wish to quantize (see “Selecting Notes” on page 441 and “Selecting
Controllers” on page 472).
2. In the Piano Roll view or inline Piano Roll, click the Select button to enable the Select tool.
3. Hold down the CTRL key and click the middle mouse button on any of the selected events and do
one of the following:
• Move the mouse upward to move the selected events toward the quantize target times.
• Move the mouse downward to move the selected events away from the quantize target times.
As you drag the mouse up or down, a dynamic tooltip shows the current quantize strength (-100%
to +100%).
MIDI event mute
Note: These instructions apply to the default mouse assignments and will not apply if you have
re-assigned the Drag Quantize mouse action to different settings (see “Flexible Piano Roll tools”
on page 457). If your mouse does not have a middle button, you may want to reassign Drag
Quantize to another button.