no sound from midi keyboard until after recording

This is a little difficult to explain but here goes:
 
When I first plug in my midi keyboard & set the correct inputs & outputs with input echo turned on, it seems that even though the midi from keyboard is playing (I can see the green vu meter) on the correct track/channel, the synth (Cakewalk TTS-1) is not receiving it, hence no sound. The only way I can get it to sound is to record a few notes, play it back & from then on everything works as it should. That is I can hear the keyboard anytime.
 
I'm fairly sure I should be able to hear the output from the keyboard as soon as I plug it in. (assuming of course I have all inputs & outputs set correctly, which I know I do because it plays fine after the recording)
 
I hope I'm being clear.
 

Can you please take another stab at explaining the steps to recreate your issues here?
 
At first read (and 2nd), it appears you are connecting your midi controller after you have your project open in Sonar.  Is that correct?
 
Also, please detail exactly what midi and audio track routing assignments you are using when you encounter this issue.
 
I have never experienced your reported issue, by the way, but will certainly try to replicate your results, once you lay them out in more detail.
 
Thanks - trying to help :)
 
Bob Bone
 

If you are using an external keyboard to send midi to Sonar, I cannot replicate that, as I only use midi controllers now, rather than external midi keyboards.  Further, I cannot recall how long ago it would be since I have done that - perhaps 20+ years.
 
I dimly recall having to set Sonar to drive the playback of the external midi data to accomplish what I think I understand you trying to do - cannot recall the correct term for it at the moment.  I believe it is setting Sonar to be the Master, but this is quite fuzzy.
 
Hopefully someone else can jump in on this :)
 
Bob Bone
 
 

Thanks for all the responses I'll try to make it a little clearer.
Here is a step by step:

• midi keyboard controller (Roland PC-200 MKII) plugged into usb port & turned on
• Open sonarX3
• start blank project Or open existing project (both behave the same)
• insert midi track
• insert soft-synth via the insert menu (Cakewalk TTS-1 - Simple Instrument Track is ticked by default)
• check to make sure input echo is on
• check to make sure output of synth is my soundcard.
• play notes on keyboard
• the vumeter shows on the midi track indicating the keyboard is sending data & that the midi track is receiving data however there is no sound AND there is NO vumeter action in synth track.
• turn on record enable on the midi track in Sonar
• Click the record button on transport
• Play notes on keyboard.
• hear sound & synth vumeter indicates activity
• Click Stop recording
• From here on the keyboard works fine.

brundlefly
In any case, I think there's some confusion about which track is echoing to the synth. To make sure it's not an audio engine problem, try clicking one of that audition buttons at the bottom of a channel strip in TTS-1.

I'm not positive but I think you might be right about audio engine problem. I went into my audio driver settings & changed from 16 bit to 24 bit & checked the 64 bit double precision engine box. After that the problem seems to have disappeared.
 
Does that sound logical?
 

That sounds pretty strange, in terms of if that's what resolved the issue.  That being said - if it is working OK now, great.
 
I don't understand what would have gotten 'fixed', but I suppose as long as you are working.....
 
Bob Bone
 

You mention inserting a midi track and a SYNTH track?
 
Should be midi and an audio track, if kept separate, or if you want to combine - it would be a single Simple Instrument Track (which has both audio and midi in it).
 
Bob Bone
 

Well, some folks choose to manually insert audio/midi tracks, rather than use the dialog box options for Insert Soft Synth.  
 
I began doing that out of habit myself, because I so frequently work with different numbers of audio and midi tracks for multi-rack instances of Kontakt, where I take advantage of its multi-timbral capability and load multiple instruments.  Since the number of instruments varies, and I also do output channel renaming and have to go in and name the audio and midi tracks anyways, as well, I just do the inserts manually, and it works fine for me. (I myself never use Simple Instrument Tracks though - always have separate audio and midi tracks instead).
 
I am still wondering about what kind of tracks were inserted (see my earlier post), and am hoping to get some sort of a response from the OP on that.
 
Bob Bone
 

Kalle Rantaaho

robert_e_bone
Well, some folks choose to manually insert audio/midi tracks, rather than use the dialog box options for Insert Soft Synth.  
 
Bob Bone

Of course everyone has his/her preferences, but when things are not working, and the user may have beginners problems, it would practical, IMO, to take the easy way first. Things like adding a MIDI track and then inserting a synth using Simple Instrument Track option (as the OP described his workflow) can easily lead to wrong routing etc.

I somewhat agree with this, except that I think it's good for noobs to learn how the routing works by doing everything manually. And you do have to create extra MIDI tracks to take full advantage of a multitimbral synth; SONAR can create all the audio output tracks for you, but it won't ever create more than one MIDI track.