OBJECTIVE: Create loop-based music and rhythm tracks in a non-linear, more performance-oriented fashion that encourages improvisation.
BACKGROUND: Sonar 8.5’s Matrix View integrates with the Track View to allow loading loops, triggering them, and most importantly, recording the results as you improvise with the loops. This can lead to types of music that tend not to happen when using the more traditional, linear approach of DAWs.

STEPS

1. Go Views > Matrix View; the Matrix View window opens.

2. Drag loops—REX, Acidized WAV, MIDI Groove Clips, or Project5 .PAT files—into Matrix cells.

3. Create tracks for the clips to play through—audio tracks for audio clips, MIDI tracks for MIDI clips. Multiple rows can feed the same track, but creating a separate track for each row allows the most flexibility. Assign each row to the desired track.

4. Before you start to record your performance, enable (from left to right) Capture Matrix Performance, Follow Transport, Global Loop Mode, Global Latch Mode, and Cell Start = Play from Now (all circled in red for clarity).

5. Set the rhythmic value to which clips will quantize when triggered (e.g., if set to Measure and you click just before a measure boundary, the clip will start on the measure boundary).

6. Click on the Transport Play button (A), then click on individual clips to trigger them (B), or trigger an entire column of clips by clicking on the column header (C). Have fun!

7. When you click on the Transport Stop button, all your moves will have been recorded as groove clips in the Track view.

TIPS

-In Step 2, the first clip you drag into a row determines if the row outputs audio or MIDI.
-In Step 5, you can set two different trigger quantizations. Click on the letter in a clip’s lower right-hand corner to toggle between the “A” and “B” options.
-In Step 6, only one clip can play in each row; triggering a clip stops any other clips in that row from playing. However, in a column as many clips can play as you want.