Provide more flexible editing for MIDI drum parts

OBJECTIVE: Take a drum part recorded in one MIDI track, and split its notes—kick, open hat, snare, etc.—to individual tracks.

BACKGROUND: It’s convenient to record a drum part into a single MIDI track, but splitting each note off to its own track simplifies editing (e.g., adding swing to only a closed hi-hat part). Sonar includes a CAL (Cakewalk Application Language) routine that makes this easy to do.

1 Select the track with the MIDI data you want to split to separate tracks, then type Ctrl-F1.

2 A list of CAL files appears. Click on Split Note to Tracks.cal, then click on Open.

3 Specify the Source track (the one selected in Step 1), then click on OK.

4 Specify the first Destination track for the series of split notes (typically one track higher than the current highest-numbered track), then click on OK. You’ll similarly be asked to specify the Destination Channel (e.g., channel 10 for a drum part) and Destination Port; click on OK after each selection.

5 The notes from the original track split to multiple tracks, starting with the track specified in Step 4. Each track’s name is the note name.

Tips

• Step 1: You can also go Process > Run CAL; if CAL isn’t visible, click on the Arrow bar (menu bottom) for additional options.
• Step 4: If the destination tracks include any existing tracks, MIDI data will be placed on those tracks.
• If you can’t find the folder with CAL routines, go Options > Global > Folders tab, then look for the CAL Files folder path.
• You can’t undo this operation other than going Edit > History, then picking a step prior to the CAL operation.