Post by JohnG on Mar 24, 2009 11:27:38 GMT
Transposing in CakeWalk
A little while ago someone asked me how you could transpose a piece of music up or down to suit their own vocal range using CakeWalk Pro Audio 9 (CWPA9) or a similar CakaWalk or Sonar product. As far as I am aware the MIDI functions of CakeWalk products have been very similar since about CW3. So these instructions should suit just about every user of CakeWalk or Sonar. If not please let me know.
So, transposing up or down in CakeWalk.
Open the MIDI file in CW and you should see something like this in the track view window. Immediately do a "Save As" saving as a "MIDI format 1" file with a different name. I usually just put in a suitable number just before the final ".mid".
Now what we need to do is to select the tracks that have musical notes in them. In this case the six tracks numbered 4 to 9. But not track 10, as this (in this case) is MIDI channel 10, the default MIDI channel for drums. If we were to transpose the drum track then the complete drum sound would change. e.g. hi-hat open might become bass drum and so on.
By left clicking on the track number, in this case "4" we can select the whole of the track. Notice how all the track data changes colour?
Just as a check, we might look at some of the data in notation form to see what it looks like before transposition. So select "Staff View" and you should see something like this. Make a mental note (Ow, bad pun) of what it looks like, and we'll check again after transposition. Note the single sharp sign in the second chord.
Close or minimise the "Staff View" window.
Now to select all the other music tracks hold down the "Ctrl" key and continue left clicking on the track numbers 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. They should all change colour as below to show that they are selected. So we have selected tracks 4 to 9. Now you can release "Ctrl"!
Now we need to select the "Transpose" function. You will find it under the "Edit" menu as shown below.
Left click "Transpose" and you will get the following window pop up.
You will see that we are able to enter a positive or negative number in the little box. Positive will transpose up, negative down and each digit increment or decrement will move the notes up or down one semitone. So here I have moved the music up just one semitone. Clicking on "OK" will complete the process. i.e. all notes in tracks 4 to 9 will be transposed up one semitone. Hang on we'd better check that. SO select just track 4 again, and go back to staff view. We should get something like this:
Yep, that looks like it has moved up a semitone. So now we can save our transposed file. Do let me know if it works for you and what version of CakeWalk you are using please. The whole process will take less than a minute to do once you are familiar with it.
Added a little later at Simmo's suggestion.
When you do a transposition, let's say down 3 semitones, and then try it out, and find it needs more, then take care. The initial -3 semitones is already embedded in the file. To get that extra semitone down you need to select transpose "-1" the second time round. And watch out, because the first setting you put in "-3" will still be in the little box. The other way is to discard the changes you made by going back to the earlier, unchanged version of the file, and this time putting in "-4". You have been warned.
Hope that is of use to someone?
Have fun.
JohnG.
A little while ago someone asked me how you could transpose a piece of music up or down to suit their own vocal range using CakeWalk Pro Audio 9 (CWPA9) or a similar CakaWalk or Sonar product. As far as I am aware the MIDI functions of CakeWalk products have been very similar since about CW3. So these instructions should suit just about every user of CakeWalk or Sonar. If not please let me know.
So, transposing up or down in CakeWalk.
Open the MIDI file in CW and you should see something like this in the track view window. Immediately do a "Save As" saving as a "MIDI format 1" file with a different name. I usually just put in a suitable number just before the final ".mid".
Now what we need to do is to select the tracks that have musical notes in them. In this case the six tracks numbered 4 to 9. But not track 10, as this (in this case) is MIDI channel 10, the default MIDI channel for drums. If we were to transpose the drum track then the complete drum sound would change. e.g. hi-hat open might become bass drum and so on.
By left clicking on the track number, in this case "4" we can select the whole of the track. Notice how all the track data changes colour?
Just as a check, we might look at some of the data in notation form to see what it looks like before transposition. So select "Staff View" and you should see something like this. Make a mental note (Ow, bad pun) of what it looks like, and we'll check again after transposition. Note the single sharp sign in the second chord.
Close or minimise the "Staff View" window.
Now to select all the other music tracks hold down the "Ctrl" key and continue left clicking on the track numbers 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. They should all change colour as below to show that they are selected. So we have selected tracks 4 to 9. Now you can release "Ctrl"!
Now we need to select the "Transpose" function. You will find it under the "Edit" menu as shown below.
Left click "Transpose" and you will get the following window pop up.
You will see that we are able to enter a positive or negative number in the little box. Positive will transpose up, negative down and each digit increment or decrement will move the notes up or down one semitone. So here I have moved the music up just one semitone. Clicking on "OK" will complete the process. i.e. all notes in tracks 4 to 9 will be transposed up one semitone. Hang on we'd better check that. SO select just track 4 again, and go back to staff view. We should get something like this:
Yep, that looks like it has moved up a semitone. So now we can save our transposed file. Do let me know if it works for you and what version of CakeWalk you are using please. The whole process will take less than a minute to do once you are familiar with it.
Added a little later at Simmo's suggestion.
When you do a transposition, let's say down 3 semitones, and then try it out, and find it needs more, then take care. The initial -3 semitones is already embedded in the file. To get that extra semitone down you need to select transpose "-1" the second time round. And watch out, because the first setting you put in "-3" will still be in the little box. The other way is to discard the changes you made by going back to the earlier, unchanged version of the file, and this time putting in "-4". You have been warned.
Hope that is of use to someone?
Have fun.
JohnG.