MIDI and Sonar 2.0 are making me sick

  • Thread starter Thread starter VertuGoGo
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VertuGoGo

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alrighty, i've mentioned the problem of not being able to hear midi in sonar on other threads, but it was as part of a problem. now it's my only problem. here's what's going on:

after reading through various help topics in sonar, i decided to check again my volume settings (i have XP btw). i went to control panel, sounds and audio devices properties, and on the audio tab decided to make "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth" as my default midi music playback device (it was "Delta AP MIDI" before, my sound card). i already had tutorial 4 open (it has MIDI tracks). lo and behold the damn thing plays! i can hear all 3 midi tracks loud and clear. i decided to open another tutorial (#8) but when i did i heard nothing again. i made sure the new setting i did was still there and it was. and i'm pretty sure that was the only change i made. i may have changed my latency settings to 8.7 msec. the slider was all way to the left and the number was 2.9 msec, when the first time i slid it all the way to the left the number was 8.7 msec, so i decided to move the slider back to 8.7 msec so as not to make the number too low. also, i disabled my integrated sound card.

the one thing i did between playing back tutorial 4 and 8 was closing Sonar and opening it again. but doing that can't be the reason the problem came back, right?
 
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The midi device selected in control panel is the default windows midi synth - as such it is the one used by programs like media player to play back midi files. It is not necessarily the one used by Sonar.
To ensure that Sonar will always use the one midi synth...
Sonar Options/MIDI devices - in the output ports select the Roland GS synth by highlighting it. Click the big button to move it to the top. Now click the OK.
To make sure that Sonar can report the correct instrument names for Roland GS open Options/Instruments. You will see 16 channels for the GS on the left, on the right you can click on the "instrument definition" Roland GS after highlighting each of the channels. For channel 10 click on Roland GS Drumsets as this is the normal midi channel for percussion.
This will leave you with the Roland/microsoft GS wavetable synth as the only output the tutorial files can use. These files depend on you having the same or equivalent settings as the machine on which the Tutorials were produced!
You could have more midi outputs selected for Sonar but these won't always correspond to those in the tutorials. To fix this you need to change the output port of each midi track to use a midi synth and then when all is working save the file to preserve your changes (or use Save as to make a new copy) for the next time you open them.
It's still possible that midi control changes in the tutorial files are selecting synth voices that you simply don't have! The author should have included a note in File/Info if this is the case.

BTW, Sonars latency slider will only have a noticable effect when playing a DXi software synth from a midi keyboard or when recording audio and using the input monitoring function. In the case of the microsoft/roland software synth - it cannot help as this is part of windows and outside of Sonars control. Only the DXi soft-synths latency can be controlled and the delay is not a problem when playing back pre-recorded midi files.
 
glitch in the program?

i think i may have found a glitch with the program. last night i was fiddling again with the settings while i was playing tutorial 4 to see if i can repeat what happened the other night. i basically was just going through windows' volume control and the midi devices menu in sonar. after about an hour of fiddling i suddenly heard tutorial 4 playing. this time i didn't close sonar to check out the other tutorials. what i did instead was get pen and paper and wrote down all the settings. first i opened the windows volume control and looked at the midi music playback device (Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth). then i went to sonar's midi devices menu to see the settings there--then the music just stopped. i didn't select or de-select anything. all i did was open up the menu to see what's highlighted. and i do believe that my settings last night and the night before are the same so if i DID fix anything the other night the problem of not being able to hear midi should've gone away.

Jim Y, when i go to windows to set my midi music playback device to the GS Synth, i can't find it as an option in the sonar menu. only the same three options are there--delta ap midi, nemesys midiout, and microsoft midi mapper. and then when you cycle through the midi ouputs, only the first two are available as a choice (and no GS Synth).

is this a glitch in my version of sonar (2.0)? i'm thinking of re-installing it again.
 
Re: glitch in the program?

VertuGoGo said:
i think i may have found a glitch with the program. last night i was fiddling again with the settings while i was playing tutorial 4 to see if i can repeat what happened the other night. i basically was just going through windows' volume control and the midi devices menu in sonar. after about an hour of fiddling i suddenly heard tutorial 4 playing. this time i didn't close sonar to check out the other tutorials. what i did instead was get pen and paper and wrote down all the settings. first i opened the windows volume control and looked at the midi music playback device (Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth). then i went to sonar's midi devices menu to see the settings there--then the music just stopped. i didn't select or de-select anything. all i did was open up the menu to see what's highlighted. and i do believe that my settings last night and the night before are the same so if i DID fix anything the other night the problem of not being able to hear midi should've gone away.

Jim Y, when i go to windows to set my midi music playback device to the GS Synth, i can't find it as an option in the sonar menu. only the same three options are there--delta ap midi, nemesys midiout, and microsoft midi mapper. and then when you cycle through the midi ouputs, only the first two are available as a choice (and no GS Synth).

is this a glitch in my version of sonar (2.0)? i'm thinking of re-installing it again.
Click to expand...

Forget about the Windows Wavetable synth - set up the Roland Virtual Canvas DXi softsynth in Sonar and route all you MIDI tracks to that.
 
Now that it's mentioned, it is possible that something is screwed up in windows multimedia settings as my windows2000 doesn't set up a midi synth properly after I booted out my old creative soundcard and this could because the soundcard drivers had overwritten the windows gs synth with it's own. One day I will reinstall but as I use external hardware midi gear, it isn't a problem for me.
To test windows midi synth...
From windows run menu enter dxdiag.
This starts the directX trouble shooter.
Go to the direct music tab
From the drop down menu, select a midi synth and test it. You should hear a midi file playback provided a synth actually exists on that port.
You could always try reinstalling directX8.1 off your Sonar2 cd.
 
I had a similar glynch, where i couldn't hear my midi when i was using the pro audio 9. I called cakewalk, and found out that if you install the program with an anti-virus turned on, sometimes it won't load certain things, like the midi. Sure enough, i turned off my nortens firewall and anti-virus, reinstalled it and it worked. I had been stumped for sometime too. Thank god, things are so much easier now!!!
 
Hello everyone.
I didn't feel into starting a new thread, since mine also has similiar topic, about MIDI and SONAR. I frequently wrote myself alot of songs in MIDI format. I used CWPA 9 and alot of Soundfont setting. Usualy, I set the SF2 with SFLoader 1.1, and turn CWPA 9 on, start sequencing. I have done hundreds of idea written.
Then I had a chance to switch to SONAR 2 XL. I bought it and install it on my system (P!!! 870, Asus MB, 256MB RAM, SBLive!, WinXP Home). I set my SFloader, turn SONAR on, load up my MIDI songs created in CWPA 9. And... ooops, they just doesn't sound right. I think it must be the Soundfont problem, so I recall the setting for minutes within SONAR. Click, click, click... It works. Load another song. Ooops... SONAR didn't recognize my SF setting again... again... and again... Is there any way to just set SONAR to recognize SF setting set in a song made in CWPA 9 ? SFLoader seems don't affecting SONAR's setting. Please help, I have hundreds songs to be loaded, and don't feel like to set all over what I have set in CWPA 9 anymore...
 
I never tried CWPA but I used to have an SBlive and it was Sonars inability to work with this properly that made me ditch the creative card.
I did see a website that explained this but I didn't bookmark it.
It was something like this...
Sonars Soundfont support is based on the old AWE card that had limited ram on the card for soundfonts and only one synth. Sonar only actually recognises the Lives Synth A. It can't use B properly.
When Sonar loads a sf bank it unloads a previous one.
Sonar cannot "see" the patch names of percussion soundfonts.
Sonar should be told (I don't remember where the setting was) where to find the soundfont banks used in your projects by entering the directory path to a folder containing the soundfonts.

The solution to the banks overloading problem involved some editing with Vienna and to be honest, I just could not be bothered.

The situation might be better with an Audigy but I don't know.

I don't think Cakewalk really meant Sonar to be a midi sequencer and most users seem to work with Audio loops - I get the impression that many don't actually record anything themselves! There are many "bugs" in Sonars midi implementation and none of it was improved much in version 2 so I'm sticking with 1.3.1 until they address midi issues. Now that competition has stiffened a bit with Cubase SX, they might have to.
 
SOnar has been messing with my MIDI ever since I switched from win98SE to XP Home. Sonar sometimes recieves MIDI from my keyboard, and sometimes doesn't.
My other programs like ACID, FruityLoops record MIDI just fine, but as soon as I turn on Sonar, it fucks it up, and no programs can recieve any MIDI until I reboot....
ANy idea??


AL
 
I did have a situation that caused Sonar to lock up and do all manner of strange things. I found a couple of things that were actually down to the way my midi gear was connected.
1, Midi feedback - trying to put too much gear on too few ports and the fact that Sonar can only turn soft thru off on one port (called local-on in Cakewalkese).
2, My Johnson J-station has a midi glitch - one of the panel knobs continually sent out midi controller #65 messages if at a certain position. As Sonar is actually always recieving midi it was overflowing with useless data.

Sonars taskbar midi indicator is a help in finding these sort of troubles. If it's in or out "leds" are lit with nothing happening - you got a problem.
 
Jim Y:

You sound like you know what you are talking about, but, I am still a little confused with all the terms like ports, soft thru and so on. Do you think you can briefly walk me thru this setup in Sonar? Like you described, Sonar does lock up my keyboard, and this one note just keeps on playing unless I turn the keyboard off(feedback??)

Thanks

AL
 
Yep, that is midi feedback and the cause and cure are usually dead simple.
If you have a midi keyboard that also is a synth and then connect it to a sequencers midi in and out, this happens...
You play a note.
The midi note message is sent to the synth and sounds the note.
The note message also goes off down the cable to the sequencer.
The sequencer recieves the message and immediately echoes it back on the midi out port.
The Synth recieves the message and plays the note (again) and sends it back to the sequencer.
And around and around.... FEEDBACK!

You can either...
Go into the synths global/user settings menu and set local on to local off.
Your keypress now goes only to the midi output and gets echoed back to the synth. Problem solved.
Or you set the sequencer so that it doesn't echo back on the midi port that you keyboard synth uses. This is Project Options/MIDI Input, Echo Mode - None.
Generally, it is best to set the keyboard to local off, that way you hear the sequencers take on things. For instance, it's best to transpose midi notes in the sequencer rather than change the keyboards own settings every time.
 
Jim Y:

"Local Off" That's exactually what I needed to do. Thank you for explaining the midi route, I understand where the feeback is created now :)

Now, before I go and change my setup, I was just wondering if there will be some latency if I set local off instead of echo mode off? btw, I monitor thru a mixer

again, Thank you

AL
 
If you can notice the time it takes to do that, I imagine you are the type that can also switch off the light and be in bed before it's dark.

;-)
Jan
 
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