Help with generic soundcard and sonar. PLease!

[amt7565]

Folks,
I have a friend who is trying to get started on SONAR. He has one of those cheap soundcards intergrated in the motherboard(VIA AC 97).
On opening SONAR I was unable to find anything on the 'input' of the MIDI mapping in SONAR(Options>MIDI>input/output mapping).

I enabled the MIDI from the BIOS and now I can see the AC97 on the input but not MPU-401. Can't hear anything through SONAR.

However MIDI files do work if played from mediaplayer. This shows that the output is working but not input.

Any advise folks?
Thanks in advance

 

[AlChuck]

I enabled the MIDI from the BIOS and now I can see the AC97 on the input but not MPU-401. Can't hear anything through SONAR.

You can see the motherboard as an input device? I think you must be mistaken. Do you mean you see the sound chip's MIDI input? It may not be labeled MPU-401 -- the name displayed for it depends on the device and its drivers.

Can't hear anything through SONAR.

However MIDI files do work if played from mediaplayer. This shows that the output is working but not input.

Nope, it doesn't. Mediaplayer is probably using a softsynth (probably the Microsoft Wavetable Software SYnth) to turn the MIDI data into audio.

You need to select the output device in SONAR that will respond to the MIDI messages. The on-board sound probably does not have a MIDI synth device, so your choices would be the same synth that MediaPlayer is using, or an external device through the MIDI interface (that is, you would chose the MIDI Out port on the sound device's MIDI interface and hook a cable to an external synth). You can also use better software synths -- in fact, a couple should have come with SONAR.

 

[devenp]

AlChuck,
I am the friend amt7576 posted for.

I believe you are right. I don't think this chipset is sophisticated engough to have MIDI hardware. Any MIDI functionality I do have is probably through some kind of software emulation. I do have some other options in my BIOS to perhaps setup "Sound Blaster" capablity. I'll noodle around with those in the hope of SONAR recognizing them and somehow working, or try the soft syths that come with SONAR as you mentioned. But I'm just an amatuer getting started here. If I want to get a little more serious into this, I'll just buy a decent add on Sound card and disable my motherboard sound.

Thanks for the help.

 

[AlChuck]

The softsynths that come with SONAR do not appear as MIDI devices. They have to be inserted on a track as a DirectX effect (they are so-called DXi - DirectX Instruments). Once that's done you can route the output of a MIDI track to it, and it sends its audio output through the audio dtream of your sound device.