Output Midi as Audio?

Well, if youre completely done with the whole song and wanna hear it in the media player, then the process you can do is hit CTRL + A (which selects all the tracks), and then go to file > export > audio and choose your export option, riff wave etc.

If you want to make them audio WITHIN sonar however, thats another story, and a tiny bit more complicated. The easiest way is what i said at first.

Yeah, its not the players fault, its sonar not exporting it correctly. Thats very odd, CTRL A'ing the tracks should do it everytime, just wanna make sure, theres no tracks muted or soloed? What you hear is what should be being exported. The other way to do it, is to highlight and "Bounce to Track" each individual midi/synth track you have and put it on a new track, thus making it an audio track. Im not sure what sonar LE has, but if its anything like Sonar Studio or Producer edition, then that option is under Edit> Bounce to tracks. After that is done, just export all audio tracks and that should work. BTW, there may be a good chance the LE version wont let you do some certain things, like export synths and such, just a thought...

p.s. make sure when youre exporting that you choose the preset (if sonar le has them) that says "what you hear"

No, its my pleasure to help you out. I think i may have the answer now, im gonna guess from the first post you posted, that you have no synthesizer/dxi attached to your midi tracks? In order to have the drum and piano sound you HAVE to send it to a synth/dxi. I personally send my drums to Fxpansion BFD and my piano to Akoustik Piano from NI, but newer versions of Sonar come with a fairly descent Piano which is in TTS and (only in the newest sonars) they give you a great drum program called Session Drummer 2, but earlier sonars again had TTS which could do drums and piano. If i am not wrong about this assumption, then that, along with my earlier responses, should take care of it, let me know if i am on the right path....

Ok, I'm back.
Before we get started, there are a few things you will want to be aware of. This method records the audio after it has made the round trip through your sound card, which will induce some latency. It can be corrected after the tracks are recorded, but it is pretty much unavoidabe with the AC97 chips. Leave some dead space at the beginning of your tracks. This is good policy anyway.
Open your Windows Volume Control. Click Options>Properties>Recording. Click OK. Select Stereo Mix. Set the volume around midrange.
Now click Options>Properties>Playback. You will see Volume control and SW Synth, among others. Keep this open, but you can minimize it for now.
Open Sonar LE. In the Toolbar, click Options>MIDI Devices. At the moment, you may only see Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth as an option.
If it is not already highlighted, highlight it. Click OK.
Now, insert an Audio track in the project. Set the Input to Stereo Realtek AC 97 Audio. Arm the track for Record, and hit Play. The meters in the Audio track should move, indicating that you are getting the signal. So far so good?
Most likely you will only want to record the drum or piano by itself, so Solo that MIDI track. Now rewind, and hit Play. You should only hear the selected instrument. Still good? Rewind, and hit Record. Let it play all the way through. You should see the waveform draw as it records.
If the levels are not quite right, you can pull the Volume control back up to make adjustments.
OK, now you have the MIDI on an Audio track, but it is most likely a little behind the rest of your tracks. Highlight the audio track, click Process>Nudge in the toolbar. Select one of the Nudge Left options. This will slide the whole track forward in time. This can be somewhat trial and error, but you'll get it. Once you have everything lined up, you are ready to export to RIFF Wave as you have been.
The Windows Recording Control is the key, and you will have to open it from time to time to select the proper inputs.
This is kind of a nuisance, but it reads worse than it really is.
It is much, much easier with the softsynths satorizero mentioned, but you don't get those with SLE.
There are a few websites, such as KVRAudio and Gersic.com that offer several free softsynths to work with. I would highly recommend exploring those.
Hope that helps. Good luck, and have fun!

lol. That's not entirely accurate, but yes, a proper sound card will make for a much more pleasant experience.

Absolutely. Let us know how you are doing. There are many people stopping by throughout the day, willing to help if you have more questions.
As to Dreamstation, it is a basic synth. It is fun but it is not designed to emulate the sounds of a General MIDI synth like the MS Wavetable synth.
Cyclone is a Sampler. It is essentially an empty box as you received it but it is capable of playing many sounds. I haven't messed with it, but I am sure others have explored its capabilities. There are hundreds of synths available for free or purchase, some better than others.
Do you have a keyboard/MIDI controller?

RobertB > No, I don't have a keyboard/ midi contoller, ( just read your message)

T

Hi again, Well I seem to be going round in circles! I have tried what you said I have all i/o set to max, and - nothing, not a squeak. I understand everything you have asked me to do is correct as since you told me what to do I have seen other people on other web pages saying the same thing so I know your'e right, If I may just briefly explain my set-up perhaps it may shed light in a corner??
I have Sonar LE, Realtek AC97 HD, a Samson USB Mic and that's about it !

I have the AC97 set to mme drivers, and as you specified both I/O open on it.

I can hear the midi track thru my speakers, but the 'recording' audio track just is'nt picking it up.

Apols for being such a pain, I have been looking around for a suitable soft-synth or two ( I know that method of converting Midi > Audio works) problem with that is I like the sound of the piano and drums in Sonar LE and don't want to change them, there is straight conversion software out there but it can be a bit pricey, the free stuff doesn't seem up to much.

Before I go , someone mentioned upgrading my soundcard, but, because I have only ever known AC97 in my brief affair with this PC I'm not sure what's good and what isn't.
I don't want to start a debate on soundcards, but a nod in the right direction would be fantastic.

Cheers m'dears

Hello T,
For the moment, disconnect the USB mic. I doubt that's the root of the problem, but let's eliminate it as a variable.
From your Windows Control Panel, open Sounds and Audio Devices. Confirm that Realtek AC97 Audio is selected for both playback and recording. MIDI musc playback should show Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth.
Now click the Volume button under Sound recording. In the Recording Control, make sure Stereo Mix is checked. Note that this is a radio button. It will allow only one choice. To record your guitar from Line In, you will need to come back here to select that.
It looks like you have everything else set correctly, and this is the one setting that will allow you to record "what you hear".
Let me know how it goes.
What free stuff have you tried? Some of it is actually fairly decent.
On the sound card front, Beagle, one of our members, has put together a comparison chart that may give you some insight.
Here's the link
http://homerecording.beaglesound.com/9.html

Aha!
Your last post tipped of the disconnect. Your Master Vol is what reads as Stereo Mix here. Select that.

The Realtec and the usb mic aren't the best things to use and record with, but the realtec is your akelies heal. Since your finnaly walking away from the sound card, you should get onbe with mic pre in it and then get an ordinary condensor mic if your having problems with the usb mic.
Cj

I think you should upgrade to 7 :-)

If you are only using internal general midi sounds you could easily translate them into sound fonts wich can be bounced (and edited with inserts and sends wich can make a world of difference). Google the net for free soundfonts and you will find dozens of web pages with them and either download GM-banks or, preferably, find some nice soundfonts of the instruments you use. Then download rcg audio's free Sfz player, scan for new plugins, open sonar and in sonar open the synth rack and inser as many Sfz as you have miditracks and then load up the soundfonts and move the miditracks to the appropriate sfz midi-track.

Sure, you can find lots of other soft synts that will let you work more with the sounds but sound fonts is a good start.

Mmm OK, Help again please!,

I am using some soft-synths to produce an output suitable to 'bounce' to audio tracks and that seems fairly straight forward, however, when I have a project with say, 10 tracks, 3 of which are midi with a different soft-synth patched to each one, the rest audio, and I come to bouncing one midi track to audio I'm getting an empty new track, if i include an empty track in the mixdown dialog box along with the track i am bouncing I get a 'Mixdown Abort, ran out of Memory' alert.

Now, this particular project is only three and a half minutes long and not complicated in the slightest.

Surely it cannot be referring to hard drive? (can it?)

If I replicate the same midi track in a project where it is the only track, it mixes down great, but it seems to need the empty track included in the dialog box to bounce to a new track???

Have I explained this properly? I hope so, any help would be great, thanks

Telsam

Hi Robertb, thanks for your reply, in between writing my question and answering your reply I think I've got it working.

Basically I am 'Soloing' both the midi track that has the soft-synth patched, and the output track from the soft-synth and then bouncing to track, and that is working for me.

I am fairly sure that the probs I am facing are partly down to the fact that I have a 'regular' kind of soundcard? I'm not quite sure what system I have but I know it's not an 'all-singin-all-dancin' bells and whistles ! I think I have a AMD athlon cpu ? does that sound right ? 80GB harddrive 2MB ram ? Realtek '97, Indeo something -or -other, ( I did warn you I was a novice, right?)

Anyhoo, as I say, I think I have the beast tamed for now ! it's doing what I ask of it, for now, Maybe someone looking over my shoulder might buy me a better system for christmas ? lol
Thanks again,

Telsam