Changing Midi Channels in a track

Hello Everyone,
 
I'm new to this forum and to Sonar. Hopefully I won't be too much of a bother with my newb questions, but I have one in particular that I can't seem to find the answer to. Maybe it's out there archived somewhere, but perhaps I'm not even asking the question correctly...
 
Anyhow, I own Guitar Pro and I'm trying to learn how to play keyboards. So I've been exporting the Guitar Pro file as a midi file and then importing that file into Sonar. This works great since I'm able to learn all the keyboard parts and adjust the sounds as I see fit. It's been a really fun way to practice.
 
What I'd really like to do, is set it up so that once I have my soft synths assigned to each individual track, I can create an extra midi track and have that track set to automatically change midi channels as the song plays. So if I have let's say Brass on channel 1 at the start of the song, when I hit 8 bars into the track it'll change to a choir on channel 2. This track will just be there so it listens for input on my midi controller and as I practice along with the song, it'll change to the right synths as the song progresses. If there is a way to do this automatically, that would be awesome. I do have a programmable button on my controller that I can change channels with, but it's sort of a pain at this point to just keep tempo with both hands rolling on the keyboards much less worry about hitting that channel change button at the right time. I did notice that since the synths are preloaded, there's no latency in the switch so I have to figure if there's a way to program a track like I'd like to, then it would work pretty flawlessly.
 
 
Any help would certainly be appreciated.
 
If there isn't an in-software solution, any tips for a workaround would be appreciated as well.  Thanks!

Thanks for the reply, and I think I understand what you are trying to tell me.. but I'm not 100%.

What I'm trying to accomplish is being able to play along 'live' with the song. The other tracks, that I did not create, are just playing the song. All I did was assign those midi tracks to a synth so they sounded better than standard GM sounds.

The way I've been practicing songs is by choosing a single synth on a midi track and then jamming along with song as it plays. I'd really like to be able to have the instruments change as they change in the song so that I'm playing the correct instrument for the part.

If you already realized what I'm trying to do and I'm overexplaining myself, then I apologize. I'm guessing you are saying that if I use the Event List view I can insert a program change at the measure I wish to and my midi controller's input will automatically be routed to the proper instrument?

Sorry if I'm appearing a little dense on the subject, but I've only recorded guitar with DAW's. I'm pretty much a midi virgin.

Thanks a ton! That's exactly what I was hoping to hear. Having it on just one single track will make things a lot easier for me to manage. Not only that, but I'll be able to use Sonar with an amp and play live too... I think anyhow.

Even though a soft synth is set to channel 2 and I put an event in the Event Viewer to change from Channel 2 to Channel 1 at 6 bars into the song it won't automatically switch? What if I put several instances in different tracks of the same synth with different instruments loaded into the workspace each with a different channel number? Wouldn't that allow me to switch between different instruments in the same synth as a workaround?
 
(I'm at work, still haven't had the chance to get home and play with my toys to try anything out.)

Another option might be to get a set of MIDI pedals so you can switch instrument patches on the fly without lifting your hands from the keys.  You could do this in two different ways. 
 
One way would be the same as already suggested, using a GM synth like the TTS-1.  But instead of programming the patch changes in a track, you'd send them via pedals as you play in real time.
 
The other way would be to set the pedals to change MIDI channels.  If you go this route, you'll need to set each track to respond to a specific MIDI channel (no Omni) and be sure each of them is set to Input Echo: ON.  The advantage is you could put any synth you want on those channels, along with different settings and effects.  Another advantage is if you ARM each track to record, you'll get the resulting performance neatly in each individual track.
 
I use the Yamaha MFC-10 foot controller, which could do any of the above quite neatly (but, it takes a little tenacity to program, with the help of the user's manual).  It's also rather expensive.  But there's a newer Behringer model (FCB1010 I think) that I've heard good things about, for half the price.  There are probably other options, as well.
 
Best of luck.

The patch change method is one good way.  But by using separate MIDI channels, you don't have to worry if two sounds overlap or a sustained sound gets cut off by a patch change.  You can highlight a range of notes and use the Find/Change command (under the Process menu) to set the MIDI channels.  Then you have to be sure that your track inpsector is set to play all MIDI channels and not force everything to one particular channel.

While many people would use separate tracks, this technique is very common for some sound libraries like Hollywood Strings where, for example, all the violins are on one track, but MIDI channel 1=legato, 2=staccato, 3=pizz, or whatever.  That is less confusing than having the violin part scattered over many tacks.

In your case, if you have a single melody that changes instruments, either the MIDI channel or most likely the patch change method would be good so it is all in one place.

I hope this didn't confuse things since you seemed to be OK up above before I started typing.

This approach has zero risk of midi hangs and conflicts, requires zero midi programming and track selection easily be done using Sonar ACT with any control surface, be that a pad controller, your pc keyboard or ipad. Of course if you want to use a midi foot controller than that would also work..

Another good idea!  I constantly forget about ACT since it's still new to me.  The only thing is, while you can select tracks using ACT, I'm not sure it will change "focus".  The difference being, it may not sound the notes on the track you select via ACT.  The reason I say this is because that's how it works on the VS-700.  It might be a quirk of this particular setup, however, so give it a try.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer my question.

After having spent some time last night playing around with Sonar, I tried the advice that was given and everything did work out as instructed by several of you.

I had hoped to get the channel switching done automatically, but I guess it's not a possibility. I think there was some confusion as to what I wanted to accomplish. I didn't want to change patches within an individual synth, but rather change which synth I was using all together. It seems that this isn't able to be accomplished automatically and I'll need to either program a sustain pedal or use my available keyboard buttons to change up the synth. I was thinking that the program would have some way of automatically changing the synth by using an event, but it seems to only change the patch within an individual synth.

The learning curve is a bit bigger than I anticipated!

The advice given so far has helped me dig into Sonar and learn more about the program so for that I thank you all very much. My head is still swimming a bit when I start to think about the overall 'workflow' process in setting up songs for playing live, but maybe Sonar isn't the answer for that and there's a better software solution that supports vst's... but I do like Sonar and I'd like get the most out of it if I can. And when I say 'live' I mean jamming in my living room with friends and practicing a song alone. lol

I sort of understand why it's not an important solution in the program since playing live with a drummer and having Sonar switch synths automatically could certainly cause some timing issues with a band, but for solo work and a guy pretending he's Jordan Rudess it would be a pretty cool feature.

If there's any other thoughts you could share, I'll certainly take any other advice that could be given. Thanks!