Take Control...Anywhere

May 31, 2005 12:47 PM

           
 

Sonar Shortcuts
Although TranzPort provides all of the control functionality you need to do basic tracking, Sonar's Key Binding feature provides an easy way to create additional commands that can be accessed remotely. There are fifteen key combinations that can be mapped to commands. Holding down the Shift button and pressing Prev, Add, and Next perform the actions associated with Shift-F1, Shift-F2, and Shift-F3 keys. Holding down the Stop key and pressing Prev, Add, Next, In, Out, Punch, Loop, Track-Left, Track-Right, Rec, Mute, or Solo perform the actions assigned to Ctrl-Shift-F1 thru Ctrl-Shift-F12 in Sonar.

What's more, all of these key bindings are context-sensitive. This means they can do different things, depending on which Sonar window is active. Of course, you probably won't be doing too much remote recording while the MIDI Event List window is open; the Track View is where most of the action will take place.

The documentation that accompanies TranzPort explains how to set up Sonar to respond to the user-assignable keys, which is done in the Key Bindings window (see Fig. 3). To understand the possibilities here, you need to know that whatever you assign in the Global Bindings area will be overridden by the assignments made for individual windows. However, the Global Bindings will still work when the front window does not have a local binding for that key. Thus you can use Shift-F1 to call up the Console View and then, within Console View, use Shift-F1 for some other purpose.

FIG. 3: Up to fifteen commands per window can be assigned in Sonar's Key Binding dialog.

My first suggestion for a key binding is to assign shift-F1 to Insert | Audio Track. If you're planning to do much overdubbing from across the room, inserting new tracks will be essential. Since this is a Global Binding, don't assign Shift-F1 to anything else, at least not in the Track View.

Also in the Global Bindings area, the Loop On/Off command may be useful. Metronome During Playback and Metronome During Record will be good choices in some situations. Enable/Disable Automation Playback is less likely to be useful, but you might find a creative use for it.

Beyond this, I haven't found anything in the Key Bindings window that seems very useful in a remote situation and isn't already covered by the existing TranzPort buttons. You might use View | Video if you're working on a scoring project, or View | Big Time, but there's no reason not to open the Video or Big Time window at the computer before you walk across the room and put on your headphones.

In the Track View bindings, Center View On Now Time could be useful if you find you're getting confused about what you're hearing in the headphones.