[Solved] Sonar Soft Synths - Basic Problem?

Can someone be so kind as to tell me what I am doing wrong trying to get soft synths to work in Sonar? I would really appreciate someone "looking over my shoulder" and telling me what dumb thing I'm doing wrong. I have several issues actually, but let's start with what I would think would be a simple one.
 
First, I have a quad-core PC, 12 GB RAM, Windows 7-64, Sonar X2 Producer, MOTU 828 mk II USB 2.0. I also have several virtual synths (NI Komplete, Korg Legacy, Arturia, Gforce... etc.). For purposes of this example, let's use MusicLab RealGuitar. By the way, all these synths that have standalone versions work fine, it's only inside Sonar that they turn evil and mischievous.
 
Also, I have no problems using X2 to record MIDI & audio when controlling outboard modules. This is strictly a soft-synth issue.
 
I start by inserting a MIDI track. I set its Input to "All Inputs /Omni." I then insert an audio track. Its Output is set to Master. I insert an instance of RealGuitar into the FX 'window' of the audio track. On the MIDI track, I set the Output to "RealGuitar."
 
I can now play notes on my master keyboard (Arturia Laboratory 61) and they sound great! I can arm the MIDI track and record some notes. When done, I disarm the 'record' on the MIDI track, and I can see the data in the clip that I have recorded.
 
At this point, I can play back what I've recorded and I do hear it.
 
The first puzzling issue is that the instant the playback starts, it sounds like a few phantom notes play right at the start. I have examined the MIDI data and those notes are not there. The second interesting symptom is that I can no longer hear anything that I play on the keyboard anymore! Once I've recorded to that MIDI track, the soft synths go dead! If I delete the clip, it's still dead -- no more sound.
 
So I decide to bounce the track to an audio track. The instructions say:
 
1.
Mute all tracks that you don’t want to convert.
2.
Click the Track view Tracks menu and choose Bounce to Track(s).


 
What happens when I do this is I get an error, "The specified selection did not contain any audio data..." and I cannot even get to the expected dialog to bounce the track down.
 
I'm not sure what this message is saying. Of COURSE there is no audio data -- I have a MIDI track controlling an empty audio track with a soft synth attached to it. I'm trying to GRAB the audio NOW!
 
I've read the help file, I've bought Scott G's book, I've watched YouTube videos... it seems like working with soft synths should be easy and straightforward, but SOMETHING is wrong for me -- it just doesn't work! Either I'm doing something really stupid, I don't understand something about 'busses' that everyone else seems to know, I have a hardware issue that is manifesting in a very strange way, or... what? What would cause this? It's perfectly repeatable with different VSTi's.
 
If anyone out there is grinning and thinking, "The answer is obvious, ya dope!" I would REALLY appreciate some sage counsel. Thanks in advance!
 

Although SONAR supports loading soft synths into the FX bin of the audio track to support legacy projects file that are configured that way, there are a number of issues with that routing model. This is probably where your issues are coming from.
 
It's preferred that you load the synth into the Synth Rack (either by Insert > Soft Synth or by dragging from the browser into an empty area of the Track View), and assign the Input of the audio track to that synth. As Paulo indicated, you can save time and let SONAR create the MIDI and Audio tracks 9or a combined Simple Instrument track) for you.

Thank you all so much for the advice. I will test this tonight and report back. This is what I was hoping for -- that I was doing something the wrong way and getting knotted up for no good reason!
 
I like Sonar's addition of the simple, combined synth tracks, but the reason that I'm trying to keep the MIDI and Audio tracks separate in this case is another one of my challenges -- I want to 'aim' several MIDI tracks at the same plug-in instance. This has not been working, but possibly because of the above problems. The reason I want to do that is specific to the RealGuitar VSTi: I want one MIDI track to contain just chord data, a second to contain strumming data, a third for accents/mutes, etc. This kind of thing is simple with physical synths, so I'm hoping it works with VSTi's as well.

Mister_T
Thank you all so much for the advice. I will test this tonight and report back. This is what I was hoping for -- that I was doing something the wrong way and getting knotted up for no good reason!
 
I like Sonar's addition of the simple, combined synth tracks, but the reason that I'm trying to keep the MIDI and Audio tracks separate in this case is another one of my challenges -- I want to 'aim' several MIDI tracks at the same plug-in instance. This has not been working, but possibly because of the above problems. The reason I want to do that is specific to the RealGuitar VSTi: I want one MIDI track to contain just chord data, a second to contain strumming data, a third for accents/mutes, etc. This kind of thing is simple with physical synths, so I'm hoping it works with VSTi's as well.

Yes, it is simple in Sonar as well. Just follow the above advice and load the synth into the rack, then you can add as many midi tracks as you want and point them all to the soft synth. It will show up in the midi track's output list. If the synth is multi-timbral, you can set the midi port for any midi track to a different port as well. This may not make too much sense with RealGuitar since it is a single instrument, but something like Kontakt can load many instruments at once, each on their own midi channel.
 
Regards,
Dan