Miroslav (and possibly other VIs)

Since Sonar X1 I've been unable to use the separate MIDI channels to play specific instruments. So, I load violins on Channel 1, violas on Channel 2, cellos on Channel 3, basses on Channel 4. Then, I create MIDI tracks for each and enter the MIDI notation via the Staff Editor (which I feel has taken a step backwards since X1). When I hit play ALL MIDI tracks are playing on Channel 1 no matter what I do. The channel assignments are correct and the samples are loaded where they should be. The same configuration works just fine in my old SONAR 5 installation, so I find myself working in the older version to get what I want, then dumping audio into X1/X2 to be able to work. Anyone else have this problem? Anyone have a fix?

Do you set the Midi Output Channels for each midi track?

Where are the midi channels set for the different synths?

I have no problem whatsoever with midi separation on my system.  I have Kontakt 5 loaded with 5 different instruments, each gets its own midi channel assigned within Kontakt, and I set the Midi Output Channel for each midi track going to those synths to the correct midi channel for those.

In addition, I have other synths loaded up, and these synths only process on one midi channel.  I do not set anything up for them whatsoever and they still play only what was recorded on their track.

I just setup a quick and dirty project to test out entering midi events through staff view, and had no trouble whatsoever with output.  Each track played it's events on the correct synth - no problem.

For this test project, I did the following:

1.  New project - Normal template (console is split to 2nd monitor, otherwise no change)
2.  Inserted soft synth Rapture x64, loaded a lead preset - some sort of square wave.  Did not create any tracks through the insert soft synth options dialog box.  I usually do these separately, and did so here.
3.  Inserted an additional soft synth, Dim Pro x64 loaded up a pad sound - again no tracks created yet.
4.  Inserted 2 audio tracks and 2 midi tracks
5.  Assigned audio track 1 to input from Rapture Primary Output Stereo, Output is set to Master
6.  Assigned midi track 2 to output to Rapture, input left to Omni
7.  Assigned audio track 3 to output from Dim Pro - Primary Output Stereo - output is set to Master buss
8.  Assigned midi track 4 to output to Dim Pro - input unchanged from Omni
9.  Clicked on midi track 2 to bring it into focus
10.  Clicked on View>Staff View
11.  Entered a bunch of nonsense notes then closed Staff View - which at the top indicated the correct track (track 2)
12.  Clicked on midi track 4 to bring it into focus
13.  Clicked on View>Staff View
14.  Entered a bunch of different nonsense notes, then closed Staff View - it also indicated correct tack at top - (track 4)
15.  I then hit Play (space bar)
16.  Both midi tracks played the appropriate midi events, and played them in the correct soft synths associated with each track.

To sum it up, no problem, following the above recipe.

Can you please try a project test following the steps I used above?  I would like to know what your results are then, 

Bob Bone

Thanks for all the input... I'm going to figure this one out!!! Bill51 - I know that this can be achieved, but on a limited 4GB/32-bit workstation I am currently limited. More instances do cause more CPU and memory overhead which I'm trying to avoid. I've always been able to work a full 15 channels with one instance in the past, so I want to be able to continue to do so. robert_e_bone - no problems with that. The only difference was I'm running x32 versions of everything. All worked as expected. bitflipper - oddly enough the SONAR 5 project works perfectly once loaded into X1/X2! So I know the VSTi is working properly.

No worries - glad to help out.

I would like to add that there may well be something to Mr DucatiBruce's pondering that somehow the Staff View events improperly overrode something in the routing.  Or maybe there is something in however he actually did things in that process that we may have missed.

I think I will try that out to see if it causes issues for me as well, just in case.

Bob Bone

Bob, Miroslav is a derivative of Sampletank. it's a multi timbral synth a la Kontakt - multiple midi tracks pointing to various midi channels on the same synth.

I just had a play in X2, with Miroslav & a couple of other similar synths.

Drawing notes in Staff View each note event is assigned midi channel 1, regardless of the tracks midi channel setting (eg track points to ch 8, midi note event points to ch 1) but they play "correctly" according to the track midi channel setting.

I tried entering in tracks with no midi channel set & then setting the track, with midi channel set & then changing channel after note entry, copy & paste to tracks with & without midi channels set and I couldn't break it. All tracks played correctly according to the track's midi channel setting.

The only way I could get all tracks to play ch 1 on the synths was to set the track's midi channel to none, then the midi event channel setting takes effect. If I'd changed the midi channel on events to ch 2 that's what would sound. 

Which all sort of makes sense to me, but then I'm back here on XP so YMMV ;)

saxmeister, are you setting the midi output on the track to Miroslav & channel whatever? When I do that it over rides the note event channel number.

I can't answer on the staff view note length entry query - I haven't entered anything in SV for years

Whether you enter data via the staff view, the PRV or record it live, the embedded channel number in the MIDI sequence can always be overridden and does not require editing of individual notes. However, this is true only if each MIDI track is routed to one and only one channel. 

I am not a staff view user, so there may be subtleties there that I am not aware of, but I record all my MIDI data playing live on a keyboard that transmits on channel 1 by default and I almost never change that setting. Consequently, all the data I record has channel 1 embedded in the sequence. Whenever I'm using a multi-timbral sampler, I simply tell SONAR which MIDI channel to use for each MIDI track by selecting it from the dropdown list in the track header.

I don't have any Garritan products, but this does work with every sampler I do have, including Miroslav and the TTS-1.

There have been times when I've needed to split a single MIDI track into multiple tracks so that I could assign different notes to different voices (channels) within one synthesizer. For example, taking a drum track and separating out the bass drum so that it could be played by a different sampler. But in this situation I clone the original MIDI track and delete the bass drum notes from it, then delete everything except the bass drum from the clone. This takes all of 5 seconds in the PRV.

I was working with a file this evening and had everything set up for GPO, which worked fine. Just for the heck of it, I made a copy of the project so I could switch it to TTS-1 to see how the file sounded there. I had to enter in RPNs to shut up TTS-1's MOD Depth (which is awful and has no equivalent in GPO anyway). I punched these in via list view and found that I needed to set *both* the channel and track number for these (all 16). Basically, as someone indicated, the channel number in the data stream is likely overridden by the track's channel setting. But I set the channels anyway just to be safe.